Il Caucaso all'inizio del XIX secolo dopo l'annessione della Georgia da parte della Russia. I khanati nei secoli XVIII-XIX (mappa in russo). Mappa dei khanati nel Caucaso e le date della loro conquista dopo le guerre russo-persiane (mappa in turco). Mappa dei khanati nel 1801 (mappa in russo).
I khanati del Caucaso,[1] noti anche come khanati azeri[2], khanati persiani[3][4] o khanati iraniani[5][6] erano varie province e principati stabiliti nella Persia (Iran) e nei territori nel Caucaso (gli odierni Azerbaigian, Armenia, Georgia e Daghestan) dal tardo periodo Safavide alla dinastia dei Qajar. La Persia cedette definitivamente una parte di questi khanati alla Russia in seguito alle guerre russo-persiane nel corso del XIX secolo, mentre gli altri furono assorbiti dalla Persia. I khanati erano di origine azera.[7][8][9]
^ Cronin (a cura di), Iranian-Russian Encounters: Empires and Revolutions Since 1800, Routledge, 2013, p. 53, ISBN978-0415624336.
^L'espressione khanati azeri è usata da diversi autori:
Tadeusz Swietochowski. Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0521522455
«At the beginning of the 19th century, the southern region of Armenia were gradually seized by Tsarist Russians who sought to control the former Persian khanates Erivan and Karabakh»
^Firouzeh Mostashari. On the religious frontier: Tsarist Russia and Islam in the Caucasus. I.B. Tauris; New York, 2006. ISBN 1-85043-771-8.
The Caucasian Campaigns and the Azerbaijani Khanates The success of the Russian campaigns in annexing the Transcaucasian territories was not solely due to the resolve of the generals and their troops, or even their superiority over the Persian military. The independent khanates, themselves, were disintegrating from within, helplessly weakening one another with their internal rivalries.
^Alexander Murinson. Turkey’s Entente with Israel and Azerbaijan. Routledge, 2009. p. 2.
The core territory of modern-day Azerbaijan, i.e. Shirvan, Quba and other Azeri Khanates in the Caucasus, served historically as place of refuge for Persian and later Russian Jews.
«In a series of wars with Persia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Russia gained the Azeri khanates north of the Araks River, which still forms the frontier between Azerbaijan and Iran.»