ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output The evolution of Tsarist policy on the Armenian ques- tion in the South Caucasus (1903-1914) https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40100/ Version: Public Version Citation: Onol, Onur (2014) The evolution of Tsarist policy on the Ar- menian question in the South Caucasus (1903-1914). [Thesis] (Unpub- lished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email The Evolution of Tsarist Policy on the Armenian Question in the South Caucasus (1903-1914) Onur Onol Department of History, Classics and Archeology Birkbeck, University of London Submitted for the degree of PhD November 2014 1 The work presented in this thesis is my own. Onur Onol 2 ABSTRACT From the Tsarist confiscation of the properties of the Armenian Church in 1903 to the outbreak of the First World War, relations between Russia and its Armenian subjects gradually changed. This thesis scrutinizes how and why this gradual change took place between 1903 and 1914 by looking at the interaction between the Russian administration and the three political pillars of the Russian Armenians (the Dashnaktsutiun, the Armenian Church, and the Armenian bourgeoisie) as well as Russian foreign policy considerations. The confiscation decree of 1903 triggered an immense reaction by the Russian Armenians against the Russian government, which became part of the revolutionary unrest in the South Caucasus in 1905. The relations began to improve with the arrival of the viceroy of the Caucasus, Illarion I. Vorontsov-Dashkov as a general Tsarist recovery was underway. From 1907 to 1912, the Russian authorities reformulated their relations with the political pillars of the Russian Armenians. In this period, by eliminating the Dashnaktsutiun as a political threat in the South Caucasus and sorting out its differences with the Armenian Church and the Armenian bourgeoisie, the Russian regime had improved its relations with the Russian Armenians. By 1912, there were no serious disagreements between the Russian Armenians and the Tsarist authorities, for whom other threats, such as the pan-Islamist movement in the South Caucasus took precedence. This study also adds the foreign policy dimension to the picture as it became the dominant aspect of the relations between the Russian administration and the Russian Armenians between 1912 and 1914. The changes in the international dynamics, particularly regarding the future of the Ottoman Empire, further solidified the improved relations as Russia decided to become the patron and the defender of Armenians in late 1912. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my utmost gratitude to my supervisor, Orlando Figes, for his invaluable guidance during my studies. I am grateful for his detailed comments on my drafts, his suggestions on style as well as his interest and enthusiasm in my academic development. I have always felt fortunate to have him as my supervisor. At the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, I was provided with support at different stages of my studies that smoothed my path. My mentors Frank Trentmann and Jessica Reinisch gave me useful advice on various aspects of academic life. I would like to thank Jessica Reinisch and Fred Anscombe for their valuable comments during my upgrade. I am also grateful to the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology and the Birkbeck College for awarding me scholarships without which it would have been impossible for me to pursue my PhD studies. I would also like to thank my examiners, Simon Dixon of University College London, SSEES and Peter Waldron of University of East Anglia, for their comments on the thesis and suggestions for future research. I would also like to thank my professors at the Center for Russian Studies, I.D. Bilkent University who fostered my initial training as an historian of imperial Russia. In this sense, I am indebted to Mark Almond, Hasan Ali Karasar, Hakan Kırımlı, Sean McMeekin, and in particular, Norman Stone, who has been a continuous source of support and erudite guidance that steered me in the right direction. I would also like to thank the staff of the archives and libraries in which I undertook the research for this thesis. During my studies, I have been fortunate to have friends who offered their support when I needed it. I would like to thank Erman Şahin for his friendship in London and scholarly talks we have had. Christine Stone in Oxford; David Rowson and William Taylor in London; Siyami Eren Çakar in Moscow; Mustafa Bozkurt, Kazım Şenocak, Serkan Eymur and Gülüzar Eymur in Ankara helped me in various ways during my studies for which I will always be grateful. 4 I would like to thank my wife, Tuğba Ayas, whose love and unconditional support made me go on. During difficult times, she has always been there for me to listen and offer encouragement. I am extremely grateful to my parents, who have supported me emotionally and financially since I started my graduate studies. They have been very understanding and their love and support helped me sail through. My brother Can opened his home to me and also became a serious companion during the last phases of finishing my thesis. I am forever indebted to my family for all they have done for me. 5 CONTENTS ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………...4 CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………………….6 NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION AND USAGE………………………………………7 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...8 CHAPTER 1: The Russian Armenians in the Sea of Troubles: From Confiscation to Revolution (1903–1907)………………………………………………………………....32 CHAPTER 2: Russia against the Dashnaktsutiun (1907–1912)…………………………69 CHAPTER 3: St. Petersburg against Tiflis: The Relations between the Russian Administration and the Armenian Church (1907-1912)………………………………..107 CHAPTER 4: The National Question in the South Caucasus and the Relations between the Viceroyalty and the Armenian Bourgeoisie (1907-1912)…………………………..144 CHAPTER 5: Russia as the Patron and Defender of Armenians: The Question of Armenian Reforms in the Ottoman Empire and its Impact on the Relations between Russia and Its Armenian Subjects (1912-1914)………………………………………...194 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………251 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………263 6 NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION AND USAGE For the transliteration of Russian-language words and the names in the cited Russian documents (with the exception of anglicized names of the Tsars and a few well- established names), I have employed a simplified Library of Congress system but I have omitted the hard and soft signs for the sake of convenience. For place names that are located in the Russian Empire, I have preferred the official Russian name (hence Tiflis, not Tbilisi) but have kept the English forms of the most common ones (e.g. St. Petersburg, Moscow etc.). Although the term Transcaucasus was used in the official documents, I have preferred ‘South Caucasus,’ which is geographically more appropriate and politically more neutral. The Russian Armenian surnames mostly had three variants in the official Russian documentation, (ending in -ian, -iants, and -ov), which were sometimes used interchangeably by different Tsarist state institutions. In most cases, I have preferred the variant in the cited Russian official document. The Julian calendar was in force in Russia until 1918 and was thirteen days behind the Gregorian calendar in the twentieth century. For the Russian primary documents cited in the thesis, I have given the date on the document, followed by its conversion to the Gregorian calendar in brackets. The Ottoman Empire had Rumi and Hijra calendars and I have given the Ottoman date on the document followed by its Gregorian equivalent in brackets. For the sake of consistency and convenience, I have used Gregorian dates throughout the text. 7 INTRODUCTION This study begins with a hectic period in the history of Russian-Armenian relations, the confiscation of Armenian Church properties in 1903, and ends with the outbreak of another one, the First World War. In the Russian Empire, the treatment of the Armenians underwent a gradual change between 1903 and 1914. This study intends to explain this change in the Russian treatment of its own Armenians by analysing domestic and international dynamics that caused it. It was said that ‘if Siberia and Central Asia were the hells of the Russian functionary, the Caucasus was his purgatory.’1 The Russian functionaries had to deal with a gamut of nationalities, religions and naturally problems of the warmer part of their purgatory, the South Caucasus, which had been under Russian control since 1828. As Layton asserts, back in the early days of the Russian conquest, the Caucasus was considered a rich but a backward place in the imagination of the Russians, not unlike India in the eyes of the British.2 If the resources were put into good use, with proper administration, the Russians believed that they could entirely change the place. The first attempt was made with Tiflis when the first viceroy, Mikhail S. Vorontsov, arrived in 1845. The Russian administrative capital of the Caucasus was rebuilt in line with the latest urban tastes of the day. Big boulevards, bridges, theatres, and an opera were added to the centre of the city. After the defeat at the Crimean War came the tumultuous wars in the North Caucasus, which forced the Tsarist regime to put military prerogatives first on the agenda. It took a nearly a decade to pacify the place and then the news of the great reforms of the 1860s reached the southern corner of the empire. However, the land reforms—officially introduced in the South Caucasus in 1870—were an arduous task as much as anywhere in 1 Quoted in Luigi Villari, Fire and Sword in the Caucasus (London: T.