'' -"?irW:; u-f* g*t"*'-a Lt r*' /,ri o** / GERTRTJDEBELL a]zs jpg(640xa1e) ANIDTHE BABI ANID BAHAI FAITH © Jamileh Yazdi 2017 GertrudeBell Archive - NewcastleUniversity Library - List photosin album Page 1 © Jamileh Yazdi 2017 http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uVphotos in-album.php?album-i d=17 &statI=220 141051201210:54:52AM INDEX CHAPTER 1 QAJAR PERSIA CHAPTER2 TEHRAN.L89Z CHAPTER3 " He knows...allabout Babis" CHAPTER4 PALESTINE1899-1900 CHAPTER 5 II{IFA CF{APTER6 "EX OR[ENTE" CHAPTER 7 RELIGION CHAPTER 8 WORD WAR I AND BAGHDAD CHAPTER9 'THE MOST GREAT HOUSE' CHAPTER 10 REQUIEM © Jamileh Yazdi 2017 Chapter 1 QAJAR PERSIA On 9 December, 1828, Alexander Griboyedov, the newly-appointed Russian Minister to the court of Fath-Ali Shah, the Qajar monarch of Persia1 , set out on a fateful journey from Tabriz for Tehran, to present his credentials to the Shah. Griboyedov was just 34. Married three months earlier to the 16-year old Princess Nina Chavchavadze, daughter of Prince Chavchavadze, the Russian commander of the provinces of Erivan and Nakhichevan, Griboyedov’s advancement as a diplomat had been rapid. An aristocrat and literary figure, whose satirical play “Woe from Wit”2 had placed him in the forefront of contemporary Russian literary circles, Griboyedov had, in 1818, spent two years in Tabriz, the diplomatic capital of Persia,3 as an attache to the first permanent Russian mission to Persia at the court of Prince Abbas, the Shah’s eldest son. The mission’s task was to promote Russian interests, counter-acting British influence and settling some of the issues left undecided by the Treaty of Gulestan.4 A 10-year war with Russia beginning in 1804 had concluded with the occupation of most of Transcaucasia (Southern Caucasus) by occupying Russian forces. Persia had been forced by the Treaty of Gulestan to cede its vassal khanates north of the Aras river, except Erivan and Nakhjevan, and to give up all claims to Georgia, which Russia had annexed in 1801. From his posting in Tabriz, Griboyedov had been transferred to Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, as diplomatic secretary to General Yermolov, the Governor of Georgia and the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian forces in the newly conquered territories in the Caucasus. Yermolov, like his predecessor before him, followed a harsh policy of subduing by force the local populations who resisted Russian rule: ‘I desire that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than any fortress’5 he asserted. His uncompromising attitude, which reflected the general policy of Russia towards its Eastern conquests, caused great resentment.6 Inevitably, this resentment had acquired a religious dimension leading to revolts and uprisings in the name of jihad. 7 In 1826, Crown Prince Abbas, who effectively conducted Persia’s foreign policy,8 driven by Yermolov’s intransigency over ceding disputed border areas and urged on by a pro- war faction,9 resumed Persia’s fight with Russia. This war, known as the second Russo-Persian war, was to last only 15 months.10 Yermolov who proved surprisingly ineffective in responding to the attack by the Crown Prince,11 was replaced by the Tsar with his own favourite, General Paskievich, a cousin by marriage of Griboyedov. Laurence Kelly, a biographer of Griboyedov, describes the effect of bringing in Paskievich: The departure of Yermolov meant that a whole range of his hard-line policies could be reversed. Peaceful intervention and respect for Muslim laws and institutions could replace his tactics of scorched earth and terror: local potentates could be wooed into becoming allies rather than beaten into submission.12 Griboyedov, with his knowledge of local conditions and local languages was constantly at the General’s side: ‘What he says becomes holy writ’ one of his friends wrote of him.13 © Jamileh Yazdi 2017 Paskievich, through a combination of military force and strategic negotiations with local leaders, advanced into Erivan and Nakhjevan, and eventually overran Tabriz, the Crown Prince’s capital. The Crown Prince was forced to negotiate an armistice. The final result was the Treaty of Turkmenchai which required Persia to cede Nakhjevan (present day Nakhjevan Autonomous republic of Azerbaijan) and Erivan (most of present day Armenia) to Russia. Russia won the exclusive right to navigate the Caspian, and reparations of 20 Million roubles (ten kurors) were exacted.14 A commercial protocol to the treaty permitted Russia to set up consulates, and Russians merchants to trade freely in Persia. A capitulatory regime was put in place.15 Griboyedov played an active role in the negotiations over the treaty and was responsible for drafting its terms. After it had been signed, Griboyedov was deputed to bring the Treaty back to St. Petersburg for ratification by the Tsar. He was welcomed as a hero. Nesselrode, the Tsar’s foreign minister, wrote to Paskievich in Tiflis, praising ‘the scrupulous exactitude’ of the treaty, and averring that ‘this young man will be invaluable in our future relations with Persia.’16 The ‘ young man’ was, in fact, appointed the new Minister Plenipotentiary to the Persian Court, with responsibility for restoring Russian diplomatic relations with Persia and enforcing the terms of the Treaty. He accepted the post with some misgivings: ‘There was nothing for it, to turn this down after so many imperial favours would have appeared as the blackest ingratitude. I can foresee I shall not return alive from Persia’ he wrote to a friend. And later he confided in the same friend that the Persians now considered him their enemy.17 Assembling the members of his new mission he set off from St. Petersburg in June 1928. He stopped long enough in Tiflis to marry Nina Chavchavadze, and by September he was on his way to Tabriz with his new bride, accompanied by a Cossack guard and 110 pack horses.18 In Tabriz, he delayed, insisting upon full payment of the balance of the indemnity owing under the Treaty.19 By December, he was ready to proceed to Tehran to present his credentials. He did not expect to be gone long, and Nina, now pregnant, remained behind in Tabriz in the care of Sir John Macdonald the head of the British mission at Tabriz, and his wife. He set out for Tehran on December 20-21.20 Other accounts set the date as Dec. 9, 1828.21 This discrepancy is probably due to difficulties in converting into the Gregorian calendar the Persian dates appearing in a key eye-witness account of the events that ensued - that of the scribe to the Mehmandar22 appointed by Abbas Mirza to accompany the mission on its journey to Tehran (‘the Persian account’). The Persian account - the ‘Narrative of the proceedings of the Russian mission from its departure from Tabreez on 14th Jummade until its Destruction on Wednesday the 6th of Sha’ban’ was published in 1830 in Blackwood’s Magazine.23 In the Persian account, the scribe reports that Griboyedov, on the journey from Tabriz to Tehran, did not subject the servants of the mission to sufficient discipline, and that they were ‘unruly and disorderly...especially the Georgians and Armenians, whose conduct gave rise to many complaints from my countrymen.’24 Their headman, a Georgian called Rustem-Bek, extorted supplies and money from the villages along the route, and Griboyedov, himself, earned the nickname ‘Sakht-Tir’, which he translated as ‘un coeur dur’ in seeking out slaves who could claim their freedom and the right to repatriation in Russian territory under the terms of the Treaty. Griboyedov wrote to his wife ‘The Prisoners [he meant the candidates for repatriation] have driven me mad. Some will not give themselves up, others will not return of their own desire. ‘25 By mid-January he arrived in Tehran.26 Kelly, drawing from Russian author, Iurri Tynianov,27 says that Griboyedov entered Tehran during the annual commemoration of the © Jamileh Yazdi 2017 martyrdom of the holy Imam Husayn, killed by the army of Yazid, the 2nd Caliph. In the procession of mourning, Yazid is represented mounted on a coal black stallion. Griboyedov too was mounted on a black stallion and ‘greeted by ominous cries of ‘Ya Hasan! Ya Husayn!’‘28 His first audience with the Shah seemed to go well - though, the scribe of the Persian account says he lingered too long: ‘it was indeed whispered that M. Grebayedoff remained too long seated in the presence, in the chair placed for his accommodation. The Shah had on his crown and was arrayed in his finest jewelry; their weight was so oppressive, that after the envoy retired, his majesty was obliged speedily to cast off these ensigns of royalty’29 The second audience was, according to the Persian account, more problematic. Greboyedov delivered a ratified copy of the Treaty to the Shah, and there may have been some discussion about the harshness of its terms.30 Griboyedov may not have been sufficiently respectful ‘...the envoy’s prolonged use of the chair was again noticed’ and again appears to have overstayed his welcome, and the Shah had to pointedly tell him that he could absent himself: ‘...the word ‘Murrakhas’ (depart), used toward the envoy by the Shah when his Majesty considered the audience had been of sufficient duration gave deep offence.’31 However, the reports of First Secretary Maltsev, the sole survivor of the Russian mission, to General Paskievich32 (‘the Russian account’) make no mention of ill feeling until the eve of Griboyedov’s departure, when the Shah’s chief eunuch, Mirza Yaq’ub [Jacob] Makarian, an Armenian, came to the Russian legation and claimed sanctuary and the right to repatriation to his native Erivan under the terms of the Treaty.