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Batum oblast

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Batum Oblast
Батумская область
Oblast
Coat of arms of Batum Oblast
Coat of arms
Administrative map of the Batum Oblast
Administrative map of the Batum Oblast
CountryRussian Empire
ViceroyaltyCaucasus
Established1873
Abolished1918
CapitalBatum (Batumi)
Area
 • Total6,975.65 km2 (2,693.31 sq mi)
Population
 (1916)
 • Total122,811
 • Density18/km2 (46/sq mi)
 • Urban
22.02%
 • Rural
87.98%

The Batum Oblast (pre-reform Russian: Батумская область; Georgian: ბათუმის ოლქი) was an oblast (region) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with the Black Sea port city of Batumi as its center. The Batum Oblast roughly corresponded to most of present-day southwestern Georgia, and part of the Artvin Province of the Republic of Turkey.

History

The Batum Oblast was created out of the territories of the Ottoman Empire's Batum Sanjak, following the region's annexation into the Russian Empire in the aftermath of the 1878 Russo-Turkish War.

Established in 1878, the Batum Oblast was later downgraded to an okrug in 1883 and incorporated into the Kutais Governorate (until 1903).[1]

According to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Russian SFSR ceded the Batum Oblast to the Ottoman Empire, however, the Transcaucasian Seim, the authority in Transcaucasia by 1918, rejected the treaty, opting to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire on its own terms. Such action led to the former's dissolution and the subsequent Treaty of Batum, which resulted in the inevitable reannexation of Batum to the Ottoman Empire.

After the Mudros Armistice, in which the Ottoman Empire was forced to withdraw its troops from the territories of the former Russian Transcaucasus including Batum, British troops under the 27th Division occupied the district to support the British military presence in the Transcaucasus, and to serve as a terminal for supplying Denikin's Volunteer Army.

The Batum Oblast was finally evacuated by the British in the summer of 1919, and handed over to the Democratic Republic of Georgia, whom administered the district until it was occupied by Turkish revolutionaries, leading to the Treaty of Kars which resulted in the partition of the district. The north including the port of Batum was retained by Georgia as an autonomy, and the southern Artvin district was incorporated into the fledgling Republic of Turkey as the Artvin Province.

Administrative divisions

The Batum Oblast included 2 okrugs with 7 uchastoks within them:[2]

  • Artvin Okrug (Артвинский округ)
    • Ardanuch
    • Artvin
    • Shavsheti-Imerkhevi
  • Batum Okrug (Батумский округ)
    • Upper Adjara
    • Goni
    • Kintrishi
    • Lower Adjara

Demographics

Russian Empire census (1897)

According to the Russian Empire census of 1897, the Batum Oblast (at the time part of the Kutais Governorate) had a population of 144,584, including 82,213 men and 62,371 women. The plurality of the population indicated Georgian to be their mother tongue, with significant Turkish, Armenian and Russian speaking minorities.[3]

Language Native speakers %
Georgian 62,004 42.88
Turkish 44,667 30.89
Armenian 14,939 10.33
Russian 7,525 5.20
Greek 4,717 3.26
Ukrainian 2,351 1.63
Kurdish 1,811 1.25
Jewish 1,076 0.74
Polish 911 0.63
Persian 767 0.53
Abkhazian 693 0.48
Mingrelian 635 0.44
German 369 0.26
Imeretian 356 0.25
Tatar[a] 355 0.25
Lithuanian 157 0.11
Sartic 156 0.11
Belarusian 80 0.06
Avar-Andean 56 0.04
Kazi-Kumukh 47 0.03
English 38 0.03
Ossetian 29 0.02
Romanian 27 0.02
Svan 17 0.01
Estonian 11 0.01
Other 790 0.55
ТОТАL 144,584 100.00

Caucasian Calendar (1917)

The 1917 Caucasian Calendar which produced statistics of 1916 indicates 122,811 residents in the Batum Oblast, including 66,808 men and 56,003 women, 95,292 of whom were the permanent population, and 27,519 were temporary residents.[4]

Ethnoreligious groups in the Batum Oblast according to the 1917 Caucasian Calendar[4]
Okrug (district) Russians Other Europeans Georgians Armenians North Caucasians Kurds Other Asian Nationalities Gypsies Jews TOTAL
Orthodox Sectarian Orthodox Muslim Christian Shia Muslim Sunni Muslim
Artvin 320 6 24 1,187 25,544 9,428 304 0 69 283 104 145 0 37,414
0.9% 0.0% 0.1% 3.2% 68.3% 25.2% 0.8% 0.0% 0.2% 0.8% 0.3% 0.4% 0.0% 100.0%
Batum 7,925 294 951 7,411 44,697 5,764 352 552 2,175 411 14,238 20 607 85,397
9.3% 0.3% 1.1% 8.7% 52.3% 6.7% 0.4% 0.6% 2.5% 0.5% 16.7% 0.0% 0.7% 100.0%
TOTAL 8,245 300 975 8,598 70,241 15,192 656 552 2,244 694 14,342 165 607 122,811
6.7% 0.2% 0.8% 7.0% 57.2% 12.4% 0.5% 0.4% 1.8% 0.6% 11.7% 0.1% 0.5% 100.0%

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Later known as Azerbaijani.

References

  1. ^ Tsutsiev, Arthur (2014), Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus, New Haven and London, p. 38, ISBN 978-0-300-15308-8, OCLC 884858065, retrieved 2021-12-25{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ Кавказский календарь .... на 1913 год (in Russian). Tiflis: Office of the Viceroy of the Caucasus. 1913. pp. 271–317.
  3. ^ "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". www.demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2022-03-26.
  4. ^ a b Кавказский календарь .... на 1917 год (in Russian). pp. 351–352.
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