called. The other critical report was submitted to Alexander in 1806 by
Collegiate Assessor Lofitsskii, secretary of the Executive Expedition
(administration) of the civilian government of Georgia. General Gudo-
vich informed St. Petersburg that the Lofitsskii report was highly inac-
curate and that its author was a conceited troublemaker. Lofitsskii's re-
liability might be challenged on the grounds that Tsitsianov reprimand-
ed him for supposedly keeping sloppy and deliberately falsified records
to cover up for Kovalenskii's transgressions. However, Tsitsianov did not
think Lofitsskii guilty enough to be dismissed along with others who
had served under Kovalenskii.^25 Despite the attempts by Prince Roman
and Lofitsskii to bring about a reevaluation of Tsitsianov's career, there
were no official inquiries as there were in the cases of the Kovalenskii-
Knorring administration or the conquest of Qarabagh in 1806.
St. Petersburg did not express any preferences about the order or
the rate at which the east Caucasian khanates were to be added to the
Russian Empire. There also were no instructions about the form the
administration of these newly acquired territories should take, except
in the general sense that Alexander had no objection to allowing co-
operative khans to stay in office as his vassals. Therefore, Tsitsianov
was the one who planned the acquisition of the khanates. Perhaps
planned is too strong a word since, except for Ganjeh and Yerevan
(his first two targets) and Derbent-Qobbeh (which was geographically
remote from his base of operations), he tried to take everything at
once, relying on intimidation to bring the khans into line. When he
encountered more resistance than he had expected, he responded on
an ad hoc basis to the problems he found in each situation. Except
for his reliance on the threat of force, there was no clear pattern to
the way he dealt with the various khans. He seems to have been deter-
mined to oust the khans of Ganjeh and Derbent-Qobbeh (and probably
Yerevan, had he conquered it), but he was willing to leave in office
other khans who met his apparent criteria for ouster—active involve-
ment in anti-Russian activity (the khan of Shirvan) or control of a
strategic location (the khan of Baku). He used exorbitant tribute de-
mands to provoke a fight in some cases and then chose not to force a
confrontation (as in Qarabagh). When local conditions provided the
right opportunities, he tried to obtain the submission of khans or
would-be khans by intervening in policial rivalries. After his death,
the remaining khanates were added to the Russian Empire by force,
partly because anger over Tsitsianov's death hardened the Russian
officers' attitude toward Caucasian Muslims and partly because those
khans who had not yet submitted had rejected previous Russian ef-
forts to compel them to do so.
80 Russia's Conquest of the Eastern Caucasus