The 1823 Russian Survey of the Karabagh Province, Annot. translation and introd. by George A. Bournoutian (softcover)

In May 1805, General Tsitsianov, Russian commander of the Caucasus, and Ebrahim Khan of Karabagh signed a treaty, by which the Karabagh Province became a Russian protectorate. In December 1822, the last Khan of Karabagh fled to Iran. Taking advantage of the situation, General Ermolov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus, declared the 1805 treaty null and void. He terminated the protectorate and incorporated the province into the Russian Empire.

In order to enumerate the population of Karabagh and ascertain the revenues collected by the last Khan, Ermolov, in January 1823, ordered State Counselor Mogilevskii and Colonel Ermolov II to conduct a detailed survey of the Karabagh Province. They presented their findings that spring in thirty-five registers. The survey was, therefore, primarily concerned with the revenues collected by the Khan from each village and nomad settlement, which now belonged to Russia. It listed the number of tax-paying and tax-exempt families of Tatars, Armenians and various nomadic tribes who lived in the villages or nomad pastures and detailed the various taxes paid to the Khan in 1822.

The 1823 Russian Survey of the Karabagh Province is thus a primary source on the demography and economy of Karabagh prior to the annexation of all of Transcaucasia by Russia. It should not only provide valuable information on yet another former Iranian province in Transcaucasia, but should finally answer the question of whether the Armenians formed the overwhelming population of the districts, which comprised the later Nagorno-Karabagh.