Melikdom of Varanda

The Melikdom of Varanda was one of the five Armenian melikdoms of the Karabakh region. They ruled over Varanda, a district located in its southeastern part.[1][2]

The ruling meliks (princes) of the principality belonged to the Shahnazarian family, who not long before their rise to power lived in an area around the Gökcha (Sevan) lake, which they eventually fled from.[3] The melikdom was established in 1606, when Melik Shahnazar of Gegham installed his brother at Varanda, which he himself had received as a reward by Shah Abbas I (r. 1588–1629), the Safavid shah (king) of Iran.[4] Varanda and the other melikdoms upheld the notion of Armenian statehood, which was used by the Safavids to fight the Ottoman Empire.[5] The Shahnazarian family was one of the last families to lose their melikdom, which occurred in 1813, when the Russian Empire conquered it.[6]

References
  1. Bournoutian 1994, p. 43 (see note 67).
  2. Hewsen 2001, p. 163.
  3. Bournoutian 1994, pp. 52–53 (see note 107).
  4. Hewsen 2001, pp. 146, 163.
  5. Tsibenko 2018.
  6. Hewsen 1972, p. 326.

Sources
  • Bournoutian, George (1994). A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-e Qarabagh. Mazda Publishers. ISBN 978-1568590110.
  • Bournoutian, George (2021). From the Kur to the Aras: A Military History of Russia's Move into the South Caucasus and the First Russo-Iranian War, 1801–1813. Brill. ISBN 978-9004445154.
  • Hewsen, Robert (1972). The Meliks Of Eastern Armenia I. Revue des Études Arménie.
  • Hewsen, Robert (2001). Armenia: A Historical Atlas. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226332284.
  • Tsibenko, Veronika (2018). "Karabakh, Nagorno". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Stewart, Devin J. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
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