The Armenian Oblast
An outgrowth of the Romanov conquest of Transcaucasia was the formation of Eastern Armenia. Geographically, the term was applied to that portion of the Plateau included within the Russian Empire, while all Armenian subjects of the tsars become known as Russian, or Eastern, Armenians. In a sequel to the Treaty of Turkmanchai, Tsar Nicholas issued the imperial decree creating, from the former khanates of Yerevan and Nakhichevan, the Armianskaia oblast ("Armenian Province"). 13 Although several eastern districts of the Plateau, such as Akhalkalak, Lori, Kazakh, and Mountainous Karabakh, were excluded from the oblast, the Armenians were content. The shield of Christian Russia opened new horizons for their stimulated political consciousness. Armenians assisted and advised the Russian administrators and participated with considerable latitude in local government. Gratefulness to the Tsar increased when adopted for the oblast an official emblem reminiscent to the royal standards of Armenian kings. 14 Idealists believed that Nicholas would consider himself King of Armenia just as he was King of Poland in addition being Tsar of Russia.
The Armenian oblast was only 12,800 square kilometres in area, but it included the fertile Araxes Valley and much of the Ararat Plain. 15 During the preceding centuries, Moslem penetration into the rich land along the rivers had reserved the Christian preponderance so that when the oblast was formed barely a third of the population was Armenian. In 1838, however, after the influx of immigrants from Persia and Turkey, the Armenians constituted one-half of the province's 165,000 inhabitants. Moreover, in the remainder of Transcaucasia lived more than 200,000 Armenians, some of whom, by moving subsequently to Yerevan-Nakhichevan, contributed to the reestablishment of a Christian majority in the province. 16 But the principal source of increment remained the continual trickle of Western Armenian refugees.
Provincial Reorganizations in the Caucasus
The conviction that the Russian patronage would assure the revival of Armenian governmental life was shaken in 1840 when orders from St. Petersburg did away with the special status of the Armianskaia oblast. 17 The initial favourable Russian attitude toward the Armenians had soon given way to apprehension of their deepening national sentiment. Influential civic and religious leaders were neutralized or required to leave Transcaucasia. 18 Tsarist policy for Caucasus was now aimed at replacing the diversities in administration with a system uniform throughout most of the Empire. 19 Often, separatist tendencies in particular regions were discouraged by combining contrasting geographic entities into new provinces with unnatural boundaries and heterogeneous populations. Abolition of the oblast in 1840 and consolidation of all Transcaucasia into two provinces, the Georgian Imeretian guberniia and the Caspian oblast, were the outgrowth of these administrative principles. In the new apportionment, the former Armenian oblast, along with Akhalkalak and Lori in the northern reaches of the Plateau and a portion of the former khanate of Ganja, renamed Elisavetpol, were included within the Georgian-Imeretian guberniia. Mountainous Karabakh was attached to the Caspian oblast, which encompassed eastern Transcaucasia. 20
The territorial reorganisation did not yield the desired results but instead inspired to resistance. Moslem mountaineers of Caucasus, aroused by their heroic chieftain Shamil, refused submission to Russia. 21 To cope with the problem, Nicholas consolidated the Kavkazskii krai (Transcaucasia and the northern mountains) into a single administrative unit in 1844 and appointed Prince M. S. Vorontsov to the newly created post, Viceroy for the Caucasus. 22 Commissioned to pacify the region, Vorontsov tried to establish firmer control by partitioning the Caucasus into smaller provinces. Doing away with the Georgian-Imeretian guberniia and the Caspian oblast, he formed the guberniias of Kutais, Tiflis, Shemakh, and Derbend. These in turn were subdivided into counties (uezds) and districts (uchastoks). Most Armenian-populated areas were included in the Tiflis guberniia. 23 In 1849, however, in order to win the confidence of the Armenians and to deal with certain economic, fiscal and military problems, Vorontsov created the Yerevan guberniia, the fifth province of Transcaucasia. Though it was not known as the "Armenian Province", the Yerevan guberniia was considered by many as an indemnification for the loss of the former oblast. Indeed, the entire area of the oblast, as well as the Alexandropol uezd minus the Akhalkalak district, was incorporated into the Yerevan guberniia. 24
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