History of the Land of Artsakh, A

The subject of this book is the history of Karabagh in the period of the Armeno-Persian and Russo-Persian wars (1722-1827), a region, which the author refers to as the “land of Aghuank.”

The author, Archbishop Sargis Hasan-Jalaliants, begins his narrative with an account of the deeds of Avan yüzbashi (i.e. centurion), the leader of the Armenian rebellion against foreign rule at the time of Peter the Great’s invasion of the Persian Empire in 1722, an invasion that took place after the Afghan invasions of Persia and the fall of the Safavid dynasty. His narrative continues with the Ottoman invasion of Persian Armenia and the resistance offered to it by the Armenian meliks (petty princes) of Karabagh through the reigns of Nadir Shah and Agha Muhammad Khan, and deals with events in Georgia, as well as in the khanates of Shekki, Shirvan, and Ganja down until the Russian occupation in 1827. Indeed, the last short chapters deal almost exclusively with the activities of various Russian generals in South Caucasia in the early nineteenth century.
Besides recording much oral history not found elsewhere, Archbishop Sargis conveys many geographical indications as well as vivid descriptions of fortresses and melikal residences. Valuable, too, is Archbishop Sargis’ descriptions of the deeds of the celebrated Avan yüzbashi and of Melik Egan of Dizak, and of the wars of Panah Khan of Karabagh. Most important of all his historical data, however, is the author’s preservation of the Dashnagir or “Alliance Charter” in which the meliks present the terms under which they hoped to live under Russian suzerainty and which form almost a constitution for the famed Khamsa Melikutiunere or federation of the five principle melik houses of Karabagh.

Prof. Hewsen in his “Introduction” gives a detailed background to the narrative of Archbishop Sargis and contains inter alia detailed descriptions of the Persian khanates in South Caucasia as well as of the Armenian principalities that existed in the region in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. The “Introduction” also contains a description of the founding of the fortress (later city) of Shushi.

Given its relatively late date of its composition (c. 1830), the hitherto unpublished manuscript history by Archbishop Sargis forms almost a chronological conclusion to the series of translations of Armenian historians made by Professor George Bournoutian.