Melikdoms of Karabakh
The five Armenian Melikdoms of Karabakh: Gulistan, Jraberd, Varanda, Khachen, and Dizak, originated in the Principality of Khachen, an ancient feudal state that existed between the 10th and 18th centuries. These five principalities were ruled by the Beglarian, Israelian, Shahnazarian, Hasan-Jalalian and Avanian families respectively. In 1603 Shah Abbas I recognized their special semi-independent status. Rivalries among the meliks prevented them from becoming a formidable and a unified power against the Muslims but unstable conditions in Persia eventually forced them to forget their squabbles and seek support from Europe and Russia.
In 1678 Catholicos Hakob Jughayetsi (Jacob of Jugha, 1655–1680) called for a secret meeting in Echmiadzin and invited several leading meliks and clergymen. He proposed to head a delegation to Europe. The Catholicos died shortly after and the plan was abandoned. One of the delegates, a young man named Israel Ori, the son of Melik Haikazyan of Zangezur continued on and proceeded to Venice and from there to France. Israel Ori died in 1711 without seeing the liberation of the Armenian lands. In the second half of the eighteenth century melik Shahnazar of Varanda allied himself with Panah Khan Javanshir, the chieftain of a Turkic tribe, against other Armenian meliks which led to the downfall of the autonomous Armenian melikdoms of Karabakh.
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