Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic
자캅카스 민주연방공화국
A federal state of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan proclaimed by the Transcaucasian Seim in Tbilisi on 22 April 1918 that lasted until 28 May. It was created so that the region could negotiate peace with the invading Ottoman Empire as an independent state, but the diverging goals of its three main ethnic groups broke it up after about a month: Georgia declared independence on 26 May, followed by Armenia and Azerbaijan on 28 May.
In depth
Refusing to follow the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution, Transcaucasia set up the Transcaucasian Commissariat under Evgeni Gegechkori in November 1917 and opened a legislature, the Seim, in Tbilisi on 23 February 1918. The Seim was formed without a new election from the results of the Russian Constituent Assembly election, with the threshold lowered to one third, and was chaired by Nikolay Chkheidze. The Georgian Mensheviks and the Musavat each held 30 seats and the Dashnaks 27, while the Bolsheviks boycotted it. When the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ceded Ardahan, Batumi and Kars to the Ottoman Empire, the Seim refused to recognise it, but at the Trabzon peace conference the Ottoman delegates would negotiate only if Transcaucasia declared independence. The Seim declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 14 April, the day Batumi fell, and on 22 April, on a motion by Davit Oniashvili, proclaimed an independent democratic federative republic, accepting the terms of Brest-Litovsk and surrendering Kars. The Ottoman Empire recognised the new state on 28 April.
On 26 April the Seim confirmed a thirteen-member cabinet with Akaki Chkhenkeli as prime minister and foreign minister. At the Batumi conference on 11 May, however, the Ottoman delegate Halil Bey declared that Brest-Litovsk no longer applied and demanded Akhalkalaki, Akhaltsikhe, Surmalu and large parts of Alexandropol, Yerevan and Etchmiadzin as well, and on 21 May Ottoman forces resumed their advance into Armenia. With the Armenians fighting the Ottomans and the Azerbaijanis preoccupied with the Bolsheviks in Baku, the Georgian leadership sought German help through Noe Zhordania. On 26 May, after Irakli Tsereteli told the Seim that the federation had failed, it voted to dissolve itself and Georgia proclaimed its independence; Armenia and Azerbaijan followed two days later. The historian Richard G. Hovannisian judged that the state “was not independent, democratic, federative, or a republic”, and the three countries were later forcibly reunited as the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of 1922–1936.