The first time Russian authority was established over the
peoples of the Caucasus was after the Russian annexation of the
Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (eastern
Georgia) in 1801. General
Karl Knorring was the first person to be assigned to govern the Caucasus territory, being officially titled as the Commander-in-Chief in Georgia and Governor-General of Tiflis (present-day
Tbilisi). Under his successors, notably Prince
Pavel Tsitsianov, General
Aleksey Yermolov, Count
Ivan Paskevich, and Prince
Mikhail Vorontsov, Russian Transcaucasia expanded to encompass territories acquired in a series of wars with the
Ottoman Empire, the
Persian Empire, and
local North Caucasian peoples. The scope of its jurisdiction eventually came to include what is now Georgia,
Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and the
North Caucasus, as well as parts of Northeastern
Turkey (today the provinces of
Artvin,
Ardahan,
Kars, and
Iğdır). Russia utilised a
divide and rule strategy in the Caucasus, favouring local Christian groups (or, in the case of the
Ossetians, converting them to Christianity) over Muslims.
Georgians and
Armenians were uniquely recognised as "culturally advanced" due to their Christian faith and often collaborated with colonial administration in the
South Caucasus, while Muslim
Azerbaijanis were designated as "culturally backward" and did so less frequently. The Ossetians, who adhered to a melange of beliefs including Christian, Islam and
pagan traditions prior to Russian colonisation, were conscripted into the
Imperial Russian Army, separating them from other ethnic groups in the
North Caucasus. The Russian government also used
Arabic as the official language of colonial administration in the North Caucasus following the defeat of
Imam Shamil's
Caucasian Imamate; at the time, Arabic was the
lingua franca of the region's Muslim population. Headquartered at Tiflis, the viceroys acted as
de facto ambassadors to neighboring countries, commanders in chief of the armed forces, and the supreme civil authority, mostly responsible only to the
Tsar. From 3 February 1845 to 23 January 1882, the viceregal authority was supervised by the Caucasus Committee as the
Caucasus Krai, which consisted of representatives of the
State Council and the ministries of Finances,
State Domains, Justice, and Interior, as well as of members of special committees. After the 1917
February Revolution, which dispossessed Tsar
Nicholas II of the Russian crown, the Viceroyalty of the Caucasus was abolished by the
Russian Provisional Government on 18 March 1917, and all authority, except in the zone of the active army, was entrusted to the civil administrative body called the
Special Transcaucasian Committee or
Ozakom (short for
Osobyy Zakavkazskiy Komitet, Особый Закавказский Комитет). ==Administrative divisions==