The Caucasus Viceroyalty[a] was the Russian Empire's administrative and political authority in the Caucasus region exercised through the offices of glavnoupravlyayushchiy ("high commissioner") (1801–1844, 1882–1902) and namestnik ("viceroy") (1844–1882, 1904–1917), situated in the modern areas of the Russian Federation, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. These two terms are commonly, but imprecisely, translated into English as viceroy, which is frequently used interchangeably with governor general. More accurately, glavnoupravlyayushchiy is referred to as the High Commissioner of the Caucasus, and namestnik as Viceroy.
Over more than a century of the Russian rule of the Caucasus, the structure of the viceroyalty underwent a number of changes, with the addition or removal of administrative positions and redrawing of provincial divisions.[1]
Headquartered at Tiflis, the viceroys acted as de facto ambassadors to neighboring countries, commanders in chief of the armed forces, and the supreme civil authority, mostly responsible only to the Tsar. From February 3, 1845, to January 23, 1882, the viceregal authority was supervised by the Caucasus Committee as the Caucasus Krai, which consisted of representatives of the State Council and the ministries of Finances, State Domains, Justice, and Interior, as well as of members of special committees. After the 1917 February Revolution, which dispossessed Tsar Nicholas II of the Russian crown, the Viceroyalty of the Caucasus was abolished by the Russian Provisional Government on March 18, 1917, and all authority, except in the zone of the active army, was entrusted to the civil administrative body called the Special Transcaucasian Committee or Ozakom (short for Osobyy Zakavkazskiy Komitet, Особый Закавказский Комитет).
Administrative divisions
In 1917, there were six guberniyas ("governorates"), five oblasts ("regions"), two special administrative okrugs ("districts"), and a gradonachalstvo ("municipal district") within the Caucasus Viceroyalty:[3][4]
According to the 1917 publication of Kavkazskiy kalendar, the Caucasus Viceroyalty had a population of 12,266,282 on 14 January [O.S. 1 January] 1916, including 6,442,684 men and 5,823,598 women, 9,728,750 of whom were the permanent population, and 2,537,532 were temporary residents:[4]
^The Batum oblast was included in the Kutaisi Governorate in 1897; The population of its territory within the Kutaisi Governorate was 144,584 according to the 1897 census.
^The Zakatal okrug was included in the Tiflis Governorate in 1897; The population of its territory within the Tiflis Governorate was 84,224 according to the 1897 census.
^The Sukhumi okrug was included in the Kutaisi Governorate in 1897; The population of its territory within the Kutaisi Governorate was 106,179 according to the 1897 census.
^(in Armenian) Hambaryan, Azat S. (1981). "Հայաստանի սոցիալ-տնտեսական և քաղաքական դրությունը 1870-1900 թթ." [Armenia's social-economic and political situation, 1870–1900] in Hay Zhoghovrdi Patmut'yun [History of the Armenian People], ed. Tsatur Aghayan et al. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, vol. 6, pp. 15–17.
^Tsutsiev, Arthur (2014). Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus. Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 37. ISBN9780300153088.
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.
Further reading
Atkin, Muriel (1980). Russia and Iran, 1780–1828. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN978-0816609246.
Breyfogle, Nicholas (2005). Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN978-0801442421.
Jersild, Austin (2003). Orientalism and Empire: North Caucasus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier, 1845-1917. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN978-0773523296.
Tsutsiev, Arthur (2014). Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus. Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0300153088.
¹ Italics indicates renamed or abolished governorates, oblasts, etc on 1 January 1914. ² An asterisk (+) indicates governorates formed or created with renaming after 1 January 1914. ³ Ostsee or Baltic general-governorship was abolished in 1876.
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