Southwest Caucasian Republic
| Cenubî Garbi Kafkas Hükümet-i Cumhuriyesi | |||||
| Southwest Caucasian Republic | |||||
| 1918-1919 | |||||
|
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| Official language | Ottoman , Russian | ||||
| Capital | Kars | ||||
| Form of government | Republic , under British Army Administration | ||||
| Head of state | Cihangirzade İbrahim Bey | ||||
| Head of government | Esad Oktay Bey, Fahrettin Pirioğlu | ||||
| currency | Lira and Kuruş | ||||
| independence | December 1, 1918 | ||||
The Southwest Caucasian Republic ( Ottoman : Cenubî Garbi Kafkas Hükümet-i Cumhuriyesi; Turkish Güneybatı Kafkasya Cumhuriyeti , Azerbaijani Cənubi-Qərbi Qafqaz Cümhuriyyəti ) or shorter Republic of Kars was a short-lived state that in Kars was proclaimed by a provisional government.
The republic should include the areas inhabited by Muslims Kars, Batumi , parts of the district and province of Yerevan and Akhaltsikhe , Akhalkalaki in the district of Tbilisi . In practice, the government did not extend beyond the Kars area. In addition, the area was under British army administration, which the republic only tolerated.
background
With the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, Soviet Russia handed Kars, Ardahan and Batumi over to the Ottomans for “reorganization”. Russia wrested these areas from the Ottomans in the war of 1878 . When the Russians withdrew from Anatolia , fighting broke out between the Ottomans and the Armenians, who had shortly before founded the Democratic Republic of Armenia . In 1918 General Tovmas Nazarbekian was in command of the Caucasus Front and Andranik Toros Ozanian took over responsibility for the areas that had been given to the Ottomans. In the conflict, the Armenians had to gradually withdraw from Eastern Anatolia. So they first evacuated Erzincan , then after the Battle of Kara Kilise in 1918 Erzurum and Sarıkamış . The battles of Sardarapat and Bash Abaran followed . In 1918 they lost Van to the Ottomans and then Trabzon , which was taken by Vehib Pascha .
In the end, the Treaty of Batumi was signed between the two states on June 4, 1918 . The Ottomans were able to bring their former territories back under control and expanded the city of Kars into a military headquarters.
In the same year, the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Entente ended with the Mudros armistice . The armistice stipulated that the Ottomans should withdraw behind the 1914 borders. So the Ottomans had to vacate the area around Kars again. The British then occupied Kars, Batumi and Baku . A pro-Ottoman movement emerged in Kars, which eventually led to the formation of a provisional government under Esad Oktay Bey and Fahrettin Pirioğlu.
Establishment
The majority of the people in southwest Transcaucasia were Muslim and felt more connected to Azerbaijan . However, Georgia prevented Azerbaijan from expanding towards the southwest. Otherwise Azerbaijan would have reached the Black Sea . As a result, the Muslim National Committee was established in Kars on September 27th. The committee advocated autonomy or independence for the Muslim territories in the southwest.
On December 1, the committee unilaterally proclaimed the Southwest Caucasian Republic and elected Cihangirzade İbrahim Bey as president. The new republic laid claim to Kars, Batumi, Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Şərur and Nakhichevan , which was sponsored by Azerbaijan. The republic granted full rights to all residents except Armenians. In addition, it received from Great Britain the assurance of aid against an occupation by Georgia or Armenia until the final settlement of the situation in the peace conference in Paris in 1919.
On January 13, the British administration in Batumi sent a delegation of 60 Armenians to Kars to appoint Korganov as governor of Kars province. The Muslim Parliament rejected the British proposal and refused to continue negotiations with the Armenians. The riots between the two sides increased after this event.
In the meantime, elections were held in January leading to the formation of a new parliament on January 14th. The parliament had 64 members, of whom 60 were Muslim, three Greek and one Russian Molokan . On January 17th the parliament adopted a constitution with 18 articles. The Teşkilâtı Esasiye Kanunu guaranteed women the right to vote, made Kars the capital and Turkish the official language. On March 27, the new government was confirmed by parliament.
British intervention and dissolution
When fighting broke out between the republic and Georgia and Armenia, the British administration ignored their agreement. Instead, the British, under General William M. Thomson , marched into Kars on April 19, 1919 and blew up a session of parliament. 30 parliamentarians and members of the government were arrested. Eleven of the prisoners were taken to Batumi. From there they came to Istanbul from where they were exiled to Malta on June 2nd. Kars was placed under Armenian administration. On July 7th, the Georgians took over Batumi from the British.
The eleven exiles were:
| Surname | Office |
|---|---|
| Aziz Cihangiroğlu | Minister of Justice |
| Alibeyzade Mehmet Bey | Administrator |
| Hasan Han Cihangiroğlu | Defense Minister |
| İbrahim Cihangiroğlu | Speaker of Parliament |
| Mehmetoğlu Muhlis Bey | Communications officer |
| Matroi Radjinsky | Russian MP |
| Musa Salah Bey | Police chief |
| Pavlo Camusev | Russian MP |
| Tauchitgin Memlejeff | Interior minister |
| Stefani Vafiades | Greek Member of Parliament - Minister for Social Welfare |
| Yusufoğlu Yusuf Bey | Food minister |
Aftermath
After the Turkish-Armenian War in the 1920s and the subsequent treaties, Kars, Ardahan and Iğdır became part of Turkey. Batumi remained part of Georgia.
The Turkish novel Rus kızı Vasilisa (The Russian Girl Vasilisa) by Erkan Karagöz tells the story between Vasilisa and Şevket against the backdrop of the republic. A Turkish newspaper said the following about Karagöz's work: Anatolia's first multicultural, democratic and independent republic based on the principle of peoples' brotherhood, which official history disregarded.
Timeline
- March 1878: Russia annexes the Ottoman Kars.
- March 3, 1918: According to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia withdraws from Kars.
- April 14, 1918: The Ottomans occupy Kars.
- October 30, 1918: The Mudros armistice ends the First World War in the Middle East.
- December 1, 1918: The Southwest Caucasian Republic is proclaimed.
- April 10, 1919: Eliminated by High Commissioner Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe .
- April 19, 1919: British General William M. Thomson occupies the Kars region.
- March 16, 1921: The Kars Treaty awards Kars and Ardahan to Turkey.
Individual evidence
- DS Zavriev: Modern History of North-Western Vilayets of Turkey . Tbilisi 1947, p. 377.
- Erkan Karagöz: Türk anayasa hareketleri ve 1919 Cenub-i garb-i kafkas cumhuriyeti anayasasi .
- ↑ link at Caucasian Knot
- ↑ a b c The Middle East in the Twentieth Century by Martin Sicker, 2001, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-275-96893-6
- ↑ Molokan web portal