International relations of Qing China after conquest of Xinjiang – problem of identifying of Yaliwan-guo from «Huang Qing zhigong tu»

The article deals with the possible identification and localization of the “Yaliwan state” mentioned in the text of Qing historical source “Huang Qing zhigong tu” dated by the second half of the 18th century among the tributary states of Qing empire. The hypothesis of the identification of the Yaliwan state with the Erevan Khanate, which existed on the territory of Transcaucasia in the middle of the 18th – early 19th centuries is put forward and founded at the first time in Russian historiography. The reconstruction of the appearance of the inhabitants of this khanate of Armenian nationality was made basing on the text of the Qing source and the image of the inhabitants of the Yaliwan state in national costumes. The assumptions about possible ways of penetration of Armenians into the territory of the Qing empire based on information from historical sources about the trade of Armenian merchants in India and Southeast Asia is made in the article, and also the possible time of the first direct contact between the authorities of the Qing empire and representatives of the Armenian merchants from the Erevan Khanate is suggested in the article. The material revealed on early Armenian-Chinese contacts allows to assert that, despite the inclusion of portraits of the inhabitants of the Erеvan Khanate in the text of such a source as “Huang Qing zhigong tu” (Portraits of Tributaries of the August Qing), it doesn’t evidence the real vassalage of the Erevan Khanate from the Qing Empire, but it only tells about periodic trade contacts between the Qing empire and representatives of the Armenian merchants from the Erevan Khanate, who enjoyed the support of the dynasty of Qajar origin, which ruled in Yerevan at that time.