Мelik , from ملك malik ) was a hereditary Armenian noble title, in various Eastern Armenian principalities known as melikdoms encompassing modern Yerevan, Kars, Nakhichevan, Sevan, Lori, Artsakh, Northwestern Persia and Syunik starting from the Late Middle Ages until the end of the nineteenth century. After the invasions of the Seljuk Turks, Mongols, Timurlenk and Turkmen tribes these families saw themselves as holding onto the last bastion of Armenian independence in the region. The realm of the meliks was almost always semi-independent and often fully independent, they had their own court, known as a darbas, army, castles and military fortifications known as sghnakh, carried out justice in the form of trials and collected tax. The relationship between meliks and their subordinates was that of a military commanding general and junior officers, and not of feudal lord and a serfs. Peasants were not allowed to own land, but otherwise were free and owned property. Meliks preserved their rights and privileges after Eastern Armenia became part of the Russian Empire, many of them, especially meliks from Karabakh became Russian generals.
Melikdoms of Karabakh
The five Armenian Melikdoms of Karabakh: Gulistan, Jraberd, Varanda, Khachen, and Dizak, originated in the Principality of Khachen, an ancient feudal state that existed between the 10th and 18th centuries. These five principalities were ruled by the Beglarian, Israelian, Shahnazarian, Hasan-Jalalian, Avanian, Allahverdian and Atabekian families respectively. In 1603 Shah Abbas I recognized their special semi-independent status. Rivalries among the meliks prevented them from becoming a formidable and a unified power against the Muslims but unstable conditions in Persia eventually forced them to forget their squabbles and seek support from Europe and Russia. In 1678 Catholicos Hakob Jughayetsi called for a secret meeting in Echmiadzin and invited several leading meliks and clergymen. He proposed to head a delegation to Europe. The Catholicos died shortly after and the plan was abandoned. One of the delegates, a young man named Israel Ori, the son of Melik Haikazyan of Zangezur continued on and proceeded to Venice and from there to France. Israel Ori died in 1711 without seeing the liberation of the Armenian lands. In the second half of the eighteenth century melik Shahnazar of Varanda allied himself with Panah Khan Javanshir, the chieftain of a Turkic tribe, against other Armenian meliks which led to the downfall of the autonomous Armenian melikdoms of Karabakh.
Altogether, there were between 70 and 90 melikly houses in Eastern Armenia, mostly in the provinces of Artsakh, Gardman, Syuniq, Lori, Yerevan, Nakhichevan, and Karadagh. Below is the incomplete list of some of the most prominent Armenian melik houses:
