STATISTICAL AND POLITICAL

The solid block of territory over which Russia now rules on the tableland of Armenia is neither a new acquisition nor the fruit of a single conquest. At the commencement of the last century she gained a foothold upon it by the voluntary accession of the Georgian kingdom and its constitution into a Russian province in 1802. This event, the outcome of the folly of the Mussulman powers, who had driven the Christians to despair, was followed by the rapid expansion of the northern empire in these countries as the result of successful war. Karabagh was taken from Persia in 1813, and the important khanate of Erivan in 1828; from Turkey, the district of Akhaltsykh in 1829, and the fortress and province of Kars in 1878. Appearing as a deliverer of the Christian peoples and profiting by their aid, Russia has succeeded in advancing her border beyond the Araxes and to the threshold of Erzerum, and in establishing herself behind a well-rounded frontier which comprises the venerated mountain of Armenia as well as the seat of the supreme spiritual government to which the Armenians bow.

The Armenian provinces constitute a part of the great administrative system of the Caucasus, which is presided over by a single Governor-General. Formerly it was usual to appoint a Grand Duke to this important post, who exercised, not without advantage to the country, a very large measure of personal initiative. At the present day it is occupied by a nobleman of high rank; but his administration has become much more intimately connected with the bureaucratic machine which is worked from St. Petersburg. He remains, however, the principal civil and military authority in the Caucasus, which consists of no less then twelve Governments, and is divided into North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. North Caucasus is composed of the Governments of Kuban, Terek and Stavropol; while the Governments of Chernomorsk (a narrow strip of coast at the foot of the Caucasus range between Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and a point a little north of Pitsunda), Kutais, Tiflis, Zakataly, Daghestan, Baku, Elizabetpol, Erivan and Kars are embraced under the title of Transcaucasia. Five of the Governments, namely Kuban, Terek, Daghestan, Zakataly and Kars, are still in the military stage of administration. The territories of North Caucasus lie quite outside the scope of the present work; and the Government of Daghestan ought more properly to be classed with the Northern Governments, lying as it does to the north of the main ridge of the Caucasus range. To the same category belong certain districts of the Government of Baku; but for statistical purposes it is advisable to retain them under Transcaucasia, in order to preserve the unity of the Government. On the other hand, the little Government of Chernomorsk may either be left out of account, or be included under North Caucasus. Transcaucasia will thus consist of seven Governments, of which the names and population, according to the two last censuses of 1886 and of 1897, are exhibited in the following table. I must explain that the figures of 1897 have not yet been split up into the different racial elements of which the populations of the various Governments are composed.

TABLE I.—Population of Russian Transcaucasia
(including Russian Armenia)

GovernmentPop. 1886.Armenian Pop. 1886.Pop. 1897.Square Mileage.Pop. per sq. mile 1886.Pop. per sq. mile 1897.
Tiflis[1]875,429211,743958,77515,305.457.262.643
Erivan670,405375,700804,75710,074.7566.5479.878
Kars[2]200,86844,280292,4987,307.2927.48940.028
Kutais923,30616,3991,075,86113,967.566.177.026
Elizabetpol728,943258,324871,55716,720.543.652.125
Baku712,70355,459789,65915,094.5947.21652.314
Zakatal74,44952182,1681,542.0448.2853.285
Total4,186,103962,4264,875,27580,012.0752.31860.931

The admirable volume of statistics for Transcaucasia which we owe to the labours of M. de Seidlitz, and which was published at Tiflis by order of the civil government in 1893, supplies us with the most detailed information concerning these Russian provinces—the numbers of the different races and of the votaries of the various religious sects, and how the inhabitants may be classed and labelled as nobles or clergy, as tradesmen or as tillers of the soil. The figures are derived from the census of 1886, and we are thus presented with a fascinating statistical picture of the country towards the close of the nineteenth century. I do not propose to spoil the effect of his ingenious combinations by transferring them to my own pages in a mangled form; or to forestall the pleasure which the perusal of his serried columns is sure to bring to every well-regulated mind. But their aid will be useful, and indeed indispensable, in fixing upon a surer foundation those more general conceptions and conclusions which are suggested by the experience of travel. The country immediately on the north of the Armenian tableland—the plain of the Rion on the north-west, and the wide trough of the Kur on the north—is inhabited by various branches of the Georgian family and by settlers of Tartar race; while the Caucasus itself, the northern boundary of the whole geographical system, contains within its countless recesses an Homeric catalogue of nations whose names it is difficult to pronounce and whose languages are as mysterious as their names. Of a total population in Transcaucasia of 4,186,000, the Armenians numbered upwards of 962,000 souls in 1886, or a proportion of nearly one quarter. But the importance of the Armenian element must be measured not so much by its numerical strength as by the solidarity of the Armenian people when compared to the peoples among whom they live. The Armenians are little divided by religious differences; the Roman Catholics are a mere handful among the solid ranks of the Gregorians; and the Gregorian Church is not only the symbol of national existence, but the stronghold of national hopes. Two other races in Transcaucasia slightly exceed the Armenians in number; the Tartars with 1,139,000, including Daghestan, and the different divisions of the Georgian family who number over a million souls. But the bitter religious antipathies of Sunni and Shiah divide the Tartars, and the Georgians are in a period of transition from their old feudal system to a new and more settled social order, while the union of their Church with the Orthodox Church of Russia has deprived them of the natural rallying point for that community of sentiment which is based on a consciousness of race pride. Should the Russians become possessed of the Armenian provinces of the Turkish Empire, the most numerous as well as the most solid of the elements of population in Transcaucasia will be furnished by the Armenian race.

The distribution of the Armenians within the present limits of Russian Transcaucasia, but outside the area of the Armenian tableland, may be presented in a concise manner as follows:—In the Government of Elizabetpol, which includes Karabagh, they number 258,000; but only in the Governmental divisions of Shusha and Zangezur, that is to say in the tract of country between the Araxes on the east and the south-eastern shore of Lake Sevan on the west, do they constitute the numerically preponderating race; while in the other divisions and in the whole Government they are largely outnumbered by the Tartars. The Government of Tiflis contains nearly 212,000 Armenians, of whom I shall include 99,000 in my estimate for the tableland itself; the remainder are distributed over the other divisions of the Government, and in the town of Tiflis, where they attain the imposing number of 55,000 among a total population for the nineties of 145,000 souls. In the Government of Baku, out of a total Armenian population of 55,000 there are over 24,000 in the town of Baku itself, where they are engaged in commerce and in the oil works; they are also numerous in the town and district of Shemakha, which lies to the west of Baku. In the Government of Kutais they only number 16,000, and most of these reside in the towns.

The Armenians, being a commercial and industrial as well as an agricultural people, have spread themselves outside the natural limits of their country, attracted to the growing centres of industry upon its confines. They contribute a valuable and increasing element to the urban populations. But it is only when we have crossed the mountains which separate their highlands from the rest of Transcaucasia that we become conscious of treading upon Armenian soil. Throughout its extension from Akhalkalaki and Alexandropol on the north-east to Egin and Kharput on the south-west, that elevated stage of the Asiatic tablelands which we may still call Armenia bears the imprint of the individuality of the Armenian people to a greater degree than of any other race. In the immense expanse of these Armenian landscapes—where blue lakes lie lapped in treeless plains, swelling with ochreous surface from hummock to hill, from hill to some long descending mountain outline that sweeps from the summit of a snow-crowned cone—the note which is uttered by man is lost. Yet there is scarcely a remote valley or lonely island which does not attract a band of pilgrims to worship in the beautiful monasteries which date from the times of the kings of Armenia and keep alive the story of the past. The fertile ground is for the most part tilled by an Armenian peasantry, whose burrows, resembling large ant-hills, are scarcely perceptible in the scene. All the machinery of whatever civilisation the land may possess is furnished by Armenians. The language which you most often hear is the somewhat harsh Armenian tongue; the legends and historical memories which attach to the great works of Nature have for the most part an Armenian origin. Over the area of the Armenian tableland, as it is delimited in the present work, these people are found in nearly double the numbers of any other race. In the preceding chapter I have established the natural frontiers of the country within Russian territory; and in the companion chapter of the second volume I shall hope to perform the same task in respect of the Turkish area. Our present concern is with the population of the Russian provinces of the tableland, which I have endeavoured to exhibit according to its various racial elements in the following tabular statement.

The little map, with which I accompany this table, will make plain to my reader the statistical area with which we are dealing. He will observe that it agrees in a general manner with the area enclosed by the natural frontier. It would not be possible to adapt exactly the statistical information at our disposal, based as it is upon Governmental units, to the geographical boundaries represented by the natural frontier; but those boundaries are so strongly marked that they correspond pretty closely with those of the administrative divisions. Only in two cases does the statistical area, as shown in the map within Russian territory, diverge in a marked degree from the geographical; and in both these cases it would have been easy to have made them approximately coincide. The one occurs about south of Tiflis, where I have preferred to include the ouezde of Borchali within the statistical area. It comprises a transitional region between the natural frontier and the valley of the Kur, presenting many of the characteristics of the tableland, and inhabited in considerable numbers by Armenians. The other is furnished by the administrative division of Olti, belonging to the Government of Kars. My reason for retaining it is principally because it corresponds on the east to the eastern limits of the Turkish vilayet of Erzerum on the west. Both these Governments, of Kars and of Erzerum, overlap into the Chorokh region; and in the case of Erzerum I have not been able to determine the exact boundaries of the overlapping administrative units. With these exceptions the natural area of the Armenian provinces in Russia corresponds fairly closely with the area comprised by the Governments of Erivan and Kars together with the ouezdes of Akhaltsykh, Akhalkalaki and Borchali, belonging to the Government of Tiflis. Karabagh I have excluded both from the geographical and from the statistical area, representing as it does an Armenia in miniature on the side of the Caspian Sea.