ABSTRACT

In order to understand the political, intellectual, and military role of Armenians in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution it is necessary to have some knowledge of the nineteenth-century development and politicization of Armenians that took place in the Ottoman and Russian Empires. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Armenians constituted a minority in three empires, the Ottoman, Russian, and Persian, and were dispersed in much smaller communities all over the world. The largest communities of Armenians existed in the six Ottoman vilayets (provinces) of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Diarbekir, Sivas, and Kharput (Mamuret al-Aziz) in eastern Anatolia. The Ottoman Armenian community was also very much influenced by the Tanzimat reforms begun by Sultan Abdulmejid (1839–1861) and the internationalization of the Armenian Question in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Growing Georgian nationalism paralleled the rise of Russian nationalism in the government, with the Armenians perceived as a threat to Russian hegemony over the Caucasus.