Great Surgun

The Great Surgun (Մեծ սուրգուն, the Great Exile) was the forced deportation of the population (mainly Armenians) from Eastern Armenia to the territory of the central and northern parts of Safavid Iran, which was carried out in 1604-1605 by the order of Shah Abbas the Great during the Ottoman–Safavid War (1603–1618).

Among the deported population (about 350,000 people), the largest number were Armenians. According to various estimates, the number of expelled Armenians ranged from 250,000 to 300,000 people. During this time Armenian cities and villages were plundered and destroyed. Many Armenians were brutally killed, subjected to violence or died on the way, less than half survived during the march.

The deportation changed the ethnic demographic picture of the Armenian Highlands radically, greatly decreasing the percentage of Armenian population of the region. Mass deportation of Armenians made them a minority in Nakhichevan (part of the present-day Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan), and also led to significant increase in the percentage of Muslims (Turks and Kurds) in other historical regions, including the Artsakh region (currently better known as Nagorno-Karabakh).

Background
For centuries, Armenia was subjected to continuous military invasions and devastating raids. The first Arab conquests in the region began in the 40s of the 7th century. Later, at the beginning of the 11th century, Oguz-Turkmen tribes from Central Asia started their raids. At the same time, as a result of regular attacks by Byzantium on the one hand, and the Seljuks on the other, the Armenian Vaspurakan and Ani kingdoms were liquidated, and by the 70s of the 11th century (Battle of Manzikert), the Seljuks extended their influence to almost the entire territory of Armenia, which over time dealt a strong blow to the Armenian ethnos in the region. By the 13th century, the territory of Armenia was subjected to numerous invasions of Muslim nomadic tribes. Already in the Seljuk era, the centuries-old process of marginalisation of the Armenian population by alien Turkic nomads in the region had begun, which intensified especially after the invasions of Tamerlane. During the period of Mongol rule, Armenia was plundered and ravaged, and starting from the end of the 13th century, Ghazan Khan subjected the Armenian population, especially from Nakhichevan and nearby territories, to harsh persecution. In 1385, Tokhtamysh Khan took tens of thousands of Armenians from Artsakh, Syunik and Parskahayk into captivity. The Mongol rule also intensified the demographic changes that had begun under the Seljuk rule - the Muslim population increased, while the Armenian population decreased. Numerous nomadic tribes for a number of centuries moved in and settled in fertile areas with extensive pastures, and their tribal rulers gradually appropriated the property of Armenian landowners, oppressing them. This led to the forced mass emigration of Armenians to safer places.

William of Rubruck, who visited Nakhichevan after the Mongol invasion, writes:Since the 16th century, continuous Turkish-Persian wars, which were fought for control over its territory, caused great damage to Armenia. Being divided between two warring empires, for most of the 16th century the country served as their battlefield and was devastated by the scorched earth policy pursued by both the Ottomans and the Safavids. According to the peace treaty that ended the first Turkish-Persian war (1514-1555), the Ottoman Empire expanded its possessions, annexing territories from Sivas to Erzerum, Alashkert, Diyarbekir, Van, Kahramanmarash and Mosul, and Safavid Persia - at the expense of the territory of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia.

In 1578, a new Turkish-Persian war (1578-1590) began. The Ottoman army and the 100,000-strong army of the Crimean Khan raided Eastern Armenia. Devastating campaigns in Transcaucasia continued until the beginning of 1590. A significant part of the local population was killed, driven into slavery or fled (60,000 people were driven into slavery from Erivan alone).

Armenian historian of the 16th century Yovanisik Caretsi writes about these events:

As a result of the war, according to the Treaty of Constantinople, Persia was forced to cede Tabriz, Shirvan and some parts of Eastern Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (Kartli and Kakheti kingdoms).

The mass deportation and its reasons
The Persian Shah Abbas I the Great, who did not accept defeat, wanted to return the territories ceded to the Turks in 1590. He began to reform his army, trained it in the European manner by English experts, and in 1603 started a new war with the Ottoman Empire. In 1603-1605, the Shah's troops, having defeated the Turks at Sufiyan, captured and once again plundered the cities of Nakhichevan, Tabriz, Julfa and Erivan. Most of the residents of Erivan were forcibly relocated. Since the summer of 1604, the territory of Eastern Armenia was systematically subjected to devastating raids. With regard to the regions of the Ararat Valley bordering the Ottoman Empire, the Shah resorted to the tactics of "scorched earth", the essence of which was the forcible resettlement (devastation of the territory) of all local residents deep into the territory of Persia, along with all their property.

The Shah pursued the goal of depopulating these areas and settling the Armenian population throughout Persia, thereby wishing, on the one hand, to secure his western borders from a potential Ottoman-Armenian conspiracy, and on the other hand, he was guided by the desire to use Armenian artisans and merchants for his commercial purposes.

At the first stage, by the order of the Shah, the gathering of the Armenian population (from Nakhichevan, Julfa, Syunik, Sevan, Lori, Abaran, Shirakavan, Kars, Van, Alashkert and Bayazet) was organized in specially designated places. The Armenians were loyal subjects of their shah and carried out his orders, and having learned about his intentions, they pleaded with him in every possible way to postpone their move because of the imminent onset of winter. However, their requests were ignored by the Shah.

This was followed by destruction of all the remaining property of the Armenian population, so that it could not be taken by the Ottoman troops. Thousands of people perished while crossing the Araks river alone.

Arakel Davrizhetsi, 17th-century Armenian historian, reports:

According to Davrizhetsi, the deportation began in August 1604 and culminated in the autumn. The number of the expelled population covered the territory from the mountains of Garni to the mouth of the Araks.

Consequences and assessments
Until the 17th century, despite wars, invasions and migrations, Armenians still made up the majority of the population of Eastern Armenia. A significant blow to the Armenian ethnos of the region was caused by its mass resettlement deep into the territory of Persia.

Polish historian, Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, notes:

The number of Armenians resettled from Eastern Armenia to Persia is estimated, according to various sources, from 250 thousand to 300 thousand people. According to the Azerbaijani Soviet Encyclopedia, “in 1604, the troops of Shah Abbas captured Er. and forcibly took the majority of the Armenian population to Iran". During the deportation, in particular, to get rid of the competition of Armenian merchants, a large center of merchants in the Transcaucasus was ruined - the Armenian city of Dzhuga (now Julfa, NAR), and its inhabitants (according to various estimates, from 20 thousand people to 12 thousand families) were resettled in Isfahan, where in 1605 they formed “New Julfa” (in memory of the once prosperous Armenian city) on the land allocated to them south of the Zayanderud River, the other part of the resettled scattered throughout Persia. About 500 Armenian families were forced to move to Shiraz alone. At the same time, the emigration of Armenians to the countries of Southeast Asia, in particular, India and Burma, increased. Later, in the mid-1650s, the Armenians were expelled also from regions of Isfahan, leaving them in compact residence only in New Julfa. Armenian communities also appeared in the cities of Mazandaran, Qazvin, Hamadan, Mashhad, Shiraz and others. Initially, Abbas's attitude towards the resettled Armenians was supportive. In the Isfahan region, Armenian settlers were granted freedom of religion and trade. The area gradually developed and flourished. Armenians were able to create a major center of international trade, including with the Russian state, Europe and India. They got a monopoly on the silk trade. However, later, pursuing a policy of forced Islamization, the Shah began to force the Armenian population to accept Islam. Those Armenians who had settled in other parts of the empire were often subjected to various forms of discrimination.

After the deportation of Armenians, nomadic tribes (mainly Turks, as well as Kurds) began to massively populate the territories they had left behind, while cities of Ararat, Alashkert and Bayazet became completely empty.

According to Encyclopedia Iranica: “In the course of its history of many centuries, the Armenian people had not yet been subjected to such a major disaster”. American historian George Bournoutian notes that by the 17th century, Armenians had become a minority in some parts of their historical lands. The American historian Richard Hovannisian points out that the forced deportation carried out by Shah Abbas and other forced mass migrations of the Armenian people led to the fact that by the 19th century Armenians retained a significant majority only in the mountainous regions of Karabakh and Zangezur. As for the Erivan and Nakhichevan khanates, the number of Armenians in them decreased to 20% by the beginning of the 1830s. Armenians also became a minority in Ganja.

Reflections in art
The event was reflected in the Armenian "vokhber" (ողբեր) literary genre - medieval Armenian historical lamentations.

In his poem "The Shah and the Peddler", the Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan tells the story against the backdrop of the deportation.

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