Kars oblast
Kars oblast
Карсская область | |
---|---|
![]() Administrative map of the Kars oblast | |
Coordinates: 40°36′25″N 43°05′35″E / 40.6069°N 43.0931°E | |
Country | Russian Empire |
Viceroyalty | Caucasus |
Established | 1878 |
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk | 3 March 1918 |
Capital | Kars |
Area | |
• Total | 18,739.50 km2 (7,235.36 sq mi) |
Population (1916) | |
• Total | 364,214 |
• Density | 19/km2 (50/sq mi) |
• Urban | 12.30% |
• Rural | 87.70% |
The Kars oblast[b] was a province (oblast) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire between 1878 and 1917. Its capital was the city of Kars, presently in Turkey. The oblast bordered the Ottoman Empire to the west, the Batum Oblast (in 1883–1903 part of the Kutaisi Governorate) to the north, the Tiflis Governorate to the northeast, and the Erivan Governorate to the east. The Kars oblast included parts of the contemporary provinces of Kars, Ardahan, and Erzurum Province of Turkey, and the Amasia Community of the Shirak Province of Armenia.[1]
History
[edit]![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Letts%2C_Son_%26_Co._Russia_9._1883_%28O%29.jpg/220px-Letts%2C_Son_%26_Co._Russia_9._1883_%28O%29.jpg)
The Kars oblast was a province established after the region's annexation into the Russian Empire through the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the dissolution of the latter's Kars, Childir and Erzurum eyalets.[2][3]
With the incorporation of the region into Russian Empire, between 1879–1882 more than 110,000 people from the Kars oblast and 30,000 from the Batum oblast migrated to the new borders of the Ottoman Empire,[4] about 80% were Muslim.[5] In their stead, Christian settlers, mostly consisting of Armenians, Greeks and Russians,[2] migrated from the Ottoman Empire and settled throughout the province. The Armenians, who eventually came to form the largest ethnic group in the region, were largely composed of immigrants from the Six Vilayets escaping persecution in the Ottoman Empire.
During the First World War, the Kars oblast became the site of intense battles between the Russian Caucasus Army supplemented by Armenian volunteer units and the Ottoman Third Army, the latter of whom was successful in briefly occupying Ardahan on 25 December 1914 before they were dislodged in early January 1915.
On 3 March 1918, in the aftermath of the October Revolution the Russian SFSR ceded the entire Kars oblast through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to the Ottoman Empire, who had been unreconciled with its loss of the territory since 1878. Despite the ineffectual resistance of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic which had initially rejected the aforementioned treaty, the Ottoman Third Army was successful in occupying the Kars oblast and expelling its more than 100,000 Armenian inhabitants.[6]
The Ottoman Ninth Army under the command of Yakub Shevki Pasha, the occupying force of the district by the time of the Mudros Armistice, were permitted to winter in Kars until early 1919, after which on 7 January 1919 Major General G.T. Forestier-Walker ordered their complete withdrawal to the pre-1914 Ottoman-frontier. Intended to hinder the westward expansion of the fledgling Armenian and Georgian republics into the Kars oblast, Yukub Shevki backed the emergence of the short-lived South-West Caucasus Republic with moral support, also furnishing it with weapons, ammunition and instructors.[7]
The South-West Caucasus Republic administered the entire Kars oblast and neighboring formerly occupied districts for three months before provoking British intervention by order of General G.F. Milne, leading to its capitulation by Armenian and British forces on 10 April 1919.[8][9] Consequently, the Kars oblast largely came under the Armenian civil governorship of Stepan Korganian who wasted no time in facilitating the repatriation of the region's exiled refugees.[10]
Despite the apparent defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish agitators were reported by Armenian intelligence to have been freely roaming the countryside of Kars encouraging sedition among the Muslim villages, culminating in a series of anti-Armenian uprisings in July 1919.[11]
The Kars oblast for the third time in six years saw invading Turkish troops, this time under the command of General Kâzım Karabekir in September 1920 during the Turkish-Armenian War. The disastrous war for Armenia resulted in the permanent expulsion of the region's ethnic Armenian population, many who inexorably remained befalling massacre, resulting in the region joining the Republic of Turkey through the Treaty of Alexandropol on 3 December 1920. Turkey's annexation of Kars and the adjacent Surmalu uezd was confirmed in the treaties of Kars and Moscow in 1921, by virtue of the new Soviet regime in Armenia.[12]
After Turkey's annexation of the region, Soviet diplomat Georgy Chicherin sent a letter to the Turkish ambassador to the RSFSR, Ali Fuat Cebesoy, complaining of the violence and expulsion against Russians in Kars by Turkish authorities. For example, in the village of Novo-Mikhailovka (present-day Dikme ), the Russian population was placed into "stables and barns" and replaced by 2,000 Turkish settlers from Anatolia.[13]
Administrative divisions
[edit]The districts (okrugs) of the Kars oblast in 1917 were as follows:[14]
Name | Administrative centre | Population | Area | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1897 | 1916 | |||
Ardahan okrug (Ардаганский округ) | Ardagan (Ardahan) | 65,763 | 89,036 | 4,917.90 square versts (5,596.88 km2; 2,160.97 sq mi) |
Kagizman okrug (Кагызманский округ) | Kagyzman (Kağızman) | 59,230 | 83,208 | 3,843.17 square versts (4,373.77 km2; 1,688.72 sq mi) |
Kars okrug (Карсский округ) | Kars | 134,142 | 191,970 | 5,083.81 square versts (5,785.69 km2; 2,233.87 sq mi) |
Olti okrug (Ольтинский округ) | Olty (Oltu) | 31,519 | 40,091[c] | 2,621.27 square versts (2,983.17 km2; 1,151.81 sq mi) |
Demographics
[edit]Population estimate
[edit]1886
[edit]Year | Pop. | ±% p.a. |
---|---|---|
1871 | 67,128 | — |
1872 | 69,996 | +4.27% |
1876 | 78,650 | +2.96% |
1880 | 114,282 | +9.79% |
1882 | 162,979 | +19.42% |
1886 | 174,044 | +1.66% |
1892 | 200,868 | +2.42% |
1893 | 206,765 | +2.94% |
1897 | 290,654 | +8.89% |
1899 | 273,124 | −3.06% |
1902 | 297,125 | +2.85% |
1903 | 304,193 | +2.38% |
1908 | 310,155 | +0.39% |
1910 | 368,057 | +8.94% |
1912 | 371,903 | +0.52% |
1913 | 382,745 | +2.92% |
1914 | 391,213 | +2.21% |
1915 | 255,461 | −34.70% |
1916 | 364,214 | +42.57% |
For 1897, see The first general census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897. For 1903–1916, see Caucasian Calendar publications for years 1904–1917. |
Ethnic group | Ardаhan | Kagizman | Kars | Olti | TOTAL | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
Turkish | 20,351 | 46.63 | 2,652 | 7.76 | 7,280 | 9.46 | 11,540 | 59.71 | 41,823 | 24.03 |
Armenian | 262 | 0.60 | 12,544 | 36.72 | 22,544 | 29.31 | 1,734 | 8.97 | 37,084 | 21.31 |
Kurd | 6,974 | 15.98 | 12,003 | 35.14 | 5,124 | 6.66 | 2,333 | 12.07 | 26,434 | 15.19 |
Karapapakh | 6,229 | 14.27 | 593 | 1.74 | 17,308 | 22.50 | 4 | 0.02 | 24,134 | 13.87 |
Greek | 5,617 | 12.87 | 4,880 | 14.29 | 11,002 | 14.30 | 2,026 | 10.48 | 23,525 | 13.52 |
Russian | 1,036 | 2.37 | 0 | 0.00 | 9,657 | 12.56 | 1 | 0.06 | 10,695 | 6.14 |
Turkmen | 3,128 | 7.17 | 1,426 | 4.17 | 2,749 | 3.57 | 1,591 | 8.23 | 8,893 | 5.11 |
Ossetian | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 418 | 0.54 | 12 | 0.06 | 430 | 0.25 |
Assyrian | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 321 | 0.42 | 0 | 0.00 | 321 | 0.18 |
Estonian | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 280 | 0.36 | 0 | 0.00 | 280 | 0.16 |
Lezgin | 0 | 0.00 | 41 | 0.12 | 155 | 0.20 | 0 | 0.00 | 196 | 0.11 |
Persian | 9 | 0.02 | 9 | 0.03 | 60 | 0.08 | 3 | 0.02 | 81 | 0.05 |
Roma | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 9 | 0.01 | 69 | 0.36 | 78 | 0.05 |
Adjarian | 21 | 0.05 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 21 | 0.01 |
Abkhazian | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 12 | 0.06 | 12 | 0.01 |
Georgian | 9 | 0.02 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 9 | 0.01 |
Polish | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 7 | 0.01 | 0 | 0.00 | 7 | 0.00 |
Bulgarian | 1 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 3 | 0.01 | 1 | 0.01 | 5 | 0.00 |
Circassian | 5 | 0.01 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 5 | 0.00 |
Kabardian | 1 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 0.00 |
Other | 0 | 0.00 | 10 | 0.03 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 10 | 0.01 |
TOTAL | 43,643 | 100.00 | 34,158 | 100.00 | 76,917 | 100.00 | 19,326 | 100.00 | 174,044 | 100.00 |
1892
[edit]![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Ethnographic_map_of_the_Kars_Oblast-1902.png/220px-Ethnographic_map_of_the_Kars_Oblast-1902.png)
In 1892, the population of Kars oblast was estimated as 200,868. The ethnic composition was reported as follows:[2]
Ethnic group | Number | % |
---|---|---|
Turk[d] | 48,208 | 24 |
Armenian | 43,187 | 21.5 |
Kurd | 30,130 | 15 |
Karapapakh | 29,126 | 14 |
Greek | 27,117 | 13.5 |
Russian[e] | 14,061 | 7 |
Alevi Karapapakh[f] | 10,043 | 5 |
Faith | Percentage (%) |
---|---|
Islam | 53 |
↳ Sunni | 46 |
↳ Shia | 7 |
Armenian Apostolic | 21 |
Eastern Orthodoxy | 14 |
Alevism | 5 |
Spiritual Christianity[g] | 5 |
Yazidism | 1.25 |
Other Christian churches | 0.75 |
Russian Empire Census
[edit]![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/Kars_1897_Census.png/220px-Kars_1897_Census.png)
According to the Russian Empire Census, the Kars oblast had a population of 290,654 on 28 January [O.S. 15 January] 1897, including 160,571 men and 130,083 women. This number may imply that the 200,868 estimate for 1892 given by Brockhaus is too low, or that a large-scale migration from other provinces of the empire took place in between:[16]
Language | Native speakers | % |
---|---|---|
Armenian | 73,406 | 25.26 |
Turkish | 63,547 | 21.86 |
Kurdish | 42,968 | 14.78 |
Greek | 32,593 | 11.21 |
Karapapakh | 29,879 | 10.28 |
Russian | 22,327 | 7.68 |
Turkmen | 8,442 | 2.90 |
Ukrainian | 5,279 | 1.82 |
Polish | 3,243 | 1.12 |
Tatar[h] | 2,347 | 0.81 |
Jewish | 1,138 | 0.39 |
Lithuanian | 892 | 0.31 |
Assyrian | 585 | 0.20 |
Persian | 568 | 0.20 |
Georgian | 526 | 0.18 |
Ossetian | 520 | 0.18 |
Estonian | 455 | 0.16 |
German | 430 | 0.15 |
Avar-Andean | 328 | 0.11 |
Belarusian | 250 | 0.09 |
Bashkir | 207 | 0.07 |
Dargin | 120 | 0.04 |
Other | 604 | 0.21 |
TOTAL | 290,654 | 100.00 |
The 30,000 excess population of male over females was mainly attributed to the European language speakers. Among the 27,856 speakers of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, 19,910 men and 7,946 women were recorded. The Polish, and Lithuanian speakers were almost exclusively (99%) male as well; Germans and Jews, 80–90% males. This preponderance of males in the European language speakers (reported to a lesser extent in neighbouring governorates as well) may indicate presence of a large numbers of soldiers or exiled persons in the region. This assumption supported by the fact that 28,875 or 9.9% of the population were military or administrative personnel.[19]
Faiths in the Kars oblast in 1897
Faith | Male | Female | Both | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Number | % | |||
Muslim | 76,521 | 69,331 | 145,852 | 50.18 |
Armenian Apostolic | 37,726 | 33,397 | 71,123 | 24.47 |
Eastern Orthodox | 31,115 | 18,180 | 49,295 | 16.96 |
Old Believer | 6,069 | 6,351 | 12,420 | 4.27 |
Roman Catholic | 4,286 | 87 | 4,373 | 1.50 |
Armenian Catholic | 1,065 | 779 | 1,844 | 0.63 |
Judaism | 1,114 | 90 | 1,204 | 0.41 |
Lutheran | 854 | 323 | 1,177 | 0.40 |
Reformed | 15 | 8 | 23 | 0.01 |
Baptist | 7 | 1 | 8 | 0.00 |
Other Christian denomination | 9 | 0 | 9 | 0.00 |
Other non-Christian denomination | 1,790 | 1,536 | 3,326 | 1.14 |
TOTAL | 160,571 | 130,083 | 290,654 | 100.00 |
Kavkazskiy kalendar
[edit]Nationalities in the Kars oblast in 1916
According to the 1917 publication of Kavkazskiy kalendar, the Kars oblast had a population of 364,214 on 14 January [O.S. 1 January] 1916, including 185,895 men and 178,319 women, 308,400 of whom were the permanent population, and 55,814 were temporary residents:[14]
Nationality | Urban | Rural | TOTAL[i] | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
Armenians | 36,268 | 80.96 | 81,949 | 25.66 | 118,217 | 32.46 |
Sunni Muslims[j] | 4,055 | 9.05 | 79,249 | 24.81 | 83,304 | 22.87 |
Kurds | 66 | 0.15 | 49,686 | 15.56 | 49,752 | 13.66 |
Roma | 361 | 0.81 | 37,784 | 11.83 | 38,145 | 10.47 |
Shia Muslims[k] | 322 | 0.72 | 19,122 | 5.99 | 19,444 | 5.34 |
Russians | 1,800 | 4.02 | 17,197 | 5.38 | 18,997 | 5.22 |
Yazidis | 0 | 0.00 | 17,698 | 5.54 | 17,698 | 4.86 |
Asiatic Christian | 1,822 | 4.07 | 14,965 | 4.69 | 16,787 | 4.61 |
North Caucasians | 0 | 0.00 | 909 | 0.28 | 909 | 0.28 |
Other Europeans | 55 | 0.12 | 741 | 0.23 | 796 | 0.22 |
Georgians | 19 | 0.04 | 117 | 0.04 | 136 | 0.04 |
Jews | 29 | 0.06 | 0 | 0.00 | 29 | 0.01 |
TOTAL | 44,797 | 100.00 | 319,417 | 100.00 | 364,214 | 100.00 |
See also
[edit]- Batum oblast
- Russian Armenia
- First Republic of Armenia
- Democratic Republic of Georgia
- Treaty of San Stefano
- Treaty of Berlin (1878)
Notes
[edit]- ^ Western Armenian pronunciation: [ɡɑɹˈsi mɑɹz]
- ^
- Russian: Карсская область, romanized: Karsskaya oblast [karskəjə ɐbɫəsʲtʲ]
- Turkish: Kars Oblastı [kaɾs obɫastɯ]
- Armenian: Կարսի մարզ, romanized: Karsi marz [kɑɹˈsi mɑɹz][a]
- ^ 1914 population.
- ^ Including Adjarians.
- ^ Mostly sectarians.
- ^ Reported as "Turkmen".
- ^ Mostly Pryguny, Molokans, and Doukhobors.
- ^ Before 1918, Azerbaijanis were generally known as "Tatars". This term, employed by the Russians, referred to Turkic-speaking Muslims of the South Caucasus. After 1918, with the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and "especially during the Soviet era", the Tatar group identified itself as "Azerbaijani".[17][18]
- ^ These statistics do not include the population of the Olti Okrug due to the absence of its data in the 1916–1917 publications of the Caucasian Calendar.[21]
- ^ Primarily Turco-Tatars.[21]
- ^ Primarily Tatars.[21]
References
[edit]- ^ Tsutsiev 2014.
- ^ a b c d Карсская область (Kars oblast) in Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian)
- ^ "КАРССКАЯ ОБЛАСТЬ — информация на портале Энциклопедия Всемирная история". w.histrf.ru. Retrieved 2021-12-05.
- ^ Frary & Kozelsky 2014, pp. 221–222.
- ^ Frary & Kozelsky 2014, p. 246.
- ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971–1996). The Republic of Armenia. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-520-01805-2. OCLC 238471.
- ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971–1996). The Republic of Armenia. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 201. ISBN 0-520-01805-2. OCLC 238471.
- ^ Andersen, Andrew. "Armenia in the Aftermath of Mudros: Conflicting claims and Strife with the Neighbors".
- ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971–1996). The Republic of Armenia. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 220. ISBN 0-520-01805-2. OCLC 238471.
- ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971–1996). The Republic of Armenia. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 204. ISBN 0-520-01805-2. OCLC 238471.
- ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971–1996). The Republic of Armenia. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 66. ISBN 0-520-01805-2. OCLC 238471.
- ^ De Waal, Thomas (2015). Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide. Oxford. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-19-935070-4. OCLC 897378977.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Svitlana, M.; Erdogan, A. (2021). Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives 1919–1941. Erdogan A. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-329-66638-2. OCLC 1301902295.
- ^ a b Кавказский календарь на 1917 год, pp. 198–201.
- ^ "население северо-восточной турции". www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
- ^ a b "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". www.demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
- ^ Bournoutian 2018, p. 35 (note 25).
- ^ Tsutsiev 2014, p. 50.
- ^ Bournoutian, George (2017). "The Population of the South Caucasus according to the 1897 General Census of the Russian Empire". Iran & the Caucasus. 21 (3): 332. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20170307. ISSN 1609-8498. JSTOR 26548902.
- ^ "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". www.demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
- ^ a b c Hovannisian 1971, p. 67.
Bibliography
[edit]- Bournoutian, George A. (2018). Armenia and Imperial Decline: The Yerevan Province, 1900–1914. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-06260-2. OCLC 1037283914.
- Frary, Lucien J.; Kozelsky, Mara, eds. (12 August 2014). Russian-Ottoman Borderlands: The Eastern Question Reconsidered. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-29803-6. OCLC 893910208.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971). The Republic of Armenia: The First Year, 1918–1919. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520019843.
- Кавказский календарь на 1917 год [Caucasian calendar for 1917] (in Russian) (72nd ed.). Tiflis: Tipografiya kantselyarii Ye.I.V. na Kavkaze, kazenny dom. 1917. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021.
- Tsutsiev, Arthur (2014). Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus (PDF). Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300153088. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 June 2023.
Further reading
[edit]- Gurallar, Neşe (2020). "Russian Modernization in East Anatolia: The Case of Kars". Muqarnas Online. 37 (1): 247–264. doi:10.1163/22118993-00371P09. S2CID 228969076.
- Kars Oblast
- Caucasus Viceroyalty (1801–1917)
- Governorates of the Caucasus
- History of Ardahan Province
- History of Erzurum Province
- History of Kars Province
- Modern history of Armenia
- States and territories established in 1878
- States and territories disestablished in 1917
- 1878 establishments in the Russian Empire
- 1917 disestablishments in Russia
- Soviet Union–Turkey relations