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Erivan Governorate (Old Russian: Эриванская губернія; Armenian: Երևանի նահանգ) was one of the guberniyas of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with its centre in Erivan (present-day Yerevan). Its area was 27,830 sq. kilometres. It roughly corresponded to what is now most of central Armenia, the Iğdır Province of Turkey, and the Nakhichevan exclave of Azerbaijan. At the end of the 19th century, it bordered the Tiflis Governorate to the north, the Elisabethpol Governorate to the east, the Kars Oblast to the west, and Persia and the Ottoman Empire to the south.

At the end of the first Russo-Persian War (1804-1813), the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 also established the new, short-lived Russo-Iranian border. Under this treaty, Erivan was under formal Persian control for 13 years when the second Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) began.

In 1828, the khanates of Erivan and the Nakhichevan were annexed from Persia by the Russian Empire in accordance with the Treaty of Turkmenchay (also spelt Turkmanchai). They were included into a single administrative unit named the Armenian Oblast. In 1850 the oblast was reorganized into a governorate, and by 1872, it consisted of seven uyezds.

Russian Imperial Rule in Erivan
Colonial Russian immigration to the Caucasus made the region more Orthodox than ever before. Less than half of the population at the time was Orthodox (both Russian and Georgian), while 12% of the population was Armenian Catholic in communication with Rome. All Orthodox students had to be educated in Russian and other religious groups followed, but the Russian Empire occasionally allowed non-Orthodox educations in other local languages that were not Russian.

A 1905 edition of the 1897 census can be found here (in Russian). The census includes information about literacy level and education among women, men, Armenians, Tatars and other divisions.

Ethnic Tensions
Under the new Russian Rule, Armenians had economic and legal benefits; meanwhile, Jews were not allowed to exit the Pale of Settlement and the religious and social life of Muslims was regulated by the state. In 1905, Louis Joseph Jérôme Napoléon (1864–1932), grandnephew of Napoleon I became governer to help calm the governorate after the Armenian-Tatar conflicts. The term Caucasian Tatars was used to describe the Azerbaijan people at the time.

Nationalism
Various ethnic-driven nationalist movements emerged during the Russian rule of the Caucasus, but Russians accredited to themselves the nation-building efforts of the Menshevik and Dashnaktsutiun governments that it deposed of between 1920-1921.