Frontier Governance and Regional Power in the South Caucasus: The Cıldır Eyalet in Ottoman Caucasian Policy during the Eighteenth Century

Nugzar Zosidze

Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University

Batumi, Georgia

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2613-3365

Fridon Davitadze

Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University

Batumi, Georgia

https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7026-3603

ABSTRACT

This article examines the place and role of the Childir vilayet (pashalik) in the Caucasian policy of the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century. The aim of the study is to determine the functions performed by the Childir vilayet in the exercise of Ottoman political, military, and administrative influence, and the governance mechanisms through which the empire ensured control over the borderland and the preservation of regional stability. The research is grounded in historical-comparative, source-critical, and analytical methods, and draws upon Georgian, Ottoman, Russian, and Western historiography. Particular attention is devoted to the geopolitical significance of the South Caucasus, the administrative organization of the Childir vilayet, its fiscal and military-economic mechanisms, as well as the practice of cooperation with local ruling dynasties — the Khimshiashvilis, the Jaqelis, and the Abashidzes. The study demonstrates that the effectiveness of Ottoman rule in the region rested not solely on centralized administration, but was determined to a significant degree by the combination of military security, fiscal resources, administrative flexibility, and cooperation with holders of local power. In conclusion, it is shown that the Eyalet of Childir constituted a distinctive institutional model of Ottoman frontier governance, one that played a significant role in the political development of southwestern Georgia and the South Caucasus as a whole during the eighteenth century, and laid the foundation for the region's subsequent historical transformation.