The Batum oblast[a] was a province (oblast) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with the Black Sea port of Batum (present-day Batumi) as its administrative center. The Batum oblast roughly corresponded to the present-day Adjara autonomous region of Georgia, and most of the Artvin Province of Turkey.[1]
The Batum oblast was created out of the territories of the Ottoman Empire's sanjak of Batum following the region's annexation into the Russian Empire in the aftermath of the 1878 Russo-Turkish War. Established in 1878, the Batum Oblast was later downgraded to an okrug in 1883 and incorporated into the Kutais Governorate (until 1903).
According to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Russian SFSR ceded the Batum Oblast to the Ottoman Empire, however, the Transcaucasian Seim, the authority in Transcaucasia by 1918, rejected the treaty, opting to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire on its own terms. Such action led to the former's dissolution and the subsequent Treaty of Batum, which resulted in the inevitable reannexation of Batum to the Ottoman Empire.
After the Mudros Armistice, in which the Ottoman Empire was forced to withdraw its troops from the territories of the former Russian Transcaucasus including Batum, British troops under the 27th Division occupied the district to support the British military presence in the Transcaucasus, and to serve as a terminal for supplying Denikin's Volunteer Army.
The Batum Oblast was finally evacuated by the British in the summer of 1920, and handed over to the Democratic Republic of Georgia, whom administered the district until it was occupied by Turkish revolutionaries, leading to the Treaty of Kars which resulted in the partition of the district. The north including the port of Batum was retained by Georgia as an autonomy, and the southern Artvin district was incorporated into Turkey as the Artvin Province.
The districts (okrugs) of the Batum oblast in 1917 were as follows:[2][3]
According to the Russian Empire Census, the Batum oblast (at the time part of the Kutaisi Governorate) had a population of 144,584 on 28 January [O.S. 15 January] 1897, including 82,213 men and 62,371 women. The plurality of the population indicated Georgian to be their mother tongue, with significant Turkish, Armenian and Russian speaking minorities.[2]
According to the 1917 publication of Kavkazskiy kalendar, the Batum oblast had a population of 122,811 on 14 January [O.S. 1 January] 1916, including 66,808 men and 56,003 women, 95,292 of whom were the permanent population, and 27,519 were temporary residents:[3]