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Kovno Governorate[a] was an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Kovno (Kaunas). It was formed on 18 December 1842 by Tsar Nicholas I from the western part of Vilna Governorate, and the order was carried out on 1 July 1843. It was part of the Vilna Governorate-General and Northwestern Krai.
This is a list of governorates of the Russian Empire (Russian: губерния, pre-1918: губернія, romanized: guberniya) established between the administrative reform of 1708 and the establishment of the Kholm Governorate in 1912 (inclusive).
- Background: Russo-Georgian Relations Before 1801
- The Russian Annexations
- Early Years of Russian Rule
- Cultural and Political Movements
- Later Russian Rule
- Sources
By the 15th century, the Christian Kingdom of Georgia had become fractured into a series of smaller states which were fought over by the two great Muslim empires in the region, Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia. The Peace of Amasya of 1555 formally divided the lands of the south Caucasus into separate Ottoman and Persian spheres of influence. The G...
Eastern Georgia
In spite of Russia's failure to honour the terms of the Treaty of Georgievsk, Georgian rulers felt they had nowhere else to turn. The Persians had sacked and burned Tbilisi, leaving 20,000 dead. Agha Mohammad Khan, however, was assassinated in 1797 in Shusha, after which the Iranian grip over Georgia softened. Heraclius died the following year, leaving the throne to his sickly and ineffectual son Giorgi XII. After Giorgi's death on 28 December 1800, the kingdom was torn between the claims of...
Western Georgia
Solomon II of Imereti was angry at the Russian annexation of Kartli-Kakheti. He offered a compromise: he would make Imereti a Russian protectorate if the monarchy and autonomy of his neighbour was restored. Russia made no reply. In 1803, the ruler of Mingrelia, a region belonging to Imereti, rebelled against Solomon and acknowledged Russia as his protector instead. When Solomon refused to make Imereti a Russian protectorate too, the Russian general Tsitsianov invaded and on 25 April 1804, Sol...
Integration into the empire
During the first decades of Russian rule, Georgia was placed under military governorship. The land was at the frontline of Russia's war against Turkey and Persia and the commander-in-chief of the Russian army of the region was also the governor. Russia gradually expanded its territory in Transcaucasia at the expense of its rivals, taking large areas of land in the rest of the region, comprising all of modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan from Qajar Persia through the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828...
Georgian society
When Russian rule began in the early 19th century Georgia was still ruled by royal families of the various Georgian states, but these were then deposed by the Russians and sent into internal exile elsewhere in the empire. Beneath them were the nobles, who constituted about 5 per cent of the population and protected their power and privileges. They owned most of the land, which was worked by their serfs. Peasants made up the bulk of Georgian society. The rural economy had become seriously depr...
Emancipation of the serfs
Serfdom was a problem not just in Georgia but throughout most of the Russian Empire. By the mid-19th century the issue of freeing the serfs had become impossible to ignore any longer if Russia was to be reformed and modernised. In 1861, Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia proper. The tsar also wanted to emancipate the serfs of Georgia, but without losing the recently earned loyalty of the nobility whose power and income depended on serf labour. This called for delicate negotiations...
Incorporation into the Russian Empire changed Georgia's orientation away from the Middle East and towards Europe as members of the intelligentsiabegan to read about new ideas from the West. At the same time, Georgia shared many social problems with the rest of Russia, and the Russian political movements that emerged in the 19th century looked to al...
Increasing tensions
In 1881, the reforming Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by Russian populists in Saint Petersburg. His successor Alexander III was much more autocratic and frowned on any expression of national independence as a threat to his empire. In an effort to introduce more central control, he abolished the Caucasus Viceroyalty, reducing Georgia's status to that of any other Russian province. Study of the Georgian language was discouraged and the very name "Georgia" (Russian: Грузия, Georgian: საქართვ...
The revolution of 1905
The 1890s and early 1900s were marked by frequent strikes throughout Georgia. The peasants, too, were still discontented, and the Social Democrats won peasants and urban workers over to their cause. At this stage, the Georgian Social Democrats still saw themselves as part of an all-Russian political movement. However, at the Second Congress of the all-Russian Social Democratic Party held in Belgium in 1903, the party split into two irreconcilable groups: the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. By...
World War I and independence
Russia entered World War Iagainst Germany in August 1914. The war aroused little enthusiasm from the people in Georgia, who did not see much to be gained from the conflict, although 200,000 Georgians were mobilised to fight in the army. When Turkey joined the war on Germany's side in November, Georgia found itself on the frontline. Most Georgian politicians remained neutral, though pro-German feeling and the sense that independence was within reach began to grow among the population. In 1917,...
Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994). The Making of the Georgian Nation (2nd ed.). Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-20915-3.Nana Bolashvili, Andreas Dittmann, Lorenz King, Vazha Neidze (eds.): National Atlas of Georgia, 138 pages, Steiner Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-515-12057-9Anchabadze, George: History of Georgia: A Short Sketch, Tbilisi, 2005, ISBN 99928-71-59-8Territory of modern Lithuania was divided between 3 governorates, named after their corresponding principal cities: Kovno/Kowno (Kaunas) governorate, Vilna/Vilno/Wilno (Vilnius) governorate and Suvalki/Suwalki governorate.
Jul 11, 2023 · Guide to Kovna (Kaunas) Gubernia, Russian Empire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, and tax records.
A December 18, 1842 Royal Edict reorganized the northwestern Russian Empire and created the Kovno Guberniya. That reorganization effected the Vilna and Grodno gubernii. The northern uezds of Vilna Guberniya (Novoaleksandrovsk, Rassein, Telshi, Shavli, Upita, Vilkomir, and part of Kovno) became a new guberniya called Kovno.
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Kovno Governorate (Russian: Ковенская губеpния, tr. Kovenskaya guberniya; Lithuanian: Kauno gubernija) or Governorate of Kaunas was a governorate of the Russian Empire. Its capital was Kaunas (Kovno in Russian).
