Ahmad bey Jafargulu bey oglu Javanshir ( az, Əhməd bəy Cavanşir, 2 March 1828 – 9 January 1903) was an

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

i historian and soldier. He was the great-grandnephew of

Ibrahim Khalil Khan Ibrahim Khalil khan Javanshir (1732–1806) was an Azerbaijani Turkic khan of the Karabakh Khanate from the Javanshir family, who succeeded his father Panah-Ali khan Javanshir as the ruler of the khanate. Early life He was born in c. 1732 in ...

, the last ruling khan of Karabakh, and the father of philanthropist and feminist

Hamida Javanshir Hamida Ahmad bey qizi Javanshir ( az, Həmidə Cavanşir) (19 January 1873 – 6 February 1955) – One of the first enlightened women of Azerbaijan, wife of Jalil Mammadguluzadeh, daughter of historian Ahmad Bey Javanshir, philanthropist, transl ...

Life

Little is known about Ahmad bey Javanshir's personal life. His autobiography attached to the manuscript of his work ''On the Political Affairs of the Karabakh khanate in 1747–1805'' disappeared probably between 1905 and 1907. Historians have established that he was born in his family estate of Kahrizli, located near the town of Agjabadi in present-day Azerbaijan. His parents, Jafargulu bey and Zahra khanum descended from

Panah Ali Khan Panah Ali Khan Javanshir (, ; 1693 – 1759 or 1763) was the founder and first ruler of the Karabakh Khanate under Persian suzerainty. Ancestry Panah Ali Khan was from the Sarijali branch of the clan of Javanshir, who with their associate clan o ...

, the first khan of

Karabakh Karabakh ( az, Qarabağ ; hy, Ղարաբաղ, Ġarabaġ ) is a geographic region in present-day southwestern Azerbaijan and eastern Armenia, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura (Caspia ...

. Until age 15, Ahmad bey studied at a religious school (''mollakhana''). The integration of the

Azeri Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic people living mainly in Azerbaijan (Iran), northwestern Iran and the Azerbaijan, Republi ...

upper class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...

into the Imperial Russian political system required among other things the knowledge of the

Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...

, which is why Ahmad bey was sent to study to the Pavlov Cadet Corps in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. Preface t
The Karabakhnamehs
by A.Shukurzadeh. Beginning in 1848 he served in a

hussar A hussar ( , ; hu, huszár, pl, husarz, sh, husar / ) was a member of a class of light cavalry, originating in Central Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely ...

regiment where he was advanced to the rank of Stabs-Captain. In 1853–1854 he participated in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. In 1854 he was injured during a

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...

with Ali bey Sultanov, a fellow officer, and could not continue his military service. After returning to his native village, Ahmad bey Javanshir carried out economic reforms. In the 1860s he built an 8-

verst A verst (russian: верста, ) is an obsolete Russian unit of length defined as 500 sazhen. This makes a verst equal to . Plurals and variants In the English language, ''verst'' is singular with the normal plural ''versts''. In Russian, the no ...

(ca. 8.5 km) irrigation channel across the

Mil plain Mil plain is a plain in Azerbaijan. It is located on the bank of the Aras river and extends to Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Ira ...

. In the 1880s he was appointed member of the

Shusha / hy, Շուշի , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = ShushaCollection2021.jpg , image_caption = Landmarks of Shusha, from top left:Ghazanchetsots Cathedral • Yukhari Govhar ...

-based Bey Committee aimed at verifying the claims of some locals of having noble origins (if proven, they were exempt from some taxes according to the Russian law). His denunciations caused resentment among the committee members which led to Javanshir being temporarily imprisoned. Javanshir spent his last years in Kahrizli, engaged in translation of the poems by

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...

and Zhukovsky into Azeri, as well as writing his own historical work in Russian, entitled ''On the Political Affairs of the Karabakh khanate in 1747–1805'' (1883). It was published two years after his death in the ''Geyrat'' publishing house in

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

. His other works are ''Asar-i Ahmad bey Javanshir'' (a collection of children's poems) and ''Turk zarb-misallar majmuasi'' (an explanatory Azeri dictionary). His works were cited by

The Cambridge History of Iran ''The Cambridge History of Iran'' is a multi-volume survey of Iranian history published in the United Kingdom by Cambridge University Press. The seven volumes cover "the history and historical geography of the land which is present-day Iran, as we ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Javanshir, Ahmad bey 19th-century Azerbaijani historians 20th-century Azerbaijani historians Azerbaijani military personnel Azerbaijani nobility Russian military personnel of the Crimean War 1828 births 1903 deaths