Armenian Project in Georgia in the 18th Century

Abstract

Sovereign statehood, as the highest value, is a guarantee of any nation’s existence, its development, freedom of its people, and their harmonious life. The primary task of the Armenian public opinion was to restore their country’s statehood of which it had been deprived for centuries. The Armenian Diaspora abroad began to implement this project conveyed in political programs comprising the issue of independent statehood. Their political programs of the 1760s revealed a strong orientation towards Georgia. The Armenian bourgeoisie in India was especially active in the national liberation movement and establishment of the country’s statehood. Several options of the above mentioned project were presented to the court of the Georgian King Erekle II. Our article deals with one of them, viz. the Armenian project by Joseph Emin.

Joseph Emin, a specialist in military affairs and the author of the project, was from a family of Armenian merchants in India. He visited the court of the United Kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti (i. e. Eastern Georgia) twice (in 1763-1764 and 1767-1768), hoping to start an uprising in Western Armenia with the support of Erekle II. Joseph Emin invited the Georgian King to lead the liberation movement of the Armenian people, free the Armenian lands from Muslims, and create a Georgian-Armenian Federal State headed by the Bagration dynasty.

The effort of Joseph Emin to implement his political program on the creation of the Georgian-Armenian Federal State proved to be unsuccessful. His visits to Georgia in the 1760s coincided with a period of doubts in the history of Georgian public opinion tormented by the question of whether Georgian unity could ever exist independently, since such a system of philosophy was alien to the Georgian identity. It was then that the issue of the need to find a political protector first appeared on the Georgian agenda. In that respect, Erekle II meditated a great deal to make the right choice between East and West. Joseph Emin, who was most likely recruited by the Russian state, appeared in Georgia with his Armenian project right at that time.

Russia was not yet aware of the Georgian King’s decision in her favor; besides, creation of the Georgian-Armenian federal state was against her interests. Therefore, she started to act in an effort to escalate the conflict between Georgia and her eastern neighbour. In order to control the situation in South Caucasus, Russia decided to send Joseph Emin to Georgia with the recommendations of the Russian authorities Golitsyn and Vorontsov. At first King Erekle II showed some interest in his project, since it seemed a good opportunity to delay his initial decision about Russia; but by and by, while dealing with Joseph Emin, the King suspected that he acted as an agent of Russia, which hoped to escalate the conflict between Georgia and Muslim East. So, eventually, he forced Joseph Emin to leave Georgia, thus crushing one of Russia’s adventures against his country.