George A. Bournoutian's volume, The 1820 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Shirvan provides a readable primary source on the demography and economy of the Qajar province of Shirvan just prior to its annexation by Tsarist Russia. It is a unique source, which illuminates the transition from Qajar to Romanov rule and provides fine grain detail on the social and economic life of Shirvan in the early nineteenth century.
George Bournoutian adds to his numerous translations of Russian surveys of the Caucasus in the aftermath of conquest. This work provides significant detail of the many aspects of life within the Khanate of Shirvan in the midst of a transition from Qajar to Romanov rule. The 1820 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Shirvan provides an excellent resource for the study of the Caucasus, Iran, and the Russian Empire in the early nineteenth century. It continues Bournoutian's project of translating Russian cadastral surveys of the Caucasian provinces of the Qajars which were incorporated into the Romanov Empire. His other works include The 1829–1832 Russian Surveys of the Khanate of Nakhichevan (Nakhjavan): A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province Prior to Its Annexation by Russia (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2016), The 1819 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Sheki [Shakki]: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province Prior to Its Annexation by Russia (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2016), and The 1823 Russian Survey of the Karabagh Province: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of Karabagh in the Early 19th Century (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2011). In this volume, like his previous, Bournoutian provides a workmanlike translation and informative compilation of appendices.
The work has four sections: an overview with a literature review; an introduction; the translation of the cadastral survey; and a bibliography along with several appendices.
In the overview there is a helpful table for the various transliteration methods for Azeri, including Latin, Cyrillic, and Persian renderings of the language as well as a brief section on the weights, measures, and currencies of Shirvan during the period in question. Also in this section, Bournoutian lays out a discussion of some of the major historiographical issues related to the study of the Khanate of Shirvan. He examines several issues of Soviet-era historiography as well as the challenges of new nationalist historiographies. He also delves into the competing historiographies of Armenian and Azeri scholarship.
In the introduction Bournoutian provides a brief history of Shirvan from the end of the Safavid period until the coming of the Romanovs. He provides the geographical context with a map of modern Azerbaijan and a time line of when certain territories were added or subtracted.
The cadastral survey compiled by Prince Valerian Grigorevich Madatov (Rostom Madatyan) and State Councilor Paul Ivanovich Mogilevskii is organized into 19 registers for each Mahal (district) of the Khanate. In these registers a thorough accounting of tax revenue of various localities is estimated and recorded in rubles. A record of tax-paying and non-tax-paying families is provided. Some notes on the various families’ “ethnicity” are also included. The survey has a table amalgamating the totals of all the registers (p. 200). Moreover, it also includes a listing of the prices of various commodities in Shirvan prior to Russian annexation.
The appendices provide several useful pieces of information for researchers including the treaty between the Khanate of Shirvan and the Romanov Empire from 1806. A brief description of the administration of the Khanate before Russian rule complete with titles and a rough structure of responsibilities is provided (pp. 207–8).
The bibliography provides an excellent starting point for scholars of the Romanov Empire, the Caucasus, and Qajar Iran in regard to this topic. It should be seen as the state of the field for Armenian, Persian, and Russian literature. Bournoutian is less familiar with the Turkish/Azeri literature and these works are not present in his bibliography: their inclusion would improve this book.
Bournoutian provides a general map of Shirvan and of the Caucasus, but an additional map of the Caucasus in the context of the Romanov, Ottoman, and Qajar empires during the period in question would have been helpful, and a map of the various mahals of the Khanate of Shirvan would be illuminating.
Bournoutian has produced, as much as is possible for a cadastral survey, a readable and engaging text. This author has taken the time to provide a useful historiography section, a clean, translated survey, as well as appendices with important information.
