30 Russian Expansion under Catherine the Great
Christians earnestly desired to be ruled by Russia. When in the 1780s
Russia had the opportunity to negotiate an agreement with a Zand
pretender who controlled much of central Iran, Erekle's advice led
the Russians to ask for the cession of the northwestern and Caspian
provinces as a condition for supporting the pretender's claims else-
where. Erekle also used his role as adviser to direct personal advan-
tage, as when he convinced Russian authorities to support his claim
of suzerainty over the neighboring khanates of Yerevan and Ganjeh.
In this case, his success proved disadvantageous for Russia because
it increased the reluctance of several khans to cooperate with that
country.
The Russians' concern over the well-being of their fellow Christians
in the eastern Caucasus played an important but extremely limited
role in shaping St. Petersburg's policy toward that region. Caucasian
Christians provided information about an unfamiliar area, and the
Russians hoped to use Georgians and especially Armenians, with
their legendary commercial prowess, to increase Russia's trade with
Iran and India. However, in the implementation of the policy, Russia
acted for motives based on its own interests and only coincidentally
on those of the Caucasian Christians. Catherine did not make the
takeover of the eastern Caucasus a high priority until 1795, when
Aqa Mohammad's attack on that region cast doubt on the value of
the protection Russia had guaranteed Georgia by treaty in 1783. When
the tsaritsa sent an army to take control of the region, she proclaimed
herself the liberator of Muslims as well as Christians. She intended
leave in power those Muslim rulers who welcomed the Russian pre-
sence, which she expected to be the overwhelming majority. Even
though the khanate of Qarabagh had a sizable Armenian minority,
Catherine praised its khan and ordered that his position be strength-
ened in light of his determined opposition to the Qajar attack. No
troops were to be sent to Yerevan, despite its religious and historic
importance to Armenians, for fear that such action so near the Otto-
man border would provoke a declaration of war by the Porte. Even
Ganjeh, for all its hostility toward Georgia, was left untouched be-
cause the khan submitted voluntarily. As Valerian Zubov, the com-
mander of the 1796 expedition, remarked to one of his subordinates,
it was necessary "to put off until the proper time" the liberation of
Caucasian Christians.^15
Catherine was not under any pressure to justify her secular, prag-
matic approach toward foreign Christians to the Russian Orthodox
Church because it was politically and spiritually weak at the time.