Ganja was a town in the South Caucasus, which had been a part of Iran since the reign of the Safavid king (shah) Ismail I (r. 1501–1524).^[5][6] It was part of the province of Karabakh, which was governed by the Ziyadoghlu clan of the Turkic Qajar tribe.^[7] Along with Erivan, Karabakh formed the Iranian-ruled part of Armenia, known as Iranian Armenia or Eastern Armenia.^[8]

In 1735, after having repelled the Ottoman Empire, the Iranian military commander Nader recognized Ughurlu Khan Ziyadoghlu Qajar as the khan of Karabakh. The latter was later the only khan who did not support Nader when he petitioned to become shah of Iran at the assembly in Mughan. This made Nader Shah split the Karabakh province in order to curtail the power of the Qajars. The Zangezur district was given to the beglerbegi (governor-general) of Tabriz; the autonomy of the Armenian Melikdoms was restored, and Borchalu, Qazzaq and Shamshadil were given to the Georgian king Teimuraz II (r. 1732–1762). Ughurlu Khan was thus only left with Ganja and its surroundings.^[9] Nader Shah had Iranian Armenia organized into four khanates; Erivan, Nakhichevan, Ganja, and Karabakh.^[10] A khanate was a type of administrative unit governed by a hereditary or appointed ruler subject to Iranian rule. The title of the ruler was either beglarbegi or khan, which was identical to the Ottoman rank of pasha.^[11]

In November 1738, Ughurlu Khan died in a battle against Surkhay Khan of the Gazikumukh Khanate. In 1740, his son Shahverdi Khan Ziyadoghlu succeeded him, but in 1743 he had to seek sanctuary with Teimuraz II in Kartli due to supporting a claimant to the Iranian throne, Sam Mirza. Nader Shah subsequently gave the governorship of Ganja to his tupchi-bashi Hajji Khan.^[9] Following Nader Shah's assassination in 1747, Iran fell into turmoil, especially in the South Caucasus. There the Georgians and local khans fought over land.^[12]

Shahverdi Khan went back to Ganja, where he overthrew Hajji Khan with the aid of Teimuraz II and Heraclius II. By paying tribute to either the Karabakh Khanate or Georgia, Shahverdi Khan tried to do everything possible to prevent the khanate from being attacked by his neighbors. He also arranged marriages for some of his children in order to form new alliances. His eldest son, Mohammad Hasan Khan, married the sister of Surkhay Khan, while one of his daughters married Ibrahim Khalil Khan of the Karabakh Khanate. After the death of that daughter, one of his other daughters married Ibrahim Khalil Khan. His youngest daughter was given in marriage to Hosein Khan of Shaki, and after the latters death, remarried Mohammad Hasan Agha, the eldest son of Ibrahim Khalil Khan.^[13]

By 1762, the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779) had established his authority across most of Iran,^[14] and was eventually acknowledged by Georgia and the various khans of the South Caucasus as their suzerain.^[15] He had Shahverdi Khan's brother Reza Qoli taken to the city of Shiraz as a hostage.^[16] In 1779, Karim Khan died, which led to renewed internal chaos.^[15] In 1780, Shahverdi Khan was killed by one of his companions, and was succeeded by Mohammad Hasan Khan, who continued to pay tribute to Georgia and the Karabakh Khanate.^[13] In 1778, another son of Shahverdi Khan, Mohammad Khan, became the new khan as a result of the internal issues there and disputes between him and his brothers. His two brothers, Javad Khan and Rahim, fled to Karabakh and the Georgian city Tiflis, respectively.^[16]

Exploiting the instability in Ganja, Heraclius II and Ibrahim Khalil Khan agreed to partition the Ganja khanate in 1780. They took control of Ganja's citadel, blinded Mohammad Khan, and chose Prince Kai-Khosrow Andronikashvili and Hazrat Qoli Beg as their own regents to manage each zone.^[16]

Russian conquest edit

During the first Russo-Persian War (1804-1813), Ganja was considered by Russians, who had earlier supported the Georgian claim to the sovereignty over the khanate, as a town of foremost importance. General Pavel Tsitsianov several times approached Javad khan, asking him to submit to Russian rule, but each time was refused. On November 20, 1803, the Russian army moved from Tiflis, and in December, Tsitsianov started the siege preparations. After heavy artillery bombardment, on January 3, 1804, at 5 a.m., Tsitsianov gave the order to attack the fortress. After fierce fighting, the Russians were able to capture the fortress. Javad Khan was killed, together with his sons. According to a major study of the military events in the Caucasus by John F. Baddeley:

"Thus Gandja, on the pretence that from the time of Tamara it had really belonged to Georgia, though long lost to that country owing to the weakness of her rulers, was invaded, the capital city of the same name stormed after a month's siege (2 January 1804), Djavat Khan killed, and the khanate annexed. "Five hundred Tartars [Azerbaijanis] shut themselves up in a mosque, meaning, perhaps, to surrender, but an Armenian told the soldiers that there were some Daghestanis amongst them, and the name was a death-signal for all, so great is the exasperation of your Majesty's troops against those people for their raids into Georgia and the robber war they carry on", but all the women in the town were spared -- a rare occurrence in Caucasian warfare, and due to Tsitsianoff's strict injunctions."^[17]

Ganja was renamed Elisabethpol in honor of Alexander's wife Elisabeth. In 1805 the imperial government officially abolished the khanate, and the military district of Elisabethpol was created. Descendants of the Ziyadoghlu Qajar dynasty bore the name of Ziyadkhanov in the Russian empire.

The majority of the inhabitants in the Ganja Khanate were Shia Muslims.^[18] There was also a sizable Christian population in the khanate, who were part of the Armenian Apostolic Church.^[19] When the Russian army invaded Ganja in 1804, the city had 10,425 residents.^[20]

• Akopyan, Alexander; Petrov, Pavel (2016). "The Coinage of Īrawān, Nakhjawān, Ganja and Qarabāḡ Khānates in 1747–1827". State Hermitage: 1–9.
• Barthold, W. & Boyle, J.A. (1965). "Gand̲j̲a". In Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume II: C–G. Leiden: E. J. Brill. OCLC 495469475.
• Behrooz, Maziar (2023). Iran at War: Interactions with the Modern World and the Struggle with Imperial Russia. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0755637379.
• Bosworth, C. Edmund (2000). "Ganja". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume X/3: Fruit–Gāvbāzī. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 282–283. ISBN 978-0-933273-47-4.
• Bournoutian, George (1976). The Khanate of Erevan Under Qajar Rule: 1795–1828. University of California. ISBN 978-0-939214-18-1.
• Bournoutian, George (1994). A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-e Qarabagh. Mazda Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56859-011-0.
• Bournoutian, George (1997). "Eastern Armenia from the Seventeenth Century to the Russian Annexation". In Hovannisian, Richard G. (ed.). The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 1. St. Martin's Press. pp. 81–107. ISBN 0-312-10169-4.
• Bournoutian, George (2016a). The 1820 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Shirvan: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province prior to its Annexation by Russia. Gibb Memorial Trust. ISBN 978-1-909724-80-8.
• Bournoutian, George (2016b). "Prelude to War: The Russian Siege and Storming of the Fortress of Ganjeh, 1803–4". Iranian Studies. 50 (1). Taylor & Francis: 107–124. doi:10.1080/00210862.2016.1159779. S2CID 163302882.
• 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 978-90-04-44515-4.
• Swietochowski, Tadeusz (2004). Russian Azerbaijan, 1905–1920: The Shaping of a National Identity in a Muslim Community. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52245-8.