Russia and Iran in the Great Game: Travelogues and Orientalism

Russia and Iran in the Great Game

Russia and Iran in the Great Game: travelogues and Orientalism is the first book to analyze 200 Russian travelogues about Iran published in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that open a unique window onto the history of Qajar Iran (1797–1925). With minor exceptions, these travelogues were mainly written in Russian and have remained largely unexamined by Russian, Western and Iranian scholars. As such, they serve as a valuable source on the history of Qajar Iran that until recently has been understudied and misunderstood. The travelogues offer rich information on the various aspects of Iranian life including descriptions of cities and houses, everyday life and the customs of different social and religious groups and tribes, family relations and the position of women, and Shi’i Islam and its rituals. They contain vividly told and often humorous stories and anecdotes, as well as maps, drawings and photographs. Most travelogues were written by Russian military officers and diplomats who were active players in the “Great Game” – the struggle between Russia and Britain for dominance in the East. That makes this study a unique reference on the Great Game that so far has been mainly analyzed from a British perspective. While primarily aimed at academics specializing in colonialism, Islam and Orientalism and the history of Iran, Russia and the Middle East, Russia and Iran in the Great Game will prove of great interest to a diverse readership who want to delve deeper into the history and religion of contemporary actors in that part of the world. Elena Andreeva is Associate Professor of History at Virginia Military Institute, where she teaches Middle Eastern Studies and World History. She has published articles on Persian and Dari literature, on Russia Orientalism, and on Russian travelers to Iran.

Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History

1

The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947 Gideon Biger

2

The Survey of Palestine under the British Mandate, 1920–1948 Dov Gavish

3

British Pro-Consuls in Egypt, 1914–1929 C.W.R. Long

4

Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey Who is a Turk? Soner Cagaptay

5

Mamluks and Ottomans Studies in honour of Michael Winter Edited by David J. Wasserstein and Ami Ayalon

6

Afghanistan Political frailty and external interference Nabi Misdaq

7

The Pasha’s Bedouin Tribes and state in Egypt of Mehemet Ali 1805–1848 Reuven Aharoni

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Russia and Iran in the Great Game Travelogues and Orientalism Elena Andreeva

Russia and Iran in the Great Game Travelogues and Orientalism Elena Andreeva

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Elena Andreeva This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Andreeva, Elena, 1963– Russia and Iran in the great game : travelogues and orientalism / Elena Andreeva. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Iran—Description and travel. 2. Travelers’ writings, Russian—History and criticism. 3. Iran—History—Qajar dynasty, 1794–1925. 4. Russians—Travel— Iran. 5. Travel writing—History. I. Title. DS255.5.A53 2007 955′.04—dc22 2006034331 ISBN 0–203–96220–6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-77153-6 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-96220-6 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-77153-5 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-96220-6 (ebk)

To my parents and my friend Mark

Contents

List of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Introduction

ix xi xiii 1

1 Setting the stage

13

2 Orientalism Russian style The concept of Orientalism: Western European version 23 Russian national identity and Russian Orientalism 24

22

3 Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors Pre-nineteenth-century Russian travelogues about Iran 37 The main features of the Russian travelogues about Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 40 The authors of the travelogues 44

36

4 The travelers’ missions in Iran Russian military aims and activities in Iran 59 Russian diplomacy in Iran 69 Russian emigrants in Iran 72 Russian trade in Iran 74

59

5 The travelers’ self-representation vis-à-vis the Oriental “Other” and the British “Self” 6 The “travelees” – representation of Iran and her people by the Russian travelers “Power of the gaze” 89 The “travelees”: manners and morals 97

77

88

viii

Contents

7 The “travelees” – education, culture and society The Iranian army 112 Lack of education 114 Iranian medicine 116 Iranian arts and architecture 118 Iran as “a Country of Ruins” 126

111

8 Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers Mullahs, dervishes and sayyeds 134 Shi”i and Sunni Muslims 141 Iranians and “infidels” 142 Muslim customs and rituals 148

131

9 Gender and ethnicity Iranian women and prosaic harems 156 The travelers’ religious and ethnic preferences 172

156

10 Travelers and travelees: Russians through Iranian eyes as imagined by the travelers (discourse with themselves) “Anti-Romanticism” 194

185

Conclusion

199

Appendix 1 Iran before World War I Appendix 2 Travelogues Notes Bibliography Index

202 203 209 247 269

List of illustrations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

View of Tehran At the top of Demavand General-Lieutenant Fedor Bartolomei Il’ia Nikolaevich Berezin Dr. A.V. Eliseev General Aleksei Ermolov Aleksandr Griboedov An aristocratic Persian Persians performing bloodletting Persian musicians A dervish Sayyed (descendant of Muhammad) A caravan of khajis A Persian woman in home costume

16 17 45 46 47 48 51 109 117 119 135 136 137 157

Preface

From Herodotus to Lawrence Durrell and Paul Theroux, travelogues have been popular since antiquity. Among literary forms, their attraction lies in providing the curious mind with both useful information and entertainment. The reader can follow the development of the plot, which is often dramatic, and at the same time learn about mysterious and attractive realms and their inhabitants – without having to undergo the rigors of an actual journey. Using their imaginations, readers of travelogues could wander around the world and take part in discoveries and adventures from the pleasant and familiar surroundings of home. In addition, travel writing opened up the world to those who could not afford to make an actual trip. Written by eyewitnesses, travelogues present compelling accounts of historical events and people’s everyday lives. There is a strong personal dimension to this work. My knowledge of and love for Iran, its people and culture, stimulated my interest in the accounts written about them by my countrymen – Russian travelers to Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – and their reactions to what they observed and experienced there. The results of my research exceeded my most optimistic expectations: I discovered more than 200 Russian travelogues that contained information about Iran and Iranians and the relations between Iran and Russia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When I started working on this project I expected that it would be limited to extracting and presenting information about Iran. However, my study of the travelogues added an unexpected dimension to the work. In addition to dealing with Iran, I found myself engaged in the study of Russian colonial and intellectual history. I realized that in order to understand the “travelees” I had to understand the travelers first. That quest led me to an exploration of the Russian soul, divided as it is between two opposing worlds – East and West. Comprehending the painful split in the Russian national identity enhanced my understanding of how Russians in the nineteenth century viewed the world around them, including their southern neighbor Iran, and how their views shaped the information presented in their accounts.

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Being Russian and having grown up in the “East-West” syndrome of the Soviet era further motivated my search for Russian self-identity as understood by my compatriots in pre-Soviet times. My discovery of the substantial body of Russian travelogues about Iran gave me an opportunity to investigate some of the significant ways in which my fellow countrymen dealt with this dilemma in the context of their European (or quasi-European) “Self ” juxtaposed against the Oriental “Other”. While working on this theme, I have tried to maintain a critical perspective and to detach my own experience from that of these travelers from the past. Like the travelogues themselves, which make both useful and pleasant reading, I hope this work will be, as Iranians say, “ham fal ham tamasha” – both useful and fun.

Acknowledgements

During the years when I was working on my doctoral dissertation and then on turning it into a book many people and institutions helped me. First, my grateful thanks are due to Peter Chelkowski for his wise advice, kind support and encouragement: I would have been able neither to write this book nor survive the rigors of academic life without his help. I am deeply indebted to Patia Yasin and Mehdi Khorrami for their careful reading of the manuscript and the valuable suggestions they made, as well as for their friendship and unlimited patience. Our long discussions about different aspects of the work were more important to me than they might think. I am grateful to Frank Peters for his important comments on the dissertation and my thanks go to Robert Geraci for his detailed comments and positive criticism of the second chapter. The New York University Department of Middle Eastern Studies generously supported my dissertation work and two Virginia Military Institute summer grants enabled me to complete my research and prepare the manuscript for publication. I would like to express my gratitude to the dedicated staff of the many libraries where I worked, especially the Slavic and Baltic division of the New York Public Library, the Tehran Public Library and the Russian State Library in Moscow. I want to pay heartfelt tribute to all my colleagues, friends and especially my parents whose moral support and unconditional loyalty made it possible for me to finish this work. I shall never forget the enthusiasm and understanding of Noel and Fulton Oursler who dedicated long hours to reading and discussing the manuscript in its different stages; they helped me to better understand my subject and to make it more presentable to a general audience. Finally, Mark Woodcock’s editorial support and good humor in the face of many apparently hopeless situations helped me transform my doctoral dissertation into a book and get it ready for publication.

Introduction 1

Introduction

The primary goal of this work is to introduce Russian travelogues about Iran written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a new and untapped source of information about the history of Iran during this period. The travelogues also provide data on related topics, such as the history of Russian and British colonialism in Iran. A corollary of this research is to explain why the travelogues are biased against Iranians and how their biases distort the material presented. This research is based on more than 200 books and articles, published by Russians who went to Iran during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are now found in the libraries of Russia, Iran and the United States. In all, more than 120 Russian travelers visited Iran during this period and published their accounts, with a number of people publishing more than one work. The book examines travelogues produced until the year 1917, when the Bolshevik Revolution put an end to Russian colonial politics, along with the Russian Empire itself. Travelogues written during the Soviet period would reflect a politics and ideology completely different from those presented in this work. With very few exceptions, the travelogues were written in Russian and have not been translated into other languages (the extensive quotations in this work are translated by the author). They are mostly unknown to Russian, Western and Iranian scholars. It is surprising how little use has been made of this documentary resource – although difficulties in accessing and translating them certainly contributed to this oversight. The travelogues serve as a valuable source on the history of Iran (called Persia up to 1935) during the rule of the Qajar dynasty (1797– 1925). It is particularly important to collect information on that period because until recently it has not been studied and has been misunderstood. It was considered a relatively dull period of stagnation and weakness hardly worthy of serious study, somewhat reminiscent of the way the Middle Ages, the period between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, was perceived till recently by scholars of European history. The Qajars were indeed dominated by the overwhelming incursions of Russian and British colonialism but they were able to preserve

2

Introduction

the formal independence and integrity of the country (although they lost some territories to Russia). It was also during this period, at the beginning of the twentieth century, that the first Iranian constitution was adopted, the first parliament created, and modernization began. By now, the Qajar period has acquired scholarly recognition – long overdue – as an era in which significant social, political, economic and cultural changes took place. Since this rediscovery of Qajar history has occurred only in the past three or four decades, there are still many gaps to be filled. This work tries to fill one of them by introducing a new unique primary source on the history of Qajar Iran. So far, there have been two main groups of sources available – Persian and British – with the latter including some travelogues. As usually happens with primary sources, however, like the Russian travelogues, they are biased or one-sided. It stands to reason, therefore, that only a combination of different sources can help historians assemble a reasonably complete picture of the past. The main value of the Russian travelogues introduced in this book is that they offer a fresh perspective, even if a prejudiced one, on the history of Qajar Iran. The message delivered by the travelers is unique in the sense that it has been recorded by eyewitnesses to the events and by participants in them. They help to reconstruct the social history of ordinary people as opposed to the history of rulers and heroes – adding Rashomon-like testimonials to the puzzle that is Qajar Iran. The travelogues were written by a somewhat homogeneous group. In spite of a variety of forms, goals and degrees of reliability, they share many common features in the selection of the material and the way it is presented. Therefore, they can be examined as an integral body of information on Iran and its relations with the Russian and British Empires. Some of them are exceptionally well written and contain vivid descriptions, charming details and unique observations, while others are dull and full of self-glorification. For this book, the most representative authors and passages have been selected in order to keep a balance between generic and idiosyncratic features. Most of the travelogues were written in the last quarter of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the next largest category dating back to the 1850s and 1860s. There are just a few accounts produced in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was during the nineteenth century that Russia began losing its prestige and influence in Europe and had to shift the direction of its imperial ambitions to the East. One of its culminating successes there was the defeat of Iran in two wars (in 1801–13 and 1826–28) with subsequent territorial gains. The pacification of the Caucasus was over by the early 1860s and Central Asian territories were being brought under Russian control throughout the second half of the century. By then, Russia had become particularly interested in northern and northeastern Iran and, as a result, many Russians

Introduction 3 were sent there on various government missions. The authors of the travelogues were among them: with one or two exceptions, each traveler was charged with a military or diplomatic task and was supposed to report back. Among the travelers are military officers (who constitute the majority), diplomats and civil servants. Most came from the gentry class of modest or average means. Many were graduates of universities or higher military institutions but only a few had special knowledge of the Middle East or the Persian language. There are also several scholars of the Middle East, scientists and writers among the travelers. Except for the authors of two insignificant accounts, one anonymous, all the authors were men. As a result of all these factors, the travelogues are a generally homogeneous collection of documents that demonstrate little chronological evolution in their authors’ views and attitudes. In most cases, finding information about the lives of the authors was hard or impossible, in particular about those who held no important positions and published one or two insignificant articles. Occasionally, cross-references by other Russian travelers have provided some information on the person in question. The travelogues offer rich information on the various aspects of Iranian life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the realities of everyday life are among the most popular topics. Many travelogues contain vividly told and often humorous stories and anecdotes – one of the hallmarks of the genre – as well as maps, drawings and photographs of cities, views and people, including many images of women in their domestic outfits. Readers learn about family regulations, habits, customs, traditions, rules of etiquette and superstitions. Travelogues include detailed descriptions of cities, such as Tehran, Mashhad and Astarabad, streets, bazaars, poor and rich houses, palaces and shacks. However, a reflex attitude of Western superiority, complicated by the Russians’ unique sense of inferiority vis-à-vis Western Europe, distorts the image of Iran and Iranians. Often in negative or mocking context, the travelers describe the appearance of different groups of people, their clothes and the food they favor. Allegedly low morals and unattractive features of the Iranian character are usually strongly emphasized. Perceived ignorance and lack of education among different social groups, including the rulers and the aristocracy, the backwardness of health care and the absence of true artistic taste in music, dancing, painting and architecture are all presented as signs of the inferiority of the Iranians. Society as a whole and particular individuals are portrayed as corrupt and dishonest in most of the accounts. The issue of Islam occupies a significant position in most of the travelogues. They level conventional Western stereotypes against Islam, accusing Iranians of fanaticism, on one hand, and hypocrisy on the other. The authors are usually uninterested in Muslim theology but are curious about popular Islam, the Muslim family, Shi’i rituals, and Sufism,

4

Introduction

or Islamic mysticism. They attack these aspects passionately while being fascinated by the colorful figures of dervishes and the processions during the holy month of Muharram and the religious passion plays, called ta”ziyeh. However, many travelogues preserved valuable detailed descriptions of the religious observances and traditions, especially of ta”ziyehs. Several authors even translated significant parts of ta”ziyehs and included them in their accounts. Another subject zealously condemned is the position of women in Iran; at the same time, the travelers are secretly and perhaps subconsciously attracted by it. The theme of women is significant, since for the Westerners “Oriental” women stand for the Orient itself, which they want to see as feminine and submissive, weak and irrational, and naturally dominated by Western masculine power. The veil covering Iranian women irritates the authors because it prevents them from controlling these women, and thus, the Orient. The travelogues criticize polygamy and often make unflattering remarks about Iranian women – their lack of education, their seclusion, veiling and harem life. The Shi’i institution of temporary marriage, in which a man can marry as many women as he wants for a short period of time, is vigorously attacked by the scandalized Russian authors, many of whom do not see any difference between that type of “marriage” and prostitution. However, most of the authors blame the men for keeping their women in this state of “ignorance” and reducing them to sex toys. The position of the Iranian woman is viewed in the context of Islam, and Muslim “fanaticism” is blamed for the restrictions that make her life pitiable in the eyes of the travelers. Military officers, in particular, and many of the civilian authors following them pay special attention to the development of the military in Iran. They observed drills and parades, visited arsenals and military camps and reported on the poor conditions of the Shah’s army, and the lack of adequate discipline, training and equipment. Some of them provide enumerations of arms and soldiers, including descriptions of military campaigns, the armories, irregular cavalry, militia, forts, and the foreign officers in the Persian service. The Cossack Brigade, founded by Russian officers in 1879 and left under their command, is one of their favorite topics. Readers learn about the brigade’s evolution, arms, training, uniforms, organization and numbers. One of the travelogues gives a detailed eyewitness account of the events of June 1908, when, led by Colonel Liakhov, the brigade played the decisive role in dissolving the Iranian parliament and putting an end to Iranian Constitutional reforms. Most of the travelers demonstrate clear religious and ethnic preferences. They express a great deal of sympathy in describing such tribes as the Kurds, Turcomans and Baluchis – their “patriarchal” life, fighting abilities, independence and sense of honor. The travelogues describe their powerful tribal leaders and the territories they control, landowning

Introduction 5 patterns and their hostile and tense relations with the Iranian government. Similar consideration is given to religious minorities, such as Zoroastrians, Christians (Armenians) and even Sunni Muslims, dwelling on their pattern of life as distinct from and superior to that of the Shi’i Muslim majority. Siding with the non-Muslim peoples represented a typical colonial reaction to the “threat of Islam” and reflected the actual policy of Russian colonial officers who were trying to secure the support of religious and ethnic minorities against the Shi’i Muslim Persian majority of Iran in order to “divide and rule.” Examples abound of similar colonial practices aimed at supporting dominated peoples against one another – most notoriously the policy of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon after World War I. The destructive consequences of promoting regional, ethnic and religious fragmentation there played a role in the subsequent troubles that have persisted to this day. Fortunately for the Iranians, the Russians did not have enough power in Iran to instigate serious ethnic or religious rifts. As for the travelogue authors, they assume, in a rather naïve way, that the peoples of north, northwestern and northeastern Iran, especially the non-Persians, simply favored Russians and would welcome a takeover by the just Russian emperor who would bring them peace and prosperity. This assumption was based on the weakness of the central Iranian government in some tribal areas of the northeast and northwest, the infamous corruption of local rulers, and on the respect demonstrated by some Persians and non-Persians alike towards the travelers. It is also evident from the travelogues that these expressions of loyalty were made by those who were grateful to the Russians for having rid them of the Turcoman raids. They respected and feared the strength of Russian arms, and had benefited or hoped to benefit from trade or military connections with the Russians. One persistent theme of the travelogue authors is that all the glory of Iran lay in the remote past. At present, as most of them claimed straightforwardly or implied, Iran was weak and backward due to its religious fanaticism, corrupt and ineffective administration, outdated military and low levels of health care, education and culture. These inadequacies made Iran an easy prey for the anticipated Russian advance. Since Iranians could not rule over their country effectively, progress and development were only possible through the assistance of an advanced and benevolent empire such as Russia. This argument made the “civilizing mission” in Iran appear perfectly legitimate and even noble and served as a justification for imperial and colonial domination. The Russian perspective on Iran is significant because of the special role Russia had played there since the time of Peter the Great. In the early eighteenth century, Russia started pursuing aggressive policies against Iran, pushing southward towards the Persian Gulf in a quest for warm-water ports. The areas that Russia annexed or tried to annex from

6

Introduction

Iran were the Caucasus, the Caspian provinces of Iran and its northern and northeastern regions. Georgia was annexed in 1801, and after two wars lost to Russia in the first half of the nineteenth century, Iran was forced to cede most of its Caucasian possessions. If we take into account the current war in Chechnya, the Russian expansion into the former Iranian territory of the Caucasus is by now more than 200 years old. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Iran lost some of its Central Asian lands to Russia, and only the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 stopped Russian colonization and occupation of northern and northeastern Iran. The authors of the travelogues actively participated in the Russian colonial enterprise in Iran and shared this experience with their readers. Russia’s colonial activities and designs in Iran formed a part of what became known as the “Great Game,” or the struggle between Russia and Britain for dominance in the East. A significant episode in the history of colonialism, the Great Game started in the early nineteenth century and intensified in the second half when Russia’s expansion into the Caucasus and Central Asia began to alarm Great Britain. By the second half of the nineteenth century, Russia was falling behind the Western European powers and was less and less able to compete in European politics. So she tried to challenge her rivals in Asia, with Iran becoming one of the targets in this imperial competition. The combined pressure by Russia and Britain on Iran’s politics and economy was overwhelming and virtually impossible to resist, and thus had a major impact on the history of Qajar Iran. The culminating event of the Great Game in Iran took place in 1907 when the Anglo-Russian Convention divided Iran into spheres of influence. According to this agreement, northern and central Iran became the Russian sphere, while southeastern Iran was defined as the British sphere, with the area between these two zones deemed neutral territory. An analysis of the Russian travelogues proves that a de facto division and Russian sphere of influence had existed throughout the nineteenth century and was only confirmed by the Convention of 1907. Indeed, the routes taken by Russian travelers (see Appendix 1, Map) are coextensive with what was to become the Russian sphere of influence. The Great Game has been analyzed so far mainly from the British side, and British travelogues about Iran have played an important role in those efforts. Indeed, travelogue writing can be viewed as an additional terrain of Anglo-Russian competition. In like manner, the Russian travelogues present a unique opportunity to examine the Great Game from the Russian perspective, since most of the travelers were in the imperial military or diplomatic service and therefore were directly implementing Russian colonial policies in Iran. The detailed reports they provided on the military, diplomatic and economic aspects of the Great Game from a Russian perspective include Russian military designs in Iran; the results of military reconnaissance of northern, northeastern

Introduction 7 and northwestern Iran; undercurrents of Russian diplomacy in Iran; Russian colonization in Iran; and the development of Russian trade, including information on trade routes and specific goods, supported by statistical data. The travelers also surveyed tribal and rural areas, and nomadic areas in the north and northeast throughout the area of Russian influence. The Iranian government only nominally controlled many of these areas and the results of the reconnaissance performed by military officers who were drawing up expansionist plans for the region provide unique information about routes, population and water resources. The material is usually put into the framework of the Great Game and often Russian achievements are measured against the corresponding actions of the British. Russian players in the Great Game proudly recorded their role in the “civilizing mission” of Russia in the Orient and denounced their British rivals, since the struggle against Great Britain was perceived by the travelers as an important part of their mission. The direct and open connection of the majority of the travelers with Russian imperial power resulted in their strong support of the monarchy and Russian nationalism, both seen by them as essential ingredients of patriotism. Interestingly, the “civilizing mission” of the empire towards the “inferior” Orientals in general and Iranians in particular appeared to be so important to the travelers that it overshadowed their political views on the domestic development of Russia. In their travelogues about Iran, even those military men, civilian officials and scholars who were supportive of democratic and constitutional movements inside autocratic Russia became outspoken advocates of Russian imperial politics. Censorship perhaps played some role in this overnight regression in their thinking, but their emotionally charged expressions of patriotism are mainly explained by the fact that the “civilizing mission” of the empire and its expansionist imperative were seen as more important to these dutiful observers than the struggle between tsarism and liberalism back home. For these military officers and imperial officials, loyalty to the Motherland trumped domestic political leanings. Usually any contact along the interface between two cultures leads to misunderstanding and misrepresentation on both sides, due to preconceived ideas and prejudices that shape views and reactions. Relations between Russia and Iran cannot be taken outside of the context of the uneasy and countervailing relations between the Western world of Christianity and the Eastern world of Islam. By the nineteenth century, the encounter between the Russians and Iranians was one of inequality defined by the Russian colonial domination over its southern neighbor. Russian travelers to Iran arrived there with specific biases – they expected to find certain things based on those biases and in most cases they did. Their preconceived ideas and prejudices were reflected in their travel accounts and distorted the reality they observed. The Russian travelogues are subjective, as are all primary sources (to varying degrees), and while

8

Introduction

this fact hardly undermines the value of the information they provide, it must always be taken into account. An analysis of the prism through which the travelers looked at Iran and the filters through which they sifted their material must be undertaken in order to expose the prejudices that otherwise deform and devalue the testimonials they are making. Thus, in addition to introducing the travelogues as a new source on Iran, a study of the authors’ prejudices towards the Orient represents the second key objective of this book. Indeed, the authors reveal a lot about themselves in their accounts, and their self-representation vis-à-vis the Iranians on one side, and the British in Iran on the other, is as important as the information they provide about Iran. The strange and seemingly hostile atmosphere of Iran becomes a forge for constructing and expressing the Russian self-identity. The position the Russian authors stake out between the Oriental “Other,” represented by the Iranians, and the European “Self,” represented by the British, attests to the deep split within their national consciousness that is analyzed in this work. Their biases against the “Orientals” are expressed more directly in their self-representation than in the rest of the material. In a way, their self-representation is an intermediate position between their biases and preconceived ideas and their representation of Iran and its people. The complex of preconceived ideas and prejudices about the people of the Orient and the colonial practices these engendered are defined as Russian Orientalism in this book. The parallels between the Russians’ experience in Iran and the Western European concept of the Oriental “Other” suggested using the main elements of the theory of Orientalism as the point of departure for a delineation of its Russian variant. The concept of Orientalism, the theory and practice of representing the “Orient” in Western thought, has been largely seen as a Western European phenomenon, with its Eastern European or Russian variant ignored. But Russian Orientalism has its own unique context, history and features that clearly distinguish it from Western European experience and are generated by the complexity of the Russian national identity. The concept of Orientalism became widely known after the publication in 1979 of the celebrated book of that name by the late scholar, Edward Said. According to that theory, any knowledge is socially and politically charged and is inevitably interconnected with power, which in turn is used to subjugate the Orient. Western self-identity is seen in juxtaposition to the Oriental “Other,” and the Orient is represented as different from and therefore inferior to the Western “Self.” The world is dichotomized into “us” versus “them” and therefore into civilization/barbarity, good/evil, reason/emotion, and so on. The Orient is turned into a passive, silent and weak object of study to be “civilized” by the advanced West. Similar to other colonial empires, the Russian Empire charged itself with the duty to “civilize,” or bring economic

Introduction 9 and political progress and Christianity to the peoples of Asia and the Caucasus. Generally speaking, divergences between Russian and Western European perceptions are a function of the peculiar Russian national identity, which combines Western and Eastern elements. By the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the historical evolution and geographical position of Russia had led to a crisis of national identity, which manifested itself in a split between pro-Western and pro-Eastern concepts. The most important developments in the history of Russia that influenced the formation of its national identity were the influence of Byzantium, especially through the adoption of Eastern Christianity at the end of the tenth century, the Mongol conquest and its aftermath starting in the thirteenth century and the westernizing reforms of Peter the Great in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. As a result, Asian elements and Western influence interpenetrated Russian history and culture and led to a painful crisis of national identity that reached its peak by the nineteenth century. After a century of Westernization, Russia had developed a colonialist outlook on expansion into alien lands. Her victory over Napoleon in 1812, the recurrent Russo-Turkish wars, the expansion into the Eastern territories, including the Caucasus and Central Asia – all resulted in an intellectual and political engagement with the nagging dilemma of Russian cultural identity. The Oriental Renaissance, or fascination with everything Oriental, and the development of Orientalism as an academic discipline in the early nineteenth century also stimulated this engagement. Russian intellectuals had difficulty defining “us” versus “them,” or the “Orientals,” because Russia’s position in the “East–West” system was a complicated one. The debate about national identity, which became an important part of Russian cultural life, itself evidenced this unresolved dichotomy. Russia’s geographical position, her diplomatic and economic connections, the system of education and culture of her intellectual elite, her Christian religion, dynastic kinship, colonization of the Orient and “civilizing mission” there – all pointed to her being a part of Europe. However, the absolute monarchy, absence of a constitution and parliament until the early twentieth century, absence of basic civil rights and freedoms and delayed development of capitalism, especially in agriculture, logically placed Russia among the Eastern countries. Asian peoples had been a part of the Russian Empire since at least the fifteenth century, and it was impossible to separate Asian and European elements in many aspects of Russian life. For a Russian, the Orient was both Self and Other, it embraced both “us” and “them.” According to the oft-cited words of Bestuzhev-Marlinskii, a nineteenth-century Russian writer, “a two-faced Janus, ancient Russia simultaneously looked toward Europe and Asia. Its way of life comprised a link between the settled activity of the West and the nomadic indolence of the Orient.” Some

10

Introduction

famous Russian intellectuals stressed Russia’s femininity, passivity and submissiveness when faced with foreign, specifically Western European, masculinity – making Russia look even more like a part of the Orient that is usually portrayed as feminine and surrendering to the masculine West. Interestingly, some British travelogues about Russia and Iranian views of the intruding foreigners reflect the same hesitation – they are unable explicitly to place Russia in either the Western or Asian category. The duality of national identity led to multiple consequences that manifest themselves in the Russian travelogues about Iran – the most profound being a distinct sense of inferiority. When they travel abroad, the travelogue authors try to hide any feeling of inferiority by attempting to prove that they are equal to the Western Europeans, especially the British, and that the Russian Empire is as great and civilized as its Western European counterparts. In order to compensate for their inferiority complex, they overemphasize their Europeanness, usually referring to themselves as “European” instead of “Russian.” They compare everything they observe and experience in Iran to the way it is done in Europe and frequently refer to their “European eye,” “European ear,” and European notions. One of their favorite formulations is “We Europeans . . .” Doing things differently from Europe means doing them the wrong way – and their repeated attempts to prove that being Russian means being European are a clear sign of their subconscious uncertainty. By contrast, the British travelers of the same period do not stress their Europeanness or even their Westernness in their accounts because it is obvious to them and, in their opinion, to everybody else, therefore, it does not require any proof. The Russian travelers, on the other hand, stress their personal affinity with the British in order to prove their Europeanness, although they never forget that they are opponents in the Great Game. In the eyes of the Russians, the British symbolize the true European “Self” with their extensive experience of colonization and the “civilizing” mission. This underlying bond with the British also made the Russian travelers feel safer in the often “threatening” milieu of Iran. Another way the Russian travelers try to conceal the sense of inferiority engendered by their split national identity is to overemphasize their adherence to Christianity. Being an Orthodox Christian was the defining element of Russian self-identity inside the Russian empire. Being Russian meant being Orthodox Christian, especially vis-à-vis the non-Christian colonized peoples of the Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia and the Catholic Poles whose country was occupied by Russia between the late eighteenth century and 1917. The Russians did not feel threatened by the Muslim subjects found within the empire, who were seen as inferior but were usually tolerated without much hostility. Selfrepresentation abroad, in Iran, was different, however. There the travelers felt “threatened” by Islam and tried to prove their Europeanness by

Introduction 11 posing as generic Christians. In a way similar to their transformation from supporters of liberalism to ardent proponents of tsarism as soon as they crossed the border of the Russian Empire, they attacked Islam and present themselves as representatives of Europe and members of its Christian community. They saw denouncing Islam as a part of their “civilizing mission” and as one of their duties. Just as they thought of themselves as generally European in Iran, being Christian as opposed to Orthodox or Eastern there provided a sense of superiority and security based on their affiliation with Western Europe. Throughout their accounts, the Russian authors refer to themselves as Christian and European, instead of the more natural and familiar form of self-representation when inside the empire – as Orthodox and Russian. Disparagement of the Iranians in the travelogues is overwhelming – many of the travelers mercilessly ridicule and criticize every facet of life in Iran, including habits and traditions, people’s morals and manners, their religion, culture, education and even the Iranian landscape. Even when they have something positive to say about Iran or Iranians, it is inevitably presented as an exception. Portraying the “Orientals” as inferior, unable to rule over themselves, backward and in need of being “civilized” by a European power is a standard justification for colonization and domination, for taking over other peoples’ resources and lands, and interference in their internal affairs. But the Russian travelers have an additional reason to outdo themselves in this regard. They are constantly aware that they must prove their truly European superiority and one of the ways to do that is to overemphasize the inferiority of their Oriental opponents. Indeed, many of the accusations and criticisms sound laughable coming from the Russians, who seem to have sincerely forgotten about many similar problems back home in Russia. For example, serfdom in Russia persisted until 1861, basic rights and freedoms did not exist, Russia did not have an elected parliament and a constitution until 1906, and capitalism, especially in the countryside, was backward compared to much of Western Europe. The dirt and poverty in Iran, described with disgust by a number of travelers, undoubtedly matched that found in many Russian villages. One should also bear in mind that, with a few exceptions, the authors did not know Iranian languages and so had to enlist the assistance of various interpreters when available and leave the rest to their imagination. Their relatively brief stays in Iran – between several months and a year on average – did not usually allow them to learn much in depth about Iranian culture, so in many cases their observations were understandably superficial. One final consequence of the split in national identity is that the Russian travelogues lack any of the Romanticism that characterizes most of British and Western European travelogues about Iran and the East. Instead of a fascination with the exotic and a longing for romantic escape, the Russian travelogues not only reject Romanticism, but often

12

Introduction

deliberately ridicule it. Beyond the lack of distance necessary to create romance – Iran was, after all, their next-door neighbor, standing in somewhat the same relationship as Mexico does to the United States – this feature again reveals the duality of the Russian national identity. Since Asian elements penetrated Russian culture and the Orient was an integral part of the Russian “Self,” its proximity deprived it of romantic allure. In sum, although the Russian variant of Orientalism shares many features with Western European Orientalism, it has its peculiar aspects that allow it to be viewed as an exaggerated or grotesque version of Western European Orientalism. Thus this book has two main areas of focus: first, the Russian travelogues of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the information on Iran and some related topics they contain; and, second, the Russian travelogues as material for the study of Russian Orientalism. The two themes are interrelated because it is impossible to accept the documentary information in the travelogues at face value without first making allowances for the distorting effects of Russian Orientalism. Indeed, the travelogues constitute a convenient fabric for the further study of Russian Orientalism, whose scope is much broader than the Russian travelogues about Iran presented here. It is to be hoped that further scholarship will lead to a more nuanced and differentiated investigation of the general concept of Orientalism, including its Russian variant.

Setting the stage 13

1

Setting the stage

The relationship between the two neighboring countries of Iran and Russia extends over more than a millennium. Prior to the eighteenth century, Iran and Russia treated each other as equal in their sporadic trade and diplomatic contacts. During the reign of Peter the Great (ruled 1689–1725), Russia started to pursue expansionist designs against Iran, culminating in the nineteenth century with the annexation of Iranian lands and aggressive interference into its internal affairs. According to the reports of some Arab geographers, contacts between Iran and Russia, at least in the area of trade, already existed in the ninth century.1 The main route, which connected ancient Russia with Iran, was along the Volga River and the Caspian Sea. The Mongol invasions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries interrupted the trade, but it started to revive by the mid-fifteenth century. At that time, the liberation of Russia from the Mongol yoke and the foundation of the centralized state of Moscovy were under way. Russian merchants often combined trade missions with diplomatic assignments from their rulers, who through them sent not only letters concerning trade but also assertions of friendship. The liberation from the Mongols of the cities of Kazan’ in 1552 and Astrakhan’ in 1556 by Ivan IV favored active trade between Iran and Russia via the Volga–Caspian route. At the same time, fairly regular diplomatic relations started between Safavid Iran, which had recently been united, and the Moscovy state. Before the time of Peter the Great, even though there were occasional disagreements, Russia and Iran treated each other as equals, since they were at approximately the same level of military and political development. It was Peter the Great who initiated aggressive policies towards Iran. In 1715–18, a young officer, Artemii Volynskii, was sent to Iran to gather strategic information, promote Russian trade in Iran, and explore the possibilities of a military union against the Ottomans.2 Peter used the deteriorating situation of the Safavids to his advantage and invaded the Caucasian coast of the Caspian in 1722, two months before the Safavid Shah, Sultan Husayn, was overthrown by the Afghans.

14

Setting the stage

In 1723, the envoy of Shah Tahmasp II signed a treaty with Russia in St. Petersburg, according to which Iran ceded to Russia the towns of Darband and Baku with their territories and the provinces of Gilan, Mazanderan and Astarabad.3 Shah Tahmasp himself refused to ratify the treaty, but Russia maintained its garrisons in Darband, Baku and Gilan. In 1724, Russia signed another treaty concerning Iranian territories with the Ottomans, whose armies had moved into Transcaucasia and western Iran. Russia recognized Ottoman control over Azerbaijan and much of Transcaucasia, while Iran’s Caspian provinces remained under Russian control.4 Though Peter was determined to annex the Caspian provinces permanently, the enterprise was a failure. Much of the territory in Gilan lay outside actual Russian control, while no attempt was made to send garrisons to Mazanderan and Astarabad, which Russia had also claimed. In addition, many Russian soldiers died of disease caused by the unhealthy climate. Peter the Great died in 1725, and Empress Anna (ruled 1730–40) agreed in the treaties of Rasht (1732) and Ganjeh (1735) to withdraw Russian forces from all Iranian territories.5 Relations between Iran and Russia remained minimal until the late eighteenth century, when Catherine the Great (ruled 1762–96) resumed the expansionist policies of Peter the Great. The nineteenth century opened a new page in the relations between Russia and Iran due to the dramatically new internal situation in Russia and Iran and the emergence of imperialism and colonialism as the new factor in international politics. Russia entered the nineteenth century as a powerful Eurasian empire, with high international prestige and strong influence in the European political arena. It had gone through the century of Westernization introduced by Peter the Great and continued by Catherine the Great. “The absorption of Western technology and military skills turned [Russia] into a major European power. It also prepared [her] for the confrontation with Napoleonic France and participation in the European concert of powers (1815–1914).”6 Expansion into new lands had been one of the most important political agendas of the Russian Tsars since the time of Ivan IV (ruled 1533– 84), but the nineteenth-century conquests reflect a new stage in the historical evolution of Russia: the emergence of imperialism created a colonialist outlook on expansion. Territorial aggrandizement came to be combined with the extension of political sovereignty over conquered peoples in the belief that the colonies would make the empire rich and that the empire could in return benefit subject peoples by introducing them to civilization and Christianity. Unlike Western Europe, Russia was expanding overland, not overseas, and the pace of the extension was impressive. According to one scholar, “In 300 years (1600–1900) Russia grew by 17 million square kilometers. It resembled the great empires of

Setting the stage 15 7

the past: China, Rome, and the Ottoman empire.” According to another estimate, “In 1914, the explorer Fridtjof Nansen reckoned that over four centuries the Tsarist realm had expanded at an astonishing rate of fifty-five square miles a day, or about 20,000 square miles a year.”8 Having played a leading role in the anti-Napoleon coalition, Russia reached the peak of her authority in Europe after Napoleon’s defeat. International European order was consolidated in the protocols agreed upon at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15 and lasted for about forty years. Meanwhile, Russia’s drive towards warm-water ports and the weakness of Iran under the Qajar rule (1796–1925) led to the revival of the preoccupation of Russia’s rulers with Iran. In its particularly sustained and orchestrated fashion, the new Russian drive towards colonization started in 1801 with the annexation of Georgia, which was then Iranian territory. Christian Georgia, which was seeking Russia’s protection from the Muslim Iranians and Ottomans, was Russia’s main ally in the Caucasus. Catherine the Great viewed Georgia as a vital strategic base for operations against the Ottoman Empire and Iran. In July 1783, Georgia was placed under Russian protection with the Treaty of Georgievsk, and in 1801, it was annexed to Russia. After the Russian commander-in-chief in the Caucasus captured the city of Ganjeh and appeared before the city of Erevan, the first Russo-Iranian war broke out. The Iranian army was led by ‘Abbas Mirza, heir of Fath ‘Ali Shah and Governor of Azerbaijan. The war lasted for nine years and ended in the defeat of Iran; the Treaty of Gulistan was signed in 1813. Under the terms of the treaty, Iran “lost most of her Caucasian possessions, including Baku, Darband, Ganjeh, and Georgia, gave up her right to maintain a navy on the Caspian, which thereby became ‘a Russian lake’ and accepted an unfavorable arrangement in regard to tariffs.”9 The provisions concerning the borders were vague and soon led to a new conflict. In 1826, Iran launched a revanchist war against Russia under the banner of jihad. Again, Iran was soon defeated and the Treaty of Turkmanchai was signed in 1828. In addition to lands yielded under the Treaty of Gulistan, Iran had now to cede to Russia the khanates of Erevan and Nakhichevan. Iran also had to pay Russia the considerable indemnity of 20 million rubles. The first Russian minister to be appointed to Tehran after the Treaty of Turkmanchai was Alexander Griboedov, the famous writer, who focused his attention on the implementation of the treaty by the Iranian government, in particular the articles dealing with the indemnity and the return of prisoners of war. On 11 February 1829, a mob incited by the prominent Tehran mujtahid (high-ranking religious authority) Mirza Masih stormed the Russian Mission. With one exception, all the members of the Mission were killed, including Griboedov. One of Fath ‘Ali’s sons, Khosrov Mirza, was sent to the Russian court bearing gifts to apologize

16

Setting the stage

Figure 1 View of Tehran. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 205.

to the Emperor Nicholas I (ruled 1825–55). The Iranian prince received a cordial welcome in St. Petersburg and was granted forgiveness.10 The way the Russian travelers depicted that tragedy is discussed later in the book. During the nineteenth century, Iran tried several times to capture the town of Herat in Afghanistan, with Russia encouraging these attempts. Muhammad Shah besieged Herat in 1837, backed by the Russian Minister Plenipotentiary Count Simonich,11 with a British officer, Eldred Pottinger, playing a notable role in the town’s defense. The British, who perceived the establishment of an Iranian and therefore Russian presence in Afghanistan as a danger to India, threatened war with Iran and in June 1838 occupied Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf in order to exert pressure on her; whereupon the Shah abandoned the siege.12 In 1856, Iran’s capture of Herat was followed by the Anglo-Iranian war (1856–57). The British fleet arrived at the Iranian port of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. According to the peace terms, Iran had to withdraw and promised to renounce her claims on Herat. The international position of Russia started shifting by the middle of the nineteenth century. By that time, Russia was falling more and more behind Western Europe in technical and military development. Even after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, Russia, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, suffered from a chronic lack of capital and a rising dependence on capital imports from abroad; her ability to develop an economic foreign policy was relatively limited; the development of a modern

Setting the stage 17

Figure 2 At the top of Demavand. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 216.

18

Setting the stage class system was weak in comparison with western Europe; when industrialization began, the autocracy’s monopoly on power remained undiminished and society enjoyed very few opportunities to organize and participate.13

Internal weakness inevitably affected the international position of the empire. Diplomatic failures in Europe were followed by humiliating defeat in the Crimean War against Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia (1853–56). Russia’s international prestige in Europe plummeted and its role in European politics, especially in the Balkans and in Ottoman affairs, was materially reduced. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Russia’s politics towards Central Asia and the Far East acquired more significance. Russia was trying to catch up with the West, to satisfy its “psychological hunger for compensation,”14 by imperialist expansion into Central and East Asia, where it was easier to compete with Western European powers. Central Asia, which was rapidly conquered during the second half of the nineteenth century, became an important focal point of Russian colonial policy that had an impact on Russia’s relationship with Iran. Bokhara, Samarkand, Khiva, and Kokand fell under Russian domination; the final battle of Geok-Tepe (1881) concluded the military operations. The capture of Merv in 1884 almost erupted into open warfare with Britain. Iran suffered more loss of territory as a result of the Russian advance into Central Asia: [Russia] crossed an imaginary line somewhere to the north of the Turkmen village of Qizil-Su that Persia considered to be her frontier. To Persian protests about this new intrusion Russia replied that the Iranian border had never exercised any authority over the Turkmens. The Russian minister in Tehran, A. F. Berger, formally notified the Persian government on 25 December 1869 “that the Imperial Government recognizes Persian dominion up to the Atrak.” The issue was closed.15 As a result of the Russian conquest of the Central Asian territories in the second half of the nineteenth century, the devastating Turcoman raids into northeastern Iran were stopped, Iran lost some northeastern territories it considered to be under its nominal rule and a base was created for further Russian expansion southward. From the 1860s to the 1880s, Great Britain became Russia’s most important rival on the international stage. Russia’s steady advance into Central Asia and her increasing presence in the Caucasus alarmed the British, who were primarily concerned about protecting India from the other great powers. The British fear of Russia’s advance into Central Asia was understandable:

Setting the stage 19 In 1800, the frontier bases of the two empires were 2,000 miles apart; by 1876, that distance had been halved, and by century’s end the gap between the Tsar’s domain and British India was only a few hundred miles – indeed as little as twenty miles separated outposts in the lofty Pamirs. Russian expansion seemed limitless and threatening.16 The rivalry of Russia and Great Britain for domination over Asian politics became known as the “Great Game.” It was Lieutenant Arthur Conolly, a British officer and “the archetypal Great Game player” – later beheaded in the Central Asian town of Bukhara – who first coined the famous phrase in a letter to a friend in the early 1840s.17 The Great Game became universally known through Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim (1901) which introduced such aphorisms as “The Game is so large that one sees but a little at a time,” or “When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before.”18 Iran turned into one of “the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the domination of the world.”19 For its part, Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was generally characterized by economic and military weakness, lack of unity, and administrative inefficiency, aggravated by the heavy burden of the intrusion of European colonial empires. The Qajar monarchs were unable to resist European pressure, mainly from Britain and Russia. Political and economic encroachment on the part of those two European powers escalated in the second half of the nineteenth century to the point where they became the major factor in Iranian life and politics. The efforts of Fath ‘Ali Shah (ruled 1797–1834) and his son the Crown Prince ‘Abbas Mirza, and Muhammad Shah (ruled 1834– 48) to exploit the rivalries between the European powers in order to regain the lost dominions of the Safavids failed. Nasir al-Din Shah (ruled 1848–96) encouraged foreign concessions in Iran in the hope that they would help to modernize the country but, like the other Qajar rulers, he underestimated the need for radical financial and administrative reform in order for this policy to succeed. Formally, Iran was never a colony, mainly because of the rivalry between Russia and Britain – the balance of power between Russia and Britain was of particular importance in preserving the integrity of Iran. However, with the passage of time, Iran’s sovereignty was growing more and more limited. Iran’s geographical position on the borders of Russia, India, and the Persian Gulf turned her into a natural target in the political struggle between France and Britain early in the nineteenth century and that between Russia and Britain throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Political and strategic interests were of primary concern to both Britain and Russia, though they also had an eye on Iranian trade and, later, on concessions and loans. Britain was mainly concerned with preserving the formal independence and integrity of Persia in order to

20

Setting the stage

defend the Indian empire. Russia, as mentioned above, deprived Iran of her Transcaucasian territories in the first half of the nineteenth century and of territory in the northeast in the second half of the century, and she had further expansionist designs on northern and northeastern Iran. Both Britain and Russia were striving to exercise as much influence as possible on the Qajar rulers in order to gain support for their actions in Iran and to repel their rivals. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the political, diplomatic and military activities of Russia and Britain in Iran came to be combined with their competition for concessions and loans. The tug-of-war between Russia and Britain for concessions led to the increasing economic encroachment of the two empires on Iran, hampering a balanced development of its economy. One striking example was the blocking of railroad construction in Iran at the end of the nineteenth century due to the attempts by Russia and Britain to prevent each other from receiving the railroad concession.20 The Shah’s pledge not to allow foreign companies to build railroads without consulting Russia lasted until the early twentieth century. Among the most significant achievements of Russian colonial politics in Iran were the fishing concessions on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, which gave her a monopoly on Iranian caviar until after World War I; the Russian Bank, through which the Russian government granted loans to Iranian Shahs and notables; and a new customs treaty in 1902.21 Loans to the Iranian Shahs provided a key means of putting the Iranian government under Russian domination, starting in the reign of Muzaffar al-Din Shah (ruled 1896–1907). Another effective instrument of Russia’s power in Iran was the Persian Cossack Brigade, which was founded and led by Russian officers.22 Russian control of Iran’s internal affairs in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth became especially firm during the reigns of Muzaffar al-Din Shah and Muhammad ‘Ali Shah (ruled 1907–09). Russian and British diplomatic support, together with operations by the Cossack Brigade, secured Muzaffar al-Din’s succession to the throne. In 1905, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution started, which was partly directed against Russian domination in Iran. In 1908, a coup d”état supported by the Russian-led Cossack Brigade put an end to the revolution; the Majlis (Iranian parliament) was dissolved.23 The most extraordinary and humiliating event in Iran’s relations with Russia and Britain took place on 31 August 1907. That was the date of the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention, which divided Iran into spheres of influence and reconciled the differences between the governments of Russia and Britain. Though the preamble to the agreement mentioned the integrity and independence of Persia, the Iranian Government was not even informed about the Convention. According to the terms of the Convention, the northern and central areas of Iran were

Setting the stage 21 reserved for Russia, with Britain promising “not to seek for herself, and not to support in favor of British subjects, or in favor of the subjects of third Powers, any concession of a political or commercial nature.” Britain also promised “not to oppose directly or indirectly, demands for similar Concessions in this region which are supported by the Russian Government.”24 Southeastern Iran came under the British sphere of influence, where Russia undertook similar obligations. The area between the Russian and British spheres was made neutral territory. In 1908, oil was discovered in the neutral zone, and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed in the following year. In 1912, the British Navy converted from coal to oil. After the beginning of World War I, in March 1915, Russia agreed to British control over the region “in return for British acquiescence in the Russian annexation of Constantinople.”25 The agreement confirmed the actual division of Iran into the Russian and British spheres of influence which had developed de facto throughout the 1800s. An analysis of the Russian travelogues demonstrates the existence of that Russian sphere of influence throughout the nineteenth century – and the routes taken by the Russians (see Appendix 1, Map: Iran before World War I) are consistent with it. Following the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907, “Russia acted as if Iran were another conquered province. Russian troops occupied Khorasan, Azerbaijan and Gilan. Russian consulates became governing bodies and the consuls sometimes collected local taxes.”26 When the Iranians invited an American expert, Morgan Shuster, to reform their finances, Russia put diplomatic and military pressure on the Iranian government, which was forced to dismiss Shuster. In the early twentieth century, Russia started colonizing the Astarabad and Mazanderan provinces of Iran. By 1912, what had started as spontaneous settlements in 1907 were receiving government support and funding. During World War I, Iran became a war theater for German, Ottoman, Russian and British troops in spite of the fact that she had declared neutrality when the war started. Russia occupied northern Iran and tried to promote further colonization there. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 ended Russian colonial designs on Iran – Russia withdrew and the “Great Game” came to an end.

22

2

Orientalism Russian style

Orientalism Russian style

Relations between Iranians and Russians are a part of the relations between the world of Islam and the world of Christianity, which have a long and uneasy history. Misinterpretation has been a hallmark of these relations since the emergence of Islam in the seventh century and the early encounters in the medieval period when Islam was the dominant force. The balance of power has swung throughout the centuries – at times the Christian world had to respond to Muslim challenges in various forms, while at other times it was the Muslims who had to react to Christian initiatives. By the nineteenth century, the images and perceptions of each side toward the other were developing in the context of European colonialism and an increasingly unequal power relationship. The encounter between Russians and Iranians in Iran in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a contact between two different cultures, two different religions and two different world views. It reflected a relationship of inequality – Iran was the victim of Russian domination and colonial ambitions. Unable to resist the pressure, Iran lost parts of its territory to Russia throughout the nineteenth century and turned into a venue of the Great Game between the Russians and the British. This colonial encounter in the “contact zone”1 of Qajar Iran resulted in a consistent misunderstanding on both sides. Russians’ biases and preconceived views of the peoples of the Orient are reflected in their travel accounts and distort the information presented. The similarities between the Russians’ experience of Iran and the Western European concept of the Oriental Other make it possible to employ the major components of the theory of Orientalism as a starting point and methodological basis for this study of its Russian variant. Orientalism has been largely perceived as a Western European phenomenon, with its Russian type ignored.2 The famous and controversial concept of Orientalism provoked an intense debate starting in the 1960s and 1970s that is still going on today in the disciplines of literary criticism, history, political science, sociology, anthropology and gender studies. However, the Russian variant clearly has its own unique context, history and features, often representing an exaggerated version

Orientalism Russian style 23 of the Orientalism explored by students of the Western European experience.

The concept of Orientalism: Western European version The cornerstone of the concept of Orientalism is the reinterpretation of a term that had traditionally referred to an academic discipline. According to this reinterpretation, Orientalism is a discourse of power and a system that allows the West to dominate the East. According to Edward Said, whose work on Orientalism (1979) has become a classic: [It is the] corporate institution for dealing with the Orient – dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.3 One of the pivotal ideas of Orientalism is the notion of discourse, which can be described as a complex historical phenomenon of producing knowledge defined and limited by a culture, which dominates the process. Proponents of the theory of Orientalism reject the possibility of pure, unconditional knowledge and reveal the connection between Orientalism, including academicians who were under its sway, on the one hand, and colonialism and imperialism on the other. The bond between Orientalists and colonialism and imperialism was based on some shared ideas: “Every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally an ethnocentric.”4 According to advocates of the concept of Orientalism, placing the Orient in opposition to Europe helped Western Europeans define their self-identity in juxtaposition to the Oriental Other. Defining the Other serves as a tool for constructing the Self as different from, opposed to and superior to the Other. Applied to the analysis of the Orient, this attitude results in the representation of the Orient as different from the West and therefore inferior to it, the world as dichotomized into “us” versus “them” (Europe, the West versus the Orient, the East), and therefore into civilization/barbarism, good/evil, reason/emotion, humanity/ animality, and the like. The Orient and Orientals are considered as an “object” of study, which is passive, weak and feminine. The Orient is studied by the Westerners but remains silent and detached.5 In the theory of Orientalism, travel writing is viewed as one of the types of Orientalist discourse. The Western travelers – including the Russian ones – portray the Other as marginal and subservient. Travel becomes an object of discourse and travel writing is structured as one of the fields of knowledge. At the same time, defining the Oriental Other is a way of asserting the Self; therefore, for the travelers, their journeys often provide

24

Orientalism Russian style

space and time to test their own identity. Travel writers helped to make the colonized or semi-colonized countries a part of the world system: simply by describing “the Orientals” they were adding them to the known world centered on Europe. Travelogues also served to legitimate colonial expansion by depicting, in the case of the Russian travelers, the Iranians as uncivilized and Russian interference as a favor to the colonized.

Russian national identity and Russian Orientalism The peculiarities of Russian Orientalism derive from the unique place Russia occupies among European countries. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the geographical position and historical evolution of Russia had resulted in a crisis of national identity, which, in its simplest formulation, manifested itself as a split between pro-Western and pro-Eastern concepts. A contemporary American scholar has noted how Russia’s position between East and West has affected the current debate about Orientalism: [The] stark dichotomy between Orient and Occident around which Said’s analysis hinges transforms in the Russian context into an awkward triptych: the West, Russia, the East. Russia, after all, was not only the subject of orientalist discourse, but also its object.6 Numerous works have been written in Russian and Western European languages about Russia’s similarities to and differences from the other countries of Europe.7 The position of Russia in relation to the West and the East has been defined by the three main interconnected components of its evolution: geographical, political and spiritual. Russia’s expansion was aided by its topography, with few deserts, jungles or high mountain chains to pose natural obstacles to conquest. This expansion brought the Slavs into close contact with various tribes and peoples – sometimes “Western” (the Poles, for example) but mostly “Eastern” (such as the Turkic language-speaking nomadic Polovtsy and Pechenegs). After the conquests of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a huge multinational Russian Empire was created. Among the political and spiritual events that played an important role in forming the Russian national identity are the influence of the Byzantine Empire and the adoption of Eastern Christianity at the end of the tenth century, the Mongol conquest and its aftermath starting in the thirteenth century, and the radical reforms of Peter the Great in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Since the end of the tenth century when Russia converted, Christianity permeated Russian private and public life, dominated Russian spiritual and political aspirations, and gave Russians the basis for orienting themselves among the peoples around them. Russians were united by a single faith until the Schism in

Orientalism Russian style 25 the seventeenth century. It should be emphasized that in their own minds, Russians primarily defined themselves as Orthodox Christians, and this self-definition separated them from the “Others”: non-Orthodox Christians (e.g., Catholics in the West) and non-Christians, such as the Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and pagan peoples who became subjects of the Russian multinational empire. “Russian Orthodox sense of identity was itself further crystallized in the encounter with non-Christians.”8 Elements of Orthodox Christian messianism constituted a critical part of the notion of the “civilizing mission” of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century, for example, in its wars against the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and in Russia’s policy regarding the Balkans, where the empire was trying to maintain its role as the protector of Christians in the Orient. The impact of Russia’s conversion to Christianity is inseparable from the influence of Byzantium on Russia. Most Russian philosophers and historians, past and present, acknowledge the importance of this influence; however, their opinions vary. Some considered Byzantium the source of all the troubles in Russia, while others saw many of Russia’s problems as the result of straying from Byzantine traditions.9 Eastern Christianity was not the only thing borrowed from Byzantium; the concepts of hierarchy and of the centralization of monarchist power, of monarchy as sacred and established by God, came from the Byzantine Empire as well. Many elements of culture were acquired by Russia from the Byzantine Empire, for example, the Church Slavonic script, the art of icon-making, church architecture and rituals such as the emperor’s wedding ceremony, most of which had been adapted from the marriage ceremony of the Sassanid kings.10 But what is of particular interest for this research is that the Byzantine Empire itself included elements of Eastern cultures (visual arts, literary epics, music, ethical norms, etiquette) as a result of its ancient connections with the civilizations of the Middle East – it was a “golden bridge between the East and the West.”11 A distinguished Soviet historian of the Byzantine Empire explains: The constant division between the eastern and western worlds, the crossing of Asian with European influences which prevailed over one another in different historical epochs was the historical fate of the Byzantine Empire. A mixture of Greco-Roman and Eastern traditions influenced the social life, the form of the state, the religious and philosophical ideas, culture and arts of Byzantine society. The Byzantine Empire, however, went its own way, different in many instances from the ways of both the East and the West.12 The similarities with Russia are easy to see: the same location on the borders of two worlds, the same split between East and West combined with the preservation of its own uniqueness.

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Orientalism Russian style

A major event in the formation of Russian identity was the Mongol conquest of the thirteenth century, which has likewise spawned controversial interpretations. In Russian, Soviet and Western historiography, the Mongol yoke had traditionally been viewed as a devastating, mortally wounding event that turned the development of Russia backwards. Only in the twentieth century did this attitude start to undergo a change in both Russian and Western European works. For example, Vasilii Bartol’d (1869–1930), one of the most famous and respected Russian/ Soviet scholars of the Middle East, thought the effects of the Mongol yoke on Russia were less severe because the conquerors usually did not settle among the Russians, and because the economy, based on the exchange of money for goods, did not regress to a barter state and urban life did not revert to agricultural life.13 However, most scholars came to the conclusion that in the post-Mongol period that followed a succession of defeats in the fifteenth century, Russia remained a natural heir to the Mongol Golden Horde, which had shared territory and social and administrative structures for about two hundred years with the Russians – more even than it was to Kievan Rus. Many Muscovite political institutions had Mongol origins, and not only elements of the political, administrative and military system were borrowed, but also elements of culture and traditions: “The Tatar traditions were reflected in Russian foreign policy and diplomatic ceremonial for the longest time.”14 For example, aspects of diplomatic ceremony such as the infamous kowtowing (literally “head-beating” – bit’e chelom) and the Central/East Asian institution of collective responsibility (krugovaia poruka) were borrowed from the Mongols.15 According to the view of a group of prominent Russian historians and philosophers, it was the existence and experience of the Mongol Empire that helped Russia to become united.16 After the overthrow of the Golden Horde in the fifteenth century, Russia took its revenge on the invaders, gradually annexing the independent Muslim khanates of Kazan’, Astrakhan’, Siberia and the Crimea that had formed from parts of the former Mongol Empire. When Russian settlers took many of their lands, a number of Muslims moved out of the former khanates and settled in different parts of Russia, constituting the largest religious minority in Russia. Muslim Tatars had resided in Moscow from the early 1400s. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Muslim Tatar colonies existed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian cities and small towns.17 Gradually, as their numbers grew, special districts were set aside for them and other Muslims. Today the origins of many street names and districts in Moscow lie in the Turkic languages of Muslim peoples. What may be called a process of Slavo-Eastern synthesis meant the assimilation of the peoples in the regions of the Volga, the Urals and Western Siberia by the Russians, encompassing state and social institutions.18 Assimilation meant following Russian laws and regulations, learning the Russian language and,

Orientalism Russian style 27 less often, accepting Christianity and Russian ways of life.19 In other words, starting no later than the fifteenth century, Muslim peoples have comprised an integral part of Russia’s population. During and after the period of Mongol rule, Russian rulers rewarded those Tatars who converted to Christianity. These new converts, most of whom came from the nobility, received important positions and were given Russian brides from prominent families. Many of these Tatar converts founded noble and well-known Russian families that produced famous Russian historical and literary figures, among them the families of Berdiaev, Bunin, Gogol’, Godunov, Derzhavin, Karamzin, Rakhmaninov, Tiutchev, Khanykov and Iusupov. By the eighteenth century, nearly one-fifth of the Russian nobility consisted of the descendants of upper-class Tatars. In some of Russia’s provinces the majority of the local gentry came from descendants of converted Tatars and Mordvins. Many ordinary Tatars settled along the southeastern borders of Russia.20 Paramount among the defining events of Russian history were the reforms of Peter the Great and their economic, political and psychological impact on the evolution of Russia and its location in the East–West system. Peter’s goal was to strengthen Russia: he saw as the means to that end the modernization of the army and navy, industry and education, as well as drastic reform of the civil service. He adopted Western European technical values and with them Western European norms of social life and customs. Peter also employed numerous Western Europeans in Russian government posts. The impact of compulsory westernization by Peter the Great is perhaps the most sensitive subject in Russian history; it has inspired the most contradictory observations from historians, philosophers and men of literature. Neither Peter nor his successors achieved their goal of turning Russia into a thoroughly European country; meanwhile, the road to the former pre-Petrine Russia was closed forever. Before Peter, the technical achievements of the Western Europeans did not cause any inferiority complex in the Russians, because in their own eyes they had the “true” faith, and everything not connected with religion and the church was viewed as useless.21 Peter’s strategy triggered a curious dichotomy: recurrent attempts to imitate the West in various areas of life combined with periodic rejections of the West and its values – a dichotomy that complicated Russian perceptions of the Oriental “Other.” One of the consequences of Peter’s reforms was a split in Russian society: the new cultural influences and social changes were attractive to the upper classes alone, and they alone became involved in them. This created a widening gulf between the upper classes and the rest of the country.22 This division in Russian society was complicated by a religious schism in the second half of the seventeenth century. Religious schisms were typical of Western societies from the Middle Ages onward. However, in Russian society, the schism coincided with the division of

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classes.23 This entire course of events laid the foundations for the painful crisis of identity that was to reach its peak by the nineteenth century: “Dualism, so characteristic of the destiny of Russia and the Russian people, which is unknown to the peoples of the West, started from the reforms of Peter.”24 During the eighteenth century, Western cultural influence in Russia grew steadily; French became the spoken language of the upper classes; many Russian noblemen knew German as well. But at the same time, a rediscovery of the Russian language was occurring that would lead to the golden age of Russian literature.25 The rapid development of Russian language and literature based on the spoken language triumphed in the works of Alexander Pushkin. Pride in the flowering of Russian literature and, more generally, of Russian culture in the nineteenth century was accompanied by pride in Russian military successes culminating in the victory over Napoleon in 1812. Russian military officers who visited Western Europe learned a lot about the culture and the social and political ideas of nineteenth-century Europe. The development of a colonial outlook with expansion into alien lands, the participation in European politics, the recurrent RussoTurkish wars, the conquest of the Eastern territories including the Caucasus and Central Asia gave rise to an intellectual and political engagement with the nagging question of Russian cultural identity. Two interdependent factors contributed to this engagement: the renaissance orientale in Russian culture and, as a part of that renaissance, the development of Oriental Studies as an academic discipline.26 The fascination of Western European artists and scholars with everything Oriental, from China to the Mediterranean, became known by the term Oriental Renaissance. In his encyclopedic work on the subject, Raymond Schwab speaks of a second Renaissance, in contrast to the first, which was “the revival of an atmosphere in the nineteenth century brought about by the arrival of Sanskrit texts in Europe, which produced an effect equal to that produced in the fifteenth century by the arrival of Greek manuscripts and Byzantine commentators after the fall of Constantinople.”27 The increased attention devoted to the Orient was sparked by newly discovered and translated texts in Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian starting in the late eighteenth century. That “virtual epidemic of Orientalia” affected every major poet, essayist and philosopher of the period; “Oriental” became synonymous with “the exotic, the mysterious, the profound, the seminal.”28 The development of Eastern themes, and the impact, to the point of obsession, of Eastern literature and art were visible in the works of Italian, German, French and British writers and artists. Part of the Oriental Renaissance was Orientalism that emerged as a scholarly discipline in Western Europe before the end of the eighteenth century. Russia joined the European Oriental Renaissance at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Interestingly, when

Orientalism Russian style 29 discussing Orientalism in Russia, Schwab refers to “[the] proximity to the Asian temperament that was more evident in the Slavic than in [the] German nature” and “a peculiar affinity between the Russian soul and the Hindu.”29 This observation by the author of the classical work on the Oriental Renaissance clearly reflects the duality of Russian national identity, of which Asian elements had become an inseparable part. Starting in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians were charmed and influenced by Arab and Persian literature translated into European languages, such as The Thousand and One Nights, Sa’di and Ferdowsi in French translation. Given the concurrent infatuation with all things Western, European “Oriental” works by Montesquieu, Voltaire, Byron, George Moore, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Adam Mickiewicz and William Collins probably had an even greater impact on the emergence and development of the Russian Romantic movement. Russians dreamed of exotic Muslim lands, of Eastern peoples’ wisdom, sensuality and violence. Orientalism in the arts became an integral part of the Romantic movement in literature. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, several Russian translations were published of Oriental works initially taken from European languages. The first exotic “proto-Oriental” poems in Russian were written by Gavriila Derzhavin (1743–1816) and Semen Bobrov (1767–1810). “Oriental” poetry and fiction were created in the first half of the nineteenth century by such writers as Vasilii Zhukovskii (1783–1852), Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), Mikhail Lermontov (1814–41), Alexander Griboedov (1795–1829), and Alexander BestuzhevMarlinskii (1797–1837). The war in the Caucasus and the themes of the “noble savage” and the Romantic’s flight from society attracted great attention in the first half of the nineteenth century as Russian literature entered its ascendancy. The Caucasus, along with the Crimea, seemed to embody Romantic aspirations and inspired significant Romantic fiction and narrative poetry, such as A Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Fountain of Bakchisarai, and Imitation of the Koran by Pushkin; Ismail Bei, A Prisoner of the Caucasus, Ashik-Kerib, A Turkish Tale, and A Hero of Our Time (Bela) by Lermontov; and Amalat-Bek by BestuzhevMarlinskii. However, this only applies to the works of fiction – in the Russian travelogues, little trace of Romanticism is to be found, an absence that predates the waning of the movement in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, Russian study of the Orient developed into an academic and scholarly discipline. There had been some limited attempts at the practical study of Oriental languages for administrative and diplomatic purposes, especially under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Russia’s advance into the Caucasus and Central Asia during the nineteenth century and the incorporation of the new Eastern territories into the empire, as well as her activities in the Middle East (including Iran), encouraged this development. Orientalism in Russia

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was not free of Western European influence, however. Some foreign specialists played an important role in its evolution, for example, the Germans Friedrich Adelung (1768–1843), who directed the Oriental Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Relations from 1825 until his death, and Christian M. Fraehn (1782–1851) who taught at the universities of Kazan’ and St. Petersburg and who may be considered one of the founders of Oriental studies in Russia. In 1804, a university charter was established providing for the teaching of Oriental subjects. The teaching of Oriental disciplines, mainly languages, started in 1805 at Kazan’ University, in 1811 at Moscow University, and in 1819 at St. Petersburg University. In 1815, the famous Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages was founded in Moscow. In 1818, the Asian Museum was created in St. Petersburg, and was to accumulate a great collection of Oriental books, manuscripts and art.30 In Russian Orthodox academies and seminaries, Hebrew and other Semitic languages were studied. Military schools were also teaching Oriental languages: Mongolian and Tatar in Omsk and Arabic and Persian in Orenburg.31 Some Russian writers, notably Mikhail Lermontov and Lev Tolstoi, were engaged in the study of Oriental culture and languages at certain periods in their lives. Underscoring the prevalence of such activities, Bartol’d wrote: “In the nineteenth century, the study of the Orient in Russia achieved great success, maybe even more significant than in Western Europe.”32 A few of these scholars of the Middle East are among the authors of the travelogues about Iran – such as Il’ia Berezin, Villiam Dittel’, Nikolai Khanykov, Vasilii Minorskii – although most were there on official assignment rather than a purely scholarly quest. In their efforts to define and describe the Oriental Other, Russian intellectuals, scholars, artists, men of letters, historians and philosophers were also defining the Self – they were trying to comprehend the position of Russia in the East–West system. As noted above, the problem was a complicated one because, according to one set of criteria, Russia could be considered a member of the Western European family. Her geographical location, her trade connections, her Christian religion, her dynastic kinship, her educational system and the culture of her elite, the politics of colonizing the Orient and her “civilizing mission” there all supported this view. However, another set of characteristics made Russia appear rather like one of the Eastern countries: her unlimited monarchical power, the closed system of estates, the lack of civil rights and basic freedoms, the underdevelopment of capitalism, particularly in agriculture, and an Eastern form of Christianity. Similarly, the evolution of the Russian Empire bore resemblances to that of other Western empires. But Asian peoples had comprised a part of this vast land empire since the fifteenth century, and it was impossible to draw a line on the map separating Russia’s Western and

Orientalism Russian style 31 Eastern peoples. Asian and European elements mingled in many aspects of Russian life. Russian scholars saw no clear psychological predisposition to hostility towards Orientals or towards Islam. In between periods of forced assimilation, a tolerant attitude towards Islam prevailed in many of Russia’s provinces.33 As described by a contemporary American scholar: The intensity of state and church efforts to convert non-Christians varied from brutal campaigns under Ivan IV to benign neglect in the seventeenth century, from unambiguous discrimination under Peter I to systematic coercion during the middle of the eighteenth century, and finally, to toleration under Catherine II.34 Another significant episode of intensified drive towards Russification and Christianization occurred in the 1880s. It was thus hard to make a precise determination and proclaim Russia to be either Eastern or Western. Russian intellectuals went looking for a middle position and usually became very emotional while writing on this issue. In some sense, for a Russian the Orient was both Self and Other. According to the well-known words of Bestuzhev-Marlinskii, a nineteenth-century Russian writer, “a two-faced Janus, ancient Russia simultaneously looked toward Europe and Asia. Its way of life comprised a link between the settled activity of the West and the nomadic indolence of the Orient.”35 This ambivalence of national identity and the division in national consciousness was reflected in various forms by many educated Russians in the nineteenth century. Preferences for the West-oriented or Eastoriented face of the Janus varied, as did the mix of physical and behavioral traits. Based on the analysis of Russia’s history and spirituality, many Russian intellectuals of the nineteenth century came to the conclusion that Russia was unique in its special role as a world combining and uniting the West and the East. In the words of Fedor Dostoevskii (1821–81), “a Russian is not only European but Asian. More than that: in Asia might lie even more of our hopes than in Europe. More than that: in our future destiny, Asia might be our main way out!”36 In the context of the dilemma of Russia’s affinity with the West and the East, it is important to point out that some Russian philosophers adopt a more dichotomous gender metaphor in describing Russian passivity, submissiveness and femininity as she awaits a West European masculinity to appear from without and make Russia complete. Vasilii Rozanov (1856–1919), a noted Russian writer and philosopher, compared Russia with “a woman who is always looking for a ‘fiancé, a head, a husband’,” and stated, “[it] is characteristic of Russians to surrender selflessly to somebody else’s influences, like a bride and wife who yields to her husband.” However, according to Rozanov, the most obedient

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wife truly possesses her husband; she becomes the real mistress of the house. Echoing Rozanov, Berdiaev wrote: Russian people do not want to be masculine builders; her [Russia’s] nature is defined as feminine, passive and obedient in the affairs of the state, she always awaits a fiancé, a husband, a master . . . Russian piety is a feminine piety . . . Russia always feels the masculine origin as transcendent, not as immanent, coming from the outside. In connection with this, everything masculine, liberating and formative in Russia has been not Russian, but foreign, Western European; French or German or ancient Greek.37 The idea of Russia’s passivity and femininity parallels the conception of the Orient as passive, feminine, surrendering to Western masculinity.38 Like their Russian contemporaries, British travelers to Russia from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries also faced the question of attributing Russia either to Europe or to Asia. Considering its proximity, Christian religion and the Europeanization started by Peter the Great, they declared that Russia was European. However, her political system and many features of her social and political evolution indicated Russia’s Asian status.39 Significantly, Iranians’ views of Russians have traditionally reflected the same dilemma about Russia’s ambiguous status. Already during the Safavid rule (1501–1722), of all the major peoples of Europe, Russians were held in the lowest esteem. Russia was called Rus and mentioned separately from the other European peoples in early Islamic geographical literature: “Just as Russia was not included in the contemporaneous Western European idea of the community of civilized nations, so it had never fallen under the generic rubric of Farang [Europe] in the Islamic world, including Iran,” according to Jean de Thevenot, a famous French traveler of the seventeenth century. He pointed out that Iranians thought of Russians as “the most base and the most infamous of all Christians” and the “Uzbegs of Europe.”40 According to a modern scholar, Russians were seen as barbarian and primitive people who presented a danger to Iran and its territorial integrity. Starting in the early eighteenth century, however, this attitude became combined with certain respect due to Russia’s westernization and growing economic and military strength.41 One of the Russian travelers to Iran in the late nineteenth century, S. Lomnitskii, offers a different explanation for the Iranians’ definition of the Russians. His interpretation is much more flattering to the Russians and would strengthen their self-esteem. According to him, Russians in Iran were often not called ferengi but rus in order to distinguish them as superior to all the other foreigners: [In] the villages and towns located in proximity to our borders, the local people are starting to view the word “najis” as applying to all

Orientalism Russian style 33 foreigners with the exception of the Russians. Recently, even the general expression “ferengi” is not applied to Russians. In Persia, we are called urus and are distinguished from all other foreigners.42 Russians’ quest for national identity was reflected in the debate between the so-called “Westernizers” and “Slavophiles,” which had begun in the 1840s and focused on the history of Russia and her mission in the world. The Westernizers accepted the reforms of Peter the Great in toto and saw the future of Russia as following the Western European path of development, including Western values, culture and liberal ideas. Berdiaev commented: They confused their ideal of a way of life which would be better for Russia with contemporary Western Europe, which was very unlike the ideal state . . . The Westernizers did not realize the peculiarity of Russia; they did not want to admit the morbidity of Peter’s reforms.43 By contrast, the Slavophiles were the proponents of the special character of Russian culture, as it had emerged from Orthodox Christianity. They identified Russia with the Orthodox Church and felt that it was Russia’s special mission to save the world on the basis of the universal message of love, truth and inner freedom. The Slavophiles were convinced that Russia’s destiny was to reconcile East and West on the basis of Orthodoxy. They viewed Moscow as “the Third Rome.”44 According to Berdiaev, the Slavophiles confused their ideal of Russia, their ideal utopia of a perfect order with the historical past of Russia . . . The Slavophiles did not understand the inevitability of Peter’s reforms for the mission of Russia in the world itself; they did not want to admit that only in the epoch of Peter had thought and word become possible, including the thought of the Slavophiles themselves; only then had the flowering of Russian literature become possible.45 Against the backdrop of this debate, most of the Russian travelers to Iran in the nineteenth century were more sympathetic to the views of the Westernizers than to the Slavophiles, and often published their works in the Westernizers’ publications. The split in national identity has several consequences. The first is that in some Russian works of art the division between “us” and “them” becomes unclear and uncertain. The “Orientals” were sometimes treated as both the Other and a surrogate Self. In some works by Russian writers, the images of the “noble primitives” betray Russia’s semi-Asian identity. In the “Caucasian” works by Pushkin, Bestuzhev-Marlinskii

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and Lermontov, “the cognitive boundary between ‘us’ and the Oriental ‘others’ often blurred because Asia interpenetrated Russia so extensively in geographical, historical, and cultural terms.”46 This approach, however, seems to be limited to fiction, or more specifically, to Romanticism, and is not to be found in any of the Russian travelogues from the nineteenth century. Indeed, what is conspicuous in many of these travelogues is “antiRomanticism”: deliberate ridicule of the fascination with Oriental wonders. By contrast, many British travelogues of the same period, such as Gertrude Bell’s Persian Pictures (1894), contain strong elements of Romanticism. This difference may be explained by the fact that the Orient “was for British writers preeminently a land of romance, evoking responses often based as much on The Arabian Nights as on contemporary information,” and by the widespread fondness for Byron’s poetry, which was ostensibly antagonistic toward imperialism.47 For the British, Iran was also a remote land and clearly the “Other.” For Russians, Iran as a destination was in most cases merely the place of their official assignments. Iran was located too close – on Russia’s southern border – and travel there was relatively easy, especially after the conquest of the territories in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Also, Asian peoples comprised an inseparable part of Russia’s population and Asian elements were an inseparable part of Russian culture. This geographical and spiritual proximity precluded Romantic aspirations and illusions. The lack of Romanticism in itself betrays the semi-Asianness of the Russian Self. Perhaps because Romanticism was not part of their discourse, none of the Russian travelogues crossed over into the realm of literature. By contrast, many British travelogues about the Orient, especially those about nineteenth-century Iran, became famous and a recognized part of British literature.48 But by far the most profound consequence of this ambivalent national identity is a distinctive sense of inferiority. For the Russians, the most important concept to be proved appears to have been that Russia was a great and civilized empire, equal to the Western European empires, especially that of the British. The travelogues abundantly prove that many Russians abroad were trying to conceal any feelings of inferiority engendered by this split in national identity and to compensate for such feelings in different ways. One way was to overemphasize their Europeanness, and to demonstrate an almost grotesque Eurocentrism, measuring everything against a selfassigned “European” standard, combined with frequent assurances of their personal bond with the British in Iran. Since the British Empire for the Russians represented the “true” European self-identity, it made them feel better about themselves to associate with the British while in the Orient. By contrast, the British travelers to Iran during the same period do not feel it to be necessary to prove their Europeanness, since

Orientalism Russian style 35 they assumed it was common knowledge requiring no special proof. They fully believed in the superiority of white Europeans and even in the superiority of the British over all other Europeans.49 Similarly, presenting themselves as Christian, like the other “true” Europeans, is also evident in the Russian travel accounts. The Russians, once abroad, sacrificed the notion of being Orthodox Christian, which had always been a defining element of their national identity, in order to prove that Russia was a part of Europe. They consequently referred to themselves as Christian Europeans rather than Orthodox Russians, although the latter was the more accurate and conventional self-characterization. The Russians’ portrayal of the Iranians also reveals their insecurity and inferiority complex. They strive to prove the perceived inferiority of the Iranians in every imaginable area – their culture, morals, education, religion, administration and military forces, to name the most important ones. Presenting the “Orientals” as inferior to the Westerners is an almost unavoidable feature of the European discourse on the Orient. But the Russian travelers keep pounding away at their hosts to such an extent that their efforts simply betray a lack of self-confidence on their part. Undoubtedly the sense of inferiority and the desire to hide it were intensified both by the innate feeling of affinity with Asia that Russians felt and their subconscious renunciation of that feeling. That peculiar approach to depicting the Self and the Orientals I have termed Russian Orientalism, or an exaggerated variant of the familiar Western European Orientalism. The Russians, writing travelogues about one part of the Orient, demonstrate persistent evidence of their sense of inferiority, their difference and their implicit incompleteness.

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Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors

3

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors

Travelogues in general include a broad variety of forms and contents, levels of credibility and intentions. They include diaries and letters, journal and narrative accounts, memoirs and essays, and record various types of experience of their authors. Travelogues have been popular reading since antiquity and remain popular today. Among their authors were missionaries and pilgrims, merchants and explorers, warriors and diplomats, engineers and physicians. The colonial expansion of the nineteenth century added a new purpose for travel and resulted in numerous accounts written by colonial officials. Because of their distinctiveness and variety, travelogues are best defined as a broad literary sub-category. Their unique value and main criterion are that they were written by eyewitnesses themselves. They often combine eyewitness testimony with emotional comments and allow their readers to have an insight into the historical past and their subjects’ inner world. The best travelogues make history less distant and more personable. Iran occupies a significant place in the history of travel literature. Only a few Europeans traveled to Iran during the Middle Ages, but in the seventeenth century it became a popular destination for European travelers at the peak of the stable and prosperous Safavid rule (1501– 1722). Travelers from that period mainly included those who went there as merchants, those who went on religious missions, and adventurers. After the fall of the Safavid dynasty, the number of European accounts decreased rapidly since travel in Iran, often in a state of anarchy, became dangerous. In the early nineteenth century, following the establishment of the Qajar dynasty in 1796 and the increasing involvement of Europe in Iranian affairs, there was a significant rise in the number of Europeans who traveled to Iran and a fresh explosion of travel accounts. According to Ann Lambton, “In the middle of the nineteenth century there were some 150 Europeans in Persia; by the 1890s there were some 800 and by 1900 about 1,000.”1 In the introduction to his famous Persia and the Persian Question, George Curzon presents a list of European travelers to Iran: during the years 1800–91, 197 European travelers visited Iran and wrote about their journeys. Most of them were British;

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 37 only eight names belong to Russians, including foreigners in the service of Russia.2 The British Foreign Secretary-to-be was obviously unaware of the numerous Russians who not only visited Iran but also published accounts about it in the nineteenth century. A scholar of British travelogues about Iran claims that between the years 1600 and 1700 only fourteen travelers to Persia recorded their adventures; twenty English books on Persian travel were published in the eighteenth century; in the nineteenth century the number of books of Persian travel written in English (including American), amounted to over one hundred, only forty-six of these being published between 1800 and 1850.3 The British were the chief rivals of the Russians in Iran in the 1800s; their foreign enterprises and the accounts of their travels can be viewed as an additional forum in their ongoing competition, one in which the Russians gave a strong showing. The numbers speak for themselves: throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they published more that 200 travelogues. Even prior to the nineteenth century, there were several important Russian travel accounts about Iran.

Pre-nineteenth-century Russian travelogues about Iran Russian travelogues about Iran written before the nineteenth century reflect the development of the relationship between Russia and Iran during the corresponding period of time. The first extant Russian travelogue dealing with Iran was written by Afanasii Nikitin, a merchant from the town of Tver’. Nikitin was one of the merchants who accompanied an embassy returning to Shirvan in 1466. He visited Mazanderan, Rey, Kashan and Yazd. Nikitin’s main interest lay in the possibility of trade with India, where he went by way of Persia and the island of Hormuz, passing through Persia again on his way back to Russia.4 Nikitin described his travels, which lasted six years (1466–72), in a diary; most of it is devoted to India and only an insignificant part deals with Iran and with what used to be Iranian territories in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia.5 In 1623, Fedot Kotov, a merchant from Moscow, was sent to Iran from the city of Astrakhan’, with goods from the State Treasury. Before his departure, Kotov probably received a special assignment from the Department of Embassies (the Russian equivalent of the foreign ministry) to report about the routes, population, and the cities on his way and he kept a journal during his trip.6 The travel book by Kotov gives an account of his trip to Iran with special emphasis on trade and agriculture, and also provides some information concerning ethnography, religion, religious holidays and celebrations, customs, and architecture.7

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Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors

The diary by Artemii Volynskii8 who was sent on a special mission to Iran by Peter the Great from 1715 to 1718, is important because it marked a turning point in Russo-Iranian relations: at that time, equal, primarily trade-oriented relations were yielding to Russia’s intentions to expand into Iranian territories at a time when Iran was being torn apart by inner conflicts.9 Volynskii’s long travelogue is a valuable document that contains an analysis of the political and social life in Iran at the beginning of the eighteenth century and presents vivid descriptions of everyday life, people and their customs. The book recounts his mission’s activities in detail and portrays a number of prominent Iranian statesmen. Notably, Volynskii predicted the imminent fall of the Safavid Dynasty.10 This travelogue is complemented by the account of John Bell, a Scottish doctor in the service of Peter the Great, who accompanied Volynskii to Iran: several chapters in Bell’s own extensive two-volume travelogue are devoted to that journey.11 Peter the Great patronized Western Europeans and many of them were employed by him in the military and diplomatic service. In addition to Bell, an Italian, Florio Beneveni, and German, Ivan Gerber, left behind accounts about their journeys to Iran. Florio Beneveni visited Iran soon after Volynskii, in the years 1719– 1721. As a secretary of the Oriental Expedition of the Department of Embassies, he knew Persian and Turkish and was assigned by Peter the Great to accompany an envoy returning to Bukhara. En route from Russia to Bukhara, the mission passed through the Caucasus and Persia (Shemakha, Qazvin, Tehran), where it was delayed due to the complicated political situation. Beneveni witnessed the disorder and disintegration of the Safavid Empire shortly before its fall in 1722; he describes the political situation and provides information on the history, geography and ethnography of Iran in his reports and letters.12 In 1722, Ivan Gerber, a military officer in the Russian service, participated in Peter’s Persian campaign and stayed in the Caucasus until 1729.13 His work, translated from German into Russian, contains information on geography, history, ethnography, economy and the political situation in the Caucasus, including the relationship of different Caucasian peoples with the Iranian rulers.14 Another participant in Peter the Great’s Persian campaign was the naval officer Fedor Soimonov, captain of a ship in 1722 and in charge of several fleets in the Caspian in 1723–24. Soimonov took part in the capture of Baku and in the transportation of Russian troops and supplies to the Persian shore of the Caspian Sea. He also participated in the scientific and map-making expedition to the Caspian Sea from 1719 to 1726, first as assistant to the leader of the expedition and later as its leader.15 Soimonov published several works based on his research of the Caspian Sea;16 this marked the beginning of the publication of original Russian works on the geography of Iran.17

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 39 From 1771 to 1774, the academician Samuil Gotlib Gmelin made two trips to northern Iran on assignment from the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. He visited the provinces of Gilan and Mazanderan and traveled by ship along the Caspian shore from Lenkoran to the Bay of Astarabad.18 Part of his comprehensive multi-volume work, published in German and Russian, gives a detailed description of northern Iran, its population, everyday life, politics and economy, as well as of its flora and fauna.19 While traveling in northern Iran, Gmelin was accompanied by the naturalist Karl Gablits. In 1781–82, Gablits took part in the expedition of Count Voinovich to the Caspian Sea and northern Iran and published an account of that trip.20 His introduction tells the story of the unsuccessful expedition: the Russians built a fort on the shore of the Bay of Astarabad, but in a few months they were forced by Agha Muhammad Khan to level it. The main part of Gablits’ work describes in detail the terrain, climate, minerals, water resources, vegetation and animals of the southeastern and eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. The Voinovich Expedition was also described by its other member, Lieutenant Radling, whose brief account follows the same chronology as Gablits’.21 At almost the same time, Philipp Efremov went on his long journey that began involuntarily. He was an army sergeant serving in Orenburg when he was taken captive by the Kirgiz in 1774 and brought to Bukhara. It took him nine years to return to Russia, after traveling though Central Asia, Tibet, India and finally Britain. Efremov had some education and learned several “Asian” languages, so that after he came back to St. Petersburg, he was employed by the Board of Foreign Affairs as an interpreter.22 His travelogue23 aroused so much interest on the part of his contemporaries that sales ran to three editions (1786, 1794 and 1811).24 It featured concise and cursory descriptions of Iran’s geography, agriculture, population, cities, houses and weapons. Efremov’s book is “probably the earliest description by a European of the old route from Central Asia to India via the Kuen Lung and the Kara Korum Mountains.” At the same time, it is an “unsophisticated record of a plain man stubbornly determined to survive and report again for duty.”25 There were two more accounts of travels to Iran at the end of the eighteenth century: one by the Armenian brothers Atanasov (traveled in 1790), the other by a Georgian gentleman, Rafail Danibegov (traveled 1795–1813). The routes traveled by the Atanasovs and Danibegov were almost identical: they went through Iran to India, from there to the western part of Tibet and eastern Turkestan to the town of Semipalatinsk on the river Irtysh. Though the travelers were from the Caucasus, which was not part of Russia at that time, they went back through Russia and their travel accounts were published in Russia.26 The travelogues of the pre-colonial era were eclectic in nature. Though they provide some valuable information on different periods of Iranian

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history and the history of Iran’s relationship with Russia, they cannot be analyzed as an integral body of work with its own characteristic features and rules.

The main features of the Russian travelogues about Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Russian travelogues about Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represent a new, unexplored source of first-hand information on Qajar Iran, on Russian and British colonial politics there and on Russo-Iranian relations in the context of the “Great Game.” In spite of their value they have received almost no attention from Russian, Western and Iranian scholars.27 Furthermore, it is hard to overestimate the significance of an additional source on Qajar Iran, because that history has not received the attention it merits until recently. Prior to the last quarter of the twentieth century, the period of Qajar rule had been seen as an uneventful period of backwardness and total dependence on foreign powers. However, its importance lies in the fact that Persian society in the nineteenth century served as “the country’s main bridge between tradition and modernity.”28 For example, in 1906–07 the first Iranian Parliament (Majlis) was elected and the first Constitution approved. Also, although the Qajars lost some territories to the Russians and were unable to resist strong pressure from the Russian and British colonial empires, they managed to retain the formal independence and integrity of the country. Works on Qajar history written by contemporary Iranians were mostly “shallow, narrow, cliché-littered imitations of not-so-great historians of the past” or “official glorifications of Iran’s present, not always consistent with the truth” so that the social structure of the society was not analyzed.29 Another problem was “an overdependence on European (mostly exclusively British) archival and narrative sources.”30 The reinterpretation of the Qajar period started in the 1960s and 1970s and is still very much a work in progress.31 This research is an attempt to make a contribution to those efforts by introducing a new primary source. The Russian accounts of travels to Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries constitute a large and integral body of information on political, economic and cultural life in Iran; its geography, topography, etc., as well as a compendium of views and ideas. Many of them give special attention to the lives of ordinary people, thus making a contribution to the social history of Iran. The similarities among the numerous travelogues and their generic features, set against their individual peculiarities, provide unique material for enhancing our understanding of both the travelers and the objects of their travels. For Russian travelers, Iran was attractive as a southern neighbor and an important target of colonial tsarist policy – almost an extension of

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 41 the recently conquered Caucasus and, late in the nineteenth century, of the Central Asian territories as well. Most of the travelogues were produced between the 1880s and 1917, with another large category written starting in the 1850s. There are just a few accounts dating back to the first half of the nineteenth century. The reason for the rise in the number of travelers to Iran, and consequently their accounts, is obvious: in the second half of the century the focus of Russia’s colonial ambitions shifted to Asia after its failures in Europe. Russian travelogues of that period can be called colonial accounts: they are characterized by their connection with the political situation in Iran and Russia and with Russian politics in the Middle East and Asia. The travelogues, being primary sources, can be further classified into one of two subcategories – “primary” or “secondary”: “The travelers themselves often partly recognize this distinction by dividing their accounts into books on their journeys and books on their general accounts of the countries, although there is much secondary material in the former and much primary in the latter.”32 The travelogues belonging to the “primary” group describe the course of a journey with concentration on the routes taken and more or less resemble a diary, often being based on one. These travelogues are based on direct and immediate impressions along the way rather than on analytical observations. The travelogues belonging to the group of “secondary” evidence are also based on actual trips but are usually more analytical and are broader in scope; they reflect the traveler’s impressions of the journey after some time has passed; often they also contain the results of additional scholarly research which complements the immediate experience of the traveler. Such travelogues are often based on several journeys by the same author. The travelogues in the first group usually contain such words in their titles as opisanie (description), otchet (report), zhurnal ( journal), or poezdka (trip to certain places); and often include the names of routes taken and places visited. The travelogues in the second category are often called vospominaniia (memoirs) or obozrenie (survey); this includes statistical, economic or trade surveys. However, many travelogues combine elements characteristic of both. Most of the Russian travelogues analyzed in this book belong to the category of “primary” evidence. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more than 120 Russian authors published over 200 travelogues about Iran. The substantial discrepancy between the number of the authors and the number of their accounts is explained by the fact that many travelers wrote more than one work devoted to their journeys to Iran. Some authors made more then one trip to Iran and reflected on each trip in a separate account; often in a “primary” one. For example, Nikolai Zarudnyi, a zoologist and ornithologist, made four scholarly trips to Iran and published more than ten reports about them, concentrating on the country’s fauna. In addition to their “primary” reports, some authors wrote a “secondary”

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work or works based on one or more of their trips. For example, Ivan Blaramberg, a military topographer, took part in the expedition to the eastern shore of the Caspian in 1836 and spent the years from 1837 to 1840 in Iran, where he served as an official on special assignment with the Russian Minister. He published two “primary” works on the expedition,33 then two “secondary” works34 based on the same experiences. Some other Russians who spent time in Iran reported on their trips only in “secondary” accounts. One of these was Ivan Simonich, who served as Minister Plenipotentiary from 1832 to 1838 and included an account of his travels in his memoirs.35 The travelogues vary significantly in length, form and style. Some articles are only a few pages long. For example, the numerous articles by A. Miller, a diplomat, range in length from seven pages to more than 100 pages. In addition to several articles and essays, Pavel Ogorodnikov, a writer, produced three long books about Iran based on his travels there: the longest one is entitled Essays on Persia and is 396 pages long.36 The travelogues were published as articles in magazines and occasionally in newspapers, or as separate books. Some are to be found in scholarly, scientific magazines such as The Mining Journal37 or Yearbook of the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences.38 Other articles appeared in the periodicals of learned societies, for example, in Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society39 or Readings in the Imperial Society of History and Russian Antiquities at Moscow University.40 A large number of travelogues were published in governmental and military periodicals, for example in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education.41 In this group, Collected Geographical, Topographical, and Statistical Materials on Asia,42 edited by the Department of Military Statistics of the General Staff, holds first place in terms of the number of Russian travelogues about Iran published in its issues. Other periodicals belonging in the same category include such publications as Military Collection,43 Materials for Oriental Studies44 and Collection of Consular Reports,45 the latter two published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other travelogues were printed in literary magazines, for example in Home Notes,46 The Contemporary,47 or The Russian Herald,48 dominated by the Westernizers, or in The Muscovite,49 influenced by the Slavophiles. Other magazines include Russian Antiquity,50 Library for Reading,51 and Russian Archive.52 A number of travelogues were printed as books, for example, those written by Alexander Diugamel, A. Emel’ianov, and Il’ia Berezin. As for newspapers, their format was not suited to lengthy travelogues. Among the few travelogues appearing in newspapers were an article by Berezin published in The St. Petersburg News53 and an article by one Lomakin published serially in several issues of The Turkestan News.54 Most of the publications by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General Staff, where reports of travelers containing strategic information

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 43 were printed, are marked “confidential” and were not available to the general public at the time. This does not apply exclusively to reports in the form of articles, for example, the book The Region of Astarabad and Bastam in Persia: Travels of Colonel Benderev, of the General Staff, to this Region in 190255 was published by the staff of the 2nd Turkestan Army Corps. This sumptuous oversized volume in a red leather binding edged in gold contains 259 pages and is marked “not to be made public.” One should be aware of the fact that all military men who went to Iran on government missions had to report back to headquarters; therefore the reports that succeeded in getting published even in military periodicals do not present the complete picture because we do not have their unpublished reports at our disposal. Many travelogues have supplementary materials attached or included in the text: maps, tables, pictures, sketches. A number of them contain footnotes or endnotes, mostly citations from the works of European scholars and travelers, for example, Travel in Northern Persia56 by Berezin or “Statistical Survey of Persia Composed in 1841”57 by Ivan Blaramberg. The travelogues were all written in epistolary form, including those by Alexander Griboedov or Baron Klementii Bode, and in the form of a diary, like the accounts of Aleksei Ermolov and Egor Chirikov. Sometimes, a “secondary” account constitutes part of a more general work, for example, the memoirs by Blaramberg cover 20 years of his government service, during which he spent only three years in Iran. It is interesting to mention here two essays written by Sergei Cherniaev, a civilian diplomat and later Professor of Persian Language and Literature at St. Petersburg University, who made two trips to Iran and spent a total of some eight years in the country. He wrote several essays based on his Iranian experience; however, his essays do not talk about his travels. One of them, “The Fate of a Woman in the Muslim Orient,”58 reflects his observations made in Iran and is highly critical of “Oriental” customs and the way women live there. Two of his essays, “A Persian’s Day: an Essay on Private Life in Persia”59 and “Persian Doctors and Persian Patients”60 for the most part ridicule the customs and habits of Iranians and are full of humor. Even further removed from the stated definition of a travelogue are the articles by Adolf Berzhe, a scholar. He visited Iran once, in 1855; his articles, though obviously inspired by his interest in Iran, are not directly connected to his trips. He wrote about Griboedov and Samson Khan Makintsev, the leader of the Russian army deserters in Iran, Count Voinovich, and the Persian prince Khosrov Mirza whom the author met in Russia. The contents of the travel accounts can be divided into three major categories: (1) those written purely for entertainment; (2) those that are purely reportorial; and (3) those that combine both approaches. The accounts belonging to the first category are very few in number and usually deal with the Iranian people’s morals and habits, describe

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landscapes and places of interest at length, and tell of incidents in which the author took part. The second group is larger and includes articles and reports on topics such as geography, military topography, zoology, economics and trade. The authors usually went to Iran on some government assignment or as participants in scientific expeditions and published purely official reports of their missions upon their return. The third category comprises about 90 percent of the entire body of travelogues. These authors talk about their missions in more or less detail, sometimes just mentioning them; meanwhile, they cover numerous topics related to all aspects of Iranian life, often introducing a strong personal element. The readership of travelogues can be defined in accordance with these main categorizations. The travelogues belonging to the reportorial group were intended for a limited number of experts or for those interested in the narrow and specific subjects treated by the authors. The number of readers was often limited by the fact that many of the reports falling into this category were published in governmental or military organs and were unavailable to the general public. In contrast, accounts belonging to the other two categories addressed a general readership. Almost all the travelogues were written and published in Russian. There were some exceptions, however: Nikolai Khanykov, Basile Nikitin, Prince Aleksei Saltykov and Count Ivan Simonich wrote at least some of their works in French; Ivan Blaramberg wrote some of his in German; A. Polovtsoff published his travelogue in English, in London, years after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The use of foreign languages reflects the influence of Western culture in Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when French became the spoken language of the upper classes and, after Peter the Great, many foreigners were engaged in Russian governmental service.

The authors of the travelogues According to their occupation, the authors belong in the following categories: military officers, diplomats (including those who were in the military service at the same time), civil servants (including engineers, physicians, economists), and scholars (trained Orientalists and natural scientists). Among the prominent men who traveled to Iran were General Ermolov, a well-known Russian military and political figure of the first half of the nineteenth century, hero of the war against Napoleon and conqueror of the Caucasus; the renowned writer Alexander Griboedov, a tragic figure in the history of Russian diplomacy; Lieutenant-Colonel Domontovich and Colonel Kosogovskii, commanders of the Persian Cossack Brigade. The first generation of Russian Orientalists were often sent to Iran on research trips by their universities. Some of them would later become university professors, like Il’ia Berezin and

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 45

Figure 3 General-Lieutenant Fedor Bartolomei. Source: Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo kniazia Men’shikova,” front page.

Villiam Dittel’, or be involved in diplomatic activities, like Dmitrii Beliaev. Vladimir Minorskii and Nikolai Khanykov were two other famous Russian scholars of the Middle East who spent time in Iran pursuing scholarly and diplomatic interests and wrote about their time there. A number of Russian scientists visited Iran as members of topographical, geographical, geological, and biological expeditions, exploring the terrain, roads, climate, flora and fauna. The best known among them would be the zoologists Nikolai Zarudnyi and Alexander Nikol’skii. Doctor Alexander Eliseev, a famous world traveler and journalist, was among several physicians who described their travels to Iran. Engineer S.

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Figure 4 Il’ia Nikolaevich Berezin. Source: Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, Brokgauz i Efron: Biografii, vol. 1.

Lomnitskii was author of one of the most fascinating and well-written accounts. M. Tomar, an official in the Department of Trade and Manufactories, was sent to Iran in the last decade of the nineteenth century; he was assigned to study the conditions of trade between Russia and Iran. Several writers and journalists besides Alexander Griboedov and Alexander Eliseev were among those posted to Iran on special missions; namely, Baron Fedor Korf, Pavel Ogorodnikov, Sergei Cherniaev and Nikolai Murav’ev. Prince Aleksei Saltykov, a writer and an artist, wrote a literary narrative and painted a portrait of Muhammad Shah and the Crown Prince Nasir al-Din Mirza in 1839. There is a striking preponderance of military officers among the authors. Those not on direct military assignment were engaged in diplomatic activities, or in activities related to trade and the economy, or in road and railroad construction projects. The large number of military officers among the travelogue writers is indicative of the nature of Russia’s long-term policy toward Iran, with its strong emphasis on military objectives. The two wars fought against Iran that ended respectively in 1813 and 1828, the ensuing post-war diplomacy, Russian strategic designs in northern Iran and Khorasan, and the state of alert for Russian opportunities resulting from the Irano-Afghan wars, all required the involvement of military men. Some military travel writers took part in demarcation commissions on Iran’s borders with Turkey and Afghanistan, as well as in regulating the new Russian borders in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Others were involved with the repatriation of Russian army deserters. Later in the century, the formation of the Persian

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 47

Figure 5 Dr. A. V. Eliseev. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, front page.

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Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors

Figure 6 General Aleksei Ermolov. Source: Entsiklopedicheskii slovar” tovarishcehstva “Brat”ia A. i I. Granat i Ko,” vol. 20.

Cossack Brigade required the presence of more military men. Many officers had served in the Caucasus or in Central Asia before they arrived in Iran and had colonial or “Orientalist” experience. In some cases, the reverse was true: they had gained “Orientalist” experience in Iran and later used it in the Caucasus or in Central Asia. After his mission to Iran in 1817, General Ermolov served as Caucasian Corps Commander and governor of the Caucasus and the province of Astrakhan’. Ivan Blaramberg, a military topographer who served in Iran for three years (1837–40), later carried out various military and diplomatic assignments and held several important posts in Central Asia. In the early 1800s, some of those military officers who were sent to Iran had participated in the victorious war against Napoleon; this made them feel superior not only to the Iranians, who had lost two wars against Russia, but to Europeans as well; especially the French. General Aleksei Ermolov, one of the heroes of the battle of Borodino (1812), serves as an example of this attitude. With few exceptions, the Russian travelers went to Iran on government or military assignments and were not just passive observers but were active in pursuing their goals: “The players in the Great Game were men of action, not reflection.”61 The type of adventurer going

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 49 a-voyaging for pleasure is absent among the Russian travelers. Among the British travelers to Iran, by contrast, “an entirely new type of traveler” appeared by the middle of the nineteenth century – the amateurs, including both men and women of leisure, who were driven “by the seeking of new scenes in the new surroundings, often merely by a longing for ‘change’ for a perpetual being on the move.”62 These British amateur travelers were “responsible for more than fifty percent of the literature of Persian travel during the past eighty years or so,” the same Indonesian scholar of British travelogues about Iran wrote in 1938.63 Almost half a century later, an American scholar echoed this observation: There have always been opinions as to which nation or which period of history produced the greatest proportion of these travel-hungry people [the adventurers and lovers of travel for the sake of travel]. In England, for example, there is a time-honored tradition that the English have been the greatest travelers.64 However, in Russia, even men of high social status and substantial means preferred to go to Iran on official assignment. This is what the Russian Biographical Dictionary of 1904 tells us about Prince Aleksei Saltykov: “Saltykov had always dreamed of travel in the Orient. Finally he was able to accomplish his desire at the end of 1818, when he was given an assignment to Persia.”65 This can probably be explained mainly by the bureaucratic difficulties a person had to go through in order to get permission to travel abroad. Also, in career-conscious, socially stratified nineteenth-century Russia, going on an official mission was seen as more prestigious than traveling with no specific purpose. The backgrounds and social affiliations of the travelers were quite homogeneous. They belonged mainly to the gentry class of modest or medium means, and had either a university or higher military education, which is apparent in their writings. As noted above, several of them were scholars of the Middle East; some diplomats had training in Middle Eastern subjects. Their special knowledge is evident in their accounts: they knew the Persian language, and their use of Persian terms was accurate, as well as the information they provided concerning Persian arts, literature and history. But most of the travelers could not have passed a proficiency test in Oriental or Persian studies, and their assignments usually did not require such proficiency. That lack of professional knowledge is often reflected in their mistakes in Persian usage and their reports on Persian culture. Most of the travelers were also unable, while in Iran, to learn more about Iran, its culture and people, or learn the Persian language, because their assignments were usually brief. With the exception of Russian consuls, most of the Russians only spent a few months there, and rarely more than a year. That was undoubtedly due to the relative geographical

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Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors

proximity of Iran, when travel there was not too hard or too long, with most travelers going through the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea or through Russia’s newly obtained Central Asian territories. Their assignments, often performing some kind of reconnaissance and producing a report about it, did not require a long stay. The lack of special knowledge about the Middle East and Iran and the short duration of their stay were drawbacks for the Russian travelers compared to their British counterparts. Most of the British colonial officials were well trained and typically stayed in Iran for long periods partially because Iran was a far-away land for them, but mainly due to their considerable experience of colonization, mostly gained in India. These advantages of the British travelers did not go unnoticed. Doctor Mark was impressed by the skills of the employees of the British Indo-European Telegraph: All the officials whom I have met, are young people, full of energy, well provided for, well selected in regard to their general development and manners. All of them have studied the Persian language, habits and customs of the country well, of course know every route of their section [of the telegraph], take an interest in Persian history and literature, and Curzon’s book “Persia” [sic] is their handbook.66 Among the travelers were several people belonging to the Russian aristocracy: Prince Saltykov, Baron Bode, Baron Korf. There are a couple of exceptions: a peasant, Dementii Tsikulin – provided his account is authentic – who described his fascinating adventures in Iran, India and the Ottoman Empire; and the merchant M. Astsaturov of Merv. With the tradition of employing foreigners for Russian governmental and military service having started during the reign of Peter the Great, there were several foreigners among the authors of the travelogues. Alexander Chodzko, Polish poet and diplomat, served as translator and interpreter at the Russian missions in Tabriz and Tehran and as a Russian consul in Rasht in the 1830s. Count Ivan Simonich, who was originally from Dalmatia, served in the army of Napoleon, was taken prisoner, and after the war entered Russian military service. He held the post of Russian Minister Plenipotentiary in Iran from 1832 to 1838. Anastasii Benderev, originally from Bulgaria, served as a Deputy War Minister in Bulgaria and was a Major-General in the Russian Army. In 1902, he was sent by the Russians to northern Iran to reconnoiter on the ground. As for female authors, there appear to be only two minor articles written by women: one by D. Zhukovskaia, the other one anonymous. The anonymous author tells her readers that she went to Iran as a governess employed by a Russian envoy named Zinov’ev. This disparity between male and female authors can be explained in part by the fact that the field of Orientalism, similar to many other occupations, was an exclusively male domain: “in the patriarchal system of Orientalism, the

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 51

Figure 7 Aleksandr Griboedov. Source: Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ tovarishcehstva “Brat’ia A. i I. Granat i Ko,” vol. 17.

female traveler is the excluded Other who is included only as the token of exception in a field defined as masculine.”67 However, famous travel books were written by British women such as Gertrude Bell, Isabella Bishop and Ella Sykes. British women began to take an active part in travels by the early nineteenth century: “Nor is this spirit of enterprise [among travelers] confined to the gentlemen of England, but pervades alike the softer sex.”68 In their semi-Asiatic society, Russian women themselves were treated as “Other” by males to a greater extent than their Western European sisters. Their opportunities to travel were more limited, as was their ability to publish their writings. It is known that most of the diplomats and some other travelers to Iran such as Dr. Rubio or Alexander Diugamel’ were accompanied by their wives. Eliseev traveled in the company of his sister. However, information about them is found only in their husbands’ or other Russian travelers’ accounts. For example, an amusing episode in which Mme Diugamel’ visits the harem of Muhammad Shah is narrated by her husband, who served as Russian Minister Plenipotentiary (see Chapter 9, section “Iranian women and prosaic harems”). In many cases, obtaining information concerning the lives of the travelogue authors is an arduous task. This applies especially to those

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Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors

authors who published one or a few insignificant articles and who occupied no distinguished position in a government or scholarly institution. Sometimes travelogues by other Russian travelers contain crossreferences to the person in question; for example, Ivan Blaramberg in his memoirs provides valuable information concerning a number of other Russian travelers whom he met in Iran or about whom he had heard. Scholarly research has been done on some prominent figures such as Alexander Griboedov, Aleksei Ermolov, Il’ia Berezin and Nikolai Khanykov. A few travelers published their works under pseudonyms or anonymously; these include “Misl’-Rustem,” who wrote a fascinating book about Iran during the reign of Nasir al-Din Shah but who did not provide any autobiographical information and is not listed in Russian dictionaries of literary pseudonyms. En route to Iran the majority of Russian travelers passed through the Caucasus, though in the late nineteenth century some of them went to eastern and northeastern Iran through the newly conquered Central Asian territories. The authors of the travelogues spent most of their time in the northwestern, northeastern, and central parts of the country and in the provincial capitals of Tehran, Tabriz and Mashhad. This was the area that was to become the Russian sphere of influence according to the terms of the treaty of 1907. A survey of the areas traveled by the Russians and described in their writings makes it quite clear that this treaty confirmed the actual existence of the Russian sphere of influence in northern and central Iran. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the northern parts of Iran were in flourishing condition compared to the depopulated South.69 The Qajars had moved their capital from Esfahan to Tehran in 1785. Tabriz became the second major city of Iran, the seat of the Crown Prince. It acquired a special importance in Iran’s relationship with the foreign powers while ‘Abbas Mirza (1789–1833) was the Crown Prince. Many Russian travelers visited central Iran, but only a few reached the southern parts of the country. Among them were Dr. Sergei Mark, Dmitrii Beliaev, A. Miller, and Il’ia Berezin. The many shared features of the authors resulted in a relative uniformity of the travelogues, especially in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. It is difficult to notice any significant chronological evolution of the authors’ beliefs and interpretations. For this research, writings by the most “representative” types among the travelers have been used. The extent to which an author can be considered as representative depends on his individual style.70 This work attempts to preserve a balance between an examination of the main features of the travelogues on the one hand and the individual traits of the writers on the other in order to create a comprehensive picture. Often, it is the individual peculiarities of their authors that make the travelogues interesting and amusing.

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 53 To illustrate the salient features and give readers an idea of the tangible human beings behind the difficult-to-pronounce names, seven of the travelers are introduced in some detail below. Representative of the main types of travelers (with the exception of the peasant Tsikulin), they produced accounts valuable for various reasons. Readers will also notice that an unequal amount of information is available for each of them. Unless stated otherwise, the information is extracted from their travelogues. Dementii Ivanov Tsikulin was a peasant from the province of Riazan’. According to his own words, in 1808, he was sent to the city of Astrakhan’ and from there on a trade assignment to the Persian town of Enzeli. On his way back, he decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. While traveling to Baghdad, he was waylaid and wounded by robbers, and later captured by a khan of Kermanshah who made him herd his cattle. Tsikulin spent three years and four months there, during which he “endured all kinds of sufferings” because the khan tried to force him to convert to Islam, but in vain. Tsikulin was robbed again by Kurds who sold him to their “Sardar” (commander). His new owner also tried to force him to become a Muslim. One year and seven months later, he escaped, and after more unpleasant adventures reached Baghdad. He traveled to several other Middle Eastern countries, such as Arabia, the Anatolian region of the Ottoman Empire, and Palestine, as well as to India and England before he finally made his way back to Russia 13 years after he had left it. The travelogue by Tsikulin appears to be the only one out of the great number of Russian travel accounts written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which was composed by a peasant, provided it is authentic. Tsikulin describes the agriculture of the places he visits, as well as food, clothes, houses and some customs of the people. He proudly tells his readers how he was able to preserve his Christianity in spite of the sufferings and tortures he endured, and even under the threat of death. The travelogue contains a number of fantastical passages and confused geographical names. It is written in the simple language of a naturally intelligent person lacking in education. Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov (1777–1861) was a famous military and political figure of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. He came from an ancient gentry family of modest means. First tutored at home, his education was continued at a boarding school for children from aristocratic families affiliated with Moscow University. He later continued to study in the Artillery Corps and read extensively on his own. Ermolov started his military career at the age of 15 with the rank of captain; he participated in the military campaign in Poland in 1794, in Georgia in 1796, and in the campaigns against Napoleon in 1805–07. Ermolov was promoted to colonel in 1806, and to major-general in 1808. He fought against Napoleon from 1812 through 1815, and became

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famous as a hero of the battle of Borodino. In 1816, General Ermolov was appointed Caucasian Corps Commander and civil administrator of the Caucasus and the province of Astrakhan’. He led military operations against the highlanders, accompanied by the building of Russian forts, and put down uprisings. He became infamous for his heavy-handed treatment of the peoples of the Caucasus whom he was “pacifying.” At the same time, Ermolov’s activities as a civil administrator in the Caucasus were many-sided: from construction of roads and encouraging trade to composing a special prayer for Alexander I for Muslims in the Caucasus, which was made obligatory in all the mosques of the region under his administration. In 1817, Ermolov was sent to Persia as a Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary on a mission to settle the lines of demarcation between Russia and Persia in accordance with the treaty of Gulistan (1813). In 1825, Alexander I, who favored Ermolov, died; this marked the turning point in Ermolov’s career. He was retired in 1826, and spent the rest of his life partly on his estate and partly in Moscow.71 The travel account by Ermolov is devoted to his trip to Persia in April-September of 1817. His main topics are the meetings with the high-ranking Persian officials in Tabriz and Sultaniyeh and the negotiations with ‘Abbas Mirza and Fath ‘Ali Shah concerning the Caucasian territories taken by Russia as a result of the War of 1813. After having studied the territories, Ermolov came to the conclusion that none of these territories could be ceded back to Persia without damage to Russia’s interests. Some details of Persian etiquette received special attention by Ermolov, who refused to follow them in his audiences with the Shah and the Crown Prince ‘Abbas Mirza: for example, taking off one’s shoes and putting on red socks. He witnessed a review of ‘Abbas Mirza’s infantry and artillery, and gives a favorable account of their skill. His general opinion about Iran is strongly negative, expressed in the straightforward manner particular to him. Ermolov’s travelogue is supplemented by accounts written by several other members of his mission: Vasilii Borozdna,72 Evdokim Lachinov,73 Alexander Sokolov,74 and an anonymous author.75 Il”ia Nikolaevich Berezin (1818–96) was one of the first bona fide Russian Orientalists who traveled to Persia. He was born in 1818, to the family of a government official at a plant in Perm’, in the Urals. He studied first at home, then at a district school in Ekaterinburg; later he was transferred to the gymnasium in Perm’ at public expense. In 1837, Berezin graduated from the Oriental Faculty of the University of Kazan’. He obtained a Master’s degree in Oriental Philology in 1841, and in the following year was sent by the University on a scholarly trip to the Middle East, visiting Transcaucasia, Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, Constantinople and the Crimea. His primary goal was to study spoken “Muslim” languages and their dialects: Turkish, Persian and Arabic,

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 55 as well as the literatures in these languages. Upon his return from the Middle East, Berezin was appointed Professor of Turkish at the University of Kazan’, and then at the University of St. Petersburg when the Oriental Faculty was moved there in 1855. Of the work conceived as Travel in the Orient,76 only the first two volumes were published: Travel in Dagestan and Transcaucasia77 and Travel in Northern Persia.78 Berezin had broad scholarly interests and was involved in the development of higher education in Russia and in the intellectual and cultural life of his times; he held various official appointments. Berezin, who was an “encyclopedic” scholar, left an extensive body of academic and popular works. He died in 1896.79 The travelogues by Berezin are among the most fascinating, comprehensive and scholarly in the group. The range of the subjects treated by Berezin is amazingly broad. His Travel in Northern Persia constitutes an encyclopedia of northern Persia in the mid-nineteenth century. Berezin combined several goals in his narrative: he gave a detailed description of the route he followed and the cities he visited, and presented extensive information concerning various aspects of life in Persia: its economy, architecture, politics, government, rulers, army, history, culture, customs, the characteristics of different social groups of Persians, foreigners in Persia, and so on. Berezin gave a detailed description of the cities of Ardebil and Tabriz, and especially of Tehran (about half his travelogue on Persia is devoted to Tehran). He had a special interest in the foreign trade with Persia: he was concerned about Russian interests on the Caspian Sea and in the north of Persia, as well as about the rivalry between Russian and British trade. The range of the goods, their prices and quality, and the trade routes are treated in his Travel in Dagestan and Travel in Northern Persia. He devoted a whole chapter of his Travel in Northern Persia to Muharram processions in Tehran; he also described ta”ziyeh (the Shi’i passion play), translated part of a play and included it in his narrative. His books contain end notes, mostly citations from works by European scholars and travelers. The supplements include copies of inscriptions, with translation by the author, tables on trade and meteorological observations. Some of Berezin’s travelogues are embellished with several masterly drawings and maps made by the author. The text of his accounts is very dense and incorporates a great number of Persian words and statistics. Berezin’s masterly use of rich and scholarly language, his ample erudition, his generous talent for narrative, together with the flavor of his humor, make his travelogues both entertaining and informative. His descriptions are solid, leisurely, and abound in detail. Leonid Konstantinovich Artamonov, explorer of Asia and Africa, was born into a gentry family in 1859, in the province of Kherson. Artamonov was sent to northern Azerbaijan in 1889 and to Mazanderan, Semnan and Northern Khorasan in 1891–92 to reconnoiter on the ground for the Army. Later in his career, he was lieutenant-general, and

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Commander of the Army Corps.80 Artamonov was a member of the Russian Geographical Society. The accounts by Artamonov are exclusively formal: his descriptions of the routes, tribes and population are written from the standpoint of their usefulness or lack thereof for the advance of Russian troops into Persia. A likely route for the Russian advance is expressed in a straightforward way in the articles dealing with Khorasan and other northeastern areas. The other topics engaging his interest are the Persian army and its resources, government administration, and trade. Artamonov pays considerable attention to the rivalry between Russian and British political and military interests in Iran. His narrative is written in clear and logically structured language, with complete indifference towards everything unrelated to his specific concerns. S. Lomnitskii was most likely an engineer. In 1898, a mining company sent Lomnitskii to Persia, together with a mining engineer named Kurmakov. Their assignment was to negotiate the exploitation of ore in the province of Azerbaijan with the Persian government. Lomnitskii and Kurmakov went to Tehran through Enzeli and Rasht and stayed there for awhile. In order to research minerals along the coast of Mazanderan, they traveled from Tehran to Mashhad-e Sar and from there went by sea to Bandar-e Gaz. They returned to Russia in 1900. The travelogue written by Lomnitskii is probably the most exciting and well-written Russian travelogue about Persia. His primary interest is the people and their habits, everyday life and morals. The topics Lomnitskii covers are numerous: women, family life, houses and bazaars, etiquette, different peoples and different social groups, each with their peculiar customs. Lomnitskii also treats such subjects as the Persian army, Islam and the mullahs, crimes and prison, and the British in Iran. Interestingly, he is silent about his own mission in Iran, and apart from his short introduction we know nothing about how he and his companion succeeded in accomplishing their stated goal. He says that he had an audience with the Shah, therefore it can be assumed that their mission to Persia was highly regarded. What makes the book fascinating reading are the stories, anecdotes and scenes observed by the author himself – most of them funny and told with mild humor. Lomnitskii peopled his book with many characters; he is interested in every individual he meets, and is willing to communicate with people from different groups of the populace. Unlike most of the other travelers, Lomnitskii has a lot of sympathy and understanding for the people he meets and is not inclined to make generalizations. His description of his little friend and Persian teacher, an orphan girl Fatima, whom he wanted to adopt, is charming and unforgettable. His portrayals of Muzaffar al-Din Shah and his prime minister Amin al-Sultan are flattering to the point of being naïve. Again, unlike most of the travelers, Lomnitskii tries to be positive and tolerant in most of his judgments and conclusions,

Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 57 even while talking about such sensitive subjects as Islam. His interest in Persian culture is marked with a certain respect: he quotes some Persian songs in Russian translation and devotes a whole chapter to a detailed description of ta”ziyeh. The style and language of Lomnitskii are those of a talented writer and a good-natured man. The book is accompanied by 44 pictures of various views, mostly of groups of people and individuals, including a number of women. Alexander Vasil”evich Eliseev (1858–95) was a medical doctor and a world traveler. He was born in 1858, in Finland, where his father, a military officer, was serving. At first he studied in the Department of Science and History at St. Petersburg University; later he transferred to the Medical Academy in St. Petersburg. Eliseev graduated in 1882 and served as an Army doctor in the Caucasus, Turkestan, the Baltic provinces, Finland and finally in St. Petersburg. After resigning in 1887, he was assigned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and at the same time opened his private practice. Eliseev traveled widely throughout his life; in his early years, he traveled in the northern parts of Russia, Finland, the Urals, and in Europe. In 1881, he visited Egypt, Cairo, Jerusalem and Syria; in 1882, Lapland; in 1884, Palestine, Greece, Sicily, Tunis, Algeria and the Sahara. In 1886–87, he traveled to Asia Minor: the Palestinian Society appointed him to study the routes on foot from Russia to the Holy Land for Russian pilgrims, while the Geographical Society commissioned him to conduct an anthropological study of the peoples of the Orient. In the spring of 1889, he was sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to escort a large group of emigrants from Russia to Vladivostok. Using the opportunity, Eliseev traveled in Siberia, then went to Japan and Ceylon. In 1890, the Ministry assigned him to go to Persia for the summer in order to observe the cholera epidemic. Eliseev studied the sanitary conditions in Tehran, Khorasan, Gilan and Mazanderan. In 1892, he studied the typhoid epidemic in Chelyabinsk; the next year he spent the summer in Bessarabiya studying the cholera epidemic, and in the fall of the same year went to Sudan, where he had a narrow escape from the Mahdis. His last trip was made to Abyssinia. He died in 1895, having caught croup from a sick child. Eliseev undertook many of his travels using his own modest means. He published extensively.81 In his travelogues about Persia, Eliseev does not mention his medical assignment except at the very beginning of his account. He concentrates on the description of places and cities (Tehran, Qazvin, Rasht) which he visited, and on the people as social types, their customs and morals. There is a feeling of remoteness from the local people, who exist in a dimension different from that in which the author moves, and whose country and lives he observes for the sole purpose of reporting. His narration contains several stories as well, such as one about his trip to a Zoroastrian tower of silence, and also a few reports about his contacts

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with some Persian local rulers. Eliseev wrote in the reserved manner of a professional journalist; his descriptions are thorough, skilled and smooth. Anastasii Fedorovich Benderev was a Bulgarian and Russian military writer. He was born in 1859 in Tyrnovo (Bulgaria). Benderev served as Deputy War Minister in Bulgaria, and was Major-General in the Russian Army, Commander of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Turkestan Cossack Division.82 In 1902, he was sent to northern Persia to reconnoiter on the ground for the Army. In his travelogue Benderev gives descriptions of the routes, terrain, geography, population, economy and trade in northern Persia. The goal of his research is defined as military: the central concern is accessibility of the region for Russian troops in case of their advance into Khorasan. Among his other concerns are Russian and Persian politics vis-à-vis the Turcoman tribes, and the condition of the Persian army. The travelogue is written in a dry, unemotional manner and was published as a sumptuous oversized volume in a red binding with golden edging. It contains tables and maps and is marked “Not To Be Made Public.” Dmitrii Beliaev was a civilian diplomat who traveled extensively in Persia. He spent some time in Mashhad in 1902. In the summer of 1903, he was sent to Persia by St. Petersburg University in order to study Persian. In 1905, being in the diplomatic service, Beliaev stayed in Persia as a “student of the Russian Imperial Mission” and was assigned to serve as an acting secretary at the Consulate in Kerman and in Bandar-e Abbas. During that period, Beliaev made several trips to the eastern and southeastern areas of Persia. By 1907, he held the position of Secretary at the Consulate in Kerman, and later became Secretary of the Consulate in Tabriz. In 1909, Beliaev spent some time in Persian Kurdistan. Accounts by Beliaev, written in official style, give descriptions of routes, terrain, population and agriculture. Though Beliaev was a civilian, he usually evaluates the routes from the military point of view. He seems to be equally interested in the military politics and trade interests of Russia in Persia. Therefore, exposure of the intrigues of the British in Persia plays an important role in his reports. Some of his articles provide a few details about his personal experiences in his travels but do not go beyond the above-mentioned topics. However, in his other works, such as Report on a Travel in Persia83 and especially “From Ashkhabad to Mashhad,”84 he gives his observations on various subjects, such as sayyeds (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad), shahzadehs (princes), Muslim fanaticism, Babis, and Jews in Persia. Beliaev has an ability to make details sound quite amazing, for example, when he tells about the use of uniforms and personal seals in Persia, or about the sacred stones on the road to Mashhad. His article on Kurdistan and on what he calls “Russian interests in Kurdistan” covers various topics related to the Kurdish tribes: their form of Islam and their sheikhs, their clothing and arms, their morals and their attitude towards the Persians.

The travelers’ missions in Iran

4

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Russian travel accounts provide information on several major topics connected with Russian policy toward Iran, including Russian military activity and aims in Iran, Russian diplomacy in Iran, Russian colonization of Iran and Russian trade in Iran. All these areas of Russian activity are interlocked and inevitably connected with her rivalry with Britain in the context of the “Great Game.” The Great Game has been so far mainly examined from the British perspective; therefore, the travelogues provide a unique opportunity to study the Russian perspective on it and to learn about Russia’s activities in its framework. The first-hand information is displayed by the participants in the Game who were implementing the imperial policy in the military, diplomatic and economic areas. Most of Russia’s interests in Iran were concentrated in northern and northeastern Iran, particularly in the Caspian provinces and Khorasan, and these areas were made a Russian sphere of influence according to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Those were the territories where the Russians exercised most of their influence; they were also drawing up their further expansionist designs on them. In a few cases, however, military and commercial projects also included other parts of Iran such as the area around the Karun River, the coast of the Persian Gulf, and eastern Iran.

Russian military aims and activities in Iran Russian travelers to Iran concentrate on three main topics related to military activities: (1) Russian army deserters in Iran and their return to Russia; (2) the Persian Cossack Brigade; and (3) ground reconnaissance. The last subject is among the most popular among the authors: many accounts were simply based on a detailed reconnaissance of a specific area, but almost each one includes a precise description of some route. The issue of Russian deserters and the Russian Battalion created a lot of stir in the diplomatic and military circles involving the emperor and

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high-ranking diplomats. Russians started to escape to Iran through the Caucasus at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, when Russia established its military presence there. Two Russo-Iranian wars further increased the numbers of deserters. The story of the creation of the Russian Battalion under the patronage of ‘Abbas Mirza, and that of Samson Makintsev, or “Samson-khan,” its commander and founder, are told by Adol’f Berzhe and by Captain Al’brant in his travelogue.1 The Russian Battalion was formed of Russian deserters as well as local Armenian and Nestorian Christians. The soldiers were encouraged by their commander to marry local Christian women. The Battalion had a great reputation in Iran. When the second war between Iran and Russia started, however, Samson Khan refused to fight against the Russians.2 Already General Ermolov, who was in Iran in 1817, mentions that Qa’im Maqam, Nasir al-Din Shah’s prime minister, “resorted to various roguish tricks” when the Russian representative touched upon the repatriation of the Russian prisoners of war and of those deserters who were willing to go back. Asked why the Iranian rulers were so reluctant to return those Russian soldiers, Qa’im Maqam explained, “’Abbas Mirza [the Crown Prince] really relies on them: he has formed them into his personal guard and entrusted himself to them.”3 Adol’f Berzhe, points out that General Ermolov did his best to get the Russian prisoners and deserters back: His efforts, however, had no consequences other than unpleasant conversations with the Persian rulers. The attempts made by Ermolov’s successors as Commanders of the Caucasian Corps, Count Paskevich and Baron Rozen, were also futile. And it was really hopeless to count on a successful outcome of this matter, since the Persians tried to keep both our deserters and our prisoners of war under various pretexts, and in case of their attempts to return, no matter how weak, inflicted the harshest humiliations on them.4 I. Noskov was a traveler who happened to free some Russian captives in Iran: his success seems to have been rather unintentional and limited. After delivering the crystal bed (see next section, “Russian diplomacy in Iran”) to Fath ‘Ali Shah, he was preparing to leave Tehran in December 1826, when the second war between Iran and Russia was under way. Noskov says that ‘Ali Shah Mirza, one of the Shah’s sons, approached him quite unexpectedly with a “strange” proposal to escort to Esfahan 320 captive Russian soldiers, who had been brought some time ago from Tabriz. Taken aback by such an offer, Noskov rejected it, pointing out that he was not sure of his own safety and that this assignment could be carried out much better by a Persian official.5 The story of that group of Russian prisoners had a comparatively happy ending: through Sir John Kinneir Macdonald, the British Minister in Tehran, Noskov petitioned

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the Shah to free the Russian prisoners and to turn them over to him as a gift. The Shah granted his request, and the prisoners were given to Noskov. In connection with this, the Shah told Noskov: “Let it be a proof to your Emperor of how pleased I am with you, and how far I am from the thought of hostility towards Russia.” Noskov notes that out of 320 soldiers who had been brought to Tehran about two months prior to that, only 250 were still alive: the rest of them had died of disease and unbearable exhaustion. Noskov writes that he had to wait till warm clothes for the soldiers were ready; after that, on 12 December 1826, he left Tehran, accompanied by an Iranian mehmandar (host) and a representative of the British Mission. In Erevan, he was able to save two more Russian prisoners of war who were serving at the house of the Iranian commandant of the fortress. In mid-February 1827, Noskov successfully accomplished his mission and brought back the freed soldiers.6 According to a well-informed author, in 1829 the Russian Battalion consisted of 1,400 men but later this number decreased: After the cholera [epidemic] of 1830, and especially after the death of ‘Abbas Mirza, the strength of the battalion considerably diminished; in 1838, when I arrived in Tehran, it had about 500 men. Easy service and good pay drew our soldiers to Persia. Their heroic deeds in campaigns against the Turcomans and Afghans earned them great respect in Persia. The battalion had the fame which made it look threatening in the eyes of the Persians and their enemies in the Orient. It bore the title of the Grenadier’s Battalion (Bahaduran); it formed palace guards during the time of Fath ‘Ali Shah and his successor, Muhammad [Shah]. [The battalion] guarded the tranquility of the Persian rulers; it was their hope during attacks and in military campaigns. It assisted Muhammad Shah greatly in his succession to the throne, which Zill al-Sultan (son of Fath ‘Ali Shah) had almost stolen from him.7 As reported by Berzhe, in November 1828, after the Treaty of Turkmanchai was concluded, the Russian Minister in Tehran Alexander Griboedov complained about the evasiveness of the Iranian government in the matter of returning Russian deserters and war prisoners. According to the treaty, all the prisoners of war were to be returned; while Iran was not to allow Russian deserters serving in the Iranian army to be stationed near the new frontier.8 Griboedov was able to get the Iranian government to agree to return them, but his murder postponed the resolution of the problem until good relations between the two countries were restored. In 1830, while Prince Dolgorukov was the Russian Ambassador to Iran, the Russian government issued pardons to the deserters and granted them permission to return home. However, the

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Russians could not issue an open order for the deserters to return, since that would be contrary to the terms of the Treaty of Turkmanchai. In 1837, Nicholas I requested that the battalion formed from Russian deserters and prisoners of war be dissolved and the Russian soldiers return to Russia. He also requested that the Iranian government not accept more Russian deserters to Iran. This request was sent to the Russian Minister in Iran, Count Simonich, who was supposed to deliver it to Muhammad Shah. In the event of the Shah’s refusal to meet the Emperor’s request, Simonich was supposed to leave Iran, together with all the members of his Mission. At that time, Muhammad Shah was at the siege of Herat, therefore Count Simonich was allowed to go to Herat in person on that assignment. Later the same year, Simonich was replaced by Diugamel’ who received the following instructions personally from Nicholas I before his departure for Iran: Emir Nizam [Commander-in-chief of the Iranian army in Heart whom the Emperor had met when he visited the Caucasus in 1837] told me that the number of these deserters has reached two thousand. Since then, the battalion numbers seemed to have declined since now [the Persians] are only talking about 400 people. It is highly probable that our deserters have got scared and run away when they heard that I am requesting that they be returned. There is nothing surprising in the fact that the deserters are able to hide and avoid government control in a country which is as poorly governed as Persia. However, I don’t want regularly organized units to be formed out of them right next to us, which can serve as an encouragement and enticement for any soldier who decided to desert. Soon we shall hear that either the Persian government has accepted my request or that our Mission has left Tehran according to my orders. If our deserters are returned to us, in future we shall have to take care that similar units are not to be created.9 Muhammad Shah agreed to gather all the deserters and turn them over to the Russian consul. As a result, Captain Lev Al’brant, “an able, intelligent, brave and energetic officer,”10 was assigned to go to Iran and escort the deserters back to Russia.11 In his fascinating account, Al’brant tells how he was able to overcome numerous difficulties and successfully carry out his demanding task. He emphasizes that his appeals to the Christian feelings and the patriotism of the Russian deserters had a great effect on them. Al’brant acted with initiative and speed; he arrived in Iran in June 1838 and returned to Russia in February 1839. According to Berzhe, Al’brant brought back to Russia 597 deserters, 206 wives and 281 children; a total of 1,084 people.12 The Emperor ordered the returned deserters to be assigned to service in the battalions located on the borders of Finland and Arkhangel’sk.

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Later, . . . according to the Emperor’s order, all the deserters who had families were transferred to the Cossack units, and 30 aged Russian soldiers to their native provinces. As for those who had accepted Islam, they only were ordered to be subjected to the church penance “for [their] apostasy forced by their long stay in Persia and their circumstances.”13 Samson Khan Makintsev, founder of the Russian Battalion, never returned to Russia: his later life is narrated by Berzhe.14 One of the effective mechanisms of Russia’s influence in Iran was the Persian Cossack Brigade, founded (in 1879) and led by Russian military officers. A number of Russian travelers to Iran tell the story of the Cossack Brigade’s founding or refer to its activities:15 these include the fascinating accounts by Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksei Domontovich, founder of the Brigade, and by Colonel V. Kosogovskii, one of its most important commanders.16 These accounts have been skillfully employed by F. Kazemzadeh as the main sources for his article “The Origin and Early Development of the Persian Cossack Brigade.”17 Misl’-Rustem, who spent six years in Iran from 1882 to 1888, devoted a chapter to the Cossack Brigade in his account: he presents information on the Brigade’s formation and development during the late nineteenth century; its arms, uniforms, drills and maneuvers; its funding; its structure and numbers. He also describes the barracks and the infirmary. The author makes an unflattering statement concerning the famous Brigade: “I have to say that there is no discipline in this Brigade, though everybody talks about it,” and he gives an example as proof of his assertion.18 M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, who visited Iran in 1883, also considers that despite the efforts of the Brigade’s Russian commanders in Tehran, there is an absence of discipline: This group, which is in reality a cavalry regiment of militia, has been arbitrarily called a brigade; moreover, a Cossack [brigade]; with the exception of the costume of the Caucasian highlanders, this unit has nothing in common with the Cossacks: neither in their structure, nor in their way of recruitment nor in their service.19 Among the Russian travelogues, the account by N. P. Mamontov is particularly fascinating, since it is written by a witness to the incidents in Tehran in June 1908, when the Cossack Brigade, led by Colonel Liakhov, played the major role in dissolving the Majlis and putting an end to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–08. He states that he had no personal interest in the events; therefore, he claims his presentation is objective: “I am not a diplomat, not an officer of the Cossack Brigade of His Majesty the Shah – I am someone who is absolutely uninterested in Persian affairs; an ordinary traveler, one who has personally seen

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most of the events I describe.”20 Mamontov informs his readers about the revolutionary movement in Iran and step by step describes “the bloody clashes in the square in front of the Majlis.” He talks about the Cossack Brigade in the early twentieth century and praises its commander Colonel Liakhov. Mamontov passionately defends Liakhov from the accusation of “illegal actions” and depicts him as a hero who saved the throne of the lawful ruler of Iran, Muzaffar al-Din Shah. He mentions that the Shah was very grateful to the Brigade “for saving [his] shaken throne”: The situation was saved. In spite of the intrigues of the British and the Germans, who supported the revolutionary parties, the Shah’s spirit rose, and leaning on the strong arm of Colonel Liakhov, he temporarily climbed out from the grave which had been dug for him.21 At the end of his account, Mamontov sums up: While the Russian officers are in the Brigade, they cannot let die the unit they have created, and for which they are responsible, and the Shah who has blindly trusted them. The [Russian] press is fiercely attacking Colonel Liakhov, accusing him of various transgressions of the law. I don’t know if my poor notes have helped somewhat to restore the truth, but I am absolutely convinced that any honest military officer would do the same in [Col. Liakhov’s] place . . . Anyway, if we consider involvement of the Russian officers in the internal disturbances in Persia, we have to immediately raise the question of recalling the whole Russian Military Mission from Tehran.22 In the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century, a great number of Russian military officers were sent to Iran in order to reconnoiter the region. The accounts written by some of these officers reflect their travels in northwestern and northeastern Iran and give detailed results of the study they made of the routes: the terrain, possibilities of water and food supplies, inhabited areas, the attitude of the population towards the Russians. They also outline the most convenient routes for Russian military operations. The construction of roads and railroads in Iran and border areas belonging to Russia, such as Turkmenia, was closely connected with Russian military goals. Some of the authors only imply that their missions had a military purpose, others talk about Russian military plans in a straightforward way. Several of them express their confidence in support or at least non-resistance of the local people if the Russians attack Iran. As noted above, their published reports do not extend to the more complete picture sent to headquarters.

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While describing the routes between Ashgabat and Mashhad, Colonel Iu. D. Mel’nitskii (General Staff) discusses the adapting of the road for “moving [Russian] artillery;” the main roads to be used “in case of our advance into Khorasan;” and the Kurdish population, which “will not present strong resistance to our advance into Khorasan.”23 Captain Leonid Artamonov (General Staff) lists northern Azerbaijan among the areas potentially attractive as objects of a Russian military takeover; for example, he explains how it would be easier to capture three cities he saw which were supposed to be fortified: Tabriz, Ardebil and Khoi. He even includes a sketch of the barracks of the Iranian soldiers in Tabriz.24 His other accounts are devoted to on-the-ground military reconnaissance of the Caspian coast and northern Khorasan.25 Captain V. Oranovskii (General Staff) gives a “military and statistical” description of northeastern Khorasan and tells his readers what he perceives as necessary measures “when we advance into Khorasan,” for example: If the population of [Mashhad] and its higher ‘ulama try to resist our army, bombardment of the city would be enough to make it surrender, taking into account the density of buildings and population; most likely it will not be necessary to take the city by storm.26 Lieutenant Bel’gard studied routes from the Caspian Sea to Tehran. Among other things, he sums up the results of his work concerning the roads between Chalus and Tehran and indicates the seasons when the roads can be used, as well as the shortest and best roads to be taken by the Russian cavalry, infantry and artillery. According to his article, “the population, timid by nature and oppressed by taxation, will not put up any resistance to the advancing [Russian] army.” His conclusions concerning “the military significance of this route” include the following advantages: It’s short (3 days’ march for the cavalry and 6 days’ march for the infantry) . . . There are no telegraph lines along the road or nearby, which gives a [military] group the opportunity to appear at the walls of Tehran without warning . . . In the event of our advance into Persia, from whatever direction the main forces are sent, the dispatch of a mobile group about the size of a cavalry brigade with a battery of mountain artillery along the route under observation has numerous advantages. The mere news of the appearance of such a group at the walls of Tehran will have an incredible effect and will create panic in Persia . . . Inside the city such unimaginable chaos will ensue that it will force the rulers of Persia to agree to all the Russian government demands.27

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Captain P. Tomilov (General Staff), who reported on the conditions of the roads in Iran including those between Tehran and Qazvin, Tehran and Esfahan, Esfahan and Shushtar, Shiraz and Bushehr, and the route from the Karun River to Tehran, often refers to the possibility that his descriptions of the routes will be used in the case of an advance by Russian troops.28 Captain Lomakin mentions in passing, as a thing decided on, the possibility of a Russian advance into Khorasan.29 Lieutenant Karl Von Baumgarten makes observations about the potential military accessibility of the routes he traveled in eastern Iran.30 S. Babich, a military officer, refers to northern Iran as an area where “we will probably have to take action in future.” He also assesses the roads in Azerbaijan from the point of view of their being accessible for mountain artillery.31 Other important authors whose travels in northern and northeastern Iran as reflected in their accounts have clear military purposes are LieutenantColonel I. Strel’bitskii32 and Colonel (General Staff) Anastasii Benderev.33 They often mention the possibility that Russia will advance into Iranian territories. Civilian travelers also consider their missions closely connected with the military Russian objectives in Iran and frequently try to make their accounts useful for military purposes. In his account, Dmitrii Beliaev, a civilian diplomat, often mentions the possibility that the military will make use of his observations.34 In the introduction to his account of his travels all over Iran, he states: Not being a military man, I was unable to describe [places for] positions and bivouacs, hence I limited myself to judgments concerning the suitability of one place or another, without mentioning the number of troops who can be encamped in those bivouacs. Interestingly, he mentions Captain Tomilov’s efforts in regard to the increased Russian influence in southern Iran: During the three years which have passed since Captain Tomilov’s journey [in 1900], the political situation in southern Persia has changed significantly; the ways of Russian activities, which at that time were only indicated, have been carried out to a great extent. During this short time, we have been able to destroy quietly and without major trouble the fiction of the exclusive domination of the British in that area created by the British in the minds of the population of the Persian Gulf.35 This statement demonstrates that he was well informed about the military projects in Iran and that he was also interested in southern Iran which lay outside of the Russian sphere of influence.

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Collegiate Assessor A. Miller, also a civilian official, who traveled in Seistan, concludes his article by stating his opinion that for an advance of troops in the area, preparatory field engineering works are needed, while food and forage can be found in abundance.36 In his account devoted to Kerman, Miller maintains that one of Russia’s goals in that province consists of “not allowing British seizure of territory or their occupation, even temporarily, of Kerman Province and Persian Baluchistan under the specious pretext of safeguarding India from foreign invasion through Persia.”37 As for southern Iran, Lieutenant Khoven studied the route from Jolfa through Tehran to Shushtar and the advantages and disadvantages of marching an army along different parts of the road. He claims, for example, that the Iranian government, being weak and unpopular, would not be able “to show serious resistance to any foreign expansion”; therefore, “While advancing through Persia to the Persian Gulf, [the Russian] army will mainly have to deal with local obstacles.”38 He has strangely forgotten about the British influence in southern Iran. The importance of the Russian military designs in Iran is further stressed by the fact that many accounts by the Russian travelers were published by military printing-houses, such as the Printing-House of the Headquarters of the Caucasian Military Province.39 It is also significant that many of the military authors of the travelogues belonged to the General Staff. Military officers who were proud of the Russian Army’s power, saw themselves as carriers of the true authority and professionals who were in charge of the practical implementation of Russian colonial policies in Iran. There is evidence that sometimes they did not get along with civilian diplomats. Diplomats are accused of interfering in military affairs, of ignorance and of intriguing against some military officers. S. Babich and V. Kosogovskii, both military officers, complain bitterly about the disagreements and even the hostility between the military and civilian officials in Iran. Kosogovskii charges the Russian “Olympian diplomats” in Tehran with arrogance and intrigue: It was . . . curious and instructive how “the Russian representatives of Great Russia in the Orient” treated me: it is enough to tell you that one of the Olympians, upon learning about my assignment and being in despair that he had not been able to bring his own [favorite], sent a telegram to St. Petersburg which said “the appointment of Colonel Kosogovskii would be equal to losing the good name of Russia in the Orient” . . . The diplomats barely honor me by extending the tips of their fingers to me; not being able to handle their own business, they tried to instruct me as they used to instruct my predecessors. However, I was so courteous that I asked them not to worry and overstrain

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Kosogovskii accuses the Russian diplomats of lack of support for the Cossack Brigade: they have even let the director of the Russian Bank in Tehran know that it was not desirable to lend him money. He tells how the Russian Ambassador Kimon Argoropulo tried to discredit him in the eyes of the Shah and the Russian commanders back in Russia. He also accuses the Russian Mission of slandering Colonel Domontovich, the founder of the Cossack Brigade, in the eyes of the Russian high officials, so that he was replaced in 1881 while on leave.41 Babich complains bitterly of the incompetence of the Russian diplomats and of their interference in military affairs: Even the Consul’s servants (I am not mentioning [the Consul] himself out of modesty) have higher standing and more influence than a regimental commander! . . . How would you like this? . . . Isn’t it offensive? . . . We, who wear the honored uniform of the Russian Army, led by our beloved Monarch, our Emperor, we have to tolerate and put up with things which are too shameful to write about! . . . I understand, [that we might] take into consideration what the Consul and [other diplomats] say concerning affairs of interior life and foreign policy, but to let them decide on purely military matters or matters related to the prestige of the military – this is too much!!! Meanwhile, nothing can be done; if you don’t listen, you will receive undeserved punishment . . . I recall the words of one competent person who had lived in Persia for many years and warned us before we left for Persia: “Beware of the consuls! These are people who would destroy you sooner than the Persians or the Kurds! . . . You must agree with them, whatever they say . . . God forbid you should argue with them, since even if you are right you will be wrong in the end anyway. Remember this! . . . A Consul in Persia is Tsar in miniature; he does whatever he pleases, with the support of that same military force!”42 Babich continues with an example of incompetent and unreasonable actions of a consul and his humiliating interference in the affairs of a military unit. He laments: We, who with our blood mark our service to the Tsar and our Motherland, don’t we even have the right to more attention and respect from the employees of our consulate, so that they would not humiliate the honor of a military officer, would not stain us!!! . . . It is necessary to regulate clearly the relations between the military [on one side] and consuls and their agents [on the other]! Let them deal

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with politics, and us – with the arms. As for the military matters, they should not have a vote! . . . Wise politics of the consuls has led to the situation that now the Russian government has to maintain almost a whole corps in Persia! . . . And their role in the Kurdish problem! . . . The constant unrest and discontent among the Kurds is the result of the wonderful consuls’ activities.43

Russian diplomacy in Iran Among the Russian travelogues dealing with diplomacy, there are several of special interest. These include the accounts of the diplomatic missions sent to Iran between the two Russo-Iranian wars. The missions of General Aleksei Ermolov in 1817, described in the previous chapter, and of Prince Menshikov in 1826 were sent to Iran in order to negotiate the final terms of the Treaty of Gulistan (1813). Ermolov refused to return any of the newly obtained territories to Iran and left a detailed account of his embassy’s operations. In 1826, a Russian Mission led by Major-General Prince A. Menshikov was sent to Iran in order to settle the dispute between the two countries concerning their borders. The mission was unsuccessful because it reached Iran and engaged in negotiations with ‘Abbas Mirza and Fath ‘Ali Shah on the eve of the second war between Iran and Russia (1826–28). The ongoing negotiations and the difficult situation of the Mission after the war started are described in the travel account by Lieutenant-General Fedor Bartolomei, who was attached to the Mission.44 Simultaneously with the Menshikov Mission, Lieutenant Noskov went to Iran bringing the famous crystal bed, a gift from the Russian Emperor Nicholas I to Fath ‘Ali Shah. He describes the troubled journey of his group in the hostile atmosphere of Iran.45 The story of the famous crystal bed is amazing in itself and is referred to in several Russian travelogues.46 The bed was made at a glass factory in St. Petersburg; the inhabitants of the city admired it.47 A picture of the crystal bed with several fountains around it is included in Noskov’s account and he tells how he delivered it to Tehran and personally assembled it in accordance with the drawings and notes given to him in St. Petersburg, the two masters sent to accompany him to Iran having died along the way. “‘Ali Shah Mirza [son of Fath ‘Ali Shah], who was present several times during the assembly of the bed, was amazed at the perfection of the work and also at its safe delivery from such a remote place.” The chief artisans of the Shah’s court were ordered to be present in order to learn the skill of assembling and disassembling the bed. The bed was placed in the Gulistan Palace in a private hall of the Shah, across from the room “where the crystal pool and the other objects sent to the Shah by the Russian Court in 1817 and 1819 were placed.” Fath ‘Ali

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Shah was delighted and is reported to have said: “This really magnificent thing is the best decoration of my palace; I am sure that even the Chinese Shah does not possess such a rarity.”48 Baron Fedor Korf tells the following anecdote about the subsequent events involving the bed: Fath ‘Ali Shah could not look enough at his gorgeous bed, and all his courtiers were holding their fingers in their mouths in amazement as they looked at it. Persian poets were writing odes to that bed; in Tehran everybody was talking about the crystal bed which “shines like one thousand and one suns.” Meanwhile, the war against Russia had started. Erevan and Nakhichevan were taken [by the Russians]. The Russians were approaching Tabriz. One morning, the Shah, upon returning from his walk, was passing by the hall where the gifts of the Russian Emperor were placed. The beauty of the bed enticed the Sanctuary of the World [the Shah]; in spite of the war, he desired to lie on it. He did so. Not more than fifteen minutes after the “Shadow of Allah” lay down and let his tired limbs rest, a chapar (messenger) arrived from Tabriz with the news that the major cities of Azerbaijan and the residence of the Crown Prince had been seized by the Russians. The fury of the Shah when he learned the news had no limits. Being superstitious, he blamed the loss of Tabriz on the unfaithful bed, on which he had lain for the first time that very day. He immediately ordered it to be disassembled, put into the boxes in which it had been brought and placed in the basement. The Shah’s servants were trying so hard to obey his order as quickly as possible that in their hurry they broke many parts. Since then, nobody has seen the famous bed, and probably nobody will ever see it again.49 Other interesting travelogues written by diplomats are the accounts of two Russian Ministers Plenipotentiary who served in Iran in succession: Count Ivan Simonich (1832–38)50 and Alexander Diugamel’ (1838–41).51 Simonich gives a detailed account of his relationship with the Iranian court of Muhammad Shah. He emphasizes his own importance and his influence on Iranian government affairs, as well as his triumph over his British rivals. Simonich also makes no secret of his support for the Iranian army in the war for Herat in 1837–38, which led to the confrontation of Iran and Russia with Britain. In the 1830s, an uneasy situation arose in Herat, a city key in the strategic and military domination of the region. The British were preparing to conquer Afghanistan. In 1836, Dust Muhammad, Emir of Kabul, declared himself Emir of Afghanistan and asked the British rulers of India for aid in regaining the province of Peshawar from Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab.52 In the fall of 1837, Sir Alexander Burnes, the British envoy to Dust Muhammad, arrived in Kabul. In May, 1836, an envoy of Dust Muhammad had been sent to Russia; as a result, Ian

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Vitkevich, an expert on Central Asian and Middle Eastern languages, was posted to Simonich. He was instructed to support the forming of an alliance between Tehran, Kabul and Kandahar ruled by Dust Muhammad’s brothers. Vitkevich traveled to Kandahar, whose rulers agreed to help the Shah seize Herat, which was ruled by their rival, Kamran Mirza. Vitkevich reached Kabul in December of 1837. At first, circumstances did not favor him, since Burnes had promised Dust Muhammad full British support in exchange for the opening of Afghanistan to British trade. Soon, however, the British government informed Burnes that he had exceeded his authority: Dust Muhammad was supposed to renounce his claims to Peshawar and not enter into negotiations with the Russian representatives. Disappointed, Dust Muhammad turned his attention to Vitkevich and expressed his support for the alliance with Iran and Kandahar. Happy with his success, Vitkevich returned to Tehran. In the summer of 1837, the Shah marched against Herat and put the city under siege. Eldred Pottinger, a British officer, was among the leaders of the defense, while Simonich and other members of the Russian Mission tried to assist the Shah to organize the siege. In May 1838, the British government terminated its relations with Iran (the Shah withdrew from Herat in September of 1838)53 and started an active campaign, accusing Russia of plotting to take over India. British criticism concentrated on Simonich: he was blamed for instigating the Iranian army’s march on Herat, for organizing the anti-British coalition in Asia; in short, for jeopardizing the sensitive relations between the two countries. Unluckily for himself, Simonich had guaranteed the alliance between Tehran, Kabul and Kandahar in the name of the Russian Empire; Lord Palmerston, then the British Foreign Secretary, was determined to wreck the alliance. Russia tried to convince Britain that her actions had been misinterpreted and that Simonich and Vitkevich were not acting against the British. Simonich became a scapegoat, whose only fault was that he had acted too impetuously and ardently in implementing his instructions from St. Petersburg.54 Diugamel’, who was appointed to succeed Simonich, describes his audience with Nicholas I, during which the new Russian representative in Iran received instructions from the Emperor. The instructions demonstrate the determination of the Russian government to maintain the status quo in Iran and its influence there while avoiding a direct confrontation with the British: You must follow the open and sincere way of action there and use the influence which rightfully belongs to us; at the same time, you should not put yourself in confrontation with the British. We share the same interests with the British in Persia. Both they and we want to preserve the present order of things and to strengthen the power of the [Iranian] government as much as possible in order to prevent the disintegration of the Persian monarchy, which could lead to many

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The travelers’ missions in Iran negative consequences . . . I want you to live in complete agreement with the British Mission . . . The march on Herat was undertaken not according to our will; but when we were told that the undertaking was for the purpose of punishing rebels, we answered that they had to be punished. The British are convinced of the opposite: they think that our influence can be found in everything happening in the Orient; you have to prove the groundlessness of these ridiculous accusations by your sincere actions.55

Diugamel’ accuses Simonich of supporting the Iranians in the siege of Herat on his own initiative, and of being responsible for the estrangement between Russia and Britain that followed the siege. He states that it had been an axiom of the Russian Cabinet that it would pursue the same policy in Iran with the British: Therefore, only as a result of the exceptional circumstances and of the fact that in Tehran there was a Russian representative who followed ideas totally opposed to our traditional policy, the situation arose which I discovered when I arrived in Persia . . . The Russian Minister Count Simonich not only did not try to dissuade the Persian government from that rash enterprise [the siege of Herat] but went much further: together with his Mission, he accompanied the Shah to the walls of Herat and helped him with advice and money . . . The British government, which had followed the intrigues developing in Afghanistan with suspicion, came to the conclusion that the march against Herat had been undertaken at Russia’s insistence and would serve as the first step in the conquest of India.56 The only fault of Simonich, however, was being too ardent in implementing Russian policies in Iran, so that even Diugamel’ admits: “Count Simonich acted hastily and was making mistakes . . . but in general he followed the directions given to him by the Imperial Ministry.”57 There is another interesting dimension to this episode: unlike most Russian authors, Simonich was an “ardent Bonapartist” and “hated the British with all his heart.”58 Soon after Diugamel’ was appointed to replace Simonich; the “friendly” relations between Russia and Britain were restored. When the Anglo– Iranian rift was restored as well and Sir John McNeil returned to Tehran in 1841, Diugamel’ “established the best relations with him.”59

Russian emigrants in Iran Russian settlements arose spontaneously in the Astarabad and Mazanderan provinces of Iran in the first decade of the twentieth century and by the beginning of World War I were receiving government

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support. Valuable agricultural lands were located in the immediate proximity of Russia and were seen as underdeveloped and at the same time naturally gravitating towards Russia. Interestingly, in northern Iran Russian colonization preceded military conquest, unlike in most of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The information on the Russian settlements in northern Iran found in the travelogues is scarce and fragmented. In 1914, G. K. Mogilev, who had traveled to Iran, published a book entitled Persian Lands60 to provide some information for and give practical advice to those interested in migrating to Iran or working or trading there. Since foreign subjects were formally not allowed to purchase land in Iran and the landowning patterns there were in general intricate, he pays special attention to the issues of land purchase or land leasing.61 In 1915, B. Bezsonov, a member of the Council of the Department of Press, went to northern Iran on the assignment of the Department of Migration at the Ministry of Agriculture, and published the results of his trip in a work entitled Russian Migrants in Northern Persia.62 He provides detailed information on such topics as the geographic and natural conditions in the Astarabad province, health conditions, trade, roads, ownership of land and the local Persian and Turcoman populations there. He talks about Russian villages and even gives the population of each village; for example, Rozhdesvenskii village consisted of 10 families with 50 people.63 He goes on to detail the history of each settlement, its economy and problems. A map of the Russian settlements is attached. The book was published in 1915, during World War I, when Russia was one of the forces occupying Iran. Russian colonial administration tried to take advantage of the situation and speed up the colonization of the lands occupied in the Astarabad province. Bezsonov expresses his hopes for “new political perspectives” in connection with the war to expand the Russian colonization of northern Iran. He openly talks about settlers as pioneers who will help to turn northern Iran into a Russian border province and further elaborates on the future of this potentially wealthy area which, he avers, can only be developed and brought to progress and prosperity by Russians. He concludes: Hopes for a better future will be fruitless as long as the masters of the whole of northern Persia are not those who are truly interested in using the resources of this area and its progress. Therefore . . . it is necessary for Russia to stand strong here!64 Another travel account dealing with Russian emigrants to northern Iran is that written by N. Solovkin who in the early twentieth century spent five years serving on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and published his account in 1916. He talks about Russian emigrants to Persian Turkmenia, to the Province of Astarabad and other Caspian provinces.

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Solovkin describes the unhealthy climate, which often proved fatal to the migrants. He also gives the names of some new Russian villages, such as Saratovskii, Pokrovskii, and Kreshchenskii on the River Gurgan. The complicated process of leasing lands is another important issue treated in Solovkin’s account. In regard to the Russian (eastern) sector of Enzeli, Solovkin notes that the population was growing steadily and that the proportion of relatively well-educated emigrants was significant among office employees and merchants, which made the foundation of a school, a library and other educational institutions necessary.65 The Russian colonization of Iran failed because of the February Revolution and the Bolshevik coup of 1917 in Russia. The Russian imperial policy of colonization was ended and the settlers were abandoned in Iran.

Russian trade in Iran Russian-Iranian trade, often connected with the theme of the construction of roads and railroads in Iran, together with the postal service and the telegraph, is one of the subjects that most of the travelers consider of major importance. “The peaceful conquest” of Iran through trade in sharp competition with British trade is reflected in many travelogues. The authors usually analyze the structure of Iranian foreign trade and the ratios of Russian, British and other European goods. In addition, they usually suggest measures for the further development of Russian trade. Based on the Russian travelogues, it can be concluded that by the late nineteenth century Russia had achieved mercantile dominance in what was to become the Russian “sphere of influence.” The authors of the travel accounts were also seriously interested in the development of Russian trade in the “British zone,” primarily in eastern Iran. There were several authors whose missions were directly related to the economic aspect of the Great Game, but others, especially diplomats, saw it as a part of their task to comment on it as well. Among those for whom trade was a major objective of travel was N. Zeidlits. His account published in 1870, deals with the “Russian area” – towns on the southern coast of the Caspian: he reports on the circulation of commodities and the potential opportunities for the development of Russian trade in such ports as Enzeli, Mashhad-e Sar, Gaz and the Bay of Astarabad.66 Fedor Bakulin, a Russian diplomat, was very much interested in the promotion of Russian trade interests in Iran and wrote four articles on that topic between the years 1871 and 1876. He also concentrated primarily on the strengthening of Russian trade in the “Russian” zone – Azerbaijan, Mazanderan and Astarabad.67 Starting in the 1900s, Russian authors start to include eastern and southeastern Iran, which were to become neutral or British areas of influence, into the realm where they would like to see Russian goods

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compete successfully with the British ones. In 1901, M. Astsaturov, a merchant from Merv, undertook a journey from the town of Serakhs through Mashhad to the province of Seistan and back to Serakhs along the Irano-Afghan border. He concludes his account as follows: The goal of my travel was to study the existing caravan routes leading to Seistan, to find the shortest, most direct way from Seistan to the Transcaspia, and to see if it was possible to find places close to the Afghan border convenient for the sale of Russian goods to both Afghanistan and Seistan. During my trip, I had occasion to realize that Russian goods are in great demand everywhere, particularly in Afghanistan; our goods are bought willingly since they are more suited to the local taste than British goods. In order to drive British and Austrian goods out of the Persian markets, it is necessary to open large wholesale warehouses for Russian textiles, iron, cast-iron, porcelain and pottery articles in places such as the villages of Mian-Kengi, Husayn-Abad, Cherakhs, Kerat and TurbetSheikhi-Jami. The second of these places would be a center of trade for Baluchistan and Seistan, while the first one and the rest [would be trade centers] for Afghanistan and in part for Persia.68 A. Miller, a Russian diplomat, was seriously concerned about Russian trade and published numerous articles about it in the early 1900s. He traveled extensively in eastern Iran and devoted one of his accounts to the trade in Bahramabad in the province of Rafsanjan in which he points out the predominance of Anglo-Indian goods; at the same time, some Russian goods such as textiles, kerosene and others are also prevalent. He concludes: Generally speaking, with a few exceptions (spices and indigo), in Russia we probably have all the goods necessary for trade with Persia, of better quality and at a better price, due to the encouragement from the [Russian] government; they are also cheaper than foreign goods. The most important thing is to know how to accommodate ourselves to the demands of the Persian consumer.69 In his three-page article on the caravan routes from Mashhad to Seistan, Miller states that by the time of writing, Russian trade in Khorasan had achieved material results and was winning new territories to the south: “It is quite possible that the time is not far off when Seistan, which is now almost exclusively a market for Anglo-Indian goods, will become our market.”70 In the same year (1904), Miller published an article devoted to the trade in Seistan, in which he stated that the years 1903–04 had marked a turning point in the direction of that trade: “As much as in previous years Anglo-Indian goods were prevalent, now Russian goods

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have become dominant.”71 Similarly, P. Tomilov wrote in 1900 that Russian trade in the province of Burujird had made significant inroads for the previous six years: Russian goods had become dominant in the bazaars of the city of Burujird.72 In his short article entitled “On the Question of Russian Trade in Persia,”73 Miller offers some statistics on Russian trade in Iran.74 In his other articles on eastern Iran, he also pays significant attention to the subject of Russian trade.75 In 1893–94, M. Tomar, an official in the Department of Trade and Manufactures, was sent to Iran to study the condition of Russo-Iranian trade. The result of his travel and study was published as a book entitled The Economic Condition of Persia.76 In his book, Tomar analyzed the Russia commercial enterprises in all areas of Iran in detail, including those of Russian banks. P. Vvedenskii, N. Shavrov and B. Preobrazhenskii77 are among those travelers who made the description of trade and its various aspects the main aim of their accounts. Among other authors who furnished weighty analyses of Russian trade in Iran were Baev, an official in the Ministry of Finance,78 S. Lomnitskii,79 D. Beliaev,80 and Il’ia Berezin.81 Many other travelers included Russian trade in Iran among the subjects they considered in their travelogues.82

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5

The travelers’ self-representation vis-à-vis the Oriental “Other” and the British “Self”

Travel writing gives an exceptional opportunity to study the process of creating self-identity in the context of confrontation with the “Other.” The Self is constructed as different from or even opposed to the foreign and strange Other. Travel can be viewed as “a trial of identity” and the travel book as an account of “the writer’s identity, that is, thrown into relief against the foreign landscape, or filtered through the foreign context.”1 Contact with the Oriental Other reveals the reaction of the Russian travelers to the contradiction between the West-oriented and Eastoriented sides of the split Russian national identity. The travelers’ efforts to conceal the sense of inferiority resulting from that split and their efforts to reject the Eastern elements in the national consciousness led to their overemphasizing their Europeanness and their equivalence to the Western Europeans. Most of the travelogue authors try to prove that being Russian means being European. Their repeated attempts to prove this are indicative of their subconscious uncertainty. Most of the travelers refer to themselves as European rather than as Russian, which would be more natural; they constantly remember that they are European and remind their readers of it. Russia’s affiliation with the rest of Europe seems to be very significant to them. “I looked at Persia not as an Orientalist, nor as a scholar, but simply as a European who went to Asia and wrote down everything that caught my eye,” writes Baron Korf in the introduction to his travelogue.2 Like many other authors, he never tires of talking about his European taste, European eye, European ear, and European notions.3 Il’ia Berezin directly contrasts the Orient and Europe: “In its customs, the Orient is the opposite of Europe: almost everything that we consider white Persians see as black, and vice versa.”4 The travelers draw an impassable border between “Us” (Europeans) and “Them” (Orientals) and seem to use the formula “We Europeans . . .” more than their narratives require.5 “Life [in Tehran] – especially for us Europeans – is absolutely like in a desert or a monastery,” an anonymous author tells his readers.6 Many authors claim to miss the comfort of what they see as signs of true “civilization” – the

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development of modern European transportation and technology. Baron Bode complains: A European who, after his travels on the railroad, is used not only to comfort but even to luxury will have difficulty understanding that in the Orient, at least in Persia, neither post coaches, nor steamers nor railroads are known.7 Ivan Blaramberg states: “In Persia, they do not have large factories as we in Europe do.”8 It is hard to believe that all the authors were unaware of the underdevelopment of modern industry in Russia compared to the western European countries, which became striking by the late nineteenth century. Yet, they consider it irrelevant when confronted with the Orient. Eurocentrism is characteristic of the travelogues: everything is seen and judged from the European point of view, because that is perceived as the only correct way of doing things and the sole criterion by which anything has to be judged. The implication behind the comparison of everything Iranian with everything European is that Russia is Europe in its opposition to Iran, or to the East in general. For example: “Houses in Tehran are startlingly uncomfortable, from the European point of view,” or “There are no large stores in Tehran, from the European point of view.”9 The writer Pavel Ogorodnikov complains that in the conditions of life in Iran not a single element can be found “that can meet the needs of a European.”10 Cities, streets, houses, people and climate in Iran do not satisfy their requirements which, as implied, all Europeans share. Lieutenant-Colonel Domontovich comments: “For a European, Tabriz must be a very unattractive city. It is a purely Asiatic city, and life in it for any foreigner not absorbed in trade deals is too hard.”11 N. Shavrov considers life in Iran “very difficult for a European because the country and the people are primitive and uncivilized, and also because of the climate.”12 E. Belozerskii talks about the “inner emptiness” of the Iranians who are therefore of no interest to the Europeans, who have a “rich individual psychological life.”13 Even S. Lomnitskii, who tried to be positive and tolerant in most of his judgments, did not hesitate to state: “When a Persian gets into a European family, as a servant, for example, and lives under the different conditions for a very long time, [his] human feelings come to life and develop little by little.”14 General Ermolov, who in 1816 served as Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary to Iran, goes further than most of the other travelers: for him, being Russian not only means being equal to the Western Europeans, but even superior to them, in particular, to the French. As mentioned previously, shortly before coming to Iran he had taken part in the victorious war against Napoleon. His euphoria after that triumph and the fact that he was negotiating the terms of the treaty with Iran, which also had lost a war to Russia, made him sound condescending.

The travelers’ self-representation 79 For example, he writes: “I do not put myself on the same level with other [foreign envoys], being Ambassador of the strongest neighboring Power, whose friendly disposition brings too many important benefits to Persia.”15 Ermolov refused to follow the rules of Persian etiquette, the most important of which seemed to be the custom of taking off one’s shoes and putting on red socks before entering the residence of the Shah or that of the Shahzadeh. In his diary, he writes: During the time of Napoleon, when he was looking for ways to harm England and Russia, he sent General Gardane to Persia, where he earned the full confidence of the Persians. Gardane did this by pleasing the Persians in various ways; it was not difficult for him to wear red socks after he had worn the [French] red cap of liberty. English envoys, who resided in Persia, officials and persons involved in trade, follow the existing etiquette implicitly . . . Insofar as I did not arrive [in Persia] as a spy for Napoleon, or with hopes for profits of a salesman belonging to the nation of shopkeepers, I did not agree to the red socks and other conditions.16 Ermolov stresses that he was more influential at the court of the Shah than were Western Europeans: “During my short stay, I was invited to the Shah more often than all the foreigners who had been here before me.”17 Ermolov’s views are echoed by Alexander Sokolov, an advisor to Ermolov’s embassy, in his account of the mission: The Mission of the Russian Emperor, in consideration of its noble goal assigned by the Emperor and the events which caused sending the embassy to Persia, could on no account put itself on the same level with the British or French.18 The emphasis on their Europeanness by the Russian travelers is paralleled by their emphasis on their Christianity, though to a lesser extent. In this context, belonging to the Christian community is more important to the travelers than their being Orthodox Christian: Christian faith helps them to be affiliated with the rest of Europe and to define themselves as European and therefore superior to the Muslim Orientals. Similarly to referring to themselves as European instead of the more common Russian, they refer to themselves as Christian instead of the more common Orthodox. Perceived superiority results in the feeling of security vis-à-vis the strange Orientals. The relationship between Christianity and Islam in Iran and how Russian travelers define their own role in it is discussed in a separate chapter. Russian authors define their self-identity not just in confrontation with the Orient – when they are placed between the “Oriental” Iranians and the British in Iran, their choice is predetermined by their national sense of inferiority. Most of the travelers consciously preferred Russia’s

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Westward-turned face of Janus and supported the movement of the “Westernizers.” Their attitude towards other foreigners in Iran, in particular, the British, had two aspects. To many Russians at that time, the British, with their extensive experience as colonizers, embodied the true European Self as opposed to the Other of the Orient. Meanwhile, Russian travelers represented a young colonial empire and felt that there were many things they could learn from the British in the sphere of colonial practice. Therefore, a number of travelers were impressed by British achievements, such as the Indo-European Telegraph and the Imperial Bank in Iran, or by British education and manners. For example, to them the Indo-European Telegraph is “a model construction which is wonderfully maintained.”19 Prince Saltykov, who because of his weakness for India and the British was nicknamed “the Indian” and “Angloman,”20 wrote: “[A certain] Mirza Baba while young lived in England for a long time, and that is why, perhaps, he does not have those prejudices in which Persia is steeped.”21 S. Chirkin, a diplomat, observes that the traveler could make good use of the British IndoEuropean telegraph offices: “At every station, a European traveler can use a clean and decently furnished room.”22 On the personal level, there is usually a strong feeling of affinity with the Western Europeans in the “hostile” atmosphere of Iran; it becomes more important than the rivalry between the Russian and British Empires. Many travelers emphasize their friendly relationship with the other Europeans, especially the British. Il’ia Berezin describes his visit to the British residency in Bushehr with a lot of sympathy, if not admiration.23 Baron Korf, upon reaching the Shah’s camp after a long trip is relieved: “[As we came closer], the tents could be seen . . . oh joy! The Russian eagle on the flag of the Minister Plenipotentiary caught my eye. The tent of the British envoy was located nearby. Thank God, it is again Europe here!”24 Some travelers mention the support and friendliness of the British whom they met. One of them, I. Noskov, Lieutenant of the General Staff, was sent to Iran with presents from the Russian Emperor for Fath ‘Ali Shah in 1826 and found himself in a difficult position in Iran after the war between Iran and Russia had broken out. Noskov writes that the protection of Sir John Kinneir Macdonald, the British Minister, helped him to return safely to Russia.25 At the same time, for the absolute majority of Russian travelers, the rivalry between Russia and Britain in the Great Game is the defining element in their attitude toward the British in Iran. They refer to British intrigues in Iran and warn their compatriots to be aware of those dangerous rivals and to protect Russian national interests. P. Rittikh is one of the authors who highlight the contrast between the personal pleasantness of the British in Iran and their political impudence: On the whole, the British in private life are very pleasant people for the most part, and it is possible to deal with them. In political affairs

The travelers’ self-representation 81 they are impossible and do not stand on ceremony in choosing their means. In Persia and Baluchistan, as everywhere else, the British do not hesitate to intrigue and, when necessary, to bribe and even to kill, when they are dealing with the natives. However, when they deal with Europeans, including the Russians, they do intrigue but do not dare to kill.26 A. Miller, at first Russian vice-consul in Seistan and later consul in Kerman,27 exposes what he sees as the scheming of the British missionaries in Kerman: [Male and female] missionaries form a well-organized intelligence bureau; they are engaged in their activities with passion, out of patriotism; they collect information and spread gossip unfavorable to Russia. In case of need, these unworthy preachers of Christ are always ready to serve as agents provocateurs . . . British missionaries in Kerman play the same political role as in the other Persian cities: Yazd, Esfahan, Shiraz, and so on.28 Miller accuses the British of expansionist designs on Seistan: “The British probably consider this region [part of southern Seistan] their property and are awaiting an opportunity to carry out its actual seizure.”29 Nikolai Murav’ev, a military writer, characterizes the British in a rather unflattering manner: “The British have spread all over the globe: they creep like ivy, twine round everything like liana, and suck all the life from whatever they have stuck to.”30 A. Lomakin also exposes British manipulations directed against the Russians: For a long time, English Russophobes have had a suspicious and jealous attitude toward our successes in eastern Persia. As usually, not trusting our peaceful disposition, the British have added Khorasan to their list of those Asian regions where they try to damage the attractiveness of the Russian name and to harm our trade directly or indirectly by way of intrigues.31 Nikolai Zarudnyi, a scientist, mentions “the bold impudence of the British agents who exercise their sway over the territory of His Majesty the Shah.”32 Another scientist, Alexander Nikol’skii, complains how, while traveling in northeastern Iran, he was passed by a British traveler who measured him “with the impertinent glance peculiar to that nation and passed by before I recovered my senses.”33 Lomnitskii defines the British as “the plunderers of the Orient.”34 As noted above, Russian travelers were mostly in government or military service and were therefore expected to express the official views as well as to implement them. Their reports usually provided information that was to be used to further imperial goals. Russian academia was also

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put to the service of the government. Il’ia Berezin, along with another author, Villiam Dittel’, were among the students of Mirza Kazembek, a distinguished Orientalist professor who taught at Kazan’ University from 1827 to 1849.35 “The period in the history of Russian Orientalism when the needs of scholarly Orientalism were totally sacrificed to the real or alleged interests of political life is closely connected with the name of Kazem-bek [sic] and his most talented students.”36 Thus, the Russian travelers’ connection with imperial politics was direct and open, and they were aware of this connection. Indeed, the majority of them represented the Russian Empire in Iran and were unambiguously proud of it. The support of monarchy and nation, for them often synonymous with patriotism, was particularly strong among Russian military officers. They viewed their assignments as part of Russia’s “civilizing mission” in the Orient, including Iran. They also considered their mission important in Russia’s struggle against Great Britain. Even those military men, civilian officials and scholars who were sympathetic to democratic and constitutional movements back home in Russia turned into apologists for Russian imperial politics as soon as they crossed the Russian borders. For them, the “civilizing mission” of the Empire towards the inferior inhabitants of the Orient appeared more important than the struggle between tsarism and democratic movements, and this is characteristic of the travelogues written throughout the whole period analyzed in this work. The praise for tsarist colonial politics in many travelogues parallels discourses by such apologists for British imperialism and colonialism as Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, George N. Curzon or Rudyard Kipling. And censorship was another factor potentially influencing their attitude. Some authors may have considered the expression of patriotism obligatory, with those paragraphs often differing in style from the rest of the narrative in sounding excessive and insincere. General Ermolov, known for his sympathy for the anti-tsarist Decembrist movement, nevertheless exclaims emotionally: “Having blessed the beloved homeland a hundred times, I felt contempt for the Persian government.”37 During his travels in Iran, Nikolai Murav’ev spends a night in the famous village of Turkmanchai, where in 1828 the Russo-Iranian Treaty was signed, which had brought significant gains for Russia. Murav’ev is moved when he looks at the house where the historic event took place: “This is where the destiny of Persia was decided and where a new branch of glory was woven into the Russian laurel wreath!”38 Writing about the objectives of his scientific expedition to northeastern Iran, Nikolai Zarudnyi declares: I was going to visit places in the country where they know very little about Russia and had never seen Russians, but where the British went comparatively often and where, therefore, I had, as much as possible, to uphold the dignity of my Motherland.39

The travelers’ self-representation 83 Doctor Solovkin writes about the life of those Russians who served in the Russian station on the island of Ashuradeh: The long days of the inhabitants of the station drag on in a monotonous and boring way. The only consolation, the only bright reward, is their consciousness that here, in this strange country, they carry on their frontier duty, which is full of deep meaning and benefit for the remote Motherland.40 Another example can be gleaned from the writings by Il’ia Berezin who, like most Russian university professors of that time, had liberal political views.41 He assures his readers that only with the help of the Russians would the “highlanders” in the newly obtained Caucasus be able to benefit from education, and that “as long as the highlanders are distant from the family hearth of Russia, as long as they are the only inhabitants of this country, nothing is to be said about the achievements of civilization.” Commenting on the war imperial Russia was fighting in the Caucasus, Berezin exclaims with striking patriotic enthusiasm: “Our wise government, motivated by truly philanthropic values, is pointing the well considered and voluntarily chosen way towards the righteous goal!” He claims that “these battles are fought against barbarian civilization; this war is taking place between darkness and light; this blood is shed against the fallacious teaching of a fanatic and for the tranquility of the Motherland.”42 For these authors, the passages are examples of an uncharacteristically elevated and unnatural style. This feeling of being representatives of the Empire and directly affiliated with their government constitutes the most important source of Orientalist authority as reflected in the travelogues. Similar to other Western travelers to the Orient, Russian travelers rely on other types of associations as well – with other travelers and with various institutions. Most of the authors, including those who wrote strictly official reports and those who meant to entertain their readers while presenting valuable information, often refer to each other’s accounts or to each other’s experiences of travel in Iran. In addition, many of them quote Western European authors of different periods. Every writer on the Orient (and this is true even for Homer) assumes some Oriental precedent, some previous knowledge of the Orient, to which he refers and on which he relies. Additionally, each work on the Orient affiliates itself with other works, with audiences, with institutions, with the Orient itself. The ensemble of relationships between works, audiences, and some particular aspects of the Orient therefore constitutes an analyzable formation – for example, that of philological studies, of anthologies of extracts from Oriental literature, of travel books, of Oriental fantasies – whose presence in time,

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The travelers’ self-representation in discourse, in institutions (schools, libraries, foreign services) gives it strength and authority.43

Abundant references in Russian travelogues to Western European travelers such as Adam Olearius, Jean Chardin, James Fraser, James Morier, George Curzon and others, as well as the epigraphs taken from their travelogues, are meant to serve as a source of authority but also to prove that the Russian authors are to be numbered among their ranks. There is another important source of authority: the institutional site “that provided the source, the point of application, and the instruments of verification for the orientalist savant.”44 Many Russian travelers were members of various learned societies such as the Russian Geographical Society (Russkoe Geograficheskoe Obshchestvo), the Society of Admirers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography (Obshchestvo Liubitelei Estestvozaniia, Antropologii i Etnografii), the Russian Archeological Society (Russkoe Arkheologicheskoe Obshchestvo), and the Society of History and Russian Antiquity (Obshchestvo Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh). Some travelers were associated with universities. Learned societies and universities charged the travelers with certain scientific and scholarly missions when they were sent to Iran on official assignments and sometimes sponsored or co-sponsored their scholarly trips or scientific expeditions there. Upon their return, the travelers would present their results to the society or university and disseminate their travel accounts in the publications put out by those societies or sometimes universities. The learned societies and universities therefore served as “producers of empowering affiliations” for the travelers. In turn, those affiliations made the travelers “valuable information collectors in the service of the institutions of power and knowledge.” The institutions equipped the travelers with “instruments of verification, such as maps and technical knowledge,” which helped them to carry out their research. The travelers collected new information “to produce new instruments of verification to be relayed through the institution to future travelers and . . . for the colonialist entrepreneurial interventions.”45 Yet another source of the travelers’ power is constituted by the predicaments of their journeys and their endurance. The nineteenth-century traveler’s representation of the Orient required a traveler to develop a “discourse of discovery” when discovery becomes a “discursive phenomenon that glamorizes the traveler’s observation into heroic action.” The theme of the obstacles and hardship encountered during travel becomes crucial because it turns the traveler into a hero who “overcomes the ‘hostile’ world and triumphantly brings back home strategic information or knowledge about the Other.”46 Observation becomes a discovery only after the traveler (or other survivor) returns home, and brings it into being through texts: a name on a map, a report to the Royal

The travelers’ self-representation 85 Geographical Society, the Foreign Office, the London Mission Society, a diary, a lecture, a travel book.47 As stated by one of the travelers, Villiam Dittel’, for a European traveler in the Orient, “even the difficulties encountered often become a pleasure.”48 In their accounts, Russian travelers complain about the innumerable obstacles and inconveniences of which they become victims: they suffer from bad accommodations, dangerous roads, unhealthy climate, diseases, inedible food, dirt found everywhere, dishonest and fanatical Orientals, and so on. Lieutenant Karl Von Baumgarten sums up the difficulties faced by a European traveler in Iran: The hard conditions of life, the remoteness of the civilized world, the unhealthy influence of the climate, and the absence of educated society make a long uninterrupted stay in the country impossible; therefore, a three-year period should be accepted as a maximum term, so that officials should be replaced or dismissed if a longer stay is necessary.49 S. Babich, a military officer, tells about the life of the Russian military in Iran in the first decade of the twentieth century, primarily along the new border between Iran and Russia in northeastern Iran. His list of sufferings is endless: How hard the life is of those whom fate has cast into Persia! Really, see under what conditions not only officers but also those of lower ranks have to live. Our military units are mostly located on the posts, and a post is a half-destroyed village abandoned by its inhabitants . . . Newspapers and letters are received very seldom and irregularly . . . Officers and those of lower ranks suffer from loneliness and desertion . . . It is an anguish! It is not the melancholy which is familiar to most of us, who live in the cities, which is the result of satiety with pleasure and idleness, but it is an anguish, painful and agonizing to the soul and heart, which wears out the nerves and a person does not know where to hide, where to go in order to seek oblivion at least for a moment. In the places where more troops are concentrated, the conditions of life are more diverse and much better . . . But there is still no release from the sense of abandonment and loneliness which is felt at a small post. Here, too, people do not live but languish: it is too harsh in Persia! Typhus, malaria, dysentery and smallpox are rampant, because sanitary conditions are impossible, because every Persian city is a stinking, foul place. Both officers and those of lower ranks get sick and die far from their Motherland, deprived of good health care.

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The travelers’ self-representation I have to say as well that a long stay in Persia has a bad influence on the moral side . . . From beginning joyful and open [fellows], our soldiers become reserved, distrustful and depressed.50

S. Lomnitskii states with black humor: Only after making a firm decision to imitate St. Anthony in his way of taking food, after giving his perishable body to the various bugs to devour, and forgetting that there are at least some ways of communicating with the [outside] world, can a European take a risk and visit the land of the Rising Sun [sic].51 Iranian food is criticized by a number of travelers, for example: “Numerous dishes did not prevent us from being hungry, since they were absolutely disgusting to our taste, and we had to content ourselves with fruit.”52 Even scholars of the Middle East join in with the chorus of complaints instead of demonstrating tolerance and appreciation of the area that they had chosen to study. Il’ia Berezin declares at the beginning of his account: “It was not under my lucky star that I entered famous Iran,” and later admits: “If I had not taken upon myself the duty of a narrator of the Orient and its imaginary wonders, I would never have agreed to bore the readers with verbose descriptions of what is hardly worth a description.”53 Boris Dorn, another academician and scholar of the Middle East, notes that his travel to Iran was not always safe but “entailed great difficulties.”54 Many of the complaints about the ordeals suffered by the travelers sound quite similar. Amazingly, a number of them tell of the notorious white bedbugs in the village of Miyaneh. The village is located between Tabriz and Zanjan, and therefore lies on the road commonly traveled by the Russians on their way from Russia to Tehran via the Caucasus. The Miyaneh bedbugs were allegedly harmless to the local inhabitants; their bite was very dangerous for strangers, however, and could even result in their deaths.55 E. Belozerskii complains about “the famous Asian keneh,” a microscopic tick found in Barforush: With horror I recall those two first nights I spent in Persia. As soon as I turned down the light and laid down, I immediately felt that something wrong was happening with my body: something invisible was creeping on my skin . . . The useless efforts lowered my energy, and I no longer tried to resist. From that moment, my real suffering started: my body was itching terribly, burning . . . I was lying in bed like a dead body.56

The travelers’ self-representation 87 The Russian travelers, including the military officers, seem to take a special pride in detailed descriptions of their real, exaggerated and imagined ordeals in Iran. They do not learn from their main rivals and secret role models – the British – who welcome the challenge of the unfamiliar and hardly ever allow themselves to complain in a direct and overwhelming way. Training in “sportsmanship” at boarding schools and later at military schools included taking pride in keeping a “stiff upper lip.” Bragging about their achievements in a somewhat subdued way constitutes the British travelers’ “discourse of discovery.” Really tragic or dangerous events are reported by only a few travelers. P. Rittikh tells of the death of Polikarp Il’in, one of his friends, a topographer of the Caucasian military district. Il’in died during their trip to Baluchistan of “Bampur fever”: “Constant nervous tension and in particular the bad water had their depressive impact on him, and he was probably suffering enormously, without finding any consolation in the future.”57 I. Noskov and A. Polovtsoff tell about incidents that posed a direct threat to their lives from “fanatical” Iranians58 and which will be explained in a later chapter. The name of Griboedov, murdered in Iran in 1828, is mentioned by a number of travelers to demonstrate how dangerous a trip to Iran could turn out to be. The self-representation of the Russians in Iran is marked by distinctive features based on their dual national identity: an over-emphasis on their belonging to Christian Europe, admiration for their British competitors and unconditional support for the Russian imperial “civilizing mission.” Together with the affiliation with the imperial government as the main source of the travelers’ authority and self-confidence in traveling in the Orient, these traits constitute the core of Russian Orientalism.

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6

Representation of Iran and her people

The “travelees” – representation of Iran and her people by the Russian travelers

Most of the contacts between different cultures or civilizations, starting in ancient times and continuing to the present, are clouded by misunderstandings on all sides. Unfortunately, misunderstanding often leads to hostility along the interface between cultures – misunderstandings which are easily created but are difficult to overcome. These in turn are often complicated by the unequal relations of colonialism or other forms of domination. Interactions take place in what one modern scholar refers to as “ ‘contact zones,’ social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination – like colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out across the globe today.”1 The way to dismantle misunderstandings is to explain them; it gives the people representing interacting cultures a chance to see each other without a distorting mirror, and it enables historians to piece together a reasonably objective picture. The most general reasons for misunderstandings are preconceived ideas and prejudices upon which stereotypes, mostly negative, are created. Unfortunately, the easiest way for a person or a whole nation to feel confident about the Self is to oppose it to the Other, seen and presented as inferior. The perceived inferiority can be based on numerous factors, some of which include a different ethnic type, or a different level of technological development, or a different type of political institutions in the society of the Other. If the Other’s society can be placed under economic, political or military domination, it gives “proof” of the inferiority of the subdued society. Colonialism and imperialism in the Middle East including Iran, along with other non-European parts of the world, present many unfortunate examples of that phenomenon. At the same time, picturing their dominated subjects as inferior and unable to achieve progress on their own serves as a justification for “civilizing” them, and in reality, for exploiting them. The Russians who dominated Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries exemplify such an attitude towards the “Other,” in this case the Orientals or Iranians. The travelers arrive in Iran with preconceived ideas and biases about the “Orientals” and they of course “discover” proofs for these preconceptions that are reflected in their

Representation of Iran and her people 89 accounts. That does not mean that their observations and even judgments about Iran and its people must be discarded as utterly valueless. On the contrary, the travelogues are a precious primary source on Qajar Iran, albeit a subjective one as all primary sources are. Indeed, travelogues, as a literary sub-category, are especially prone to subjectivity, as they are by definition frankly subjective narratives. This book suggests that they may nonetheless be used as a valuable source on Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and therefore offers an analysis of the distorting prisms through which the authors view the reality of life in Iran. As is typical of all Orientalists, the authors of the travelogues show Iranians as inferior to themselves in every aspect of their culture: their everyday life, family relations, traditions, morals and manners, appearance, clothing and food, religion and education are criticized and often mercilessly ridiculed. Iranians, according to their Russian “benefactors,” are unable to rule over themselves and to achieve any development, therefore they have to be brought to “civilization” by the Russians. However, compared to other Westerners, Russians have an additional reason to degrade Iranians in such a severe and almost uncontrollable way – their own carefully concealed semi-Asian affinity. Perhaps the innate feeling of affinity with Asians and the subconscious rejection of that feeling intensified Russians’ attempts to hide their uncertainty. Lack of self-confidence and obsessive desire to be considered European makes the authors grossly overdo the “conventional” debasement of the Orientals. In fact, the effect of doing so is opposite to the one they are trying to achieve so hard – it often makes them look ridiculous and betrays their ambivalence about their divided national identity. An additional motivation for their overwhelming debasement of the Iranians was a desire to cover the fact that Russia itself had many problems similar to those of Iran which were nonexistent in most other European countries, especially in Britain. The development of capitalism was slow in Russia, especially in the countryside; the serfs were only freed in 1861 and the resulting reforms did not bring about a thorough development of Russia’s backward agriculture. Basic rights and freedoms were lacking in Russia, which did not have a parliament or constitution till the revolution of 1905–07. Russia’s economic and military weakness culminated in the humiliating defeat in the war of 1904–05 against Japan, another “Oriental” country. This peculiar presentation of the “travelees”2 by the Russian travelers forms the second main component of Russian Orientalism, along with the specific features of their self-representation.

“Power of the gaze” In the Russian travelogues about Iran written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries one of the primary logistical operations is observing

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the “Orientals” in order to study them. The “travelees” are positioned on an unequal level and are not allowed to observe the travelers; they are presented as an object of examination and are expected to be passive and silent, allowing the “Orientalists” to observe them. The observer usually remains distant and often presents himself as someone who can see without being seen, as if he were invisible to his “objects”: “The Orient is watched, since its almost (but never quite) offensive behavior issues out of a reservoir of infinite peculiarity; the European, whose sensibility tours the Orient, is a watcher, never involved, always detached.”3 David Spurr devoted a well-argued book to the study of the rhetorical modes, or ways of writing, by Western Europeans about non-Western people. It has proved to be useful for the analysis of the Russian accounts of Iran. The first trope Spurr analyzes is surveillance: “Gazed upon, they are denied the power of the gaze; spoken to, they are denied the power to speak freely.”4 Among the Russian travelogues, probably the best example of such “surveillance” is the article by Sergei Cherniaev under the title “Den’ persiianina. Ocherk chastnoi zhizni v Persii” (A Persian’s Day: An Essay on Private Life in Persia). As the author states in his first paragraph, he just talks about “what we have seen,” and he only cares about “the truthfulness of our essay.”5 Cherniaev follows the events in a typical day of a Persian man of means, including the time he spends in private. Details, presented by the author in a mocking way, create the impression that he is present beside his object, able to observe him from the moment he wakes up in the morning till he goes to bed at night: With the exception of several weeks during the short winter, the nights in most parts of Persia are very warm; the night sleep of the inhabitants therefore is not deep and quiet . . . It is not easy for a poor Persian, who has spent a night turning from side to side, to get up from under his blanket at that very moment when he starts feeling an opportunity to have some sound sleep. However, the Muslim law is implacable in this case. Having shaken off his laziness and rubbed his sleepy eyes, a Persian immediately seeks consolation in his unfailing friend – the kalian [water pipe]. Without smoking a kalian, he is absolutely unable to start doing anything, even praying, and the first sound that is heard in the hour of morning silence all around Persia is the sound of bubbling water in the kalians. The freshness of the morning air and in general that special inclination to smoke which a person feels on an empty stomach makes the first morning kalian unspeakably sweet for a half-awakened true believer. Its salutary smoke refreshes his brain, drives away the remains of sleep, and the Persian returns to life; now he is ready to start his day with the obligatory praising of Allah and his prophet. He coughs and groans after smoking his kalian and starts to get ready for his morning prayer.

Representation of Iran and her people 91 Furthermore, Cherniaev describes in detail a Persian taking a bath. He says there are some people who having taken a bath are obsessed by the need to not touch anything or anybody unclean. Those possessed by overanxiety often become victims of practical jokes in the bath: If in the bath a person obsessed by vasvas [whisper of the devil – Cherniaev] is noticed, the dressing room turns into a theatre for a funny comedy. Everyone who has not taken bath yet tries to touch the crank or to touch his underclothes, or at least to pretend that they have touched his clothes, or at the very least to walk barefoot on the same place on the floor where the poor crank has to walk on his way from the pool to his clothes. This way, the tormented victim of vasvas is forced to run back to the pool as many times as his mockers wish. Then Cherniaev writes that some lazy Persians convince themselves that they are sick and that washing with water will make them feel worse. In this case, those who are not required to take a complete bath are allowed to use dust instead of washing their face, head, hands and feet with water: Lazy Persian people, instead of refreshing their head, face, and other parts of their body with water, pompously rub them with thin dust collected from the surface of the room carpets and feel very happy that they have both obeyed the law and satisfied their laziness. The author describes in the same ridiculing manner how a Persian combs his hair and – finally – his beard: Combing one’s beard is a very important matter for a Persian. Naturally, the first reason for the attention he pays to his beard is the irresistible feeling of coquetry which is very strong among the Persians. While they are young, they do not wear beards at all or have a very short beard, since Persian women prefer men with short beards or without beards . . . When age makes a Persian give up open coquetry, he lets his beard grow, but seeks consolation in the care of his beard, so that at least it is beautiful, sleek, jet-black, soft and shiny as silk. He achieves a nice color and softness of the beard by coloring it often in the bath with reng and henna; the proper shape and accurate parting of every hair are achieved through assiduous brushing, especially in the morning before the prayer. For this purpose, he uses a huge wooden comb, which he keeps always, as a sacred object, in utmost cleanness. This comb usually has very sparse teeth so that it is only good for straightening curly hair but not for the expulsion of the little animals who feel so free in the soft beard. Persians, however, care very little about getting rid of these animals and do not despise them as Europeans do . . .

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Representation of Iran and her people Armed with his huge comb, a Persian spends a long time combing his beard and does it with a special pleasure . . . Many Persians believe that with combing their beard their sins are leaving them.6

The essay includes an informal description of the time a Persian spends in his inner quarters, and on his private amusements, such as listening to music and watching his wives or artistes dance, playing cards and chess, and often drinking heavily. The gaze of the Western observer penetrates the interiors of “Oriental” houses with complete freedom: “The eye of the writer and its technological extension, the camera, take us inside the dwelling places of the primitive and exotic.”7 Many Russian travelers are interested in the contents inside Persian houses. Il’ia Berezin depicts with much excitement his observation of the highlanders in the Caucasus: “[How thrilling] it is to watch the highlanders, real, desperate highlanders, to watch them while being invisible to them!”8 Berezin invites his readers to follow him, the “invisible” observer, into the highlanders’ houses and into their lives, which are presented as if they were exhibited for the curious scrutiny of the learned traveler “in a gigantic open museum.”9 His use of a telescope is also symbolic: he sees them but cannot himself be seen. Another author, Vasilii Borozdna, also admits to the use of a telescope in order to gaze into neighboring houses: he is primarily interested in seeing (and describing) uncovered women.10 Nikolai Murav’ev openly tells the women from the harem of a Shahzadeh who used to come to his garden that he has used a telescope to look at them from his house.11 Another Russian traveler, E. Belozerskii, begins his description with the impression a Persian city makes on him, and then proceeds to picture the interior of a house: There is nothing sadder than Persian cities. This is partly so because of the narrow streets, but the main reason is undoubtedly the architecture of the houses: from the outside they look like boxes made out of bricks dried in the sun. Through a small door you go into an open court, which in the houses of the wealthy usually has a small garden and a pool with water. All those houses I have seen were one-storied, unless we take into account the underground floor, the zir-i-zamin. . . The windows of a house are of the same size as its doors, and are usually made of small many-colored pieces of glass, which are usually dirty. There is also an andarun, the women’s quarters . . . The men’s quarters are called mardaneh. For the numerous servants there is usually a special room, rather dirty. In the houses of the well-to-do the floor is covered with thick felt, over which in the middle of the room is placed a carpet which does not reach the walls; near the walls . . . motley cotton cloth, blue and white, is spread. Nobles have carpets covering the whole floor. In

Representation of Iran and her people 93 poor houses, the clay floor is not covered at all, and only a small mat is placed for sitting on. . . . It feels empty and uncomfortable in Persian rooms, since there is no furniture there: neither table nor chairs, nor cupboard, nor a single nail, nor a single hook – it is absolutely empty. However, in the corners are big packages; those are beds and pillows, rolled in tubes and left there all day long till night, when they are needed again. There are only niches in the walls of a room, which are shaped like windows, which sometimes have two rows where various things, jugs for water and big cups for water . . . are placed.12 Poor houses, according to the travelers, are built of clay bricks, brushwood or reed coated with clay, and have only one room. Below is a description of a poor Persian house: Along the walls are narrow wooden plank-beds or takhteh, which serve as a bed for the whole family; some places do not even have this simple furniture: the earthen floor is covered with mats or baskets filled with unwashed sheep wool or straw used as beds. Furniture is very rare among the natives.13 Some travelers manage to observe the inner quarters of Persian houses and their inhabitants hidden from strangers’ glances. Alexander Eliseev was able to watch the harem of the Khan of Kuchan secretly from the top of the Khan’s palace, through a window facing the andarun. The traveler saw the wives of the Khan while they were greeting Eliseev’s sister and described them.14 Some travelogues, for example, S. Lomnitskii’s, include pictures of Iranian women, sometimes exhibiting them to the European gaze in their everyday home clothes and without veil. Interestingly, only a few travelers talk about the appearance of Iranian people; their faces and bodies. Sometimes their clothes are described, but usually in the context of presenting Iran as a place where filth and poverty are found everywhere; or in a comment on women veiling themselves. One of the exceptions to the rule is Doctor Nikolai Danilov, who spent five years in Iran as a physician at the Russian Mission in Tehran. While there, he conducted an anthropological research, studying 152 persons who represented “some of the most wide-spread tribes of the northern part of the country,”15 and published the results in a book titled Concerning the Anthropological and Physiological Features of the Modern Population of Persia.16 The book includes descriptions of physical features, such as height, skin color, hair, eyes, lips, teeth, pulse, and breath. Following the dubious scientific fashion of the day, he includes various anthropometrical data such as measurements of the skull, face and body. Danilov, however, does not make any conclusions based on those measurements.

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The other writer who includes description of the physical appearance of Iranians is P. Rittikh: From the European point of view, the Persians are the most beautiful people on the globe. They are of medium height, have an excellent build, and are lean rather than fleshy, have a noble bearing and look extremely graceful and slender. Their features are mostly regular; the eyes and hair are black, the brows are arched and often meet above the bridge of the nose; the nose is aquiline, the mouth is small, the chin is not wide; the men’s chins are hidden in heavy beards. They take good care of their beards and like to dye them black. He tries to compare the skulls of the Semites and Iranians and comes to the following “scientific” conclusion: As for the shape of the skull, Iranians belong to the long-headed type, and the length of their skulls is, according to Khanykov, 2.5 times longer than their width. The height of their skulls is less than that of the Semites’ skulls but more than that of the Turanians. Their frontal bone is not well developed and the upper part of the skull is flattened. Typical Iranian skulls were brought by Khanykov and examined by Baier, who found that the cerebral sinus is very large, which leads to the conclusion that the Persians must naturally be very gifted.17 Misl’-Rustem briefly notes: “As for their appearance, the Persians are a beautiful people, though mostly with yellow, dark complexions; however, they are weak, languid, and clumsy. It seems to me that the main reason for this is the hot climate and their food.”18 The rarity of descriptions of people’s bodies and faces and the character of the exceptional ones show that for the Russian authors the physical appearance of Iranians did not serve as a sign “by which primitive is represented” or as “the essential defining characteristic of primitive people.”19 The data given above are presented in a rather unemotional and semi-scholarly way and are not followed by any belittling conclusions. Characteristics other than body and face structure serve as the criteria for the construction of classifications and hierarchy of peoples, such as character, backwardness, lack of [European] education, and subjection to despotic rulers. Observations are always accompanied by the authors’ distancing themselves from their object, be it a city, a house or a person. In this connection it must be mentioned that, based on the examined travelogues, none of the Russian authors traveled to Iran in disguise, with only one exception.20 One of the travel writers, Berezin, warns his readers against traveling in disguise, unless a person can totally rely on

Representation of Iran and her people 95 his knowledge of the Orient and would not look any different from the local people. He notes that there are very few people who are capable of that; therefore he advises travelers to avoid doing so, “in order to escape unpleasant consequences, of which losing one’s life would not be the worst.”21 Rejecting deliberate disguise means rejecting a way to solve the contradiction “between the need to separate oneself from the world and render it up as an object of representation, and the desire to lose oneself within the object-world and experience it directly.”22 Spurr notes that: “To look at and speak to not only implies a position of authority; it also constitutes the commanding act itself.”23 Having won two wars against Iran and taken over its territories in the Caucasus and later in Central Asia, Russians felt themselves quite confident inside Iran. Iran was perceived as a backward and militarily, politically and economically weak country in comparison with Russia or the rest of Europe. Assuming a position of authority, the travelers do not just observe, but also actively interfere. Some travelogues are a reflection of how Russians at times did not hesitate to behave in an authoritative and self-assertive way. An incident described not without pride by General Aleksei Ermolov is a good illustration. In the service of the Crown Prince ‘Abbas Mirza was a French officer called G. Merchet, “[one of those] French marauders now spread all over the world” who “called himself a Colonel in Napoleon’s [Old] Guard and a wearer of the Legion of Honor.” He insulted one of the musicians of the Russian Embassy and struck him with his saber. Ermolov failed to get ‘Abbas Mirza to punish the Frenchman, so he sent his aide-de-camp with several soldiers and the musician to find Merchet, who was then birched by them. His saber was brought to Ermolov, who sent it to ‘Abbas Mirza with the message that he hoped that the French “scoundrel” would not be tolerated in Persian service any longer. Ermolov was promised that Merchet would be expelled from the city.24 While assuming the function of observers of the “Orientals,” the Russian authors do not tolerate the reverse situation. Whenever they feel they are being watched by the “travelees,” they resist. Russian travelers are annoyed by what they consider to be Iranians’ obtrusive curiosity towards themselves and every aspect of their life and travels. Pavel Ogorodnikov mentions with a lot of irritation the “impertinent, greedy curiosity [for] tamasha [spectacle] – such a wonder as urus [a Russian].”25 Some of the travelers tell how they had to use physical force in order to get rid of their observers. Fedor Bartolomei describes with irritation how he became an object of surveillance: Sitting together with a friend on a carpet, cross-legged, in a room open towards a garden, we became an object of curiosity for the whole city. Inhabitants would come to us, stop on the terrace in front of the room, would point at us with their fingers, would laugh

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Representation of Iran and her people at our clothes and discuss [us] between themselves, and finally they would leave, only to bring or to send [to us] their relatives, friends and acquaintances, who have not seen us yet. Finally, I got tired of being exhibited; I lost my temper and found out from the interpreter that I would even rise in the opinion of those ignoramuses if I ordered that they be driven out of the court with sticks. I immediately used the opportunity to demonstrate how much I appreciated Persian customs. My Tatars [servants] were laying about with their sticks, which were received with awe, and in a second gained me respect, which I had started to lose in the eyes of the Persians as a result of my kindness. I ordered [them] to lock the gate and not to let anybody in.26

Apart from complaining about the curiosity of the “Orientals,” the author makes another implication in this passage. He states that the only language “Orientals” are able to understand is that of force and power, and that the use of force is the only way to impress them and win their respect. Nikolai Murav’ev complains about the presumed curiosity of the Iranians: Of course, there is no other nation in the world more curious than the Persians: I am getting proofs of that with my every step in their curious country! Sometimes, at the entrance to a village, I was met by crowds of old men and children, and was accompanied to a house [in which I was staying] – where I would hide as soon as possible from their annoying eyes and pishkeshes (presents consisting of flowers, fruits, etc.) However, this was not always possible: curiosity would reach me through the holes in the ceiling, or would squeeze through the cracks in the doors, or would impudently burst into the room, from whence only the meaningful kicks of the mehmandar [host] would pursue it to leave. The noisy talk in the courtyard only quieted down late [at night], and the people would leave only after questioning my mehmandar in detail as to who I was, where from, where I was traveling and why, and after counting carefully the number of my packs and servants; which, according to the Persians, is the best diploma for the rank of traveler and the best measure of their respect for him.27 The author describes how he was entering the city of Qazvin on a Friday. All those men, women and children who were enjoying themselves outside the city gates stopped whatever they were doing and stared at the Russian traveler: “Curiosity stared at me with its big eyes, and it seemed as if all tongues, Curiosity’s agents, said: ‘Who is this ferengi [European]?’ . . . Local people are more or less familiar with foreigners, but have not observed them enough.”28

Representation of Iran and her people 97 P. Florinskii tells how he stayed in a small village and could not get rid of those curious adults and children who gathered in front of the door of his house. Finally he closed the door and could see how “different faces pressed against the cracks in the door and then left, not being able to see anything” since it was dark in the room. Then an accident happened. Florinskii kindled the fire in the hearth and had to save himself from the smoke. When he swiftly opened the door to run out, he saw two women running away from his door. As he found out very soon when a husband of one of them appeared in his house the door had hit one woman in the nose and it bled. “The conclusion is: one should never stand by a door where he has not been invited.”29 P. Rittikh describes how uncomfortable he felt being watched by the “travelees” in the town of Nain: Every day, at noon and even earlier, curious Iranians, young and old, used to come to us and sit in front of our hovel. They would answer our questions willingly, but rarely asked us questions; most of the time they would just stare; for hours they sat in the same place and looked naively into our eyes, as if trying to penetrate our innermost thoughts. At first we were too polite with these people, but then their unbearable curiosity started to annoy us and we started getting rid of them without being shy, and to lock our gates. The author then tells about an incident which occurred when they were trying to get rid of an “impudent” sayyed who did not want to leave and “was provoking a scandal.” A little clash with the crowd followed when a Persian was accidentally wounded, but luckily it did not end in a griboedovshchina (an incident similar to the one that had happened to Griboedov).30

The “travelees”: manners and morals The Russian travelers’ representation of Iran and its people is usually marked by a contemptuous attitude and an air of superiority of the strong and powerful toward the weak loser. The authors are disappointed by the state of every facet of social, political, economic and spiritual life in contemporary Iran. Ivan Blaramberg is even able to criticize the landscape in Iran: its mountains, its plains, its trees. He finds them ugly, they make a sad impression on him: “In order to give [you] an idea of landscape in Persia, we have to exclude everything that creates beauty in Europe.”31 Almost all the travelers call Iranians tuzemtsy (“the aborigines” or “the natives”), which in Russian in general and in the context of the Russian travelogues in particular has the pejorative meaning “uncivilized” or “barbarous.”

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The grotesque disparaging of the Iranians is most egregious when the authors talk about their manners and morals. Many Iranian customs are presented as ridiculous because they differ from what the authors consider the “civilized” and therefore correct way of doing things: The Persian taste leans toward everything unnatural: for example, Persians dye their hair and the tails and legs of their horses; women put beauty-spots on their faces and get rid of the hair on certain parts of their bodies; while the highest artificiality is found in their speeches and books: here metaphors are piled one on top of another.32 Sarcastic comments and notes ridiculing people, their habits and etiquette are spread through the pages of the travelogues. Persian etiquette is one of the favorite objects of derision for the travelers: According to the rules of Persian etiquette, to not recommend a remedy to a sick person for relief of his sufferings means to display an unforgivable coldness and to present oneself as a heartless person . . . There are benevolent people who, unwilling to tire their imagination, recommend the same medicine for all illnesses. For example, if a Persian decides to recommend the use of melons for all diseases, he would never alter his method of treatment. If he meets a person who has a fever, he would recommend eating several melons; if somebody suffers from colic, he would declare that as soon as the sufferer uses melons his pain would stop; even if someone breaks an arm or a leg, he is still capable of stating that the owner of the broken arm or leg has to eat a lot of melons, and the broken limb will knit.33 General Aleksei Ermolov makes sarcastic remarks concerning Persian “silly and funny” etiquette, especially the notorious custom of taking off one’s shoes upon entering a house; and Iranian greetings. For example, he comments on his meeting with an important Iranian official: “The meeting was accompanied by the usual Persian greetings, which had already given me a headache. I said many polite things in the same ridiculous manner.” Interestingly, while disdaining the red socks and other elements of Persian etiquette, Ermolov did not hesitate to use some of its modes and exploit the perceived credulity of the Iranians during his meeting with Fath ‘Ali Shah’s prime minister: In order to win his favor, I started to express a great admiration for his high qualities and virtues. The old man took my flattery for the truth, and that is how I won his complete trust. I was asking for his advice as from a figure experienced and wise in the affairs of state. I assured him that if guided by him, I could perform a good

Representation of Iran and her people 99 service. As a sign of my great attachment to him, I gave him the title of [my] father, and as an obedient son promised to tell him everything honestly.34 Ermolov, who accused Iranians of credulity, could not avoid sounding naïve himself. On the one hand, he seems to be aware of the formal side of Persian etiquette, while on the other hand, he believes that his compliments are taken seriously. Misl’-Rustem describes an audience at the house of a wealthy khan, with its strictly followed order: the order of entering, taking seats, and speaking is well known to the host and to the guests. The author explains: I used to know important khans, who knew well that their visitors had requests to make of them which they [the khans] did not want to fulfill. These khans talked their [petitioners’] heads off with compliments, so that they did not have time left to convey their requests. When a petitioner, finally, started to speak, the khan would get up and excuse himself, [saying] that he had important business.35 Sergei Cherniaev makes an interesting comparison of the conversation during an audience with the scenes from an opera: The host sings the solo; those seated next to him play parts in a trio, a quartet and other morceaux d”ensemble together with him, while the poor, who are distanced from [the host] by their low position, only give shading and add to the main melody with their chorus.36 Nikolai Murav’ev likens Persian etiquette, unfamiliar and unusual to him, to a Persian carpet: Every step is followed by congratulations, a bow, or a visit; every day arrives a messenger to ask about the condition of one’s health, or a letter of greeting. In other words, there is so much etiquette, such a pile of rules, that all together they combine [to form] the most patterned Persian carpet – [a carpet] of ceremonies, upon which the whole life of a Persian is based.37 Fedor Bartolomei makes a humorous comment on one of the rules of Persian etiquette: The host of the house where you are staying assures you that all his property belongs to you, even including his children; his wives, however, are never mentioned. I often intended answering to such a greeting to suggest an exchange profitable for him: to give all his children back to him in exchange for only one of his wives.38

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Traditional Iranian greetings and conventional phrases are similarly lampooned by Il’ia Berezin, who recorded and translated his conversation with the officials in Ardebil: My guests started their speeches: The Vakil as the oldest started: – “Akhvali dzhenabi shuma khubeeest?” Are the circumstances of Your Nobility good? – “Az iltifati shuma.” By your benevolence. – “Demagi shuma changeeest?” Is your brain well? – “Az ni-mati shuma.” By your grace. – “Keifi shuma sazeeest?” Is your bliss well? – “Az markhamati shuma.” By your favor. – “Nakhushi ne dorid?” You don’t have any sickness, do you? In spite of the fact that I had a high fever, I answered again: – How can one be sick in this country? After the Vakil who was sitting in the middle, the Sultan of artillery who was sitting to the right of the Vakil inquired about my circumstances. The same was then repeated by the Mirza of the Prince seated to the left of the Vakil; after him, the same was pronounced very pleasantly by the Mirza of the Vakil who was sitting next to the Sultan; finally after everybody an unknown Mirza, who was sitting next to the Mirza of the Shahzadeh and who said nothing else during the whole visit, entered the conversation. Then the Vakil, putting his arm on his heart, pronounced: “Khush omadid!” Welcome! And the whole company repeated in a chorus: Welcome!39 The Russian authors describe the wretchedness, poverty and dirt in most of the places they visit in Iran: colonial discourse attaches “the images of filth . . . to its representation of the Other.” As seen in the travelogues, their authors are anxious to keep the distance, the boundary, to maintain the difference between themselves and the “Orientals” out of “fear of contamination.”40 They often try to avoid sharing shelter and food with the Persians, with the exception of receptions at the houses of the highest Persian aristocracy, including the Shah. Except the purely official ones, there is hardly a travelogue that does not express its disgust with the filthy streets, houses, water, food and clothing in Iran. However, in small Russian towns and especially villages the situation was not much different from that in Iran – poverty and poor sanitary conditions were well known to those who had ever traveled in the Russian hinterland of the nineteenth century. Those similarities are deliberately ignored by the Russian travelers – they pose as people who have arrived from a pristine place, and that place is of course Europe. According to Baron Fedor Korf:

Representation of Iran and her people 101 The streets of Tehran have not been swept since the time of the building of the city; so far nobody has thought it necessary. Those interested can study the anatomy of all animals there. Remains of camels, donkeys, hinnies, horses, dogs, and cats are left in the streets until a hungry dog eats their body and time destroys their bones. The climate of Tehran shows indulgence toward this unforgivable carelessness; in a different place half the population would have died out due to such uncleanness; here [in Tehran] the air is so dry that the bodies mostly dry out without decomposing.41 Other travelers echo similar sentiments.42 Doctor Rubio, who was the head of a sanitary post in Turbet-i Heydari, gives a report on the hygienic condition of the town: its streets, houses, water supply, baths: A street is a storage place for all kinds of garbage. Horse dung is brought into the streets and bricks for heating the bath are made out of it then and there. Cow dung is also taken outside for burning. Every house has a gutter for throwing slops outside into the street . . . In the bazaar, unwrapped sugar is placed gently on the dirty boxes and turns almost black with dust and bugs. Freshly baked bread is hanging nearby in the dust . . . In the bazaar, pastry-cooks prepare in front of everybody their sweet goods. They are generously mixed with the dust, sweat from the faces of the workers dripping into their production, and with the filth from their hands. . . . As a result of poverty, ignorance, and bad construction of the baths, Persians are very dirty. They have enormous numbers of lice, and they are of huge size . . . In general, the sanitary condition of Turbet is very bad. Only southern sun carefully disinfects all the garbage and dirt of the Persian city.43 S. Lomnitskii offers an unflattering opinion concerning ritual ablutions: As for cleanness and neatness, a Persian hardly yields the palm to the Chinese; it seems to be difficult to find a more dirty and untidy people under the Moon. Meanwhile, in the opinion of the Persians, all ferengi are unclean people, not only morally but also physically. It happens because they do not perform the three ablutions a day appointed by the Qur’an. In reality, the ablution a Persian performs is no more than a formality, and two drops of water which he spreads over himself [and which turn] into liquid dirt only increase his filth. [There is] a specific stink characteristic of the whole Orient.44 Dirt is not limited to the houses of the poor Iranians, according to the Russian travelogues. Nikolai Murav’ev wrote about a Qajar palace in Tehran:

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Representation of Iran and her people In the beautiful yard, in front of the palace, one can see garbage and piles of ruins in the corners! The entrance to the palace is so dirty and disgusting that it is difficult to believe it unless you see it yourself.45

In his essay devoted to Oriental women, Sergei Cherniaev states: Children in the Orient in general are brought up in dirt . . . The absence of the sense of the refined, which is reflected in all aspects of Oriental life, prevents the Muslims from understanding the meaning and importance of cleanness.46 Use of the same source of water for washing and drinking exasperates many Russian travelers, especially when they realize that water they drink themselves is used by Iranians for purposes other than drinking: When I opened my eyes, I saw . . . a servant washing and cleaning a jug in the reservoir, in the very same reservoir from where they had filled the bottle for us, and from which everybody drinks water! . . . After less than a minute, His Highness . . . approached [the reservoir], squatted over it and started washing himself, gargling and – how disgusting! – cleaning his nose and blowing it into the water . . . which, immediately after was poured into a samovar for us! 47 Alexander Nikol’skii gives another example when the difference in the concepts of cleanliness between the Iranians and Russians personally affected and shocked the authors. Once he went into his tent in order to drink tea and asked his Iranian servant Kafar to break sugar: He was dawdling for a long time, rummaging through my bags and grumbling; at last, I heard him breaking [the sugar], but doing it in a strange way. I pulled up a fold of the tent and saw the following scene: Kafar would put a piece of sugar between his molars and hit himself on his lower jaw, then put the broken pieces on the ground. – What are you doing? – I screamed. – Cannot you see? I am breaking sugar! – Kafar answered. – For whom? – I asked in terror. – For whom? Obviously, for you!. Since then, Kafar, to his joy, had one duty less.48 Alexander Eliseev tells of the dreadful consequences of the Shi’i ritual of burying their dead in Mashhad: According to my most conservative estimate, not less than 2 million bodies are buried in Mashhad . . . Some of the bodies are buried

Representation of Iran and her people 103 so carelessly that in the city outskirts jackals and dogs dig them out of the ground. On our way to Mashhad, we saw a dead body which the faithful relatives were carrying to Mashhad for burial, in spite of the order of the Shah forbidding transportation of the dead bodies because of the cholera. In spite of their attempts to cover the body with fabrics and to perfume it with aromatic balms, the two-week-old corpse, which had completely decomposed in the 30-degree heat, was giving off a horrible stench along the road, which however bothered neither those accompanying the body nor also the passers-by.49 However, what the authors see does not usually cause any feeling of compassion in them: the suffering of the “Other” cannot be considered the suffering of a human being like “the Self,” or the Orientalist. The conclusion the readers are led to is that Iranians do not deserve any sympathy because their miseries are engendered through their own faults: they are lazy, dishonest, greedy, cowardly, and ignorant: “their suffering is interpreted as giving expression to elemental passions which law and reason are supposed to have suppressed in the West.” Spurr explains that a mechanism called “economy of pity” by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, allows the observers or readers to “imagine and judge that the others suffer, but this is to experience their suffering precisely as theirs, and not as our own;” “The sensible presence of suffering is exceeded by its image, so that pity is awakened only by imagination and reflection”; as a result, the suffering of others is “both real and removed from us.” The negative traits of “the natives” help the authors to declare the advantage of their own features, and consequently their own superiority: “The primary affirmation of colonial discourse is one which justifies the authority of those in control of the discourse through demonstrations of moral superiority.”50 L. Tigranov characterizes Iranians as “helpless, ignorant and superstitious masses.”51 A. Polovtsoff writes that the Persian is “backward, wily, hostile, with none of the childish charm of tropical natives.”52 Dr. N. Shetalov believes “reticence and falsity” to be the main features of people in Iran.53 Captain Lev Al’brant considers Iranians “spineless” and writes of “the absence of discipline and order and the barbarous state of the people.”54 Colonel V. Kosogovskii mentions “purely Persian invidiousness”55 as a commonly known feature. Similarly, P. Vlasov talks about their “cowardice and chicken-heartedness known to everyone.”56 Captain Bel’gard considers Iranians a “cowardly and downtrodden element, who abuse tobacco and opium (teryak) smoking.”57 Ogorodnikov quotes an acquaintance of his: “ ‘If there are a hundred snakes and one eel in a sack, it is difficult to find the latter;’ it is likewise difficult to find a good person among the Persians.”58 He also accuses Iranians of being ungrateful for his generous medical help.59 According to Aleksei Ermolov:

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Representation of Iran and her people [The Persians’] ability for pretense reaches the highest level . . . In the minds of Persians, there is nothing shameful or dishonest in stating the opposite of what they had agreed to before, or even in swearing to this statement in public.60

Some travelers are shocked by what they consider to be the cruelty of Iranians toward other people and animals. Eliseev describes the miserable condition of the prisoners in the town of Kuchan.61 Bode tells how some captured Turcomans were treated: after one of them could not walk any longer, Iranian soldiers cut off his head and made his widow carry it. Bode also tells how a camel which had stumbled and fallen but which was still alive was ran over by Persian artillery.62 Berezin also complains about the “cruelty” of Iranians: In their treatment of animals, Persians are cruel; bloody scenes generally do not make much of an impression on them, so that the severed head of a criminal is hardly noticed by those passing the place of execution. A Persian, irritated by stubbornness of his donkey, sometimes beats the poor animal till it dies on the spot; and with [the donkey], one of the main means of support of the irritated Persian disappears.63 Belozerskii, however, in a contrary view, has the following opinion of Iranians’ treatment of animals: “[Iranians] love animals, especially horses and cats, and consider them clean. They consider dogs to be unclean, but let them live in spite of that: usually all the streets and bazaars are full of them.”64 Some authors accuse Iranians of being profligate and hypocritical. Their morals are presented as corrupt and shocking to a European. Ogorodnikov quotes an acquaintance of his: The moral feeling is suppressed in a Persian from the cradle; a sense of honor is absent in him. Look at that mummy [sic] which is facing us; his apathy reflects the harmful influence of opium which is first given to a baby so that he will not cry, and to which he then gets addicted so much that he keeps using it till his death, while bestial sexual pleasure totally depraves and exhausts him . . . [The population of Gilan] are in a practically wild state; in spite of the fever, they sleep on the ground, eat only fruits and rice. Nothing can be said concerning their morals: their ignorance and the climate, rousing passions, drive many of them to an “intimacy with animals.”65 There are many other references to the alleged faults and sins of the Iranians which authors of the travelogues seem to have a compulsion to expose.66

Representation of Iran and her people 105 Sometimes the climate is seen as a reason for low morals. It is a standard practice of colonial discourse to establish a connection between the moral standing of a people and its climatic environment. The heat of the tropics, according to this logic, produces races characterized by indolence and easy sexuality, while the harsher conditions of northern climates have created a race devoted to diligence and self-control.67 According to P. Rittikh, women in Gilan are known for their great beauty and at the same time are infamous for their perversion: “In Gilan, the reason for that is the humid climate of the Caspian lowlands, which has its special effect on woman’s organism.”68 N. Mamontov blames many perceived faults of the Iranians on the hot climate of Iran: “The southern sun has a relaxing effect on the brains of the local population. Lazy, awkward, careless, always sleepy Persians are unable not only to act fast but to talk, and even to think.”69 A similar explanation for the “Persian laziness” is suggested by S. Lomnitskii: “Laziness in the Orient cannot be judged from our point of view; it is a traditional phenomenon, caused by the climate, the abundance of natural resources, and many circumstances of the social order.” He adds: A modern Persian is first of all a tradesman, and his ideal of life does not go beyond profitable trade. He knows of no better enjoyment than to sit on a carpet in his shop from morning till evening, cross-legged in the Oriental way, puffing his kalian [water pipe], and to wander God knows where with his insensate glance, in which you would find neither reflection of the recollections of the past nor sparkling hope for the future.70 Karl Von Baumgarten talks about widespread opium smoking and lewdness and accounts for the latter by putting it down to poverty: “[In Kerman] poverty reaches an unbelievable scale, and as a result, morals are almost non-existent; this can be proved by the high number of prostitutes, who offer themselves for the cheapest price.”71 Egor Chirikov describes the women, whom he calls suzmani. He says that many of them are very attractive; they are famous for their dances and promiscuity; their dances are shameless and the women themselves are available at a cheap price.72 Most authors mention the Iranians’ habit of drinking heavily. Numerous passages contain scenes of Iranians getting drunk and mock them as hypocrites whose religion does not allow them to drink but who do it in private on a regular basis. However, such remarks are usually applied to those of significant means and those who occupy high positions in the

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country. Lomnitskii’s description of Iranians drinking is typical of the Russian travelers: The only difference between a drinking Persian and a drinking European is that a European drinks at every opportunity, day and night and in any season, without being Pharisaical; while Persians drink only at night, mostly on their own or in the company of their most intimate friends. In addition, for many Europeans, for example, for the French, wine is one of the necessary things in their household; there everybody drinks wine but nobody gets drunk, while a Persian, once he has got hold of a bottle, will necessarily get drunk.73 Baron Fedor Korf explains: [Wine] . . . is widely used by the upper classes and wealthy people. It is true that not a single true believer would dare to defile his lips by touching a glass, but on the sly, hiding in the far rooms of their harems, Persians get drunk worse than any kafer.74 A number of travelers complain that Iranians try to swindle them out of money, and one of the most common ways to do it is the system of pishkesh (presents). According to Fedor Bartolomei’s description of the pishkesh system: One of the many ways which Persians have invented for swindling [foreigners] out of money is constantly suggesting to them as a present an item which [the foreigners] cannot take with them but are however expected to pay for. They reach the height of shamelessness; and this custom is also widespread among the upper classes. The Shah himself is as self-interested and as big a bribe-taker as his ministers and all his subjects. A hunter, for example, always offers the game he has killed to the travelers; a shepherd, having noticed you from far away, grabs a sheep or kid from his flock and, approaching you, gives it to you as a present; a reaper blocks your way with a sheaf of barley, asking you to accept his whole field; a dervish tortures you with blessings; a peasant or a gardener presents a flower to you, not forgetting to compare you to it and to wish that your way be covered with flowers, and so on. For all that, you have to pay a high price and, naturally, cannot take with you anything other than a flower and a blessing.75 Pavel Ogorodnikov tells his readers how a Persian gave him a bill for all the “presents” which he had thrust on him “with such cordiality” in the morning that same day.76 Alexander Nikol’skii complains that the Persians were trying to get as many presents from him as possible but

Representation of Iran and her people 107 refused to do him any favor for free. He considers them to be “lazy, mendacious, garrulous, hypocrites, beggars, and – even if I will be accused of prejudice – extremely inhospitable.”77 Villiam Dittel’ tells his readers that when it was explained to him that pishkesh was a present which he was supposed to give in return for meals, fruits and sweets, he promised himself not to use those “signs of respect” any more: “They cost more than those purchased.”78 Already during the travelers’ time, some intellectuals criticized the unfavorable comments by Russian authors about Iran and its people. For example, one of Berezin’s reviewers reproached him for ridiculing the poverty of a foreign people, as well as for mocking their customs: “We ourselves do not like it when strangers jeer at our Motherland; therefore, it is natural to conclude that it is also wrong of us to speak without respect of what is native to others.”79 His reviewer reproaches Berezin, a scholar of the Middle East, with the tone of mockery and caricature he employed in his popular travelogue: “He decided to turn the assumed title of a traveler to the Orient into the role of an Oriental Figaro who laughs at the Orient with a sarcasm which has no place in any part of the world. It is very difficult to understand why the learned and honorable title of the traveler to the Orient seems so funny to him, an Orientalist.”80 Russian travelers sometimes do express sympathy for Iranians, but often on the same page where they have just declared their perceived inferiority. Nikolai Murav’ev tries to be tolerant and open-minded: Until a person gets used to something strange, it seems weird to him . . . For example, who has not been amazed by Asian laziness? Still, it is so natural when the heat is unbearable, when everything falls out of your hands and nothing gets into your head! He continues: Besides the laziness, nothing is so noticeable in the character of the Persians as the mixture of opposites: the strongest servility and the corresponding insolence! The noble way of thinking and the insidiousness of their actions! Generosity and self-interest! Magnanimity and meanness! And all that under the most beautiful cloak of politeness! You should never trust a Persian’s word – he will almost certainly deceive you!81 An anonymous author describes the horrible dirt, poverty, and wretchedness which startled him in Tehran “in the saddest way,” but concludes that his heart was wrung with pity as he rode through the city.82 The occasional positive references concerning the people, their culture and habits are usually conditional and with certain reservations. Often

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they are presented as exceptions which only prove the general rule; sometimes this point is made in a straightforward manner; sometimes it is implied. In some cases, the positive qualities noticed in Iranians are described in an ironic or condescending manner. At the same time, a positive opinion of Iranians, as expressed by some Russian travelers, is usually marked by a sense of natural superiority, and the favorable qualities of Iranians are presented as being on a lower level than or incomparable with those of the Europeans. For example, Berezin admits that the Iranians have certain natural gifts, such as intellectual abilities, but adds that “without a proper education and under the strong influence of religious fanaticism these abilities come to nothing.” He says that Iranians are famous for their politeness and tact, and immediately describes some “rules of etiquette” according to which “guests are treated differently not only in terms of the place they have in the conversation but in terms of the food they are served.” There always seems to be a “but,” at least an implied one, in all the favorable statements. “One of their main gifts is wit,” Berezin says, and qualifies his statement: “But here, too, we cannot ignore the bad side of Persian wit: most of it is spent on ribaldry. (emphasis added)”83 According to S. Lomnitskii: “I cannot deny that among Persians there are some humane and honest people, patriots in the best sense of the word, but unfortunately these are exceptional cases among the totally corrupt.” (emphasis added)84 Or, as Misl’-Rustem says: “In my opinion, the Persians are good people, but their life is spoiled by the absence of education and [good] upbringing and the excessive influence of the Sayyeds (descendants of the Prophet) and the mullahs.” (emphasis added)85 N. Solovkin uses the same construction based upon juxtaposition of the accidental positive features and natural negative ones: Generally, the impression made by the Persian population is a favorable one. Persians are hospitable, polite, perform their duties carefully, and are very hardworking. Of course, they cannot be approached from the European point of view. The mode of life of the Asian peoples is very peculiar; the social order, the administration, the rules of the community, family life – everything is based on the religious system. (emphasis added)86 According to Rittikh: By nature, Persians are very gifted and are jacks-of-all-trades; however, as a result of the ancient Asian stagnation, these abilities do them harm, turn them into overconfident and consequently superficially-educated people who are only concerned about profits and material prosperity. (emphasis added)87

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Figure 8 An aristocratic Persian. Source: Nikol’skii, Letnie poezdki naturalista, p. 174.

Belozerskii, who devoted several pages of his concise account to an analysis of the Iranian character, most of which is unfavorable to Iranians, admits: One should bear in mind that the Persians have great abilities, with a developed imagination and phenomenal memory, so that they usually know whole poems by their favorite poets by heart, have a great disposition towards the arts, judging by those self-trained [artists] whom I have met. In general, they have a flexible and abstract [turn of] mind, enjoy talking about good and evil, and probably no other nation has so many beautiful phrases and sentences about happiness and misfortune in the world, or about good and evil;

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Representation of Iran and her people however, [these sayings] do not commit the Persians to anything. (emphasis added)88

A mixed characteristic is given to Iranians by Mamontov: The Persian people are actually very good-natured, infinitely patient, lazy, peace loving; they are not especially brave, love tranquility and appreciate it more than anything else on the earth. The needs of the ordinary people are extremely limited.89 Ogorodnikov acknowledges that Iranians are generously gifted by nature and “could learn European civilization easier than the Turks, if the shattering oppression of despotism in connection with obstructive Islamism did not hang over them.” He even admits that they could achieve progress due to their diligence: “Undoubtedly, the qualities of ants are characteristic of the Persians, and under different conditions of life this nation, now so poor and oppressed, could easily achieve prosperity.”90 A similar opinion regarding the Iranians as a hardworking people is expressed by A. Lomakin: “The characteristic features of Persians from Khorasan are meekness and a peaceful disposition. The villagers are excellent, hardworking farmers.”91 Blaramberg also considers Iranian peasants “hardworking and modest people, who are especially skilled in the artificial irrigation of their fields and orchards.”92 A few travelers do appreciate Iranian hospitality. Murav’ev notes that “to this day, Persians are extremely hospitable and warmhearted.”93 He is also impressed by their polite manners. Belozerskii explains why Iranians are so hospitable: In a country with such dreadful communications and isolated families it is impossible to do without hospitality: if you turn away from a main road, you would starve to death because of the sparse population and lack of acquaintances.94 After having made a number of critical remarks about Iran and its people, one author confesses his love for the country “despite of all its shortcomings.”95 This assertion by Bode with its condescending and pseudo-tolerant tone is not quite the reverse of the following straightforward, deliberately blunt statement by Ermolov: “Finally, I left that odious place which I would not agree to see again unless with weapon in hand, in order to destroy this nest hostile to us.96

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One important part of the Russians travelers’ debasement and ridiculing of the Iranians is to attack various aspects of the social structure of their society, such as administration and jurisprudence, education and health care, military, architecture and other arts. The aim of their criticism is the same as that of their degrading accounts of the Iranians’ morals and manners – to prove their own European superiority and to justify their domination of Iran. In their accounts, the travelers often portray Iranian society as permeated by bribery at all levels, starting with the Shahs. They tell their readers that it is impossible to achieve anything in Iran without paying a bribe and complain about “general bribery.”1 Fedor Bartolomei claims that “everybody in Persia, starting from the Shah and down to the last farrash, takes presents and bribes.” He adds, “when the Shah appoints his sons and high officials to the position of governor in a province, he often appoints the person who has paid him more.”2 “Bribery is spread all over Persia, among everybody, from the small to the great,” states “Misl’-Rustem.”3 According to Captain Strel’bitskii: Only a wealthy person is right and strong; for money it is possible to get absolutely everything from the ruler, and vice versa, without a bribe it is impossible to achieve anything, and therefore everyone tries to get rich at any cost . . . Money serves as a measure for evaluating absolutely everything: religion, justice, family, honor, the life of a human being . . . The shah sells the provinces for huge sums of money, and the rulers, after receiving the appointment and knowing that the next day the same province can be resold to someone else who has offered a larger bribe, try to get back the money they have spent with interest as soon as possible . . . All other administrators are in the same situation; the population, which suffers under the oppression of this system, grows used to it, gives as much as it can, and even supports those rulers who in their extortion don’t cross certain boundaries.4

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The thorough corruption of the administration and the system of justice in Iran is blamed for the miserable condition of Iran: “Persia has neither law nor justice, and the only right which is successfully applied here is the right of the strong. Nobody has a guarantee for his life or belongings.”5 Though they never mention it, Russians could be considered experts on corruption in the administration and courts: Russia in the nineteenth century, especially prior to the reforms of Alexander II in the 1860s, was notorious for its “Asiatic” bribery.

The Iranian army Along with its administrative system, the Iranian army draws a lot of criticism from the travelers. For the significant number of military officers who were sent to Iran on government missions, it was their area of expertise and often a part of their assignment. They report on the miserable condition of the soldiers, their poor training, the useless and incomplete equipment for the men and for the artillery, their awkward and unskilled maneuvers, and their lack of patriotic spirit. An anonymous member of the Ermolov Mission to Iran defines a drill of Persian artillery which he observed in Tabriz as “a satire on our infantry” and states that “in general, the Persian sarbaz [soldier], or the socalled regular army, are in their infancy.” He also witnessed artillery maneuvers and wrote that “out of more than one hundred shots, not a single one hit the target, though all of them landed quite close to it.”6 Captain Kublitskii who has studied the condition of the Persian artillery and reported on it, comes to the following conclusion: “In Persia artillery does not yet exist.”7 An anonymous “competent Russian military officer” states unequivocally: It can be said without exaggeration that a Persian army, in the regular sense of the word, does not exist. In reality, the so-called “Persian armed forces” fall further and further into decay every year and only exist on paper; what does exist is a crowd of tramps dressed in drab rags who do not have the slightest idea of discipline . . . Drills do not exist.8 Villiam Dittel’ characterizes Persian soldiers as follows: The rights of these defenders of the state are unlimited: they trade, steal, rob the people while moving from one province to another – in other words, do everything which can be encouraged by poverty, idleness, laziness, and impunity.9 Baron Fedor Korf describes with amazement the disorder in a Persian military camp that is “strange to a European’s eye, for whom the notion

The “travelees” – education, culture and society 113 of an army is connected with the idea of unusual order and monotony.” He concludes his observations: “If an enemy attacked a Persian camp at night, it is hard to imagine what confusion it would cause: most of the soldiers would crush each other being unable to find their way out of this mess of ropes and stakes.”10 Nikolai Murav’ev, who has observed a Shah’s military camp, is also shocked by the lack of discipline, observing “half-naked sarbaz” busy trading and buying “among the multicolored tents set up in disorder.” After visiting the arsenal in Tehran, the author reports: “If we look at it through a European artilleryman’s eyes, it is in a state of infancy!” Murav’ev gives a lot of information concerning the Persian army, its numbers and training, and makes an interesting remark concerning the army’ morale: “it has been in very low spirits since all the failures it has endured from the time of ‘Abbas the Great.” He also notes that in better circumstances the Persian army could become a real threat.11 V. Kosogovskii complains about the corruption permeating the army at all levels including the very top: “the Shah himself quietly resells the battalions from one commander to another for two or three thousand [gold pieces].”12 In his extensive account, Ivan Blaramberg includes a description of the Persian army, its campaigns, the armories, the irregular cavalry, the militia, the forts, and the foreign officers in the Persian service.13 Misl’Rustem devoted three separate chapters to the Iranian infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Along with the numbers and the detailed information, he complains about the uneducated officers and the bribery at every level of the army, though he does not deny its potential if only the proper training and minimal supplies were provided.14 A number of other authors write about the miserable condition of the Iranian army in more or less detail.15 The comparison of the Iranian army with the European armies, obviously including the Russian one, makes the authors feel confident about Russian military superiority and often allows them to conclude that further military advances into Iranian territory would not meet much resistance. Criticizing the Iranian military in general does not prevent some authors from doing justice to the potential of individual soldiers. Some Russian military officers think Iranians possess qualities which could make them good soldiers, given the appropriate training. Ivan Blaramberg evaluates them in the following way: A Persian soldier . . . is well built, used to labor, quick, abstemious, patient and an excellent walker. With such qualities, it would be possible to have a good army, if they only knew how to use [the men]. However, the shortage of good military officers is a serious problem in Persia.16 I. Strel’bitskii subscribes to a similar opinion:

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The “travelees” – education, culture and society It is enough to see Persian soldiers once to be sure that, as [fighting] material, they possess valuable qualities, and that under a different administrative system it would be possible to train them as an excellent army. Not to mention that they are well built and of a good height and physical strength; Persians have exceptional abilities for long-distance marching. All of them are naturally good shots, extremely abstemious eaters and drinkers, and are amazingly obedient and sharp; the history of the country also proves that Persians know how to be brave and martial.17

Misl’-Rustem admits that Iranians, if trained well, for example by the Russian military officers of the Persian Cossack Brigade, learn military duties fast and willingly.18 Captain Leonid Artamonov states that “as soldiers, the sarbaz constitute excellent material.”19 Colonel Anastasii Benderev considers Iranian military training harmful to the soldiers: In general, when it comes to its military training, the standing army not only gains nothing while being on active duty, but rather becomes corrupted. Unjust treatment by their commanders makes them rebel, and consequently they lose their best quality – their uncomplaining obedience to the rulers, which is characteristic of the Persian population in its primitive state.20

Lack of education Lack of an effective system of education is another topic addressed by the Russian authors. In order to demonstrate the ignorance and poor education of the Iranians, including the upper classes, Fedor Bartolomei tells a story about the future Shah of Iran, Muhammad Mirza (ruled 1834– 48). In 1826, when Bartolomei was a member of Prince Menshikov’s mission to Iran, Muhammad Mirza was a young man “of about 24 years old and potbellied.” The author had an audience with the Prince, who was accompanied by his two brothers and a cousin. The audience took place in a study, and Muhammad Mirza assured his guest: “Don’t think that my brothers and I are only engaged in military duties. No, we also know mathematics, artillery, geography and other sciences.” Bartolomei asked what they were studying at that moment. – Geography, answered Muhammad Mirza. We were looking at the expanse of the great Persian state, which occupies almost one third of the globe. – In that case, I said, Your Highness could not have failed to notice the vastness of your neighbor, powerful Russia, which, being twice as big as Persia, therefore occupies two-thirds of the Earth.

The “travelees” – education, culture and society 115 – Yes, these countries are the two strongest and largest in the whole world! – Of course. And if Persia occupies one-third of the globe and Russia two-thirds, let me note, Your Highness, how little space there is left for other peoples, and therefore, how insignificant other countries are in comparison with these two. – Yes, this is true! All of them go in the remaining third. He pronounced the last words with self-satisfaction, and the ecstasy of being a prince of such a powerful country was reflected on his round face. Having seen not only his geographical but also mathematical knowledge in his answer, I said my good-byes, noting that I did not want to further interrupt Their Highnesses’ studies, in which they have achieved such great successes.21 This conversation took place shortly before the second war between Iran and Russia broke out (1826), which was started by the Iranian side and which ended in the defeat of Iran two years later. Murav’ev was another of the authors who lamented the poor education of the Iranians: Persians almost don’t know their history, having only learned the tales, the adventures of their hero Rustam, and some other stories about their most famous Shahs. As for geography, they don’t know it at all; they have the same ignorant notions about the neighboring countries as about Europe and Persia itself!22 On the first page of his account, A. Matisen refers to Iran as “a country of low culture”23 and continues his narrative without any attempt to prove his statement. He gives the impression that he considers this so obvious that it needs no comment. Baron Klementii Bode holds the same view, despite the respect for Muhammad Shah he gained after an audience: I was surprised at how well the Shah knew our histories, since Persians are totally ignorant in this subject; they only know what is written in The Shah Nameh, or The History of the Kings, composed by Ferdowsi, which, with the exception of a few historical facts extracted from the manuscripts of the country, all consists of fables and tales. The Shah told me that he had read the history of Alexander the Great, translated from English by Campbell, the former physician of his father, ‘Abbas Mirza.24 And another author adds his contrary opinion concerning the Iranians’ knowledge of their history: “Persians know the history of their rulers pretty well, especially during the past two-to-three hundred years.”25

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Iranian medicine In the eyes of the travelers, the condition of medicine in Iran was further proof of the general cultural backwardness of the Iranians. The authors often give examples in order to inform their readers and entertain them at the same time. The best example is the article by Sergei Cherniaev “Persian doctors and Persian patients.” He describes the ignorance of those who claim to be physicians and observes that often it is difficult to draw the line between medicine and superstition, since they have become interconnected. According to Cherniaev, even the best Iranian physicians are not familiar with modern medicine, with anatomy or diagnostics. There is no formal medical school in Iran, no examination for medical licenses, therefore future physicians have to acquire their knowledge on their own; the only way to become known as a physician is to administer a successful treatment. The Iranians divide all the diseases into hot and cold and treat them accordingly with cold and hot food. For example, fever is considered to be a hot illness, and therefore a patient is treated with cold fruits, such as melons, watermelons, plums and pears, and finally, with pieces of ice. “[After that,] the patient is usually radically cured from all earthly illnesses, i.e., the poor victim, stuffed with raw fruits and ice, goes to the next world and into the embrace of the houris prepared for him by Muhammad.” He gives other examples of ridiculous cures and states: “The Persian physicians are bad, but if we want to be fair, [it must be admitted that] the Persian patients are probably even more stupid.” According to Cherniaev, the patients follow every piece of advice and at the same time use various medicines recommended by other doctors and friends: Fear of death and the inability to tolerate suffering make Persians extremely cowardly when they are sick. It is almost impossible to encourage such patients. Persian physicians have to treat their adult patients the same way our European physicians treat children.26 Dr. Eliseev refers to one of the most popular medical procedures in Iran – phlebotomy: Upon entering that small village, we observed the following interesting scene: about fifteen men with their arms exposed were sitting by a ditch and bleeding, with their blood running into the turbid stream. Another Persian was walking proudly next to these voluntary sufferers; he turned out to be a Persian physician, and the bloodied people his patients who were undergoing phlebotomy. Eliseev was also highly critical of the “medical” room at Tehran University, where the students would gather to listen to “probably the one

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Figure 9 Persians performing bloodletting. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 176.

Professor of Medicine who did not even need a clinic for his teaching.” And after visiting a hospital in Tehran for 30 patients he noted derisively that “the doctors who had received home education were using any crude Persian methods and had no idea of real medicine.”27 D. Zhukovskaia gives a detailed description of phlebotomy, “a very dangerous custom” and concludes: “The Persians, men and women alike, are very much afraid of ‘the excessive’ blood in their bodies, therefore the mania for ‘bloodletting’ is incredibly widespread among them.28 Similar impressions concerning the ignorance of most Iranian physicians are echoed by Minkevich and Dr. Mark in their travelogues.29 Doctor N. Solovkin includes the rules of Iranian etiquette for visiting a sick person in his overview of Iranian medicine: Upon entering the sickroom, one should have a pleasant and cheerful expression on one’s face. One should wear neither new nor very old clothes for the visit. Upon entering the room with a smile,

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The “travelees” – education, culture and society one should sit near the sick person’s head; he should not stare into his face for a long time, but should put his hand on the sick person’s forehead or his hand, and ask how he feels by day and by night. One should not visit the sick every day; after every visit one should wait two days and then visit him again. It is good to recommend a medicine to the sick, if one knows that it cured someone of the same illness. Sometimes several tens of friends and advisers gather in the room of a sick person. In this case, heated arguments start [over whether] the sick person should or should not take one medicine or another; decisions are often taken by vote; the sick person obediently swallows huge amounts of some disgusting slops – an infusion of herbs, known to nobody except for the quack.30

One of the travelers, the anonymous author of a letter from Tehran, has a positive opinion about a Persian doctor, a court physician Mirza Baba; however, he considers him to be an exception among the Iranians: “Every morning, his waiting-room was filled with poor people whom he treated and provided with medicine for free; often he happened to save those miserable people’s lives, the sad present of fate, but still a precious one.”31

Iranian arts and architecture The authors of the travelogues also accuse the Iranians of artistic backwardness. They often ridicule the Iranian arts: music, dance, painting and architecture. As is the case with many other aspects of Iranian life, for many Russian authors, being different from European art means being ugly and not worthy of attention. General Ermolov describes Iranian music and dance with strongly negative expressions: On the 16th, the Shah took it into his head to entertain me with different spectacles. I heard his court music, as disgusting as everything else in Persia. Also, [I heard] very bad singers and saw dancers, who were wriggling in the most indecent way. In [their] singing, the highest art is terrible screaming. That is what the music of the Shah himself is like, and he asked me if I had ever heard anything like that. Those people who are able to enjoy Persian music will find a [pleasant] melody in the braying of a donkey.32 A very similar opinion is expressed by Vasilii Borozdna, a member of Ermolov’s Mission: Persian music with singing and three male dancers who were moving about in a most unpleasant fashion continued throughout the whole dinner . . . The discordant sounds [of Persian music] were tormenting

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Figure 10 Persian musicians. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 171.

our ears; in addition to the imaginary pleasure which they wanted to give us, dancers performed in front of us with their unbearable, voluptuous wriggling, rousing indignation and disgust.33 Korf recalls a performance where “rope dancers wearing brocaded skirts were performing various clowning to the sounds of the most coarse music which can only torture the ears of a European.” “The city musicians were standing on one side of the road and were deafening us with the horrible braying of their long trumpets.” He adds the following description of Persian music and dance: Among the musicians, there was present one famous singer, Mullah Kerim, the favorite of the deceased Fath ‘Ali Shah. Having drunk a lot, he was entertaining the company with jolly songs, which were like some of our national songs; they consist of phrases, with every one bearing some meaning, but all together they do not have any connection with one another. Finally, our host decided to entertain us with dances. It was not a happy thought, since Persian dances, far from being amusing, are boring. Pantomime, which is the main part of the dance, lacks any grace and does not even have that

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The “travelees” – education, culture and society wild character which sometimes attracts us in the entertainment of uneducated peoples. To me, those dances seemed humiliating to humanity.34

The anonymous author of a letter from Tehran also has a very unfavorable opinion of Persian music: Every morning, near the [Shah’s] palace military music is heard, which for some unknown reason considers it has the right to torture human ears so often; in addition, in the front of the palace, facing the square, there is a gallery where every morning and evening several people unmercifully blow trumpets and beat drums, producing wild sounds impossible to describe.35 Prince Saltykov describes a song and dance performed by two Iranian boys approximately 13 years old: It seemed that the dancers were trying to depict a kind of love and suffering. But suddenly, after all the expressions of sweet bliss, they would start jumping, dashing around, screaming as if they were being killed . . . I did not stay long to watch that weird and loathsome scene.36 D. Zhukovskaia who watched and described Iranian female dancers and singers (mutrib) in an andarun, was critical about the little children who often accompanied the musicians and participated in dances and songs which were often immodest, according to the author. In her travelogue this female author maintains that there is a lot which is “cynical” and “obscene” in Iranian dances and songs.37 A number of other travelers express similar opinion towards Persian music and dances which they did not try to understand or appreciate and which they refer to with disapproval ranging from unpleasant surprise to strong revulsion.38 Iranian architecture and interior design receive no more favorable comments than do the performing arts. Alexander Eliseev gives the following example of what he considers to be the “tastelessness” of the Iranians: Luxury and tastelessness, splendor and dirt, precious works by the local artists and cheap European objects placed next to each other – that is what characterizes all Persian palaces, starting with the palace of the Shah. The palace of the Khan of Kuchan was not one of the first in Persia, but it had sufficient luxury and tastelessness. Bent-wood chairs with broken legs were standing next to splendid ottomans; amazing modeling, like weaving, decorated the walls where cheap oleographs were hanging; an expensive crystal chandelier and

The “travelees” – education, culture and society 121 copper candelabra which had turned green, all that presented sharp contrasts. We stayed in a private caravansary next to the house of the governor, decorated with whimsical gates with six turrets and ugly Persian paintings.39 P. Tomilov describes the famous palace “Chelsotun” in Esfahan in the following dismissive way: “The palace, decorated with pieces of mirror, gilding and coarse paintings, is an example of the tasteless, tawdry luxury so common in Persia.”40 E. Belozerskii makes a direct connection between Iranian arts and the character of the people: [In Persian architecture], the whole character of the Persians is expressed: there is nothing stately, daring, independent; there are endless curves and very few basic characteristics of the soul. If you remove the stalactite niches from the ceilings and the stucco moldings from the walls and windows, nothing will be left, except for the uncomfortable rooms devoid of the most ordinary human conveniences. In your mind, remove the flexibility of the Persian character which conceals it, and you will see the complete emptiness of the soul, which is not interesting in any respect to a European, whose individual psychological life is so rich. In [Persian] painting, we shall see the same [emptiness] as in [Persian] architecture. In a Persian painting, colors and the main character, who is purposely made larger than would fit the picture, play the most important role; ideas, perspective and [the art] of drawing play no part. Here, again, a Persian is represented clearly: all his inner worthlessness and the emptiness of his soul are covered with bright-colored clothes and external ostentatious magnificence. He then analyzes Persian folk songs from the same angle and comes to similar conclusions.41 A. Emel’ianov, though fond of Iranian religious architecture, miniatures and some objects of interior design and everyday life (such as furniture, mirrors, kalians, etc.), is critical of the paintings: Secular painting, both ancient and modern, is not much different from religious painting. It is almost devoid of ideas; its symbolism is poor. It reflects real life in an unsophisticated manner; the form of an artistic creation prevails over its content. An artist concentrates on fineness of technical work, refinement and thoroughness of painting decoration and selection of the colors. Don’t that motionless form of painting, lack of passion, [and that] quest of Persian artists reflect the general motionless character of Persian national life, which

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The “travelees” – education, culture and society has lost its impetuosity of action? The themes of the paintings are monotonous. Their subject – in the palaces – are episodes from battles, Shahs hunting, audiences with envoys from foreign countries. In their small paintings, the artists depict historical events, everyday life, episodes from harem life.42

Some authors express their positive opinion of Persian culture: architecture (especially pre-Muslim), poetry, and the Shi’i passion plays, or ta”ziyeh. Baron Fedor Korf wrote about his perception of Persian, or “Asian” architecture in general: Those who are unfamiliar with the fine arts cannot see anything picturesque in the buildings of the Asians. One has to feel deeply and to know architecture well in order to be able to discover the peculiar kind of beauty in those palaces and temples, which seem to be creations of the utmost tastelessness to ordinary observers whose notion of form is limited to those [forms] common in their own countries. In this connection, one should look at the Shah’s palace [in Tehran]: here you can study the refinement of Asian art, reaching the highest degree of perfection – for the initiated; and of ugliness – for those who don’t understand it. But there is no doubt that the Asians, in particular the Persians, don’t know how to decorate the interiors of their buildings with the same elegance in all parts and feel no disharmony between luxury in one corner and trash in another. The same author writes about the palace at Suleimaniyeh: “The hall of mirrors is decorated with such taste that one might even doubt it was Persian work.”43 He, however, describes the wall paintings in the Negaristan Palace as ridiculous.44 Nikolai Murav’ev tells how the house of an Iranian of means is built and decorated and notes some beautiful details, such as the “Arab arches,” the pretty and durable colors, the multi-colored glass and carvings. He also values some Iranian crafts, such as carpet weaving, pottery, embroidery.45 S. Lomnitskii describes a performance of Iranian dancers in rather positive terms, paying tribute to their art. He makes an objective comment about the voluptuous character of their movements. In a similar way he describes Iranian folk songs, admitting that they are full of humor though often cynical and rude at the same time. The several songs he gives in translation, however, are devoid of any indecency and are full of beauty.46 G. Mel’gunov thinks Iranian songs are valuable and interesting enough to include 17 of them in his travel account. He gives the Persian verse, then its Russian transliteration and Russian translation.47

The “travelees” – education, culture and society 123 Among all the Russian travelers who wrote about Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, no one is comparable to the famous E. G. Browne, a British scholar of Iran, who also wrote an account of his journey to Iran, entitled A Year amongst the Persians. The uniqueness of his attitude towards Iranians was defined by M.H. Braaksma in his book on Russian travelers in Iran: Among a few who at least attempted to approach the Persians as friends rather than as puppets, Edward Browne, a man in whom scholarship was combined with a gift for poetry, a warm human sympathy and a most lovable character, ranks easily first. But even Browne, according to Braaksma, remained a stranger, ever conscious of the unbridgeable gulf which separated him from his Persian friends. He sees them, no longer as fantastic puppets, it is true; but still, however human and sympathetic his approach, he persists in regarding them as rather anomalous specimens of humanity. He loves them and is delighted with them, but at bottom he always remains a European among aliens. He, if anybody, succeeded in finding the way to their hearts; but it is doubtful if he ever completely realized how great the affinity was between his mind and theirs.48 Russians in Iran are not trying to bridge the differences between European and non-European: on the contrary, they are trying to remember their Europeanness and to underline it for their readers. Among the Russian travelers, S. Lomnitskii stands out for his sincere but episodic attempts to reach some understanding of individual characters and to relate to them as full-fledged human beings whose value is not dependent on their ethnicity or religion. Lomnitskii is interested in communicating with people from different groups among the population. His description of his little friend and teacher of Persian, an orphan girl named Fatimeh, whom he wanted to adopt, is moving and unforgettable. The 3-year-old girl was a niece of the gardener at the house in a suburb of Tehran where Lomnitskii and his colleague spent a summer. He pictures a beautiful child, intellectually mature for her age, who became closely attached to the kind and generous Russian and spent every day in his company. According to the author, he only knew several hundred words in Persian then, and Fatimeh who liked to talk to him, decided to teach her new friend her language: Since the first days of our acquaintance, Fatimeh realized how limited my knowledge of the Persian language was and in her child’s soul decided that she had to teach sahib-i rus [Russian master]. Training started one day during our breakfast: she pointed at a fork, named

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The “travelees” – education, culture and society it in Persian and demanded that I repeat after her. Continuing our lessons in the same way, she gradually went from one object to another. At dinner the same day, Fatimeh started to examine me in the most formal way, correcting my pronunciation and repeating the same word several times if I could not repeat it accurately at once. She assumed the thankless role of my governess and never missed an opportunity to teach me a new word or a phrase, which she would try to make me understand with an utmost patience while I was at times absent-minded. If we found a nut during our walk, she would pick it up and show it to me explaining that in Persian nut is “kerdu” [sic]. Going further, she would take my hand, lead me to the nut tree and pointing at the nuts growing on it with her eyes, explain that this was “darakht-kerdu” [sic], “darakht” meaning “tree” in Persian. When I could not remember many things during an exam, Fatimeh only shook her head and repeated with a slight disappointment: “How dumb this urus [sic] is.”49

If Lomnitskii does not always stereotype Iranians, the situation is quite the opposite with the other Russian travelers. While positive remarks usually present exceptional cases, all the negative comments inevitably contain broad generalizations about all Iranians. There are generalizations on several levels: if something is true of an individual, it is always true of all Iranians, if it is true of the Iranians, it is always true of all “Orientals” or “Asians,” because they all are perceived as similar and devoid of individual features: “[An Oriental person] is of little interest, because [taken] away from the crowd he is artificial and unnatural.”50 Cherniaev explains: “Everything that has been said about Muslims in general applies to the Persians in particular.”51 Eliseev entitled his article devoted to his journey to Iran “Sredi dervishei” (Among the Dervishes) – the tendency to generalize in his approach to “the Orient” is reflected in the title. As Vasilii Bartol’d pointed out, “the unilateral notion of the fundamental difference between the psyches of the people of the East and of the West” was common to the majority of Russian scholars of the Orient from that period.52 The travelers do not see the people they meet as individuals; either they do not mention them at all as a subject unworthy of notice, or they see them as representatives of a certain type or group; and first of all as “Orientals.” On the whole, individual rulers and tribal chiefs receive more attention from the travelers than ordinary people because, in the eyes of the authors, their aristocratic pretensions and quasi-education make them more “civilized” and therefore more acceptable for the Europeans. The Iranians are presented as easy to understand by a superior, sophisticated and well-educated European who often does not spend more than a few months in Iran and considers that to be time enough for an analysis of the national character of the native

The “travelees” – education, culture and society 125 people. In addition, most of the travelers did not know Persian; however, they did not feel handicapped by this and did not feel cut off from the life around them: they saw themselves as positioned above their surroundings in Iran. Most of the travelers blame the pitiful condition of the Iranians on the despotic rule and the backwardness of the country, on “the terrible administrative system existing in Persia.”53 The anonymous female traveler explains: “The pitiable appearance of the people indicates that the heavy hand of despotism presses hard on them.”54 M. Alikhanov-Avarskii wrote: “We have seen . . . the people undoubtedly clever, handsome and with many attractive features, but almost deprived of individuality and fallen into apathy under the yoke of despotism of the rulers, mainly the smaller ones.”55 Sergei Mark mentions “the oppressed, tyrannized people, who have been sucked dry and look at every foreigner like a hungry animal at its prey.”56 According to Pavel Ogorodnikov, “the basis of Persian life, despotism and formal religion, hindering the economic and moral development of the country, have deformed the qualities and character of the people.”57 In another of his travel accounts, Ogorodnikov criticizes “the most ridiculous order [existing] in Persia” and states that the only right of a Persian peasant is “to work for others to the point of complete exhaustion and to starve to death; such exploitation of labor has undermined the main source of the people’s wealth and thrown Persia into the abyss of poverty and misfortune!”58 Shkinskii and Aver’ianov define the whole system of administration as “a system of robbery” of the people: Every official, starting with the lower ones (chapar) and ending with [those in] the higher government in Tabriz and Tehran, plunder the population; the clergy keeps up with the officials. The result is the total and complete corruption of the morals among the administration and the animosity of the ruined and impoverished people.59 The debasement of the “Orientals,” particularly when combined with statements concerning the backwardness of their administrative system, carries an implication that the natives are not able to govern themselves in a rational way and must be ruled over and civilized for their own good. European domination is therefore presented as necessary for the sake of the “Orientals”: Where one was in a position of power . . . the Oriental belonged to the system of rule whose principle was simply to make sure that no Oriental was allowed to be independent and rule himself. The premise there was that since the Orientals were ignorant of self-government, they had better be kept that way for their own good.60

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David Spurr further draws the connection between the concept of nature and colonial discourse explaining how colonial conquest is justified: On one hand, nature is opposed to culture and civilization: primitive peoples live in a state of nature. On the other, nature, or “natural law,” is also that which grants domination over the earth to more advanced peoples; the land shall belong by natural right to that power which understands its value and is willing to turn it to account. Colonial discourse thus naturalizes the process of domination: it finds a natural justification for the conquest of nature and of primitive peoples, those “children of nature.”61 Though Iran was never formally colonized, Russians had far-reaching designs on Iran. N. Mamontov states bluntly: Persia is absolutely incapable of independent self-government. [The Persians are] a people without culture, brought up on the backward principles of the Shari’a; it is beyond their abilities to rule over themselves without a foreign stick over their heads. . . . I am not a diplomat and not able to untangle all those complicated issues which appear with a first attempt to draw away the cover over the future of Persia, but when I think about it, Poland involuntarily comes to my mind. He concludes his book with the following passage: The country, incapable of self-government, whose diverse and hostile tribes are tenuously connected with each other, is falling apart into small feudal khanates and suffering under the yoke of internal disturbances, [and] will wait impatiently for the heavy but just hand of foreign conquerors. Only then will the shaky scales of the destiny of the Near East be balanced.62

Iran as “a Country of Ruins” The miserable condition of Iran in the modern age is contrasted by the travelers with the glorious past, including the Muslim past. Iran for them is a country of splendid ruins: “the past of the Oriental nations and cultures . . . constitutes the preferred field of study” since the most brilliant periods in the history of the Orient lay in the past, “grandiose but extinct.”63 To Il’ia Berezin, “Naturally, first, last and always, the most remarkable thing in Persia is its ruins.” Inevitably, descriptions of every architectural site from mosques to palaces are accompanied by laments for “bygone splendor.” Iranians, according to Berezin, are not worthy of

The “travelees” – education, culture and society 127 their own past glory because they do not remember their own past and often assign construction of a mosque or a palace to the wrong period or to the wrong person.64 Berezin was an admirer of Muslim architecture, in particular, the architecture of the Safavid period: The newest Persian architecture is a subject of high interest, which until the present has not attracted the attention it deserves. The beginning of this architecture dates back to the time of the introduction of Islam into Persia: at least, I do not see anything similar in the remains of the palace at Persepolis; the best epoch of this art in Persia is the period of the Safavids.65 Berezin’s interest in the Islamic architecture of Iran is one of his valuable contributions to the field of Middle Eastern Studies, because he wrote about the monuments of this architecture with a lot of enthusiasm and admiration at a time “of excessive passion for antiquity and in particular for excavations, which still held true for the twentieth century.”66 A similar view was expressed by Sergei Mark: Persian architecture, which has produced brilliant examples in Persepolis, Pasargad and other places, subsequently blossomed once more in the time of Shah ‘Abbas the Great (1587–1628), who built numerous magnificent caravansaries, bridges, mosques, etc. all over Persia; after him, [architecture] degenerated.67 Villiam Dittel’ introduces Iran to his readers as “the ancient ruins of new Persia.” He adds that “the whole country of true believers is full of similar proofs of Iran’s well-being.”68 In his other article, Dittel’ writes: “Persia, which has gone through her glorious and great times, which used to be powerful due to her significance and influence, today lies in ruins.”69 Captain P. Tomilov says that the monuments of Esfahan make a person think about “the former greatness and the present decay and desolation.”70 Alexander Griboedov reports in one of his letters written to his wife from Iran: “Yesterday I saw this city [Qazvin], wealthy mosques, bazaar, caravansary, but everything is in ruins, as is the whole country itself.”71 Nikolai Khanykov describes Nishapur as “a city absolutely devoid of any traces of its former greatness.”72 N. Mamontov while describing various sites, mentions “traces of former greatness” and says about one of Tehran’s gates: “As does everything in Persia, these gates present a complete degree of destruction.”73 Ivan Blaramberg meditates on the history of Iran: What cataclysms has this wonderful, poetical country survived since its rise! How many invasions of [different] peoples have shaken its foundations! How many dynasties have ruled here! Only pitiable

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The “travelees” – education, culture and society remains are left of its former splendor, power and greatness. Even the majestic buildings of Shah ‘Abbas the Great (the Persian Louis XIV) are gradually being destroyed. ‘All is vanity under the sun’ as wise Solomon used to say.74

Vasilii Borozdna is disappointed in Iran’s present: “The same place where long ago Artaxerxes and Cyrus ruled over the conquered peoples, where their power threatened the other states with destruction, now only some ruins exist which remind [us] of the former greatness.”75 Nikolai Murav’ev laments the fabulous past of Iran in the following emotional terms: The people of [this] country have been dead; the people whose glory was well-known in the world! If you revive the past, even in your imagination, the very same Orient will appear in front of you as a wonder, with all its accomplishments, with its education, with its splendor, and finally, with its natural beauties!76 He also praises the Persian architecture of ancient times, citing “the ruins of Persepolis:” In ancient times, architecture had to be majestic: at that time huge masses of rock were used for construction; [the artisans] did not [yet] know how to split them; triviality could not exist there; the Egyptian pyramids and Indian pagodas belong in the same class! He considers contemporary Persian literature insignificant (though he mentions the names of some new poets and scholars) and refers to Persia’s “wonderful theological books,” scholars of the past, and classical poets such as Ferdowsi, Sa’di and Hafez: “Why have Persians stayed almost exclusively with poetry? The poetry of a people is a voice of a child in his cradle – when he feels a lot but cannot reason! . . . So Persians became babies again without having matured.”77 The author comes to the conclusion that the development of Iranian literature and culture has come to a halt. Most of the travelers did not believe in the progress of the “Orient,” which was perceived as “fundamentally lifeless” and backward when compared to the progressive and civilized West. For an Orientalist, “the Orient never changes.”78 Berezin comes to the following conclusions regarding the future of Persia: As for the question whether we can expect anything from Persia on its present course, the answer is almost certainly negative: insignificant improvements in some areas of administration and in people’s

The “travelees” – education, culture and society 129 morals are suspended by the enormous abuses [of power]. On one side, there is corrupting Shi’ism; on the other, disorganized rule suppresses the development of national character; the sole hope lies in a benevolent Providence.79 Interestingly, Bartol’d points out that Berezin denies the possibility of renewal not only in regard to the Muslim Orient, but also in regard to China in his two articles on China and its relationship with Europe.80 Little hope for the progress of Iran is expressed by other travelers: The Persians, . . . in spite of their total moral decay, may still be able to wake from their age-long sleep, to shake off their apathy, and start anew on the way of progress worthy of their civilization and glory. For this, Persia is awaiting her genius, and maybe he will come soon . . . if by that time she [Persia] is not divided and swallowed by her European benefactors in the name of humanism and other fine words and phrases.81 Baron Fedor Korf connects the perceived stagnation of Iran with what he sees as backward education: Persia is not achieving any successes in public education; [the Persians’] minds always remain at the same point, very close to the freezing-point. Therefore, the picture by Chardin, created correctly and close to the original, can remain for the time being [as it has existed until now] and still be the best book about the “country of roses and nightingales.”82 Nikolai Murav’ev also emphasizes the importance of education if any change is to come to Iran: It is as if [the Persian character] were waiting for some strong spur, able to shake all minds and to wake them from their lethargy. Education could speed up a turnaround, but it falls like a small stream on the dry soil of the Orient.83 E. Belozerskii sees the only solution to the problem of Iran’s backwardness in comparison with the European countries is to follow their way of development: Time cannot wait, and urgently suggests a choice to Persia: to stay an Asian country or to join European culture and the European states sooner or later; but there is no doubt that she will have to clash with one or another European country; and it is easy to predict that [Persia] will be able to withstand that clash if she learns

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The “travelees” – education, culture and society European culture with all its means in advance, and that she will collapse if she stays Asian, as now.84

A more optimistic prognosis is made by Lomakin: Without denying that modern Persia has fallen far behind Europe in regard to the achievements of industry, that she really needs foreign imports of products of the textile industry, we have to admit, however, that this situation is temporary and abnormal. All the obstacles, which prevent Persia from taking her place among the wealthy countries in Asia will be removed with the end of the exhausting disorder in this completely weakened country.85 One Benzengr is another author who sees a future for the Orient, though he himself is not sure what kind of changes are going to occur: The Orient has awakened and is going through a critical phase in a new evolution, whose consequences cannot be yet predicted and are difficult to define. In all times, historical phenomena have appeared and developed [in the Orient] with amazing speed and struck [many] with their unexpectedness.86

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 131

8

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers

For the Russians, the determining element of the “Otherness” of the Iranians was the religious one: Iran and its peoples were seen first and foremost as non-Christian, with their “backwardness” and “barbarism” being the signs and natural consequence of their being Muslim. “Fanaticism” is the word that, to the Russian travelers in Iran, seems to be the most suitable synonym for the word “Islam.” Islam in Iran is seen as antithetical and potentially or actually hostile to (Orthodox) Christianity. Being Orthodox Christian was a defining element of Russian self-identity in confronting the non-Christian subjects of the Russian Empire. By the nineteenth century, this view was strengthened by the imperial ideas and politics vis-à-vis the colonized peoples of the Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia: the encounter with them crystallized Russia’s self-image as an Orthodox Christian state: “Religion became the most important marker separating Russians from the Muslim, Buddhist, or pagan subjects of the growing Russian Empire.”1 Though the tolerant attitude of the Russian Empire towards Muslim subjects often prevailed inside Russia, a different attitude prevailed towards the Muslims in foreign countries, such as Iran. In Christian Russia, Russians felt less threatened by their Muslim fellow subjects who, though perceived as inferior to the Christians, were subdued by Russian power. The reaction to the “threat” of Islam, as part of “the traditional Western hostility to and fear of the Orient”2 is more visible in the attitude towards Easterners who are not Russian subjects, such as the Iranians. As seen by the Russians, including the travelers to Iran, the Oriental “Other” had to be civilized and dominated; Russian travelers had to prove their superiority, which to a great degree was based on their being Christian. Their exaggerated and inconsistent response parallels that of the travelers with democratic orientation who became ardent patriots of Russia and supporters of the monarchy and imperial policies as soon as they crossed the borders of Russia. The same people who were probably never hostile towards Russian Muslims, or most likely never considered it, turned into fanatical Christians who saw denouncing and ridiculing Islam and its followers as one of their main duties, as a part of their “civilizing

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mission” and their governmental assignment. In this context, belonging to the Christian community is more important to the travelers than their being Orthodox Christian: Christian faith helps them to become affiliated with the rest of Europe and to define themselves as European and therefore superior to the Muslim Orientals. In their accounts, most of the travelers prefer to refer to themselves as European and Christian rather than Russian and Orthodox Christian. They see themselves as representatives of Christianity in Iran. Overlooking the usual differences between Russian Orthodoxy and other Christian denominations, S. Lomnitskii talks about a Catholic church and school for Armenians and Chaldean Christians in Tehran. His description of those institutions is full of sympathy if not admiration for these people of “the highest culture” (as opposed to the Muslims).3 Nikolai Murav’ev proclaims: “Only the sacred Christian Faith appears clear to everyone in its simplicity; that is how the truth always appears!” or “Islam damages education, because it damages the morals, damages the holy, pure virtue, which is preached by the Christian Faith.”4 Alexander Eliseev sees Islam as a primitive religion and implies that this is the reason why it has become so popular among the “Orientals” – because they are primitive themselves: “The dogma of Islam is simple and unsophisticated; it speaks very little to [a person’s] heart and mind; but it is adapted to the notions of the majority of the Oriental peoples and has therefore put down deep roots among them.”5 Baron Klementii Bode praises the beauty of Christianity and his pity for the Muslims who are unaware of it. At the same time, he acts as a protector of Christians in Iran: In this country, which has not been illuminated by the meek light of Christianity, which commands [us] to forgive trespasses and render good for evil; in this country . . . the Qur’an commands revenge to the Muslims; blood can be only washed away with blood – the consequences of this bloodthirsty teaching are scary! How distorted are the ideas of a human being when the Gospels do not rule over his deeds and thoughts! Before my departure, I visited the governor of Hamadan Province . . . Praising his justice without flattery, I as a Christian, asked for his protection for the Armenian people of the province under his rule; he promised me to always be their protector. His travelogue about Iran concludes with the following lament: “It is so sad to think that there are still so many people in the world who have not been illuminated by the light of Christian Faith!”6 In his other travelogue about Iran, Bode expresses the same idea of the supposed superiority of Christianity over Islam in the following poetical manner:

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 133 [Evening in Astarabad:] Tomorrow the sun will rise and the darkness will disappear; but when will the deep darkness of barbarism and ignorance in which the inhabitants of these deserts are plunged disappear? When will the Sun of Truth illuminate their souls with the salutary light of the revelation? This is a mystery which has not yet been revealed to us by the Almighty.7 Nikolai Khanykov, a prominent scholar of the Middle East, contrasts the oppression of the Zoroastrians in Iran and in British India and, by extension, the Muslim government of Iran and the Christian government of British India: It is especially difficult for them (Iranian Zoroastrians) to get permission for a trip to India, where the communities of fire-worshippers live in complete prosperity. This situation clearly emphasizes the difference between the political intolerance of the Muslim regime towards the Guebres and the enlightened position of the Christian government, strong and powerful, which respects liberty of conscience.8 Lev Al’brant, who in 1838 was charged with a special mission to bring the Russian war deserters back to Russia from Iran, successfully appealed to the Christian sentiments of the Russian soldiers. He damned those “who have defiled themselves with tatarshchina [the faith of the Tatars, e.g. Islam], who have betrayed God and the Emperor, who have given their souls to the devil,” and proclaimed: “Those who love God, the Tsar and our Motherland – let them go with me; I shall carry them in my own hands, like my own brothers, to holy Russia.”9 The peasant Dementii Tsikulin tells how several different local rulers in Iran tried to force him to embrace Islam and how he managed to keep “the true faith” in spite of all his sufferings and sometimes even the threat of death. He is very proud of being faithful to Christianity and affirms the superiority of Christians, including himself, over the busurman (infidels): “If I were to tell you more about their busurman customs, every faithful Christian would be disgusted at hearing it.”10 S. Babich expresses his disappointment at the state of the Russian Orthodox missions in Iran: he describes their “striking poverty and wretchedness.” He mentions that they have the difficult and important task of converting Assyrians, Armenians and also Muslims to Christian Orthodoxy and explains: It seems to me that having such a [poor] church in one of our villages is not a problem; in the Orient, however, where people love beauty, where only the splendor of the services and the magnificent architecture of the interior of a church can have some influence, such a church would not be useful.11

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It is difficult to find a travelogue, with the exception of the purely reportorial ones, that does not comment on Islam. Conventional criticism of Islam is usually the most emotionally charged part of the travel accounts. The authors are usually not interested in questions of Muslim theology and philosophy; even less than in Persian arts and culture. What attracts their curiosity is the Muslim life cycle, family regulations, Shi’i rituals and popular Sufism. These aspects are the most fiercely attacked by the majority among the authors. Routine references to Shi’i Muslims as “fanatics,” to Islam as “fanaticism,” to Muhammad as a “pseudo-prophet” and, more rarely, to Muslims as the “followers of the pseudo-prophet” appear in many travelogues.12 According to Lomnitskii, “by and large, the lower and middle classes are fanatics; the upper classes extremely corrupt and devoid of any ideals and even of any notion of nobleness and honor; most of them are mere Pharisees and pursue their personal interests.” He complains that “fanaticism among the people is so strong that access to all mosques is forbidden to all non-Muslims, so that a person who breaks this rule runs the risk of being killed by the fanatics.” He also quotes the Qur’an in order to prove that it encourages Muslims to kill infidels and that it affirms the superiority of Muslims over all other peoples, and he criticizes those views as ridiculous from the eminence of his “superior” education and faith.13 Il’ia Berezin talks about “Muslim fanaticism” as the determining feature of the Persian character; according to him, it is the only factor which has an actual influence on the lower classes in Iran.14 “Muslim fanaticism” is seen as a potential threat to the Europeans by many authors, and Muslim clergy and sayyeds, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, are held responsible. For example: “The population of the city [Qom] is extremely fanatical and treats Europeans with remarkable intolerance. Of course, all their fanaticism is underlined by their religion and is instigated by the clergy and the sayyeds.”15 Nikolai Murav’ev connects “the innate fanaticism of the Persians” with their obedience to the clergy and their potential readiness for a powerful rebellion based on that “fanaticism.”16

Mullahs, dervishes and sayyeds Mullahs, dervishes and sayyeds constitute an important target of passionate criticism by the Russians that is partially based on their fear of the influence of these groups on the people. At the same time, the unusual, even exotic appearance and the behavior of the dervishes arouse a special curiosity in the Russians; many of them included descriptions of dervishes in their accounts. Nikolai Murav’ev describes the “wild” appearance of the dervishes and admits: “Dervishes amaze me with their fanaticism.”17 Lomnitskii acknowledges that among

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Figure 11 A dervish. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 186.

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Figure 12 Sayyed (descendant of Muhammad). Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 188.

dervishes he has seen “very handsome and original types, reminiscent of the figures of the old Biblical prophets.”18 Ivan Blaramberg is critical of the dervishes: These dervishes are almost naked, with long disheveled hair; they are amazingly dirty and only covered with a piece of camel skin. They lead an idle, contemplative and nomad life, but most of them are swindlers and are ready to do all kinds of evil deeds.19

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Figure 13 A caravan of khajis. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 190.

I. Ogranovich points out that the clergy is extremely influential among the Muslims, who are “fanatics and ardent followers of their clergy.” According to him: because of their ignorance, people honor these higher clergymen as saints; every little order given by them is performed without question . . . The clergy is assisted by the dervishes; these people are extreme fanatics and parasites. They let their hair grow long on their head and in their beards, wear pointed hats with rattles, long loose overalls and animal skins over them. They have axes in their hands or iron clubs similar to maces. Some of them have bowls made of coconut on a chain; they don’t wear shoes; many of them are snake charmers and carry several [snakes] in a sack or on their chests; others treat different illnesses with plants, roots, invocations, etc.; at the same time, all of them know the life of the prophet and the imams perfectly well.20 Some authors express skepticism about the descent of the sayyeds, for example: Sayyeds, as it is known, pretend to be descendants of the Muslim prophet, and the fanatical part of the population considers them to

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Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers be so. They are distinguished by unusual comeliness, fatness, and from the rest of the clergy [sic] by their blue [sic] turbans. The occupation of these people is exploitation of the ignorant on religious grounds, or in other words, fleecing of the people in the name of the services of their declared ancestors.21

Dmitrii Beliaev explains his skepticism: By now the sayyeds have multiplied incredibly. It is not difficult to become one of them, since in order to be recognized as a sayyed, one has to be recognized by several already-recognized sayyeds. Since there are now beggars among sayyeds, one can buy the necessary recognition for a few tumans. As a result, by now the attitude towards the sayyeds has changed: they are less respected than they used to be. It was not long time ago that wealthy Muslims considered it an honor to marry their daughters with good dowries to a rogue sayyed, just in order to become related to the house of the prophet.22 The most common accusations leveled against the mullahs, dervishes and sayyeds are hypocrisy and corruption. For example, Karl Von Baumgarten writes: The class of clergy and sayyeds, that evil of the Muslim world, is the most numerous and influential . . . [they] shamelessly fleece the ignorant masses. Meanwhile, at bottom and in the privacy of their homes they are extremely profligate, opium addicts and scoundrels in the strongest meaning of the word. Sayyeds have a powerful influence on the people; they are parasites who consider labor and crafts to be below the status of descendents of the Prophet . . . Often their descent from the Prophet is highly doubtful, but their self-confidence and impudence silence other human beings.23 Sergei Cherniaev gives an account of the involvement of the mullahs in secular affairs, which they turn to their own advantage: All the major representatives of the Muslim clergy, with very few exceptions, are usually no less busy with secular affairs than with religious ones; they usually view their reputation for learning and holiness as a tool for achieving secular importance.24 After having characterized the mullahs in a similar way, I. Strel’bitskii draws a conclusion related to his main interest – the Russian military designs on Iran:

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 139 No doubt any attempt by Europeans to occupy Mashhad now would call forth strong propaganda from the clergy. But it seems that the threat of confiscation of vaqf lands [religious endowments] and the incomes of the clergy and a promise to [let them] keep their [mis]appropriated property on condition that they maintain a friendly attitude towards the advancing army among the people would put a complete stop to any propaganda.25 E. Belozerskii accuses “pious” Muslims of lack of faith and of hypocrisy: Are the Persians religious? Whatever I have seen and heard testifies against their being religious. One part of the population is narrowmindedly fanatical, while the other believes in nothing – not in Muhammad, or heaven, or hell. They are, however, afraid of retaliation from the mullahs, who carefully look after the true believers, and observe all the formal religious ceremonies and regulations. For example, the true believers are supposed to fast from 3 in the morning till sunset. In front of other people they do fast, but at home they eat their fill. Only the ignorant masses fast properly. Even the women, who are the most religious element everywhere, are quite indifferent to the religion.26 A negative attitude towards Muslim clergy, dervishes and sayyeds is averred by many other travelogue authors.27 Some of the authors portray individual representatives of the clergy in an extremely unattractive and unflattering light. For example, Pavel Ogorodnikov tells a story of his visit with a powerful mujtahid of Sabzevar, “a hulk in a green turban,” whom he compares to a “fattened hog.” The mojtahed has asked the author to treat him for impotence, contracted, as Ogorodnikov comments with disgust, during the years of famine (1870–71) when “he had concluded ‘sigheh’ [temporary marriage allowed in Shi’i Islam] with almost all the underage (7–10-year-old) girls who were selling themselves for just a few pul in order not to starve.” The author claims the number of the mujtahid’s sighehs reached one hundred.28 He also refers to dervishes as a “privileged plague of Persia.”29 S. Lomnitskii tells about a mujtahid from Tabriz who was one of the main speculators during a famine. He also tells an amazing story about the mullahs invited to a private party at the house of a wealthy and hospitable Iranian. After performing the evening prayer, the host would order his servants to bring “something” and the hats. When the hats appeared on the trays, the mullahs would take off their turbans and choose a suitable hat. After that they would not worry: “I am not a mullah any more, but a private person” and would start playing games (chess, checkers and cards) and consume that “something.” Lomnitskii

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explains: “This ‘something’ consisted of a whole battery of bottles; one could find an excellent cognac, vodka, wine, liquors, and all different kinds of drinks.” After hearty dining and drinking, all the guests would sleep over at the host’s house because they were not able to get home.30 Talking about dervishes, Lomnitskii writes that in the past, they were mostly “people of the idea, fanatics of their mission,” honored by the people and glorified by the poets. By the present time, however, according to the author, most of them had become “narrow-minded parasites and idlers, therefore people have lost their trust and respect for them . . . They have turned into a rabble of suspicious beggars and drunks begging for alms.”31 Alexander Eliseev has devoted his whole article to the dervishes entitled “Sredi dervishei” (Among Dervishes). He notes distinctions between their different types. Some of them arouse respect in the author with their sincerity, devotion, complete religious tolerance and allforgiving nature. He writes about an old dervish ‘Ali, “fanatic” and “sage,” with a great sympathy: “In the type of dervish similar to ‘Ali, for the first time I learned to respect these original eccentric people of the Orient who beneath their weird appearance often preach in Islam ideas alien to the Qur’an and with their mysterious rituals and actions vary the dry and official performance of the Muslim ritual.” Eliseev also tells about other dervishes who care primarily about their material well-being and “keif,” while others are “ardent fanatics,” “half-mad,” who incite Muslims against the foreigners and call for struggle against them, who often finish “their outlandish devotion to Islam with ecstatic fits.” He exposes the “fake” dervishes who are just tramps and do not belong to any brotherhood; who do not belong to the “respectable group of wandering dervishes.” They are, according to the author, “mere liars and crooks,” who “carry out frauds, thefts, robberies and even murders.” Eliseev explains: A true dervish is a monk by vocation who belongs to one or another brotherhood. In spite of his fanaticism, and often his hatred toward the Europeans and other characteristics, they are always marked by humility, do not like to attract too much attention and even beg rarely, since their rules forbid them to accept alms. Most of the wandering dervishes are not inclined to preaching and teaching, but if one or another of them gets inspiration, he would talk till he reaches ecstasy, without having any mercenary motive, which is always the goal of a fake dervish. He also writes: “[The class] of dervishes has probably outlived its former glory and significance; it is in a state of decay.”32 It is worth mentioning that one of the travelers, Prince Aleksei Saltykov, writes about an old woman who was a wandering dervish.33

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Shi2i and Sunni Muslims Many travelers set the “fanatical” Shi’i Muslims in Iran against the “less fanatical” Sunni Muslims and comment on the hostilities that exist between the followers of these two branches of Islam. Their preference for Sunni over Shi’i parallels their preference for non-Muslims over Muslims, described below. Following the familiar colonial strategy of divide and rule, the Russian travelers try to side with religious minorities against the Shi’i majority to counterbalance the perceived “threat of Islam.” “The Shi’is are more fanatical than the Sunnis,” proclaims one of the Christian protagonists in the travelogue by Ogorodnikov.34 Leonid Artamonov agrees and adds that “they have hostile and contemptuous attitude towards Christians; however, they hate the Sunnis even more, who are more tolerant towards the representatives of other religions.”35 Artamonov was especially interested in the impact those emotions could have on Russian expansionist designs in Iran – he hoped that the Sunnis would not support the Shi’i government against a new Russian invasion, and probably even hoped that they would support the Russians: Shi’is are fierce fanatics, who are hostile towards all the [other] religions and despise the Sunnis . . . Religious hatred and controversy between the Shi’is and the Sunnis is so strong that in the event of Persia’s wars against some other country, especially favorable conditions are necessary to make Sunnis, for example, the Kurds, be willing to act together with the [Shi’i] Persians.36 I. Strel’bitskii writes: Among the Sunnis, there is not that formal and hypocritical strictness in performing the rituals, as there is among the Shi’is. Instead, [the Sunnis] have more sincere religious feeling; without, however, intolerance towards non-Muslims and Shi’is. At the same time, hostility towards the latter has gone so far that the Sunnis obviously forget that the Persians follow the Muslim faith and consider them the main kafers (infidels); beating them is praiseworthy and selling them into slavery is lawful.37 Dr. Rubio, who served as a physician in northeastern Iran, complains that when he wanted to rent a small house (at his own expenses) for a hospital, he was unable to get one, “since there were some Sunnis among the patients, and they are so despised by the Shi’i Persians.”38 A. Miller, a Russian diplomat who traveled extensively in Iran, including Seistan, mentions that Shi’is try to avoid a road there because:

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Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers the population of most of the villages along that road consists of Sunnis. As a result of the religious conflict between the followers of these two streams, Shi’is are afraid to stop in Sunni villages. However, this religious animosity does not threaten the Shi’is with anything other than the refusal to let them into their houses. The sale of forage and other necessary supplies is performed without any obstacles.39

In another article Miller, however, claims that there is no hostility between the Shi’is and Sunnis in Seistan. He writes: Two-thirds of the population of Seistan are Shi’i and one-third (the Baluchis and Afghans) are Sunni. There is no religious hostility between them; not only do the Shi’is peacefully coexist beside the Sunnis, they even become related to them; in that case, the Sunnis become Shi’i.40 Several authors favor Kurds, who were mostly Sunni, over Shi’is. They are often pictured as less fanatical and as having higher morals than the Persians; for example: “All the Kurds are Sunnis [sic], and are much more tolerant than the Shi’i Persians; they willingly let you inside their houses and their mosques.”41 Egor Chirikov remarks that the Kurds in Sehna who are Sunnis “are not fanatics: they eat, drink and use bathhouses together with Christians.”42 P. Vlasov points out that part of the Kurds living in Khorasan were Sunnis; he states that they are “age-old and deadly enemies” of the Shi’i Persians, a trait that seems to serve as their main attraction for the Russian authors: Languid and lazy, the Persians look down upon the lively and energetic Kurds as upon an inferior race, despising their primitive way of life. The latter [the Kurds] have contempt for the corrupted morals and cowardice of the former [the Persians].43 A. Gagarin refers to the “irreconcilable hatred” between the Sunni Kurds and Shi’i Persians.44 There is a similar tension registered between Persians and Sunni Turcomans: a Russian traveler of Turcoman origin who calls himself “N. Khan-Iomudskii” states that the Shi’i Persians and Sunni Turks “have been hostile to each other from time immemorial in regard to their religion and nationality.”45 The Russians’ sympathy towards the Kurds and Turcomans derives from a combination of religious and ethnic differences between them and the Persian Shi’i majority that will be addressed in more detail later.

Iranians and “infidels” Many authors mention the hatred or contempt of the Muslim Persians towards the “infidel” foreigners, including Russian travelers. Persians,

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 143 especially those belonging to the lower classes and the clergy, saw nonMuslims and everything they touched as najis (ritually impure). A. Polovtsoff, who visited Iran in the early twentieth century, cites the “exorbitant” rent he had to pay for a house because “if I lived in the house [the owner] would require a compensation for the fact that my presence there would render the place unclean and therefore uninhabitable.”46 A similar problem is addressed by S. Lomnitskii, who complains that it was impossible for a non-Muslim to rent a house in Mashhad-e Sar: Not a single Persian would dare to rent a part of his house to you [a European]; you would defile his house with your presence. Probably their fear of the clergy is so strong that it even prevents the Muslims from making a profit. If somebody dared to [rent to a European], the mullahs would immediately take the disobedient person to the religious court, imprison him, torture him and make him suffer, and fleece him. A Persian could only rent you a whole house, without furniture and utensils. That, too, is unthinkable in Mashhad-e Sar, since every house owner lives in his house and does not own another one.47 Another example of Persians being unwilling to rent their houses to Europeans is related by P. Rittikh: The inhabitants [of the town of Ardistan] are all fanatics and decisively refuse to let the giaurs-ferengi, i.e., non-Muslim Europeans, into their houses. We had to stay in caravansary or chaparkhane, but they turned out to be so dirty that we had to get out of them in disgust.48 S. Babich refers to the Kurds who resented admitting Christians into their houses: I know such Kurds who, after Russians had stayed in their village abandoned their village and never came back. Of course, they are exceptional fanatics. However, the truth is that among them the opinion is still strong that Christians defile their houses, and that is why they are so resentful. In addition, the inconvenience of moving out for a Kurd [in case of a Christian staying in his house] is that he has to move out all his belongings, both movable and unmovable, including his womenfolk, for whom it is really difficult to find space in a neighbor’s or friend’s house to which they move.49 Il’ia Berezin makes a broad pronouncement concerning the religious intolerance of the Iranians and then gives specific examples:

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Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers Out of all the Muslim nations, the Persians are probably the most infected with hatred towards everything non-Muslim, which is reflected even in the most insignificant details: the Persians consider anything that has been touched by an infidel to be unclean; they even consider the water of a fountain from which a non-Muslim has drunk to be defiled. In Tabriz, I once wanted to buy some books from the bazaar. The mullah who was selling them told me: “I have to ask the Mujtahid for permission.” After the time arranged had passed, he refused decisively to sell me the books and advised me to find a Muslim through whom he could sell them to me.50

Dmitrii Beliaev tells his readers how several “natives” tried to protest against the Russians using water from their spring. On a different occasion, he narrates, the samovar used by the Russians was taken “to a dirty aryk [here: ‘ditch’], with overgrown-with-weeds water which they do not even give to their animals” and carefully washed both inside and out. Yet another time, the Russians were refused a samovar refilling by an owner of a chaikhaneh: he only agreed to give them some hot water in a teapot. Surprised by the discourtesy, the Russian started choosing a melon from among those piled in front of the shop: I take one of them in my hand and start reaching for another one, but the discourteous owner screams: “Don’t touch;” and demands that I buy the one I have held in my hands and have therefore defiled. I can only explain such fanaticism on the part of the Tatar owner by the fact that inside his shop . . . two Persians in multicolored turbans and long robes were seated. [He probably means representative of clergy here.]51 Ia. Shkinskii and P. Aver’ianov report that even in those villages in Iranian Azerbaijan where they were amicably received, the locals tried to remove any traces of their presence: [They] would cut off about 7 inches of ground floor [in the house] after we stayed there; would fill up a well from which we had taken water; would break the plates we had touched accidentally, and would cover with a fresh layer of clay a hearth where we had made a fire; in some villages of Karadagh, women, especially old women, whom we met would curse us and spit in our direction.52 Pavel Ogorodnikov tells how he offered some tea to several Iranian merchants and of the hypocritical reaction of some of them:

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 145 I offered them tea – they refused; some of them made faces as if to say, “Unclean hands have poured it into an unclean cup;” the expression of the others read: “We would drink it, but it is uncomfortable and even unsafe to do so with the others watching.” (It is true that some of them would drink our tea in the sly, while looking around [warily].)53 For the Russian travelers the notion of their own “uncleanness” probably seemed especially humiliating and ridiculous because, as has been shown above, they were usually the ones who would expound at length about the “dirty Orientals.” It can also be assumed on the basis of the travelogues that it was the poor and the clergy who most exercised the concept of non-Muslims being “unclean.” Wealthy and powerful Iranians, sometimes including high-ranking ‘ulama, were willing to invite “infidels” to their houses or visit them, and often engaged in such non-Muslim activities as drinking. The issue of the “uncleanness” of non-Muslims and Europeans in Iran as reflected in the travelogues is sometimes connected with extreme intolerance, expressions of hatred and threats of violence, and in some cases with actual violence. Il’ia Berezin tells of the “hatred or contempt” towards the “infidels,” particularly among the lower classes and the ‘ulama. He cites examples of this hostile attitude: children used to throw stones at him when he was walking in the streets of Iranian cities; sometimes the adults also participated.54 This is how Pavel Ogorodnikov describes the hostility he encountered from a party of pilgrims: At this moment, I accidentally looked at the nearest group of pilgrims: a skinny boy, with a small dark face twisted with rage, his small eyes flashing madly at us, was clutching a stick convulsively as if he was going to attack the hated kafers with frenzy and tear them to pieces; while the adults, probably his relatives, turned away from us with a boundless sense of loathing.55 Another time, another pilgrim, “an ugly old woman, spat with hatred when she was passing [the Russians] and carefully wrapped herself in her worn chador.”56 S. Babich warns of the potential danger: No doubt the fanaticism of the people is still smoldering, but the moment will come when it will blaze up and fill the whole country with a bloody glow. The fire is probably still far off, thanks to the laziness and apathy of the Persians . . . but the secret propaganda against foreigners will finally wake them up and make them take weapons in their hands.

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At the same time, the author admits: It is easy to rouse the fanaticism of an Oriental crowd. A few words about Christian dogs and about their defiling the followers of the Qur’an is usually enough; but the result is inconsequential. The Persians are very slow and lazy. They calm down as easily as they get inspired. He remarks that after listening to such a preacher, the crowd followed the Russians for some time, but it soon dispersed.57 S. Lomnitskii refers to an acquaintance of his, a physician, who tried to take a picture of the exterior of a mosque: as soon as he entered the courtyard, “he was knocked to the ground by some fanatic and had to leave immediately.”58 Hostility and threats from the Iranians are described by Fedor Bartolomei and I. Noskov who happened to be in Iran in 1826, on the eve and at the beginning of the war started by Iran against Russia. At that time, hostile and revanchist attitudes towards the Russians were strong in Iran and were reflected in their attitude towards the Russian envoys. Noskov tells how a khan sent by the Shah to help the Russian envoys transport the presents to the Shah from the Russian Emperor attacked the author: Finally, upon receiving official news about the advance of the Iranian army toward our borders, his insolence went so far that once, in the presence of the mullahs who had gathered together and were preaching hostility to the Russians, he attacked me with his dagger in a heat of savage frenzy and was ready to kill me; luckily, I was able to ward off the blow.59 One more Russian author describes how he became a victim of violence and abuse. Polovtsoff put himself in a very dangerous situation when he went to Barforush alone to observe a ta”ziyeh (Shi’i religious passion play) and to take pictures. He was attacked by the crowd, fled, and took up a defensive position in an old abandoned caravansary, while “the yelling fanatics” were trying to force their way in. In spite of his narrow escape, while in Mashhad-e Sar, he decided to witness the “ShakhsayWakhsay”60 procession. He almost got killed in that “hotbed of unbridled fanaticism”: They insulted me in every possible way, but I never moved in reply. They gathered round me and whetted their knives under my nose, screaming all the while that their steel would do away with the infidel dog first before it touched themselves.

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 147 He managed to escape again and years later recalled “[that] unforgettable scene of brutal savagery, those endless rows of howling maniacs.”61 Several travelogue authors refer to the death of Alexander Griboedov, the famous writer, and his Mission in 1829. He was charged with implementing the Treaty of Turkmanchai, including the significant indemnity Iran was to pay Russia, and was killed by a mob instigated by a prominent Tehran cleric. The most commonly accepted version of the immediate reasons for this tragic incident is that Griboedov gave refuge at the Russian Mission to an important eunuch of Armenian origin in the Shah’s service, and to several women from the harem of a prominent Iranian, also of Georgian or Armenian origin, who wanted to return to the Caucasus; the rumor spread that they had been forced or were being forced to renounce Islam.62 The controversial issue of the murder is beyond the scope of this research which only deals with the travelers’ perceptions of it. Russian travelogues mention the tragic death of Griboedov as exemplifying the extreme form of Muslim fanaticism. Probably that also served one more purpose: to confirm the potential danger for all the Russian travelers to Iran and therefore to strengthen their “discourse of discovery.” For example, Baron Fedor Korf laments his compatriot in the following emotionally charged passage: From the palace, I went . . . to the place were poor Griboedov’s house used to be. The ruins of this house still exist: the remains of the kitchen and the bath-house can be seen. The bloody incident appears before my eyes: forty-five people fell victims to barbaric savagery; they fought like lions and died together. Their tragic destiny makes every Russian who comes to this place shudder. May you rest in peace, heroic representative of Russian honor!63 “Religious fanaticism was the reason for the murder of Griboedov, who is never to be forgotten,” states Berezin.64 A. Domontovich admits that on his way to Persia for the first time, he was unfamiliar with it, and when he thought about it, all he could imagine were “people with cut-off ears, or with bastinadoed soles, and with a fixed expression of fear on their faces.” He continues: “I even thought of the tragic fate of our envoy Griboedov.”65 Pavel Ogorodnikov places the murder of Griboedov and his mission in the context of Persian “fanaticism.”66 Adol’f Berzhe devoted two articles to the important diplomatic activities of Griboedov in the Caucasus and in Iran.67 Notably, there are three Russian travelogue authors who support the official account given by the Persian government of the deaths of the Russian mission headed by Griboedov. (This account was officially accepted by the Tsarist government.) Count Ivan Simonich, who served

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as Russian Minister in Iran from 1832 till 1838, denies that there were political reasons for the tragedy and blames Griboedov: “My poor friend, the late Griboedov, had adopted a very arrogant, even insolent tone with the Shah [Fath ‘Ali].” He further accuses Griboedov of making the mistakes that finally led to the tragedy: according to Simonich, Griboedov had behaved disrespectfully and even ignorantly in the affair of the two women; he should not have kept them in the Russian Mission building. Simonich also states that Griboedov should not have given orders to fire into the crowd; it would have dispersed on its own by nightfall. He excuses the Persian side and proudly gives himself credit for burying the remains of the murdered Russians in a vault in the courtyard of the Armenian Church in Tehran.68 Alexander Diugamel’, who took over Simonich’s diplomatic post in Iran, briefly confirms the account presented by his predecessor. According to him, “[Griboedov] was constantly trying to humiliate the Shah and his ministers.”69 Similarly, P. Rittikh accuses Griboedov of behaving arrogantly at the Persian court and in the affair of the notorious women who, according to Rittikh, had no desire to return to Georgia.70 In an ironic twist, Griboedov is accused by his colleagues of “Orientalist” behavior – his excessive selfconfidence, a sense that in Iran he could get away with anything, led to his death. His behavior was not a result of ignorance, since he was a well-educated man with substantial knowledge of the Middle East; it was Orientalism that for him proved to be fatal.

Muslim customs and rituals Many travelers view Islam as an impeding force, as one of the major factors if not the major one responsible for the perceived backwardness, stagnation, and barbarism of Iran. Ivan Blaramberg is sure that “Islam in Persia, as everywhere else it rules, has diminished the grandeur of Persia; now only the shadow [of her former greatness] remains.”71 Leonid Artamonov points out: Islam, with its fanatical hostility towards the Christian civilized world, and Oriental despotism with its unbridled tyranny – these have hampered the natural development of the country. Persia, in spite of its age-long relations with the European countries, is still the same today as it was centuries ago.72 Pavel Ogorodnikov also considers that “despotism and the established religion” have hindered the economic and moral development of the country, even caused it to regress, and blemished the qualities and character of the people.”73 S. Lomnitskii claims that “Islam has brought the development of Persian culture to a halt and, of course, the progress of the language along with it.”74

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 149 Vasilii Borozdna blames the Arabs for having brought Islam to the land of Iran and therefore for having initiated all the later troubles. He sounds the most condescending: Muslim people [the Arabs], who used weapons for some time, brought to those [conquered] countries that horrible darkness that has suppressed the illumination of enlightenment, that damaged the morals and destroyed the spirit of the ancient Persians. The wealth and sweet bliss of the rich and the poverty of the [common] people are the consequences of the law of the pseudo-prophet. When we crossed the Araks, we felt that we were leaving behind the land inhabited by human beings like us.75 A number of Russian travelers tell their readers about Muslim customs and rituals, such as the fast during the month of Ramadan, the Feast of the Sacrifice, and the observance of Muharram, the focal point of Shi’i Islam that mourns the death of Imam Husayn in 680. Their descriptions vary from total ignorance and consequent disgust, to neutral, to those few who consider the ceremonies witnessed of interest and worthy of detailed reportage. Obviously, most of the authors who write about Muslim rituals, in particular, the celebrations of Muharram, were deeply impressed by the unusual and powerful scenes and by the religious enthusiasm of the Iranians. Muslim religious rituals appear ridiculous to the Russians for the same reason they reject many other aspects of life in Iran: its difference from what the travelers are used to and what they consider to be “normal.” For example, to the Orthodox Christians, the idea of fasting during the day and feasting at night looks like a parody of the “conventional” Lent. A. Rzhevuskii was one of the authors who were shocked and frightened by the Muharram processions. He was in Mashhad during Muharram, and was warned by his host, an Iranian trade representative, to stay indoors during the processions. He stayed on the roof of the house and listened to what was happening in the city: In the darkness of the night, only the voice of a mullah was heard crying out phrases, and a crowd of several thousand, as it turned out, maybe ten thousand people, was howling in reply . . . These howls were growing louder and louder every minute, and were produced by the true believers with some despair. As you may easily guess, the crowd soon reached the state of religious delirium; that howl in the middle of the night silence was really frightening; it turned our hearts to ice. It became clear that at such a moment any one of the praying [Muslims] could easily kill a giaour [infidel].76 P. Rittikh was in the town of Anar during the month of Muharram:

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Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers Muharram [observances] last for 10 days, and every evening hundreds of these fanatics gather by the shrine of the Imam-Zadeh and invoke despair in their audience with their desperate, heart-rending screams. [These screams] had the most depressing effect on us, the strangers, and really turned our souls upside down.77

Bartolomei observed the Muharram processions in Marand. However, it should be kept in mind that, as mentioned before, the mission in which he took part encountered the hostile attitude of the Iranians on the eve of the war with Russia in 1826. Not surprisingly, Bartolomei felt threatened, as reflected in his observations: While passing through the town [of Marand], we met frantic mobs, who were running in disorder and had a terrible appearance. Their clothes, just thrown over their bodies, displayed a kind of frenzy, which was increased by their savage expression, the bloody chests of some, the uplifted daggers with which from time to time they wounded their own and others’ bodies, so that blood poured from the wounds; they were screaming and yelling wildly: “Husayn! Hasan!” We discovered that this was a consequence of religious fanaticism for the occasion of the fasting in commemoration of the murder of Husayn and Hasan, who are considered saints. We were told that fanaticism reaches unbelievable degrees, since for more than a week, in addition to inflicting wounds on themselves, people roam about in a frenzy day and night, get divided into two parties, of which one screams “Husayn!” and attacks another one which howls “Hasan!”; they wound one another and sometimes even kill each other. If there is a chance to insult or even to kill a Christian, this is considered a deed welcomed by Allah and his great prophet Muhammad. We tried to avoid meeting the crowd and stayed outside the town; we even did not light a fire in order not to attract the attention of the mob and to avoid its frenzy. Hollow rumbling, howls, and horrible screams were heard all night; at sunrise, when many fanatics had collapsed in the street in exhaustion and fallen asleep, we continued on our way.78 Eliseev describes the “horrible procession” during the celebration of “Shakhsei-Vakhsei” in Rasht. The scenes of self-mortification shook the author so deeply that he admits: “The celebration of Shakhsei-Vakhsei and its terrifying procession were the most horrible scenes that I have observed in the Orient, and even my strong nerves would not be able to bear it again.” He continues: Imagine a huge crowd which slowly moves in the narrow streets of an Oriental town; in front of it are several tens of people who have

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 151 condemned themselves to self-torture in memory of the sufferings endured by ‘Ali [sic]. The self-mortifiers are dressed in long white garments, exposing their arms, chests and shoulders; in their hands they carry sharp sabers, knives and other weapons for self-torture. With loud cries “’Ali! ‘Ali!” being excited to the highest degree of religious fanaticism, they strike themselves on the head, shoulders, and even chests with their sabers. Blood pours abundantly on the white cloth, gradually turning it crimson. The enthusiastic shouts of the crowd, welcoming every blow of a self-mortifier, encourage him and urge him to further suffering, which he endures without complaint or moans, in honor of Allah and his prophet ‘Ali [sic]. Other fanatics, not satisfied with mere blows, cause themselves to suffer with horrible instruments of torture. The regular equipment of this kind of self-mortifier consists of several long iron needles, with which they pierce large folds of their skin; on the ends they put rings, weights and other heavy objects which increase their sufferings even more. With every movements of these madmen the heavy objects hung from the needles tear the skin, sometimes tearing out pieces of flesh; but the ecstatic fanatics, bleeding and suffering terrible pain, move slowly, praising God and his prophet ‘Ali [sic]. Some madmen, in order to increase their sufferings, shake their limbs and shoulders pierced with the needles with the weights and chains, or even jump up, happy when more blood streams on their white clothes.79 Some of them, unsatisfied with all these tortures, also hang huge chains, heavy weights and sharp objects around their necks. There are fanatics who add saber blows on their heads to all these sufferings, sticking small nails and needles into their bodies, and burning their bloody wound with hot pieces of coal.80 Ogorodnikov reports that that during Muharram fanatics “perform the ugliest things, trying to make themselves endure at least part of those sufferings endured by Husayn” and then goes on describing the processions.81 D. Logofet witnessed similar processions in the Russian part of Sarakhs, a town in Turkmenistan on the border between Russia and Iran, and experienced similar feelings of shock and horror: A huge crowd of people was moving along the street carrying banners and standards and singing some wild song. Many half-dressed people walked in front, striking themselves with iron chains on their naked bodies, others were cutting their bodies with knives and sabers and striking their heads. The faces with blood pouring over them made an extremely chilling impression . . . Behind, a dead body with its throat cut was carried on a stretcher . . . The scene was so horrible that I had to turn away . . .

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Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers – Why don’t our rulers ban these scandalous practices? Somebody from among our people [the author’s group] asked. – What can I say? They do ban them, but it is very difficult to struggle against religious rituals and age-old customs . . . A crowd of fanatics is extremely dangerous. In case of violence serious disorder can happen, that is why the authorities turn a blind eye to these processions.82

V. Kosogovskii, commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade, has a more skeptical view regarding the self-inflicted tortures by Iranian soldiers: For some reason, artillerists are considered to be the bravest men in Persia. . . . They put locks through their muscles; also, as soldiers, they put crossed gun barrels through the skin on their backs and walk proudly around . . . This procedure is only difficult the first time; after that, a fistula remains under the skin for the rest of one’s life. Every year following, all they have to do is to renew the entrance and exit holes and to scratch with a blade, so that it will bleed – and that is all.83 A number of the travelogue authors inform their readers about Muharram; what it is, why it is observed by Shi’i Muslims, and how it is celebrated. In more or less detail they describe the performance of ta”ziyehs and the tekiyehs, or places where stationary performances of ta”ziyehs were held. They avoid emotional comments and leave judgment to their readers. Some of them also tell about the observance of Ramadan and the Greater Bayram.84 Il’ia Berezin devotes a chapter in his travelogue to the Muharram processions in Tehran.85 He familiarizes his readers with the history of ta”ziyeh. He also translates part of a ta”ziyeh play and includes it in his narrative. The value of this inclusion has already been remarked upon by a mid-nineteenth-century reviewer: “For the first time [a performance of the famous Persian] religious drama has been presented in a detailed and fascinating manner in Mr. Berezin’s book,” says the reviewer, who considers this chapter “the most important part of the book.”86 This favorable reaction, though, did not prevent another reviewer from expressing an opposite opinion about the presentation of ta”ziyeh: “There is nothing important or interesting in these mystery plays.”87 Berezin’s work on ta”ziyeh has also received due attention in the works of modern scholars: Jean Calmard and Peter Chelkowski.88 Another author who is obviously interested in ta”ziyeh and who considers it to be worthy of close attention and detailed description is Misl’-Rustem. He explains why Muharram is a holy month in Shi’i Islam, tells how a tekiyeh is organized and describes the contents of a passion play.89

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 153 Though most of the travelers present Islam and Iranian Muslims in Iran in the most negative way, some information is introduced in a neutral or rather positive manner. Some travelers were strongly impressed by certain representatives of the ‘ulama or by certain Sufis. One must bear in mind, however, that those examples are presented only as exceptions that support a generally condescending approach. And those who do find something positive to describe in Islam are the same authors who define Islam and its followers in the most “Orientalist” way in the same accounts. For example, I. Strel’bitskii notes the Iranians’ tolerance in religious discussions: Persians are by nature inclined to metaphysical and philosophical meditations; religious questions are the most popular subject for discussions and disputes. If the interlocutor observes at least superficially the rules of propriety towards the official religion, freedom of opinion is so broad that it is possible to argue all the main dogmas of Islam, not just without raising any displeasure: it is even possible sometimes to find proponents of the opinion expressed among the Persians.90 Bode gives the following examples of Iranian tolerance: he is impressed by the fact that some Muslims send their sons to the Christian school in Jolfa; he also mentions a certain famous and respected mujtahid from Esfahan who, according to the author, was “distinguished by the spirit of tolerance, justice and impartiality.”91 The travelogue by A. Emel’ianov is remarkable for its general impartiality and lack of prejudgments on sensitive issues regarding various aspects of Iranian life, in particular Islam and its rituals. He describes dervishes who are usually “poor men and ascetics. They are similar to our wandering monks.” But he also remarks that many of them “incited the Muslims against Christians and called for holy war.” And he opposes Shi’ism to Sunnism, viewing the former as “narrowly nationalistic” and the latter as a more “cosmopolitan” teaching. He also provides a brief outline of Sufism.92 A peculiar example of tolerance is given by Ogorodnikov. He quotes the explanations by a Russian representative of a Moscow trading company who had lived in Shahrud for five years by the time Ogorodnikov met him: [The representative]: – Though the Shi’is are more fanatical than Sunnis . . . you have not encountered – and I swear will not encounter – any trouble . . . It is true, my friends have informed me that some of them secretly call us kafers, but this is . . . how is it better to explain . . . not in the tone of hatred and fanaticism . . .

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Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers – In what tone, then? – It is similar to how, for example, they referred among themselves to a dead Armenian, who was loved by everyone here: “He was a good dog after all” . . . – That does not sound too good! – We would not find a better reference to ourselves at the bottom of the soul of a pious Shi’i.93

Alongside rather unflattering characteristics ascribed to Iranian Muslims and Islam, Belozerskii gives some information on the Islamic faith, the origins of the split between the Shi’i and Sunni Muslims, and on what can be considered hierarchy among the Shi’i ‘ulama. He also speaks with much respect about the Imam-i Jum’eh of Esfahan, who “is very smart; it is obvious from a conversation with him that he thinks in an abstract and independent way and has a whole ideology, not the narrow Muslim erudition close to narrow-mindedness.” Belozerskii claims that as a result of meeting this mullah, he “changed his opinion concerning the spirit of the higher clergy [in Iran].”94 Murav’ev who wrote one of the most emotionally charged travel accounts, expresses his admiration for the call to prayer and for Muslim prayers, which obviously seem exotic to him: When I returned to my apartment, it was the sunset and voices of the moezzins” calls to prayer were heard in the town. They have a beauty of their own: their monotonous, somewhat sad melody immerses [a person] in tranquility, like the evening chiming of our [church] bells! . . . The person goes inside himself and seems to rouse prayers from the soul! The author looks inside the mosque in Shah Abdul-Azim through the open door: Light was falling through the multicolored crystal windows in the walls and faintly illuminated [the mosque’s] interior; in the middle, under a canopy, behind the railing, rose the tomb; lamps and candles were glimmering. Pilgrims were praying quietly, on their knees, and only the drawling voice of a mullah reading the Qur’an was heard. Here praying was not insincere, and it seems the Persians cannot be reproached; this is the bright side of their morals!95 A similar reaction to Muslim prayer is expressed by Blaramberg who observed the Turcomans of the Iomud tribe praying in the steppe when the qazi of their tribe arrived: They stood in one line and faced Mecca. The qazi was standing a little in front of them and was saying the prayer aloud. During the

Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 155 prayer, they would fall on their knees, touch the ground with their foreheads and then stand up straight without moving. At the end of the prayer, they would grab their beards with their hands repeating the words: “Allah akbar” (“God is great”). This scene in the boundless steppe, on the shore of the sea, in which the sun was sinking in the west and lighting the praying group and all of us with its rays, seemed to me exciting and elevated. Such a prayer under the open sky and in such an enormous space always makes a deep impression on sensitive people.96 Lomnitskii believes that the “original, undistorted” Islam includes many statements “which could serve as a basis for religious rapprochement between Muslims and Christians, and for the progressive development of all Muslim peoples as well.” The author gives several quotations from the Qur’an to support his view. Interestingly, he blames the Turks for deforming Islam, “killing its flowering that held high promise for all humankind.” According to Lomnitskii, the Turks also “nipped the cultural mission of the Arabs in the bud.” He concludes bitterly: Now all that is left of Islam is the dull formal ritual: “the living spirit” does not exist in it any more: all that is best and most valuable [within it] for mankind has been buried under the garbage of historical and new layers.97 Lomnitskii’s description of his leaving the 3-year old Fatimeh, an orphan girl who had become his first teacher of Persian and his friend, is interesting as an insight into the author’s views concerning Islam – and moving because of its sincerity and warmth. He wanted to adopt the girl but could not do it because he was Christian: – It is a pity that our laws do not allow you, sahib, to take the girl and adopt her, the merchant said in a low voice, probably fearing to express such a liberal judgment aloud. – It is not the law, my friend, – I objected, – it is only your wrong understanding and interpretation of the Qur’an. – But you have to admit, sahib, that if you adopt the girl, you would certainly make her a Christian? – asks the merchant not without a certain spite. – Right away I would ask my good acquaintance, Imam Mudaris Baiazidov, the Muslim akhund in St. Petersburg, to have the girl in his spiritual charge on terms equal with mine. Then, if upon coming of age, she wished to convert to Christianity, she would convert, but if she wished to stay Muslim, I would have to accept her will. – You are right, sahib, but our people would never understand you. Poor girl: you would do a lot of good things for her in life.98

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Iranian women and prosaic harems Among the most popular topics treated by the travelers is that of the Iranian woman and every aspect of her life. This topic is closely connected with Islam: Iranian women are viewed first and foremost as Muslim. According to the travelers, Muslim “fanaticism” is responsible for the position of women, which is perceived as pitiable due to the seclusion, covering, polygamy, divorce regulations and the institution of temporary marriage. The travelers see these regulations as above all different from Christian, or European, ways, and therefore as unacceptable. The theme of women is also of significance since women are seen as symbolizing the Orient, which is often perceived as feminine, passive, submissive, irrational and thus dominated and controlled by Western masculinity, strength and rationalism. The Orientalist discourse “represents the colonized world as the feminine” and “assigns to subject nations those qualities conventionally assigned to the female body.”1 Not surprisingly, there are numerous accounts and representations of veiled women in the travelers’ discourse that constitute an effort to disclose the secrets of the Oriental woman (and the Orient) hidden inside the harems or behind the visual obstacle of the veil. Lifting the veil and entering the forbidden space of the harems acquires a special significance since “the veil prevents the colonial gaze from attaining . . . a visibility and hence mastery . . .”2 Conquering or unveiling women signifies conquering the country, or semi-colonizing it (in the case of Iran). The emphasis on the veil by the travelers has an additional reason: “The loss of control does not imply a mere loss of sight, but a complete reversal of positions: her body completely invisible to the European observer except for her eyes, the veiled woman can see without being seen.”3 The reader of the travelogues can sense that veiling irritates the authors although they are probably unaware of the reason – they cannot see and control women even as the latter are able to observe them.

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Figure 14 A Persian woman in home costume. Source: Eliseev, Po belu svetu, p. 173.

Many travelogue authors describe with extreme disapproval the way Iranian women cover themselves in the streets: they consider their clothes ugly and ridiculous. It is common for the authors to compare Iranian women with slaves. Sergei Mark states: Women in the streets are always gloomy figures, in their dark veils, colorless and oppressed; . . . unwieldy clothes, usually in gloomy colors, make the women even more ugly; like Arab women, Persian women have the status of slaves. Once, while in Qom, we heard someone singing and asked a Persian if it was a woman. “How could our women dare to sing?” he answered, “Strangers are not supposed to hear their voices, [just] as they are not supposed to see their faces.”4 Another author makes an even closer connection between the appearance of Iranian women and their status in Iranian society: [In their uniform black long loose garments, Persian women] have their hands and feet restrained even for the most necessary movements, as they themselves are devoid of any will, initiative and freedom of action in their social and personal life. Really, the outdoor costume of these pathetic slaves of Persian andaruns [private, women’s quarters in a house] is so ugly and awkward that for someone not accustomed to it, a woman [dressed like that] looks like a creature with bound hands and feet put into a sack to be drowned. They say that rich Persians in the privacy of their harems dress their wives in

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Gender and ethnicity expensive, luxurious and seductive clothes. However, it seems to me that they do it rather for their own self-conceit and sensual feelings than for giving pleasure to their wives.5

One of the objects of criticism by the Russian travelers is that the Iranians do not have a family life based on mutual respect and the shared interests of spouses, and that children receive very little attention or even love from their parents. “In Persia, there is nothing sacred in the relationship between the spouses: an Asian woman does not value her husband,” writes Lev Al’brant6 and makes his readers wonder how he found that out without any knowledge of the language or the culture of the Middle East. M. Gamazov agrees: I am far from insisting on the absence in Muslim women of many good intentions and feelings; but they are oppressed, crushed, scattered in disorder, in the middle of the repugnant atmosphere of trickery, and have nothing in common with feminine charm, which blossoms only in the noble soil of mutual life.7 Polygamy seems to be one of the most shocking elements of Iranian culture. Some travelers talk about the huge harems of Persian shahs, in particular those of Fath ‘Ali Shah and Nasir al-Din Shah. With sincere repugnance, General Aleksei Ermolov mentions the sensuality of Fath ‘Ali Shah, who, according to the writer, spends most of his time in his harem, “in the house of shame and disgrace; . . . the hell of permanent discord and animosity, . . . forgetting that [by doing so] he humiliates himself as a Sovereign and a human being.”8 Peasant Dementii Tsikulin is impressed even by the underreported number of the wives and progeny of the same shah: “They say that the Persian Shah has up to 160 wives, and that these rulers have up to 40 sons and 70 daughters.”9 An engaging depiction of the harem of Nasir al-Din Shah is given by Colonel V. Kosogovskii. He writes with pity that in the harem of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, Nasir al-Din Shah’s son, nobody is afraid of their master; “there is constant noise, turmoil, rows, shrieking, scuffles, despite the fact that there are far fewer women in his harem than in his father’s.” Kosogovskii then compares this harem to that of the father, not without respect, using both information he received from witnesses and perhaps his own imagination and evincing somewhat more respect: Nasir al-Din had only four legal wives – the law does not permit to have more – and 106 concubines, the so-called “sigheh;” [sic] together with the servants, the total number came to 1,200 women. But these women constantly had visitors, so the total number of the women in the harem of Nasir al-Din Shah was almost never less than 1,500. It is easier to maintain discipline in an army of five hundred thou-

Gender and ethnicity 159 sand men than among 1,500 women of different ages, nations and classes. Nasir al-Din, however, used to keep them in order; and how well! The chief eunuch would announce: “The Shah is coming!” and everything would come to a standstill in the harem. The shah often demanded that all the women be presented to him, and all of them would immediately turn out for the review; there were no excuses that one of them was sick, another one was unhappy, yet another had a nervous breakdown, still another was cranky. Like a well-trained cavalry unit called to arms the women would stand in line; one more slender than another, one more attractive than another. Kosogovskii reasonably considers the harem of Nasir al-Din Shah an important political tool: The maintenance of such a huge and expensive harem was . . . at the same time a wise political measure on the part of Nasir al-Din Shah: having representatives of all the tribes and groups of his extremely diverse country as his wives, with their help, first, he maintained his ties with the most remote and inaccessible corners of Persia; second, aroused sympathy in people and attracted them to his side, letting them feel that he did not disdain any of his subjects, since to be a Shah’s wife is a great honor not available to [just any woman]; third, through his wives he knew about everything that was happening in Persia; fourth, he often used his wives for negotiations with their influential but unruly relatives, sometimes even sending them on one or another political mission under the pretext of visiting their relatives or vice versa, summoning those relatives as if to visit one of his sick or depressed wives; finally, fifth and last, he held some of his wives as hostages.10 Instead of being fascinated with the “mysteries” of the harems, most of the authors talk about their “repugnant” secrets or what they see as the boring and uneventful life of their inhabitants. D. Zhukovskaia, one of the two female travelers, gave her account the title “Persidskii enderun” (The Persian andarun). She admits that her main interest is to study the life of the Persian women’s quarters: Since the day of my arrival in Tehran, I was very much interested in getting inside andarun, to observe the life of Persian women with my own eyes, to note their tastes and habits as much as possible, and to test what I had heard and read about them. It is possible to interpret the above statement as the author’s attempt to find proof of her existing stereotypes about Muslim women and harems.

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When the day of the first visit came, they went to the house of a “Europeanized” favorite of the Shah: We only went there as to a theatre, to watch a performance. But how these poor creatures must feel, who always stay behind thick walls, don’t even hear the sounds from the street, have no idea of our life!11 Zhukovskaia calls the objects of her study “half-savages” and describes their appearance, clothes and manners from the vantage point of a superior and educated person. She mentions that she was introduced as “khanum-hakim” (doctor) and that her specialization was women’s health; she was immediately mobbed by the women in the harem, who started complaining about their health problems. Like most of the travelers, Zhukovskaia blames women’s backwardness on men who refuse to educate their wives: “[The husband] wants to remain absolute ruler . . .Therefore, it is not surprising that a man, even an intelligent one, shares his life with a creature whose world view is limited to her andarun.” She criticizes the idle life of Persian women of means, their absence of interests, and their depravity. Compared to the women of the upper classes, the women of the middle and lower classes are busy working; at the same time “they are familiar with the forbidden fruit – freedom.” According to the author, those women’s social life is centered around the bazaar, the bathhouse, and the ta”ziyeh.12 Unlike many other Russian travelers, Zhukovskaia talks about prostitution and the Shi’i institution of temporary marriage, drawing a clear distinction between the two. The only other female traveler, the anonymous governess accompanying a Russian envoy to Persia, notes: “The position of a woman in Persia is even harder [then that of the rest of the people]: she has no freedom and hardly dares show herself in the streets.”13 Based on those only two accounts by female travelers, it can be assumed that the perspective of Russian women on their Iranian sisters and their mode of narration about them are no different from those of their male counterparts: Western women, as the excluded other of Western men, nevertheless occupy a masculine position in relation to Oriental women . . . Western woman is happy to report “faithfully” what she witnesses in this hermetically sealed world. In fact, as many of them say, they see themselves as fulfilling an important function for their male counterparts: completing their deficiencies.14 The information on the forbidden space of the harems provided by the male travelers’ devoted female spies is sometimes presented by the men in their accounts. The account by Alexander Diugamel’, Russian Minister in Iran, is a good example. He describes his wife’s visits to the harem

Gender and ethnicity 161 of Muhammad Shah. When the Shah found out that Mme Diugamel’ could speak Persian, he expressed his desire to meet her. He asked her a series of questions concerning international politics, and seemed impressed with her answers. Asked for her sincere opinion concerning the Persians’ treatment of their wives, the Russian lady told the Shah, according to her husband’s account: “ ‘Your customs are disgusting, and not a single European woman would agree to obey them.’ However, she added in order to sweeten the pill, ‘Whatever is good for one country might not be suitable for another.’ ” As will be mentioned later, Mme Diugamel’s visits to the Shah’s harem are referred to by a few other travelers. After describing his wife’s visits to the harem, Diugamel’ tries to explain the treatment of women in Iran without condescending comments; in that, he is different from most of the Russian travelers of the period. He states that it would be unfair to accuse the Qur’an of being intended to humiliate women: that would have never occurred to Muhammad, because he adored women. The author gives several proofs of this: the respect with which the Prophet referred to women in the Qur’an, his gratitude to Khadija, his numerous wives and odalisques whom he honored with his choice, his knightly love for Zeinab, and his death with his head resting on the lap of Aisha. Diugamel’ continues: If in his law he did not make women equal to men, the reason is that neither in history nor in the morals of Asia would he find anything that could give him such a new idea. In his time, just like now, one could hear one Persian man saying to another who was beating his sister: “Why are you beating her? Did not God punish her enough when he made her a woman?”15 Alexander Eliseev reports that his sister was invited to the harem of the khan of Kuchan. While she was being greeted by the women in the inner courtyard, the author and his friend were examining the palace inside and used the opportunity to view the women from one of the windows upstairs. He talks about the staggering contrast between the veil worn by women in public and their provocative home clothes: Just as the clothes worn by Persian women in the street are ugly, the clothes worn by them at home are loose and even frivolous . . . A Persian woman, who wears a huge dark blue gown which looks like a linen sack enveloping her from head to toe, at home dresses in the most coquettish fashion in order to display her beauty in the most attractive way. With whitened and rouged faces, penciled brows and eyelashes, colored lips, and hands and feet besmeared with red henna, she wears a costume which looks more like the dress of a bayadere or a dancer than the costume of a mother and wife. The everyday

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Gender and ethnicity home clothing of a Persian woman usually consists of a short, often transparent shirt, similar to a kind of corsage, which covers only the bosom, short underskirts similar to those worn by our ballet dancers, and tight trousers close-fitting at the ankles. I don’t even mention the numerous ornaments and jewels, of which a Persian woman wears as many as she has.16

S. Lomnitskii described the “funny” costume of Iranian women and suggests several possible origins: The everyday clothes which I have described became fashionable comparatively recently – about thirty years ago. They say that one of the princesses who wanted to show off her beautiful figure started to imitate the costumes of European ballet dancers. Some people hold that the late Shah was so impressed by the ballet he saw in Europe that immediately after his return to Tehran he ordered his women to wear ballet costumes.17 The clothes worn by Persian women at home are described by many other travel authors as “frivolous,” “ridiculous” or more suitable for a ballet dancer. Ermolov writes about the seclusion of Iranian women and their treatment by their men in his usual blunt manner: All the monuments of the recent reigns consist of several palaces where an unbelievable number of wives and concubines are hidden away. These palaces are very similar to our houses of correction; the only difference between their inhabitants and those in our houses is that [here] they are locked away in order to prevent them from becoming profligate, while in our houses of correction they are locked away in order to correct those already profligate. In order to give an idea of how these flocks of wives are accommodated, it can be said without exaggeration that in Germany cattle belonging to good masters are maintained in cleaner and more spacious rooms.18 Most of the travelers describe the Shi’i institution of temporary marriage (sigheh) as “legalized profligacy” and hardly distinguish between temporary marriage and prostitution. P. Rittikh explains: [In Kerman] the most widespread form of marriage, or a kind of legalized profligacy, is to take a sigheh, i.e., a woman for a limited period of time, which costs 1 tuman a month or more. Parents themselves encourage this type of marriage, selling their innocent daughters for 5–10 tumans.19

Gender and ethnicity 163 Karl Von Baumgarten also writes about Kerman which, according to him, is famous for the beauty of its women: “Marriages for a limited period of time (sigheh) promote the development of legalized profligacy, while not providing the girl who sells herself with financial means.” The same author talks about Mashhad, an important Shi’i pilgrimage site, and the moral corruption there: “Marriages for a limited period of time, ‘sigheh,’ which are the most common phenomenon among the pilgrims here, are nothing but a depravity protected by the religion.”20 Pavel Ogorodnikov quotes a secretary in the Consulate at Astarabad: In spite of the seclusion of the Persian woman, depravity is prevalent, all the more so since it is blessed by the religion; e.g., for the concluding of a sigheh, or a marriage for an hour, a day or a month or more, a mullah [just] reads a prayer. The secretary gives examples of the profligacy of Persian women and says that many women have tattoos on their bodies, such as “a deer drinking water” or “garlands of flowers, trees and birds, charming the sight of their insatiably sensual husbands.”21 In another account, Ogorodnikov calls women’s at-home clothes “frivolous” and quotes an acquaintance of his who is presumably familiar with life in Persia: They view their wives, both aghdeh (permanent) and sigheh (temporary), as things, with the special purpose of satisfying their sexual appetite; if you asked a Persian about his possessions, he would answer: “I own a house, a garden, five donkeys and two wives.”22 N. Solovkin argues that sigheh is “prostitution legalized by the religion and life.”23 E. Belozerskii considers sigheh “illegal wives” as opposed to the four “legal” ones permitted by Islamic law. He describes the procedure of signing a marriage contract and then exclaims: In addition to the conclusion of marriage which I have described, there is an amazing phenomenon in Persia: it is possible to get married for any period of time, including one month or even a few days! . . . The possibility of such a marriage is indicative of the pitiable status of Persian woman. The expensive price paid by a groom for his bride is not really that high, because he buys a slave and a toy for himself; that is the way the well-to-do view their wives; the poor value [a wife] since she can work in the house; in other words, [they value her for] her usefulness. Therefore, a Persian woman does not have a fitting and decent place for herself in the house because she is actually nothing. All her life, her aspirations must have as their aim the satisfaction of one person; without this she

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Gender and ethnicity does not have and cannot have a life. As a result, she is nothing more than what her husband makes of her: either an oppressed and unloved creature, whose whole life is only a chain of sufferings, or a favorite, who can acquire such an influence over her husband and his affairs, the whole life of the house, that everyone must be afraid of her and tremble before her.

He further comments on how easy it is for a man to divorce his wife. To Belozerskii, the harem is “a sanctuary for Persian men and a prison for a Persian woman.” He describes how Persian women spend their time in the harem, adorning themselves and putting on their make-up. He points out that some of his information is based on the words of a “Russian lady who used to visit harems;” probably he means Mme Diugamel’. Belozerskii describes the clothes a Persian woman wears at home and in the street. He notes that at home, because of her costume, “with a woman’s every movement her body can be seen, which makes a very unpleasant impression,” but he does not explain where and how he had an opportunity to see this. “Is it true that the Persian woman is so beautiful?” he asks, and gives the following portrait: She is usually not tall, with a very round, small head and a round, moon-like face – this is an ideal of Persian beauty – with black brows and beautiful black eyes, a small nose and mouth, a small chin, a vacuous facial expression. The Persian woman has no education, is usually even illiterate . . . So one might well expect her to be rude when communicating and conversing with other people. Therefore, it is not surprising that when the Russian lady mentioned above met the master of the harem after visiting it, the latter asked her: “Did not my wives talk nonsense to you, or something worse? You know,” he continued, “that our woman do not meet people and do not know what is appropriate and what is not.”24 Ivan Bartolomei complains: It is not surprising that I shall return from Persia without seeing women. It is surprising that Persian women, created the same way as all other women and, taking into consideration the local climate, with passionate feelings, tolerate their seclusion with patience and are not demanding the right to rule their husbands as is happening with us in Europe.25 A few authors openly admit their interest in Persian women as attractive and exotic sexual objects. Their attitude towards the women, “shaped by a combination of moral outrage and irrepressible concupiscence

Gender and ethnicity 165 focuses on the trope of ‘oriental sexuality.’”26 One of these travelers, Prince Aleksei Saltykov, writes of his fascination with the women of Persia, and on several occasions describes their beauty and charm; for example: What can compare with the striking beauty of Persian women? [They are] graceful and slender of stature, with thick hair, fiery black eyes, lips burnt with passion, their bodies dark of hue. But it is not for us that these houris blossom: they are hidden in the harem where they exhaust their art on satiated feelings; jealous old men and greedy eunuchs torment them endlessly. Saltykov also tells how he tried to lift the veils of village women and was “moved when they reacted to my curiosity with humility and obedience.” He writes ambiguously: “What should I tell you about the beauty of the women in Tehran? Because of them, I decided to get rid of my Tabrizi servant ‘Abdallah; he did not fulfill the main condition of his service.” It is clear from the context that the servant had promised to bring the author into direct contact with Iranian women. Later in his account, Saltykov tells how it was arranged that four Iranian women visited him several times. The author was given another opportunity to watch women by an acquaintance of his, an Iranian physician. Saltykov’s servants were left in the outer part of the house, while the author was led inside to the inner court, where he saw the doctor surrounded by his womenfolk.27 Like some of the other travelers, Gamazov says attractive young women in Iran don’t mind flirting with Europeans; for example, unveiling their faces and smiling, when their men are not around.28 Vasilii Borozdna who considers Persian wives “victims of superstitions, delusions and jealousy,” nevertheless confesses: The reader might say that it is too flattering on my part to call the secluded Persian women “Graces,” that their sensuality is their only portion; but let them consider the example of the most savage peoples. Who can prove that even their unrefined behavior, that even the ugliness of the black and flat faces of the Negroes do not have their own charm? Would not the languorous but piercing glance of a Persian woman strike you and penetrate to the bottom of your heart all the more? If you hold her hand, it will tremble, if you put your hand on her heart, it will beat heavily; when you are alone with her, you forget the shortcomings of her upbringing, that she lacks good manners, and just give yourself up to that attraction which one can feel but is not able to describe.29 It is not clear whether the author had an affair with an Iranian woman or whether his descriptions are the fruit of his vivid imagination.

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Though most of the travelers consider Iranian women beautiful or at least attractive while they are young, there is an author who has the opposite opinion: I have never seen such ugly people as the Persian women. There are ugly people in every nation, but there they constitute a minority, while here, at least in the area of my travels [from Tashkent to Seistan] their number probably reaches three quarters . . . First of all, the type itself is not beautiful. It is still far from being ugly, but their life does everything to emphasize all the defects of this type. By the age of 12–13, a woman matures, by the time she is 25, she grows old. The men are lazy and do almost nothing: all the housework, and sometimes the field work as well, are the women’s responsibility.30 There is no evidence in the travelogues of liaisons between the Russians and Iranian women – with one exception. Khan-Iomudskii, the greatest part of whose account is devoted to the comparison between the Turcomans and Persians, one in which the Persians come out far worse, mentions such a case. He first states: It is easy to start an affair with a Persian woman, and all those Christians who do not disdain them and are interested in them are able to do it; but they have to pay well if they don’t want a scandal, and a terrible scandal . . . This scandal can always be prevented by a certain amount of money. He then tells the following story: Once there was a Russian consul in Persia who had a strong interest in relationships with Persian women; the Persian servants . . . of the consulate used to bring them to him at night. Everybody knew about it and spoke about it openly; but [behaved] as if they knew nothing about it. Women used to go to the consul because they were interested in receiving a lot of money from a Russian consul and also wanted to see his house and the famous gilded bed. But it turned out that the consul was stingy and only paid them 5 or 10 shai (10–20 copecks). Everybody was expecting a scandal, but Persians are good diplomats and they decided to keep silent and in this way to have the consul in their hands and to destroy his independence and influence. They succeeded, and Russian prestige suffered because of the lasciviousness of the consul.31 Based on the information he provides, it is unclear what the outcome was. And despite the gravity of the allegations, it is impossible to identify who the consul was since the city where he served is not mentioned.

Gender and ethnicity 167 Several authors devoted substantial parts of their accounts to women in Iran. One of them is Sergei Cherniaev, who wrote an article on “The Destiny of Woman in the Muslim Orient.”32 The author admits that most of his account is based on facts collected in Iran. However, this doesn’t prevent him from generalizing that everything he observed in Iran and describes is typical of all the Muslim Orientals. In his article, he mostly talks not about “Persian woman” but “Muslim women.” He explains that he gathered his information “from questioning informed people, from examining gossip which reached [him] through some talkative Muslim men and old Muslim women.” The author follows the whole lifecycle of an Oriental woman: from her birth, naming and upbringing, to her marriage, family life and death. On several occasions, he likens Oriental women to animals. Cherniaev describes how the girls grow up in slovenliness, without any education “as understood by [Europeans]. They usually grow up like little animals, without parents caring for their development.” It is noteworthy that he gives an example of a woman, the “concubine” of a khan, an acquaintance of the author, who “loved her khan, of course, in her own, Oriental way.”33 Cherniaev talks about some women who have a gift for poetry, and about women’s clothes. He treats the subject of Muslim marriage in detail. After marriage, he explains, A Muslim woman becomes the complete property of her husband. Being bought for money, she has no rights according to the law and has to obey his will unconditionally, to endure all oppression patiently and without a murmur, and under any circumstances, even if she becomes a victim of the most unbridled cruelty, has no right to complain to anybody and cannot look for protection from anyone. He also informs his readers about the “temporary concubines” (sigheh) and slave women. Cherniaev asks if a Persian woman can be happy under all the circumstances described and answers it in the following way: If a person who asks himself this question means the happiness possible for an educated woman or a woman at least somewhat humanized by education, he undoubtedly has to give a negative answer. Under the existing conditions, it is impossible [to enjoy] family happiness based on mutual love, though not devoid of sensuality, but elevated, ennobled by the supremacy of the moral nature, which is only available to families where the woman occupies the place defined by the best qualities granted to her by her nature, where neither her upbringing nor the status assigned for her lower the woman to the status of a toy, of a creature who is allowed to have only body, in whom a soul is almost not expected.

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Cherniaev goes on to say that a Muslim woman is not capable of such elevated, moral happiness. However, he is sure that she can be happy “in her own way”: Happiness is so widely spread in the world that there also exists a happiness for animals. Many Muslim women are very satisfied with their life if they are well fed, warmly and beautifully dressed and don’t suffer oppression from their husbands and masters. Very often they reach such a stage of moral numbness that they become indifferent to their husbands’ love or absence of love. As for Muslim families of limited means, the women there have the advantage of being the only wife, since one is all their husbands can afford. In that case, according to Cherniaev: The woman grows attached to her husband body and soul, but her love is somewhat instinctive, or to put it simply, a dog’s affection, which goes so far that the Muslim woman enjoys even the offences and oppression suffered by her because of the whims or hot temper of her husband. The author says that as a result of such treatment by their husbands, Iranian women are often unfaithful. He also explains that love of a Muslim woman is different from the love experienced by civilized people: In her choice of the object of her passion, a Muslim woman is not led by the same feeling of love which inspires an educated woman. One cannot expect an ability to appreciate moral qualities and to put them above physical perfection, and therefore one cannot expect her to experience love as it is understood in the West. Her nature and upbringing have turned the Muslim woman into a materialist, and this quality of hers is never more apparent than in her choice of lover. A Muslim woman falls in love with a handsome face, a beautiful statue, sometimes with a beautiful voice.34 As a result, Cherniaev talks about the lack of devoted families, the absence of affection of the children for their mother, and the usually lonely and unlamented death of Muslim women. In another article, “A Persian’s Day,”35 Cherniaev refers to many of the same aspects of “Oriental” life, writing about “Persians” without generalizing to the level of “Orientals.” But the article contains some insights on the perspective of an “Oriental” family man, for example, that “a respectable man does not talk to his wives,” and that “very few Persian men have affection for their wives and children and enjoy family life. Most of them grow bored with their wives, to whom they become

Gender and ethnicity 169 used, and their children, whom they don’t love.” Interestingly, Cherniaev contrasts the family life of the poor with that of the wealthy, idealizing the former, and views a working Persian as being “much closer to the moral dignity of human nature as it is understood by the Europeans.” In reality, a poor man usually does not have more than one wife, simply because he cannot afford it. The author, however, makes far-reaching conclusions based on what he perceives as a level of monogamy approaching that of a European family, and presents the wife of a poor man as a person with whom he spends his whole life, as with a friend destined to go through life with him, hand in hand, together. In the families of poor Persians, strangers to polygamy, exists something similar to the family life of the Europeans . . . Though [a poor Persian] does not yet have the respect for his wife a European does, he treats her with much more kindness and care than a polygamist does the beauties in his andarun . . . In the everyday life of poor Persians, even examples of parents’ caring for their children’s moral and physical education can be found.36 S. Lomnitskii devotes a whole chapter of his book to the status of women in Iran. He describes Persian women as mainly uneducated females whose only destiny is to be married. He writes about the rituals of Muslim marriage in Iran, and states: Women play a very sad part in family life; their husbands treat them as animals, and a poor Persian always mourns over the death of his donkey more than the death of his wife. If his donkey dies, it often means losing his whole property; if his wife dies, it is easy to find ten others to replace her; he only has to be able to feed her, while marriage itself will cost him a few krans. Like many of his colleagues, Lomnitskii considers the institution of sigheh legalized prostitution, though there is also actual, if discreet, prostitution. He talks about fights between the wives in the harems and other family fights, including those in which husbands suffer from their aggressive wives. In this connection, he tells an anecdote about a mullah who was preaching in the mosque about the necessity of peace and mutual love among spouses. When he finished, he asked those men who were displeased with their wives for any reason to stand up. To his embarrassment, all the men present in the mosque stood up, with the exception of one man who was known for being very pious and quiet. The preacher said: “If Hajji Husayn did not make me happy, I would be in despair.” The one seated man answered: “I would love to get up . . . but I am unable to: today my wife broke my leg.”37 Lomnitskii states that,

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“[I]n general, the [physical] type of the Persian woman is very beautiful, especially that of the women of the mountain tribes.” In connection with the custom of veiling, the author notes how convenient it is in case of insurrection: then women are always very active, because it is impossible to recognize them under their veils, while removing their veils is considered the greatest sacrilege. He gives examples of occasions when women were the initiators of public unrest. At the end of his book, Lomnitskii quotes one of his acquaintances, an Iranian of means, who explains the need for polygamy and maintaining of the current status of Iranian women in the following way: You Europeans reproach us for polygamy, but you don’t want to take into consideration the fact that you have social activities, scientists, literary and artistic societies, theatres, clubs, and all your activities which in one way or another have meaningful character. As for us, as you yourself know better than anybody else, we Persians lack all those things that brighten your life; we even lack an intelligent society. That is why we try to find entertainment among women, and our women are brought up in such a way so that they can serve as our amusement.38 Nikolai Murav’ev devotes two chapters of his account to Iranian women, as well as some other scattered references. He is charmed by their beauty, and describes their appearance at length on several occasions. He starts his chapter devoted to women in the following way: Until now, I have written too little about the Persian women, whose beauty has been celebrated with such ardor by the Oriental poets! About the women who in youth are always the direct goal in life, while in old age they are always the means for attaining the goal, both [in Europe] and in the Orient. Murav’ev explains that many Iranian women don’t mind showing their faces to a European, especially in the countryside: “Of the young women, I haven’t seen a single one who was not attractive, and [indeed] have seen many real beauties.” He describes their beauty with evident admiration: Now I can give a general description of the beauty of Persian women: their faces are usually round, plump and white; they are always brightened with shining eyes, shaded with long eyelashes; black eyebrows curve in high arches and meet between the eyes! A roguish smile often flashes on the small pink lips, sometimes showing [two] rows of wonderful teeth. Persian women are not shy, and their conversations are often indecent by our standards; they have easy manners, are merry and

Gender and ethnicity 171 talkative; their pleasantness is highly seductive! No wonder: their whole life consists of their efforts to impress their husband, their master.39 He tells how the garden of his rented summer house was visited several times, with his permission, by the harem of a Shahzadeh; he describes how he watched the women enjoying themselves in the garden and the communication which he established with them. Talking about harems, the author maintains that it was not very difficult “to penetrate the mysteries of the harem (where, as a matter of fact, there are no mysteries),” by bribing the servants or by becoming a physician trusted by the Iranians. Commenting on the women’s life in the harems, Murav’ev explains: as long as they have [their beauty], their life in the harem is bearable; they are loved by their husband, and their wishes are always fulfilled . . . Family happiness unconnected to the [woman’s] beauty is unknown to the Persians. He also writes about women from wealthy families: “Here most political intrigues are carried on through the women, who have nothing else to do; they are unfamiliar with the pleasures of social life or with family happiness; they have no affection for their children.” To prove his last statement, he quotes “M-me D-l,” probably Mme Diugamel’, who “during her stay in Persia used often to be invited to the Shah’s harem.”40 In a separate chapter, the author dwells upon “the Women’s Qur’an,” which, according to Murav’ev, is a collection of women’s wisdom, superstitions and tricks.41 Like the other travelogue authors, Misl’-Rustem in his chapter devoted to women in Persia describes the main phases of a woman’s life: her upbringing, marriage and family life. However, some of his statements differ from what most of the travelers tell their readers. He notes that though polygamy is allowed in Iran, only wealthy people can afford it. At the same time, a man who has more than one wife “needs to be an extremely good politician, just to all his wives, and evenhanded in the distribution of his favors, otherwise, he becomes a sufferer in his own house because his wives constantly quarrel and complain about each other.” Misl’-Rustem further states that as far as he knows, Iranian women can hardly be considered to be oppressed by their husbands or be thought of as their slaves: on the contrary, “wives in Persia have a strong influence on their husbands’ actions; the latter ask for the former’s advice.” He continues: A woman in Persia only seems to be a slave because she is not allowed to go outside accompanied by a [strange] man, and she is

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Gender and ethnicity not allowed to go anywhere without her husband or a eunuch, or an old woman; in reality, she is full ruler of her house; all the servants obey her, and all the household [management] is in her hands.42

Sheltered by his pseudonym, the anonymous author here demonstrates a certain broadmindedness and objectivity that distinguish him from the majority of his colleagues and suggest his potential as an anthropologist. The Russian travelers, in presenting Iranian women, usually argue that they serve Iranian men exclusively as sexual objects. They blame Iranian men and the whole system of upbringing and sequestering women for turning them into “toys” and “objects of sexual pleasure.” Though often stating that Iranian women do not deserve a better fate, the Russian authors explain this not by the women’s inherent inferiority but by their “defective” upbringing and lack of proper education.

The travelers’ religious and ethnic preferences Like other European travelers, most of the Russian travelers favor non-Muslim Persians: Armenians, Babis (a Shi’i sect),43 Zoroastrians,44 and, occasionally, Jews. The authors compare them to the Muslims and consider them to be worthy of respect as more honest, more trustworthy, with better morals and education; in general, more “human.” They are seen as being maltreated by the Muslims, or more specifically, by the Shi’i majority, and that creates a certain feeling of affinity with nonMuslims among the Russians. The above discussed “threat of Islam” is the factor that unites non-Muslims in Muslim Iran, as perceived by the Russians. In the sympathy expressed by many Russian travelers towards the Armenians, an additional factor is shared Christian beliefs, and therefore compatible views on morals, culture, education. While in Iran, Russian travelers usually associate with non-Muslims, if with anyone at all among the local people. This preference is reminiscent of their patronizing the Sunni minority, as discussed earlier, and demonstrates the Russians’ implementation of the old colonial principal: “divide and rule.” For example, Il’ia Berezin tells about “the Guebres” (Zoroastrians) as the “living ruins of the past,” who are oppressed by the Muslims, and who, though more hardworking then they, are never rich.45 Of all the “Orientals” met by Berezin in Iran and described by him, an Armenian merchant, Aretiun, stands out as one person who was able to become a friend of the fractious traveler. “I have met very few people, especially in the Orient, who would win one’s sympathy so quickly and strongly.” The reason for this sympathy seems to have been that Aretiun spent most of his life in India among the British and “became a real European,

Gender and ethnicity 173 with his noble views on life and social demands.” At the same time, continues Berezin, he never ceased to love everything Armenian, and he married an Armenian. The conclusion Berezin comes to is that the Armenians are “capable of adopting a solid education.”46 Sergei Mark praises the Babis for “their aspiration to liberate the Muslim woman from her seclusion, to elevate the level of her development, to grant her the status in society similar to that of a Christian woman.” He goes even further, arguing that “Babism is a stream of the water of life in fruitless Persia; if this stream turns into a flow after some time, it is possible to expect an awakening of the hidden forces of the people, [who are] undoubtedly very gifted.”47 Dr. N. Shetalov who spent about 16 months in Yazd, one of the Zoroastrian centers in Iran, characterizes the “Guebre” community as “possessing many attractive features when compared to the Muslim population.” He also explains that, largely as a result of the activities of Parsi48 agents from India, the situation of the Iranian Zoroastrians has improved, and gives the text of a decree by Muzaffar al-Din Shah issued in 1899 which granted some rights to the “Guebres.” (The author mentions that his translation was made from the English translation of the original.) He does, however, accuse the Zoroastrian clergy of being poorly educated.49 Shetalov, too, has a high opinion of the Babi faith which, as he points out, “due to the elevated and attractive spirit of their beliefs, was followed by the best elements among the population who were striving to break away from the oppression of Muslim obscurantism.” He also claims that many Zoroastrians become Babis, since their clergy “is not much better than the mullahs.”50 P. Rittikh gives a favorable outline of the Zoroastrian religion which “requires from people cleanliness in the broadest sense of the word, i.e., honesty, hard work, purity of thoughts, etc.; and in particular, the keeping of one’s word.” He points out their close commercial connections with the British, initially between the British and the Parsis of Bombay, and explains that only since the second half of the nineteenth century has their position in Iran improved, thanks to the help of their coreligionists in India. He writes: “The Parsis are highly valued by the British as people of elevated morality, intelligence and outstanding energy. Their fellow believers in Persia are famous for the same qualities.”51 Rittikh reports on the Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman and their friendly attitude towards the Russians. They are “amiable and obliging” and, according to him, there are no impoverished people among them; they have concentrated significant capital, which gives them an opportunity to turn the ignorant Persian masses any way they wish. In addition, the Parsis are very frugal, abstemious and hardworking; they are also

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Gender and ethnicity subtle politicians, therefore they would never allow an open explosion of Muslim fanaticism and would take timely measures [to prevent it].

Taken by the Zoroastrians to their bathhouse, the author is impressed by its “cleanliness, neatness and simplicity . . . There is a smell of incense in the room, so that the atmosphere is such that one might think that the Parsis perform religious rituals here.” Rittikh describes the dissolute life of the Persians in Kerman and then says that “the only ones who have preserved themselves in this den [of profligates] are the Parsis and Jews, who do not have prostitution.”52 In his other publication, Rittikh writes about the Babi movement in contrast with Shi’i Islam. According to Rittikh, the movement was “very simple and altogether created a completely new social order in life”: To be pious, mere prayer and pilgrimage, ablutions and correct following of the rules of purity ordained by Shi’ism are not enough. According to the revelation of the Bab, brotherly love, combined with kindness and good deeds, is necessary. In addition, he required self-respect and hence mutual respect, and in exceptional cases a court of arbitration. Children’s upbringing was grounded in more humane principles, and it was forbidden to beat them. Women’s rights were equated with the rights of men. Polygamy and arbitrary divorce were condemned, along with the purely animal attitude towards women, in accordance with which they lack any independence and serve their husbands not as advisers and friends but as concubines.53 According to S. Lomnitskii, Zoroastrians “are known for their hard work, unimpeachable honesty and striving for education.” He also praises their women for the features which, in his eyes, differentiate them from Muslim women: [T]he women of the Guebres and Parsis do not veil themselves and have a certain [degree of] independence; in India they even wear European dress. It is necessary to add that most of them are also very beautiful. The women of the Guebres usually wear very long dresses and wide trousers, their costume being the same at home and outside. I have rarely seen such pleasant and friendly faces as the Guebre women have. When she meets a European, each woman would necessarily greet him with modesty and respect, but without any trace of flattery or coquetry. This is probably the only woman in the world without caprices. The life of the Guebres is marked by simplicity and hard work.54 A. Emel’ianov introduces Zoroastrian beliefs to his readers and says that “the Shi’is oppress the Guebres.” As for the Babis, he explains:

Gender and ethnicity 175 Babi faith did not overthrow Islam. The Babis did not want to destroy the basis of the religion. The foundation of the Muslim faith was left unshaken. The Babi faith only tried to ennoble the faith of the fathers. In spite of cruel suppression, the ideas of the Babis are still alive in Persia today. Modern Shi’ism, of course, is hostile to the Babi faith, but the persecutions have stopped – religious tolerance has been proclaimed in Persia.55 Pavel Ogorodnikov considers Zoroastrians the “indigenous population” of Iran and states that “the rest of the population of modern Persia are degenerates, crossbreeds with the peoples who conquered Iran in different periods.” Yazd, “a Guebre oasis,” is “famous all over Iran for the honesty of its inhabitants and safety for travelers,” while their women “walk around with uncovered faces and are more beautiful than and morally superior to the Persian women; at least there are no prostitutes among them.”56 Ivan Blaramberg’s comment on the beauty of some Zoroastrians is similar: It is possible that in Yazd the pure and unmixed blood of the ancient Persians has been preserved among the local Guebres, whose beauty, and especially the beauty of the ancient Persian women, was known to the Greeks and the Romans. At present, they are oppressed and humiliated, are poorly and simply dressed. They are faithful, assiduous and sincere with foreigners.57 This sentiment echoes the view of Iran as a country of bygone splendor – Zoroastrians are seen as its “true” representatives who belong to the remote pre-Muslim, pre-Arab and pre-Turkic past. A. Miller records the hearty welcome he received from the Zoroastrians in Kerman: he was impressed by their school and by the cleanliness of their houses as compared to the houses of the Muslim Persians. Also, he writes, “the Guebre merchants are known for their honesty and exact payments.”58 Karl von Baumgarten depicts the hard conditions of the Zoroastrians’ life and their oppression by the Muslims: “To kill a Guebre is not a crime.” He gives two examples of unpunished murders of Zoroastrians: one in Yazd, another in Kerman.59 Similarly, M. Alikhanov-Avarskii states: Wherever a Guebre appears, he immediately becomes the helpless object of various humiliations and profanation; so that the crowd would not make a mistake on such occasions by taking “the true believers” for Guebres, the latter are supposed to wear special-colored emblems on their clothes. Even the richest Guebre merchants are only allowed to ride donkeys and are supposed to dismount when

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Gender and ethnicity they meet Muslims. [Muslim] Persians abduct their girls without any punishment . . . In spite of such an oppressed position and the hostility of others, the moral qualities of the Guebres are very attractive even as presented by the [Muslim] Persians themselves.60

In their accounts, a number of travelers tell with a lot of sympathy the story of the rise of the Babi movement, the execution of the Bab and the persecution of his followers; the tragic story of Qurrat al-‘Ain, a beautiful woman who became one of the most famous Babi martyrs, is often cited.61 Dmitrii Beliaev tells how the Russian consulate gave protection to 300 Babis during the anti-Babi unrest of 1903 in Esfahan because “the Russian Consulate is an asylum for those unfairly punished and persecuted by the rulers.”62 Six years before that, V. Kosogovskii wrote: “whoever is first to hold out his hand to the Babis will undoubtedly appeal to the hearts of the best half of the Persian populace.”63 What is especially interesting is that the religious preference is combined with an ethnic one: those Russians who had an opportunity to compare the ethnic Persians with non-Persians usually favor the nonPersians – Turcomans, Kurds, Lurs, and some others – as more brave, honest and straightforward. They also see them as good-natured and not fanatical people who treat their womenfolk with due respect and whose women have a lot of dignity. A certain “idealization of the savage” or “idealization of the primitive”64 can be observed in many accounts when the travelers write about the non-Persian tribes and peoples. It helps to present the Other as living in a state of freedom, whose social order is based on natural and simple laws, who are closer to Nature and therefore possess better or “purer” moral qualities than the Persians, who are “spoiled and distorted” by their civilization. In addition, most of these peoples are Sunni Muslims, who, as mentioned earlier, are depicted by the travelers as less fanatical and more tolerant than Shi’i Muslims. Most of the non-Persian peoples preferred by the Russian travelers are those who live in the north, northeast, east and southeast of Iran, in the Russian sphere of influence and in the areas that they were planning to gradually put under their domination. Benzengr devotes his account to his travels in Iranian Kurdistan, his observations of the Kurds and his conclusions concerning Russian policy in that area. About the Kurds, he writes: The Kurd is naturally good-natured and has a joyful and open character; he is very sociable, simple, communicates easily and is extremely hospitable. The politeness of the Kurd is absolutely alien to the flattery and insidious servility characteristic of [other] Oriental peoples . . .

Gender and ethnicity 177 Intellectually, the Kurds are rewarding material for educating. They are inquisitive, are willing to learn, and study easily; the best students of the former Baghdad Military School, which is currently a military high school, are Kurds . . . They are pleasant interlocutors. Unlike the Persians, whose conversation is florid and artificial, Kurds are usually laconic and noted for their pointed remarks, quick wit and joyful humor. At home, the Kurds are much less despotic than Persians or Turks; [a Kurdish] woman occupies an honorable place in the house compared to a Persian or a Turkish woman and possesses considerably more freedom. The Kurdish woman walks about with her face uncovered, and though some khans or modern Kurdish nobles have accepted the customs of the harem in their houses, this is simply a result of imitating Persian and Turkish etiquette. Consequently, the Kurdish woman has developed into a very energetic and attractive type of Oriental Amazon. It is necessary to say that the view of Kurdistan as a country savage and devoid of culture, and of the Kurds as a gang of barbarians, primitive herdsmen and bloodthirsty bandits is absolutely incorrect and one-sided. All that can still be found to a certain degree, though primarily in communities remote from the Kurdish sedentary [areas], or in areas where the Kurdish population clashes with hostile elements of other peoples.65 Vladimir Minorskii, a famous scholar of the Middle East, has a similar view concerning the potential of the Kurds; he even tries to point out the difference between European and non-European notions without making an immediate statement about the superiority of the former: The Kurds are not at all lazy or stupid; they simply lack an opportunity for the development of education and literacy. The prejudice of their leaders is partly to be blamed: they consider that only military exercises befit their caste. However, as soon as they have an opportunity, the Kurds make rapid progress in studying. They are good linguists, and most of them speak either Turkish or Persian. The liveliness of the Kurdish intellect is apparent in their love for their local nature. For a geographer, Kurdistan is a promised land: there is no stone, no hollow, no secluded tree which would not have a name; which would not be connected with some legend. The Kurds love jokes; they love learning news; they love sympathy and approval of their independent life. They are really proud of it, and appreciate acknowledgement of its freedom. The vindictiveness and often incomprehensible cruelty of the Kurds should be mentioned . . .

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Gender and ethnicity When talking about the murders and assaults that often occur in Kurdistan, it is important to look at the issues from the local, not our European, point of view. Those incidents are caused not by the depravity of various peoples, but by the general circumstances of their life and by their hot southern blood. For a characterization of a people, the status of women is very interesting: in this regard, the Kurds are probably the most liberal Muslim people. Women don’t cover their faces; in a crowd they bravely walk next to men, and they participate in conversation. . . . Seclusion is unknown to them, of course: the young people know each other well, and a marriage is preceded by real courtship; romantic feeling often reigns in Kurdish hearts.66

S. Babich writes about the Kurds not without admiration and compares them with the Caucasian highlanders – he had served in the Caucasus before going to Iran: If we can compare anyone to a mountain eagle, it would be the Kurd. His love of the free life and independence is so strong that a Kurd put into prison by the Persian administration cannot survive the imprisonment: he either escapes or sickens and dies. In a Kurd, the sense of freedom and independence is stronger than that in the Caucasian highlanders; in general, they share many common features, so that for someone who has lived in the Caucasus and is familiar with the life of the highlanders, it is very easy to understand the nature of a Kurd. He is a savage, absolutely unfamiliar with civilization, not only with the European, but with the Persian, due to his isolated and semi-nomadic way of life. It seems to me that if they are made accustomed to European culture, the Kurds will degenerate as quickly as the American Indians, who are disappearing amazingly fast . . . They are unable to apprehend conditions of life different from those under which they live . . . They desire nothing more than to use their freedom and independence. Kurdish women have much more freedom than Persian women. They have the right not to veil their faces, and not only do they not hide from us, the Russians, but on the contrary, they look us over with great curiosity and even talk to us. Babich also points out the strong hostility between the Persians and the Kurds, who try to avoid each other whenever possible.67 P. Rittikh also notes that the position of Kurdish women is much better than that of Persian women: “There is no harem seclusion, and the woman not only does not wear a veil, [she] also enjoys more freedom.”68

Gender and ethnicity 179 Alexander Nikol’skii, a scientist, writes about the Kurds and the Turks from Azerbaijan who in the seventeenth century were removed from the western regions and resettled in Khorasan and Mazanderan.69 He describes the Kurds as follows: The Kurds are a very good-natured and patriarchal people who have not seen anything other than the piece of land where their cattle graze. With curiosity, like savages, they examined my foreign clothes; every plate amazed them and every button which I presented to them made them really excited. The Tekin Turcomans have found worthy rivals in their reckless boldness . . . The courageous, open, but severe faces of the Kurds cause involuntary respect; I have heard that the Turcomans, who only accept strength and boldness, treat them with respect.70 The following is his description of the Turkic people from Azerbaijan: As to their character, the local Turks (Azerbaijanis) are pleasant, good-natured and honest. Due to life full of labor and hardship, to the absence of relations with large cities, they have preserved these qualities, characteristic of patriarchal tribes, in all their strength. Their turbulent life alongside the tribes of robbers has developed in them courage, deftness, strength and other physical abilities, so that the lazy and apathetic Farsis have a good protection from the attacks of the nomad tribes in them. The Turcomans say that if there were no Turks and Kurds on the border they would abduct all the Shah’s wives from Tehran. The Turks are very well aware of their advantage over the Farsis [here the author means the indigenous Persians] and treat them with contempt and hatred. Turkish women in the villages have equal rights and freedom. A Turk’s wife at home is as much a master as he himself; she performs her home duties without embarrassment in front of strange men and does not wear any veil. She is free to go anywhere, and nobody would dare to insult her. In spite of such freedom, the women are unusually chaste, and no lewdness of any kind exists in these Turkish villages.71 Several other travelers express their favorable views in regard to the Kurds.72 Many Russians who traveled in northeastern Iran are well disposed towards the Turcoman tribes. The northeastern areas of Iran were only nominally controlled by the Iranian government, which lacked the power to subdue them and to stop their devastating raids against

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the sedentary Persians. The Turcomans mostly despised and refused to recognize the authority of the central government in Tehran. The Russians conquered vast lands in Central Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century, and by 1869 had deprived Iran of some of its northeastern territories populated by Turcomans; they unilaterally moved the border between Russia and Iran south, to the River Atrak. The Iranian government was defenseless in the face of the Russian conquest. The Russians largely put a stop to the plundering Turcoman raids and therefore won the sympathy of the Persians in that area. The description of the Turcomans in the Russian travelogues is more or less parallel to that of the Kurds and other tribes. Turcomans are seen as brave, freedom-loving and simple people whose women enjoy a great degree of independence. For example, N. Solovkin describes the Turcomans with sympathy: The Turcomans in their high sheepskin caps, slender and tall, make a favorable impression. The Turcomans live in tents and very unwillingly exchange them for wooden houses. Inside, a Turcoman tent looks very cozy and attractive, due to the carpets, rugs and the whole careful decoration; Turcoman women are very good and hardworking housewives. The Turcomans, in general, are hardworking, honest and good people, in whose character, side by side with some predatory instincts, are some knightly and openhearted features . . . Being nomads, they are less religious and fanatical than the Persians, and therefore treat non-Muslims with more tolerance than the Persians do. By the way, they despise and hate [the Persians].73 Pavel Ogorodnikov describes Turcoman militia as “foppishly-dressed braves, with expressive and lively faces, sharply different from the sleepy ‘Irani.’ ”74 Khan-Iomudskii passionately idealizes his kinsmen, the Iomud Turcomans: The Turcoman is freedom-loving, and freedom for him is more important than life itself; that is why he would not allow anybody to destroy his rights and to interfere in his family life . . . The Iomud is serious, collected and always silent when necessary, and therefore does everything without noise, soberly, conscious of the importance of his acts. Khan-Iomudskii also writes with admiration about their just and simple social order and noble character. According to him, they are also tolerant

Gender and ethnicity 181 of other religions. He contrasts them to the Persians, whom he presents as extremely dirty, liars, cowardly, and servile.75 Not all the Russian travelers have positive impressions of the Turcomans. Sometimes the characteristics are mixed, like those given by Baron Fedor Bode: The Turcomans are famous for their courage; it seems to me, however, that this opinion is based on the fact that their enemies are cowardly. No matter how brave the Turcomans seem to be, they don’t like to run risks. Their clashes with the Persians rarely have the character of open and courageous warfare; they usually consist of sudden forays. The main passion of a Turcoman is robbery; nothing is sacred for him, nothing would stop him; if it is impossible to use force, he will resort to ruse in order to attain the aim of his greed. The second passion that excites his soul is revenge. The main fault of this people, which makes them one of the cruelest robbers in the whole Orient, is the slave trade; it destroys any sympathy in them and makes them totally indifferent to other people’s sufferings. . . . The Turcomans will never exploit the helplessness of [another Turcoman’s] widow or orphan. It is always a pleasure for me to point out some good feature of these sons of the desert. In the Turcoman air, there is something elastic and loose, inviting [one] to throw off all bonds.76 D. Logofet considers the Tekin Turcomans less fanatical and more tolerant in religious matters than other Muslims; according to him, they only observe some rites. A Turcoman woman, according to him, “has comparatively more independence, especially before her marriage. She often participates in her family’s affairs, and her voice is taken into consideration in deciding many issues.” At the same time, Logofet does not hesitate to admit that the people of Turcoman are “robbers” by nature, and that “among them raiding is elevated to the status of a cult.”77 P. Lessar mentions their greed and mendacity (shared by the Persians, according to the author): “The Turcomans never tell the truth and always try to deceive a person.”78 Some other non-Persian peoples are mentioned in the Russian travelogues. For example, Nikolai Murav’ev refers to the Azerbaijanis in the following way: “[The Azerbaijanis] are handsome, cheerful, strong and energetic, not affected by that Oriental laziness for which the East is famous, due to their always blue sky and to their always bright sun!”79 Captain A. Tumanskii considers the Lurs who live in western Iran as belonging to a “more pure Aryan type than the Persians:”

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Gender and ethnicity Their dark faces with their regular features are framed in wonderful black, silky hair. Only a few of them turn their gorgeous black beards into matted red hair through the use of henna . . . The women are also markedly beautiful; they are as brave as the men, and in serious cases follow their husbands to the battlefield; there they either load guns or hand cartridges to their husbands, or themselves participate in the shooting. Women are the main workers at home, almost all the care for the material life of a Lur is the women’s responsibility. That is why their price is also very high.80

Captain L. Tigranov studied the Shahsevan, a Turkic people in the northwest of Iran, and the possibilities of getting them to fight on the side of the Russians. He tells about the oppression of the Shahsevan by their Iranian rulers and concludes: The cavalry [of the Shahsevan of Ardebil] is the only force capable of resisting a Russian attack. Feelings of patriotism and love of their common motherland do not exist in the Shahsevan; it is also difficult to instigate religious fanaticism in them, since they are only nominally Muslims and hate the self-interested and cowardly clergy. The only means to persuade the Shahsevan [to engage in] an offensive operation is to promise them material benefits; they certainly will serve those who are able to win their trust and guarantee them some respect and hope of profit.81 Information about the Shahsevan is also found in the article by V. Markov who characterizes them as rather indifferent towards the Muslim rituals, engaged mostly in robbery partly caused by blood feuds. However, he notes that the level of morality is high among their women, “though it is caused not so much by true and conscious morals as by their fear: in a case of fornication, both the guilty persons are punished by death.” As positive qualities of the Shahsevan, the author mentions their hospitality and absence of the habit of drinking alcohol.82 Ia. Shkinskii and P. Aver’ianov tell about the Shahsevan that “there are many noble features in their character (faithfulness to their given word, truthfulness, hospitality, etc.) and their treatment of the common people is more gentle.” The authors also note that the Shahsevan are not religious fanatics.83 The Baluchis, who populate southeastern Iran, are another people mentioned by the Russian travelers. According to A. Miller, Baluchis “laugh at the cowardice and weakness of the Persians,” however “without noticing it, they have fallen under their cultural influence and are losing their nomadic way of life, their language and religion.” Miller

Gender and ethnicity 183 also points out that “their village women and married women do veil themselves.” They “play an important role in family life. They usually rule over their husbands, whom they often beat; they argue and even fight with tax collectors.”84 P. Rittikh, who traveled in Iranian Baluchistan, has the most favorable opinion about its inhabitants: Their faces are tanned, courageous, bellicose, in complete contrast to the puny Persians. The Baluchis are a very handsome people, physically welldeveloped and capable of great endurance. They are standing on the lowest stage of culture, but on the other hand, are very strong and brave. They are certainly a whole-hearted people unfamiliar with opium or corrupting diseases. Stealing and robbery are thought to be lawful acts, since they believe that God offended them by giving them the worst land, and therefore they have a right to take away whatever they need from those more rich. In general, the Baluchis are very superstitious and believe in sorcery, witchcraft, etc. They consider stealing and robbery as sacred acts; these constitute the sixth sense of every Baluchi. To kill a person is very easy for them, it is often done not because of a blood feud but for a sack of dates, which is seen as more valuable than a human life. Baluchis have a special ability to fight not only with strange tribes, but also with their kinsmen. Women serve as peacemakers in the internal hostilities and blood feuds; they enjoy great respect among the Baluchis, especially during fights. On the whole, respect for women is a feature characteristic not only of the Baluchis but also of most other nomadic peoples. Baluchis cannot live without quarrels. Baluchis prefer thievish, stealthy war . . . I really liked the songs of the Baluchis. They have melody and meaning; at the same time, [they have] cheerful tunes, which reflect the strong spirit of robbers, which is also reflected in the theme of the songs. The singer sings all the time about the great past and praises the deeds of Baluchi heroes.85 Concerning the Bakhtiaris, tribes from the southwest, Captain P. Tomilov points out: In general, the Bakhtiaris make a much better impression than the peoples of northern and central Persia. The power of the Shah’s government almost does not exist here, and therefore the robbery of the people by the administration [does not exist either].

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Gender and ethnicity The Bakhtiaris, who are in relatively good circumstances, do not look oppressed, hungry and unhealthy like the Persians; they are a courageous, self-confident and healthy people.86

Therefore, the least favored inhabitants of Iran in the eyes of the Russian travelers are the ethnic Shi’i Persians, the majority of the population of Iran. According to some travelers, they are not just corrupt themselves, but also have a degenerating effect on the other, “pure” peoples who fall under their influence: In regard to the morals, the Farsis [Persians] are the lowest. The newcomers, or the peoples who moved into the Persian territories comparatively recently and have not yet grown accustomed to Persian civilization, have a more attractive character; they consist of Teimurids, Hazaras, Berbers, and in part Kurds.87

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10 Travelers and travelees Russians through Iranian eyes as imagined by the travelers (discourse with themselves)

Though many Iranians regarded Russians as “unclean,” according to the authors of the travelogues, those emotions were not directed specifically against the Russians but generally against all non-Muslim foreigners. As for their attitude towards the Russians, many authors state that different groups of Iranians treated them with respect and sympathy. However, the Russian travelers never actually ask the Iranians, or “the Other,” what they think about them: they are not interested in their real opinion. The travelers’ accounts barely ever reflect a dialogue, but usually a conversation with themselves. According to the Russian travelers, the positive attitude of the Iranians towards the Russians was partly a result of their gratitude, at least in the case of the population of northeastern Iran: after the Russian advance in Central Asia, the Persians were finally saved from the devastating raids of the Turcomans. Also, in the travelogues the Russians’ fair and benevolent treatment of the natives is cited in contrast to the intrigues of their British rivals, reflecting the Great Game competition. Some of the authors even stated that many Persians wanted their territories to be included in Russia. The powerful and well-disciplined Russian Army, contrasted with the unruly Iranian troops who used to plunder their own villages, won the approval and respect of the local people. The strong Russian Imperial government probably was also impressive for those who knew how little actual control over some tribal areas the Qajars were able to exercise and who suffered from the unbridled oppression of corrupt local rulers. In addition, some of the Iranians, referred to by the Russian authors as favorably dispossessed towards the Russians, were participating in the Russo-Iranian trade and benefiting from it. Most of the passages cited below are related to the population of northern and northeastern Iran – the primary area of Russian strategic and trade interests. The newly obtained Central Asian territories were to serve as a springboard for a further drive south. Therefore, the Russians there were particularly concerned with the attitude of the people towards Russia and different aspects of its politics, including the possible reaction of the local populace to an advance of Russian troops into

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Iranian territory. They comment on the mostly friendly attitude of both Persians and non-Persian peoples, such as the Turcomans, Kurds and Baluchis. Another important area was northwestern Iran, where RussoIranian borders had been changed as a result of the two Russo-Iranian wars. All the travelogues quoted below were published in the 1880s, 1890s and 1900s concluding with the years of World War I. For example, Alexander Nikol’skii tells his readers: All ethnic Persians treat the Russians with respect. The khans consider them a well-educated nation, the peasants are grateful for their pacification of the Turcomans. The Turcomans are afraid of them. Many [Persians], knowing Russians better, express without reserve their willingness to become Russian subjects; some of them are held back by their false assumption that the Russians will force them to adopt Christianity.1 P. Vlasov traveled in northern Khorasan in 1892, and this is what he writes about the attitude of the local population towards the Russians: The attraction of the Russian name is significant in Kalat, and its population is friendly and trusting to us; they are not our enemies. They are undoubtedly grateful to us for saving them from the Turcoman raids. Watching the attempts of the Shah to fortify Kalat, the people laugh at them good-naturedly, and openly say that in these attempts they only see fear of Russia’s strength on the part of the Shah and his ministers, which no fortifications in the world can resist. These people have obviously got used to the idea that sooner or later Kalat will fall into Russian hands, and they will have to change their citizenship, which does not worry them and is not contrary to their will and aspirations. The British influence is insignificant in the Khanate of Bojnurd, as well as in the Deragez and Kalat Khanates. The people are not familiar with the British, while the Russian name is pronounced with respect everywhere. The general attitude of the population of all five regions is favorable to us; all of them are inclined to be more friendly and trusting towards us than towards their own government. As for the attitude of their tribal leaders, it is partly cool and distrustful in the case of the rulers of Kalat and Deragez, partly hostile as in the case of the ruler of Kuchan; only the ruler of Bojnurd is willing to enter into closer relations with us. The author also observes that many inhabitants of northern Khorasan have visited Transcaspia and have dealt with Russian merchants, which further encouraged their friendly attitude towards the Russians.2

Travelers and travelees 187 One of the conclusions Captain Leonid Artamonov draws from his account of Khorasan is the following: In general, the people treat the Russians in a friendly manner, though with reserve, and often do not hide their ardent aspirations to become subjects of the “Ak-Padeshah” [“the White Emperor,” meaning the Russian Tsar] as soon as possible, since the common people see it as the only way out of their oppressed condition.3 In his substantial account of his trip to Astarabad, Shahrud and northern Khorasan, on a number of occasions Artamonov describes the friendly attitude of several Turcoman tribes and their willingness to become subjects to the Russian Emperor. He also mentions the rival anti-Russian activities of the British Colonel Stuart in that region. At the same time, Artamonov notes that the Turcomans, proud of their origins, freedom-loving, suspicious, with their nature inclined to alamans [raids], without which they become bored (as they say themselves), favoring changes of place and used to [their] restless, warlike existence, are afraid of the Russian regime, too “lawful” and stern. They cannot accept the idea that a murderer should not be murdered, that [merely] for stealing the thief can lose his freedom for a long time, that for a robbery the person can be exiled to Siberia. That is why it is difficult to believe in the Turcomans’ expressions of sympathy and their desire to become Russian subjects . . . There is one thing that has a strong influence on them – the victorious glory and courage of the Russians. At the same time, the Turcomans will not resist us if we occupy the steppe with our armed forces, since all of them have a deep belief that it is bound to happen sooner or later.4 D. Logofet tells about the sympathy of the Turcoman population of the border areas: The prestige of the Russian name is very high here . . . Young people study the Russian language willingly and are sympathetic to everything Russian. On the whole, the prestige of the Russian name is very high in this part of Persia, and any intrigues would be unable to shake it. The power of Russian arms has been acknowledged by all the inhabitants of the Orient. They all know the Russian army is invincible.5 A. Lomakin is optimistic about the Iranians’ feelings towards the Russians:

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Travelers and travelees Irrespective of the commercial successes achieved by the Russians, more and more sympathy is noticeable towards the Russians and everything Russian among the people of Khorasan. Merchants from Khorasan who visit the cities of Transcaspia engaging in trade, along with the common people who go there in order to earn some money, bring home respect for the steady and just Russian power based on law and not allowing violence [to be visited] upon either the people or their property, unlike the disorder in corrupt Iran. In their conversations with Russians, people from Khorasan, especially peasants, who do not see any way out of their extremely oppressed position caused by Persian anarchy and the excessive extortion by the Shah’s officials, openly express their discontent with the existing situation and state their aspirations to become Russian subjects as soon as possible.6

According to Iu. Mel’nitskii: The attitude of the Kurds to the Russians is full of respect for Russian strength and trust in the humanity of Russian power; hence the Kurds are inclined to fall under Russian authority and probably will not put up strong resistance if we move into Khorasan.7 A. Miller reports that those people from Seistan who have worked in Russian areas such as Merv have a high opinion of the Russians: “[they] pay and settle accounts well, have not stolen a single kopeck [penny] from them, and have not offended anyone.” According to the author, some of the local people express the hope that they will also have “the Russian justice.” At the same time, Miller reports: Concerning the feelings of the population towards Russia and the Russians I cannot yet say anything definite. There is no doubt that the populace of Seistan has some idea of Russia as a big and strong country, but that is all. They have a more realistic and definite idea of England as a rich and big country as a result of frequent visits to Seistan by British officials accompanied by numerous escorts and servants and possessing every possible amenity of camp life. There was no hostility expressed towards me or my Cossack escort. On the contrary, during the whole trip I was treated politely, helpfully and courteously both by the local rulers and the population. As for the Baluchis, Miller writes: “The natives have only heard about Russia and that the Russians want to take Herat. They saw the Russians for the first time. They praised the Cossacks, who treated them well and politely.”8

Travelers and travelees 189 D. Logofet quotes a khan of a Baluchi tribe settled in Khorasan: Of course [it is better to live] under the protection of the Russian Ak-Padeshah, under whose power all the true believers live so well in his whole huge kingdom. The Ak-Padeshah is just and wise, he does not allow any of his hakims (governors) to offend the people, or to take from them zakat (taxes) higher than they are supposed to pay. Everywhere in his empire it is beneficially quiet. Life and property of every one of his subjects are inviolable and protected by his army.9 According to Pavel Ogorodnikov, the governor of Sabzevar said: The British and the Afghans are afraid to approach your borders . . . The Russian name is respected everywhere . . . Everybody is blessing you here: fathers and wives for returning their children and husbands from the [Turcoman] captivity.10 And in a similar vein, Ia. Shkinskii and P. Aver’ianov refer to the attitude of the population of northern Azerbaijan: In general, the majority of the sedentary populace of northern Azerbaijan has an attitude of love and respect towards Russia and the Russians and does not hide their aspiration to become Russian subjects; the poorer the peasants are, the more sympathy they have towards Russia, whom they view as their future deliverer from their heavy oppression by their rulers and landlords.11 The authors add that many peasants asked them in a straightforward manner: “When is Russia finally going to take them? How much longer do they have to wait for the Russians and their new order?” The authors quote a middle-aged man who has gone to Baku for work and has brought back the most favorable impressions from his experiences there: he has decided to move there permanently with his family.12 Shkinskii and Aver’ianov also discuss the attitude of the Shahsevan to the Russians: “The Shahsevan are undoubtedly hostile towards the Russians, but state openly that the reason for this hostility is the prohibition against their roaming into the steppe of Moghan; they have no other reason for their hatred.”13 According to the authors, many of the Shahsevan were hoping that with the construction of a Russian railroad in Azerbaijan the whole area would become Russian and that would give them an opportunity to roam the steppes of Moghan again without hindrance.14 L. Tigranov who traveled in northwestern Iran reports on his observations:

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Travelers and travelees Government anarchy leads to the absolutely unbearable position of the people. They grow impoverished very fast and try to leave for Russia [to find] work . . . People complain bitterly about their oppressed position and often declare openly to the Russian travelers their desire to become Russian subjects.15

In his travel account on Iranian Kurdistan, Benzengr points out that there is a widespread assumption there that “sooner or later Russia will settle a score with its old European rival in Asia and extend its military power to that region as well.” Benzengr also cites one of the influential and wealthy Kurdish sheikhs, who told him: Nothing forces me to be so sincere, but I want you to know that I have a Russian flag ready at home just in case, and if the opportunity arises, I will put myself, together with my followers, under the protection of the Russian representatives.16 In 1859, Nikolai Murav’ev visited the famous village of Turkmanchai where the Russo-Iranian treaty was signed in 1828. He quotes the words of the village headman, who praises the Russians for their kindness, generosity and discipline, including the soldiers and General Paskevich who stayed in his house: [General Paskevich was] such a wonderful man, a real noble! . . . And your soldiers were so brave, joyful and kind; there were about twelve thousand of them, and they would never take a chicken from a yard, or a branch from a tree, or a grape from a vineyard for free! The old man reports that the Russians have paid a lot to the local population, and it was their own Persian army that was ravaging the village.17 Somewhat similar sentiments were expressed by the Kurds in Khorasan, who, as reported by M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, used to say to the Russians: You are more than 200 strange people here now . . . and no one has taken so much as a chip without paying. But it is enough for a few sarbaz to appear here for half an hour and the whole village will be robbed; screams and howls will rise from their violence and insulting behavior.18 A. Emel’ianov tells about the humane attitude of the Russian troops to Iranians during World War I and their tolerant and friendly behavior as a result:

Travelers and travelees 191 By order of the corps commander, on pain of court-martial, the troops were obliged to refrain from any violence and use of force against the civilian population. The taking of property and requisition were forbidden and severely punished. These orders were of great importance. The tolerant behavior of the troops soon brought its results. Indifference and hostility from the local population disappeared. We started noticing friendliness and cordiality. He gives an example of this friendly attitude: in Qom, one of the head mullahs addressed the Russian military commanders in the following words: At first we were afraid of the Russian troops, we were afraid for our holy places, our lives and property. But we worried for nothing. The Russians respect our faith and customs. We cordially thank you and your troops for the humane attitude towards the civilians and for the attention shown the holy places of Qom and the customs of the country. The author also mentions that the Russian physicians and nurses treated not only the Russian wounded but the entire local population, and “the Persians were delighted.”19 P. Tomilov wrote about the plans for construction by the Russians of a Tabriz–Miyaneh–Zanjan–Qazvin–Tehran railroad and the attitude of the Iranians towards the project: The attitude of the population towards the railroad construction is most welcoming. The population not only hopes to profit from the railroad, but is happy that together with the railroad, Russian influence will reach them and bring an end to the reigning tyranny and robbery of the impoverished people by the administrators and landlords. Aware of the influence of Russia on the Shah’s government, many local people try to put themselves under the protection of the Russian Consulate [in Esfahan].20 P. Maksimovich-Vasilevskii relates that he has met Persians, Kurds and Armenians who have traveled to Russia and whose numbers are high in southern Russia, where they are petty traders: Every year, about 100,000 of these working people come to Russia from Persia; upon their return, they tell how good it is [in Russia] and how bad [in Persia]. These stories acquaint our countries with each other and bring them closer.21

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N. Shetalov describes the prestige of the Russians in Iran in the following passage: Every Persian, Armenian, Tatar, etc., who possesses a Russian passport, knows how to become almost an inviolable person in Persia. As I have witnessed, in Shiraz, such Russian subjects, though they don’t know one word of Russian, hold the banner of Russian prestige high; for their own benefit, of course. Perhaps we do not fully appreciate such indirect results of our politics in Central Asia; these results were probably not part of our diplomats’ plans, but they do exist, and the prestige of the Russian name, in spite of all the intrigues and claims of the British, is much higher than people usually think.22 Some authors mention that fear of Russia’s power is an important element in the Iranians’ tolerance towards the Russians. For example, Pavel Ogorodnikov includes in his account his dialogue with a competent Armenian, a Russian agent, in Astarabad: – Am I safe here? I once happened to ask my host. – As in your own house, he answered, and after a moment’s pause continued: – The Persians’ fear of the Russian name is stronger than their hidden contempt towards us, especially now, when our position in Asia is so glorious. – Fear and contempt?! I have heard that they are grateful to us for freeing their countrymen from captivity after the [Russian] massacre in Khiva. – Not gratitude, but servility towards the winner, the powerful neighbor, who will swallow Persia sooner or later.23 N. Mamontov proudly emphasizes that the attitude towards the Russians of the populace in the cities of Enzeli and Rasht is based on fear: There can be any unrest but a foreigner, a ferengi, can pass safely through a raging crowd. Every Persian clearly sees behind the back of any simple Russian shop-keeper the stern figure of a Russian consul with twenty Cossacks, and as their support two or three Russian torpedo boats. He also writes about the sympathy Muhammad-‘Ali Shah had towards the Russians. According to the author, the Iranian ruler could speak a little Russian; he also had a Russian physician, Dr. Sadovskii, as his court physician, and one Captain Smirnov as a tutor for his heir; a

Travelers and travelees 193 personal friend of the Shah, the Russian subject Shapshal, was very influential in Iranian foreign politics. Mamontov tells his readers that Smirnov had graduated from a Department of Oriental Languages; Shapshal had graduated from the Oriental Studies Department at St. Petersburg University and arrived in Iran as a tutor to the present Shah when he was Crown Prince. According to Mamontov, in 1908, as a result of court intrigues, Shapshal had to leave Iran.24 Some authors, such as M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, tell about Russian physicians and some other Russian travelers who provide free medical assistance for the Iranian population. Alikhanov-Avarskii tells about a Russian physician, Dr. Vagner, who helped the local people and treated them with great compassion. One of the Iranians says to AlikhanovAvarskii: “You [Russians] treat us . . . , give us free medicines and even money sometimes . . . It is not surprising that even the Tekins [Tekin Turcomans] love you, the Russians.”25 S. Lomnitskii tells about the physician at the Russian Embassy in Tehran who spends two hours every day seeing poor Iranian patients, prepares medicines for them and “generally treats his needy patients with great compassion.” He adds: “Our Embassy spends a lot of money on medicines, which they order from Tiflis, including huge amounts of quinine, since there are many cases of fever.” Lomnitskii also mentions the activities of the Russian Bank in Tehran which gives loans to the Iranians at the lowest interest; that, too, “causes respect and friendliness [to the Russians] among the people of Tehran, and from here, of course, the rumors spread to the provinces.”26 Some travelers, such as A. Miller, at that time vice-consul in Seistan, explain that while traveling in Seistan, they were usually approached by the local people who asked for medical help: As always, the local people, having asked for my permission to look at the Russian whom they had not seen before, sat in a semicircle in front of the tent. Most of them asked me to treat their eyes, or stomach, or to set their arm or a foot . . . One old man brought his son, who probably had tuberculosis, and with tears in his eyes asked me to give him some medicine at least. I gave him quinine.27 In another account of his, Miller reports on the friendly disposition of Zoroastrians towards the Russians, which at least in part was motivated by their desire to participate in the Russian trade. According to the author, this also served Russian interests and played a significant role in the Russian trade competition with the British.28 N. Shetalov mentions the sympathy of the Babis and Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman towards the Russians and their interest in strengthening ties with them; according to him, Zoroastrians were even interested in studying the Russian language.29

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Among others who briefly mention the Iranians’ friendly attitude towards Russians and the high prestige of Russia in Iran are authors such as Strel’bitskii, Solovkin, Eliseev, Korf and Charykov.30

“Anti-Romanticism” The longing for an exotic alternative to and escape from the constraints of Western civilization was characteristic of the literature of Romanticism. It was reflected in Russian literature of the first half of the nineteenth century. As noted above, it was primarily the theme of the Caucasus and sometimes that of the Crimea that seemed to embody the Romantic aspirations of the Russians and inspired significant Romantic fiction. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the literary trend of Romanticism was yielding to Realism. Most of the Russian “Oriental” travelogues of that period were “anti-Romantic”: they rejected Romanticism and often deliberately ridiculed it and its fascination with Oriental exoticism and sensuality. All the travelogues belong to the literature of Realism, with a few of them containing slight elements of Romanticism; the line between Romantic elements and parody of those very elements is often blurred (Murav’ev, Berezin). “Realistic Orientalism” had “a profoundly political nature,”31 as can be observed in most of the Russian travelogues about Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of the travelers in Iran were not looking for a “romantic” place in which to escape from the Western world, from civilization and rationalism: they were in Iran on official or scholarly missions and duly reported on their experiences and observations. In addition, Iran was a contiguous neighbor, while inside Russia “Oriental” elements were an inseparable part of the Russian culture. Therefore, Iran, as an “Oriental” land, was seen as too familiar and too close to be a Romantic destination. Hence the Russian travelogues are mainly matter-of-fact, prosaic and rational.32 For example, Berezin knew the Russian literature of Romanticism of the first half of the nineteenth century and was well aware of its popularity. He starts his Travel in Dagestan and Transcaucasus33 with a paragraph which is meant to let his readers know what they should not expect to find in his book: The die is cast: the ship “Astrabad” is weighing anchor, and I am leaving for a far and difficult Way to the Orient, to the Motherland of Genuine and Eternal truth and religious delusions, of practical admonitions of Sa’di and fervent reverie of Hafez, to the country of sweet sherbets and mental drowsiness, of the roses that are forever fragrant and beauty that fades so fast, of the most sophisticated compliments and the most intricate curses, mysterious delights and

Travelers and travelees 195 unexpected dagger-thrusts. I am going to the country where fate might throw into my hand the all-powerful Seal of Solomon, which all the genies obey implicitly, and I might come back to my motherland on the wings of the legendary Simorgh, having obtained mysterious power over unseen forces of nature! Further, in his book Berezin pictures a deliberately non-Romantic continuation of the famous romance of Sultanet, ruler of Tarkhu and heroine of the popular Romantic love story by Alexander BestuzhevMarlinskii (1797–1837) Ammalat-Bek (1832). Aiming at Romanticism, Berezin promises with a joking air: “One day I shall write a long and sad elegy on the pitiful status of women in the Orient!”34 Some romantic descriptions of nature in the Caucasus can be found in this account, but they are absent from his other account, entitled Travel in Northern Persia,35 written three years later. In his description of Iran, Berezin touches on such anti-Romantic themes as the absence of “Oriental splendor,” with decay, poverty and dirt in its place; the “imaginary wonders” of the Orient, and even the “unpleasant, sour air” of the andarun. After a detailed and down-to-earth description of its furniture, he explains: “Nothing else interesting is to be found in the andaruns: in my opinion, playful imagination inhabits them in vain with all the delights of sweet Oriental bliss.” At present, writes Berezin, “the wonders of the Orient lie only in contrasts with the common order of things.”36 Some authors refer to the existing stereotypes of Iran as an exotic place and then contrast them to what they perceive as the reality devoid of any poetic images and romantic mysteries. For example, S. Lomnitskii explains: The pictures of Oriental splendor that exist in the imagination of the public are funny to me. All these fairy tales about the magnificence of the Orient, its striking wealth and unheard-of luxury, all this is only either the fruit of the idle imagination of gentlemen writers or stories told by the travelers similar to Mr. Nozdrev37. . . The truth is that both in Europe and in the Orient wealthy people live in what we call wealth, while poor people live in destitution.38 Nikolai Murav’ev warns his readers: Until now, Persia has some kind of classic fame in Europe; they consider it wealthy and its people bellicose; they set it at the height of Oriental luxury and finally turn the country into some glorious image! Those impressions have been brought into Europe a long time ago, together with the Persian shawls and carpets, and the fame of Nader Shah. To this day, Europe looks at Persia from the viewpoint of passion-seeking! But all this is a dream. From afar, Persia

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Travelers and travelees really seems brilliant, but its brilliance is the brilliance of a mountain in the sun: from far away, it seems to have gold and diamonds, but when you get closer you see only mica.39

Grigorii Mel’gunov shares a similar observation: Though Persian poets in their poems try to glorify Mazanderan as the land of roses and love, where, according to their words, nightingales charm everybody’s ears, and the climate is not too cold and not too hot, where it is always spring, in reality this spring is not so attractive, and few people, not only the travelers, but the natives themselves, who are used to their climate, can shake off the severe spring fever. The author even adds the following footnote: “The nightingales coming to the southern shore of the Caspian are rather mediocre singers.”40 Describing Oriental clothing, Misl’-Rustem notes: I lived in the Orient (in Persian and Turkey) for eight years but have not seen what is usually pictured at length by the tourists and newspaper journalists from Oriental countries: as if everywhere in the streets you see a luxuriousness of costumes. To tell you the truth, there are no luxurious costumes in the streets in Persia at any place; rather what you see is poverty and dirt, which at the same time provides plenty of interest for a European.41 Baron Fedor Korf criticizes the notions of “Oriental splendor” and the tales by some travelers [who] do not know where they got their information about Persia from. The rich colors of their descriptions are unlike the bare steppes that occupy a huge part of Persia, and the tasteless results of the activities of its inhabitants.42 A. Emel’ianov refers to the “exotic front” in Persia during World War I with disappointment and a deep understanding of the real situation. What seemed to be exotic from far away, has turned out to be something different from their ideas about romantic escape: Our front is interesting. Different people, mostly noble, come from everywhere . . . Grand Dukes, aristocrats, intellectuals, vagabonds . . . Among them are those who wanted to die at this “damned” front . . . To die of cholera, typhus, malaria, snakes, Kurds. We had both saints and adventurers. Naturally . . . Exotics, Persia. At the end of 1915, I lived in Moscow. I could not breathe. I really wanted

Travelers and travelees 197 to leave. I could go to Murman [the author probably means the region of Murmansk], on a scientific mission, or to Persia, to the war. What a choice I have made! Probably one similar to the others. He comments sarcastically: “We often had visitors – from Tiflis, from Petersburg, sometimes even from abroad. The exotic front was attracting them.”43 In his article about Muslim women, Sergei Cherniaev complains about the European habit of poeticizing the Orient, “to imagine it in some fantastic light, as the land of luxury, splendor, subtle sweet bliss, as a country where everything lives and breathes pleasure.” He continues: When the West is compared with the Orient, the habit of seeing prose in the West and poetry in the Orient is still alive. This annoying stubbornness, which sustains the outdated view of the Muslim Orient among Europeans, is not as noticeable and irritating for anybody else as for the travelers who return from there and who are inevitably subjected to long and constant questioning about the poetic Orient. I can assure those readers who happen to torture with their questions a person who has returned from [the Orient] and who has studied the countries he has seen fairly well, that inside him hidden vexation is boiling at the tone and meaning of the questions asked. These ideas have been preserved since the time when the Orient was flourishing and really could impress the poor inhabitants of southern Europe with its splendor. Of all the false notions about the Orient, the most unforgivable are those that poeticize the position of the woman in the Muslim world. It is easy to guess that most of the readers who, attracted by the title [The fate of women in the Muslim Orient], will bother to read this article, will be looking in it for descriptions of those splendid harems, full of subtle sweet bliss, images of which are usually connected unconsciously with the thought of woman in the Orient and the family life of the followers of Muhammad. There is no poetry in harem life, and there never was.44 Ivan Blaramberg writes about the Persian Army: “The Oriental splendor of Persian military camps, much talked about, has disappeared, if it ever existed. There are no more gorgeous tents, or dancers, or harems following the army.”45 Prince Aleksei Saltykov parodies Romantic descriptions on many occasions: I shall be living in a special world, where nobody has yet been. In the country boring and barren for [others], I shall find hidden

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Travelers and travelees treasures, kept only for me; they are known only to me and no one can guess where they are, only I alone can use them, but in secret, so that a strange eye, a strange cold breath would not destroy the magic palaces of my imagination. In Nahichevan, where, as I thought, even regular wine cannot be found, for me alone Château Lafitte appeared. It was not in vain that I had been dreaming that for me alone treasures are hidden in Persia.46

Most of the Russian travelers express a feeling of disappointment in the Orient, its people and its life. To a certain extent, this feeling of disappointment is similar to the feeling of other “belated” European travelers of the mid- and late nineteenth century. “Traveling in the Orient at a time when the European colonial power structure and the rise of tourism had transformed the exotic referent into the familiar sign of Western hegemony,” those Orientalists experienced a sense of belatedness, of having missed the authentic experience once offered by a world that was already disappearing.47 One of the Russian travelers, N. Shavrov, expressed the feeling of “belatedness” in a very clear way: Only relatively recently, 20–30 years ago, all the littoral area [of the Caspian] still had its natural and typical character. It was a completely Oriental country, quite uncivilized and primitive, which had its own unique appearance. By now, many of the original features are starting to fade away, since the Europeans penetrate everything and bring their culture; they have founded various enterprises and introduced European houses and [the European] way of life. The author describes how in Astara in the bazaar he observed a “wonderful, typical dervish, as if caste in bronze” and comments: “That scene reminded me of ancient Persia, the Orient, the tales of Scheherazade.” He laments: “Now all this ancient, typical life has fallen into oblivion and the new life has come on stage; [the life which is] not yet European but already not Asian.”48

Conclusion 199

Conclusion

This book about Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries seen through Russian eyes, and about the phenomenon of Russian Orientalism, is intended as an open-ended project that offers fertile ground for further research in several directions. The travelogues introduced here constitute a significant resource for those interested in the social history of Qajar Iran, the Great Game from the Russian perspective, and the imperial policies of Russia and Britain in the Middle East. The detailed bibliography of the travelogues, which forms a part of this work, makes them more available and easy to locate. A translation of the more significant accounts from Russian into English and compiling these into an anthology could serve as the next step in mining this resource. Although the current work is limited to the published travelogues alone, in the future these could be supplemented by archival materials also based on the Russians’ trips to Iran, especially on military assignments. Unpublished reports by the same or different authors and a study of the criteria implicit in selecting materials for publication could shed additional light on the patterns of imperial politics and propaganda. This work is limited to the analysis of the Russians’ attitude towards the Iranians, who were considered as foreign “Orientals.” It would be enlightening to draw parallels between this attitude and their view of the Muslim subjects inside Russia. When the threat of Islam is insignificant or non-existent, when Russian domination and superiority are a comfortable perceived reality (especially after the “pacification” of the Caucasus and the conquest of Central Asia), the reaction to their “inferior” fellow citizens and their religious beliefs would probably be more tolerant or at least equivocal. It should differ significantly from the vehement attacks on Islam and pejorative views of the Iranians displayed in the travelogues analyzed above. Russian Orientalism, as a reflection of the divided national identity evidenced in the relations with the “Orientals,” has been only introduced in this work. The travelogues about Iran serve as a convenient canvas for limning the main features of the Russian version of Orientalism, with its unique interpenetration of the observer and the “objects” observed.

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Conclusion

At the same time, the travelogue as literary sub-category imposes certain limitations on the study of this phenomenon. A comprehensive portrait of Russian Orientalism should be broadened to include relations between Russians and the various peoples of the Middle East, including the Turks and Arabs. An undertaking of that kind would involve a thorough analysis of the manifestations of Russian Orientalism in Russian culture, including such areas as literature, architecture, music, paintings and philosophy – and within a broader framework than just the renaissance Orientale of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Diplomacy and the domestic and foreign policy of Imperial Russia would also reveal additional facets of Russian Orientalism. Such a study should probably start with the post-Mongol period beginning in the sixteenth century, when Russia was able to renew its relations with many foreign countries, and extend to at least the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Another related topic might be to compare the Soviet treatment of the peoples of the Middle East with that of the exemplars of Russian Orientalism. However, it is important to keep in mind that the concept of Russian Orientalism, just like the concept of Western Orientalism, cannot be enshrined as a paradigm or immutable law – the reality is inevitably more complex and multi-faceted. As in the classic film Rashomon, it is hard to pin down or fit within a fixed scheme. The best a scholar can do is to point out some general patterns and not expect them to explain every occurrence or approach ultimate truth. In outlining the concept of Russian Orientalism, I can only hope that it will shed some light on aspects of the relations between Russians and the people of the Middle East. An obvious shortcoming is that it inherently reflects a view from the perspective of Russia’s expansion, suggesting a complementary study of Iranian “Occidentalism.” One conclusion that emerges from a review of the Russian travelogues is that the political and economic conditions in Iran needed reform. The tyranny and corruption of the regimes, the backwardness of education and delayed modernization were all obstacles to progress and democracy in Iran and other countries of the Middle East. Orientalism, Russian or Western, did not invent these problems, although it did distort the image of those countries and their peoples while serving the interests of Western imperialism and colonialism in hampering their development. Seeing aspects of the Orientalist discourse as constructive criticism should encourage readers to promote the path of reform and modernization in the contemporary Middle East. In most countries, political independence achieved after World War II did not result in corresponding economic and social progress and the development of political freedoms, while blaming Western colonialism and imperialism for most problems became a convenient reflex. It will hardly be possible for the region to advance without a critical analysis of existing handicaps such as

Conclusion 201 corruption, ethnic and religious tensions, and the lagging development of civil society. It is also instructive to look at the positive changes taking place in other non-Western societies, such as those of East Asia and Latin America, for example, whose past history was also complicated by interference from colonial powers. The struggle for balanced economic development and political reforms has become one of the central issues in the modern Middle East: “Given the political and economic realities of many Muslim societies, the future of democratization remains in doubt.”1 As for the painful and often embarrassing split in Russian national identity between the “superior” West and “inferior” Asia that we have seen in the travelogues of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it can lead, if only on a subconscious level, to pitiful attempts to mask the “problem” and compensate for it. Acknowledging the unique duality of their national consciousness as a reality, even an advantage, would facilitate dealing with the national self and surrounding other-world in a less conflicted way. That necessity has been clearly understood by many observers, including Petr Arkad’evich Stolypin, prime minister (1906–11) and one of the most outstanding of Russian reformers, who said to the Parliament (Duma) in November, 1907: Russian people have been always aware of the fact that they settled down and grew strong on the border of two parts of the world, that they repelled the Mongol invasion and that they appreciate and love the Orient; this consciousness has been reflected in their striving for migration, in their folk stories, and in state symbols. Our eagle, the heritage of Byzantium, is a two-headed one. Of course, eagles with one head are strong and powerful as well, but if you cut off the head of our eagle which is turned to the East, you will not turn him into a one-headed eagle, you will only make him bleed.2 In 2006, almost one hundred years later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote about Russia’s position in global politics: “Russia is prepared to play the role of a bridge; our country has been just such a cultural-civilizational bridge throughout its entire existence.”3 And the two-headed eagle is back as the symbol of Russia.

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Appendix 1: Map

Appendix 1

Iran before World War I

BAKU

RUSSIA

RUSSIA CASPIAN SEA ASTARA

TABRIZ

ASHGABAD

ARDEBIL RASHT

MAHABAD

BOJNURD SARI

ZANJAN

ASTRABAD SARAKHS

QAZVIN

SHAHRUD

MASHHAD

TEHRAN SEMNAN HAMADAN QOM

KERMANSHAH

KASHAN KHORAMMABAD

AFGHANISTAN

BIRJAND DEZFUL

ISFAHAN YAZD

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

AHVAZ

KERMAN BANDAR SHAPUR

SHIRAZ

DUZDAB SAIDABAD

BUSHEHR

BAM

INDIA BAZMAN

THE MOST TRAVELLED AREA

PERSIAN GULF

BANDAR

ABBAS

ROUTES TAKEN BY THE TRAVELERS RUSSIAN AND BRITISH SPHERES OF INFLUENCE

CHAHBAR

QATAR

OMAN

MUSKAT

Appendix 2: travelogues 203

Appendix 2

Travelogues

What is a travelogue? There is no consensus among scholars in regard to whether or not travel literature can be considered a separate literary genre. This is especially true when travelogues are examined without limitations of time frame, literary trend or group of authors. A Glossary of Literary Terms by M. H. Abrams defines the category of literary genre as follows: Genre, a term taken from the French, is used in literary criticism to signify a literary species or, as we now often say, a “literary form.” The genres into which literary works have been classified are numerous, and the criteria for classification have been highly variable, but the most common names still are such ancient ones as tragedy, comedy, epic, satire, and lyric, plus some relative newcomers like novel, essay, and biography.1 The entry makes no mention of travel literature. A number of scholars who deal with travel literature emphasize that travelogues are characterized by an incredible diversity of style and format, their subjects and attitudes, credibility and intentions, and the scope of the importance of the information presented. On that basis, they refuse to treat travel writing as a separate genre. “It includes so many types both by form and by content” that it cannot be a literary genre, states Percy Adams.2 “So little similarity exists between the accounts written by travelers of different centuries” that any general definition of their accounts is hardly possible, maintains Charles Batten.3 The vast body of letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, essays and narrative accounts that record the diverse activities of the authors “make it extremely difficult to identify . . . enough commonly held characteristics distinctive of travel writing to qualify that body of literature as a genre,” notes Joan Corwin.4 Brigitta Maria Ingemanson points out that travel literature “is far too vast in content and diverse in form to be considered a genre” because “The ‘rules’ of a genre covered not only the easily detectable

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Appendix 2: travelogues

‘external’ qualities of a work (structure, basic material), but also the more ‘internal’ ones (themes, atmosphere).”5 Other works take a different view. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, for example, classifies the travel book as a neglected and much varied genre of great antiquity to which many famous, more or less professional or “full-time” writers have contributed, but which also has been enriched by a number of occasional writers. For the most part these have been diplomats, scholars, missionaries, soldiers of fortune, doctors, explorers and sailors.6 In accordance with this view, some scholars maintain that travel literature can be defined as a separate genre, though with some qualifications. While analyzing their specific and therefore limited material, these scholars tend to make generalizations concerning travelogues as a whole and conclude that they might be seen as a genre. For example, Elvio Guagnini, who concentrates on nineteenth-century Italian travelers, acknowledges that “nineteenth-century travel literature incorporates a great variety of models, forms, structures, and levels of language” but at the same time suggests that one can “glean a picture of a genre (or a complex set of subgenres) as an object of theoretical speculation.”7 Similarly, in the Introduction to his book on “travel fact and travel fiction,” Zweder von Martels says: Travel writing seems unlimited in its forms of expression, but though we may therefore find it hard to define the exact boundaries of this genre, it is generally understood what it contains. It ranges from the indisputable examples such as guidebooks, itineraries and routes and perhaps also maps to less restricted accounts of journeys over land or by water, or just descriptions of experiences abroad.8 T. Roboli, who wrote on Russian travel literature at the end of the eighteenth century and in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, defines travel literature as a “compiled genre.”9 The present study is based on the assumption that travel accounts cannot be analyzed as a genre: the approach used here is to define them as a literary sub-category. Even though this research is limited to the Russian travelogues about Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the diversity of their form and content suggests that they should be analyzed in their variety without attempts to constrict them within the artificial frame of an integral literary genre. What is being analyzed in this work under the concept of travelogue are accounts based on real trips to Iran and usually written by the travelers themselves. In all these cases, it is known and can be proved by historical documents that the trip actually took place. For this research,

Appendix 2: travelogues 205 any account written by any Russian or foreigner in the service of Russia who spent any time in Iran with any purpose in mind and published any results of his trip in any form was considered as a potential source and studied carefully.

Classification of travelogues Different scholars employ various ways to classify travelogues. For example, Manfred Link distinguishes four categories: (1) travel manuals and guide books; (2) accounts of discovery and exploration; (3) travel accounts, travel descriptions, travel narratives and travel tales (the latter form already a transition to the fourth group); and (4) travel fiction.10 Based on this reasonable classification of travel literature, the accounts analyzed in this work belong to the second and third categories. The classification of travelogues is often linked to their historical evolution. For example, Percy Adams places the development of travel literature, along with the types of travel writers and their aims, in a historical context and accordingly follows their evolution from ancient times to 1800.11 A somewhat similar well-grounded approach was used by M. H. Braaksma in his research on English travel books about Iran. He states that the literature of travel in its continuity and growth “mirrors clearly, in many of its facets, the spiritual and cultural life of the era in which it was written.”12 Adams further subdivides travel literature into the following main categories: notes written in the first or third person, letters, diaries or journals, simple narratives written in the first person, and “[some] atypical, even surprising forms,” such as the dialogue, part of an autobiography or biography, and even poems.13 Brigitta Maria Ingemanson, speaking of Russian travelogues, notes that the earliest travel literature, represented mainly by “guidebooks or ideological manuals,” provided factual accounts first and foremost of practical value. By the beginning of the eighteenth century travel accounts had the function of entertainment for their readers, in addition to furnishing them with knowledge and/or ideology. Another new and important development was the evolving selectivity that was developing in the travelogues of the nineteenth century; earlier travelers had attempted “to cover everything, regardless of sources, reliability and scope.”14 To this it must be added that selectivity is in any particular case determined by the goals of the journey as well as by the purpose for writing the account. Several other authors take different approaches to the classification of travelogues, written by Russian and other European travelers.15 The important distinction between “primary” and “secondary” evidence has been suggested by John Emerson who claims that the most important form of primary evidence lies in the descriptions of the routes the travelers took.

206

Appendix 2: travelogues The travelers themselves often partly recognize this distinction by dividing their accounts into books on their journeys and books on their general accounts of the countries, although there is much secondary material in the former and much primary in the latter.16

These two categories are clearly evident in the Russian travelogues. The travelogues belonging to the “primary” group describe the course of a journey with concentration on the routes taken and more or less resemble a diary, often being based on one. These travelogues are based on direct and immediate impressions along the way rather than on analytical observations. The travelogues belonging to the group of “secondary” evidence are also based on actual trips and often make use of diaries and journals as well. They are usually more analytical and are broader in scope; they reflect the travelers’ impressions of the journey after some time has passed; often they also contain the results of additional scholarly research that complements the immediate experience of the traveler. Such travelogues are often based on several journeys by the same author. It is often possible to tell from the title of a travelogue to which group it belongs. The travelogues in the first group usually contain such words in their titles as opisanie (description), otchet (report), zhurnal (journal), or poezdka (trip to certain places); and often include the names of routes taken and places visited. The travelogues in the second category are often called vospominaniia (memoirs) or obozrenie (survey; this includes statistical, economic or trade surveys). However, as has been pointed out by Emerson, many travelogues combine elements characteristic of both. Most of the Russian travelogues analyzed in this book belong to the category of “primary” evidence. The goals of the journey provide another major criterion for the classification of travelogues. Discussing motives for traveling, Adams specifies the following general types: merchants, missionaries, pilgrims, explorers, colonizers and colonial officials, warriors, ambassadors and other diplomats, physicians, engineers, those who visited or accompanied relatives or friends on a travel mission, those who fled litigation, family problems, persecution, or unhealthy climates and sought safer or healthier places, and finally, the adventurers who traveled for the sake of travel.17 Ingemanson surveys the possible objectives for travel, which vary with the times. In the earliest times, the reason for a journey and for writing an account of it was often military: participation in a war or conquest was often accompanied by the gathering of information. Pilgrims visited holy places of all denominations for religious reasons; these sites are often described in various itineraries. Later, the “Renaissance quest for knowledge extended into all possible areas including geography, and this interest was generously fed by the accounts brought home by the great discoverers.” Travel accounts can have a political purpose, for example, “to enhance the reputation of the English overseas.”18

Appendix 2: travelogues 207 Additional purposes for travels in the nineteenth century included colonial expansion and the advancement of political and economic interests in the other countries; trade; and diplomacy.

The popularity of travelogues Why have travelogues remained so popular from antiquity to today? What has served as their main attraction for the public? The travelogue was probably the only type of reading that provided a curious mind with both useful information and entertainment. The reader could follow the development of the plot, which was often quite dramatic, and at the same time learn about mysterious and attractive realms and their inhabitants without having to undergo the rigors of an actual journey. Using their imagination, readers of travelogues could wander around the world and take part in discoveries and adventures from the pleasant and familiar atmosphere of their homes. In addition, travel writing opened the world to those who could not afford an actual trip. It is hard to find a scholar of travel literature who would not suggest an explanation for the popularity of his subject, which usually seems to be dear to his own heart as well. “The literature of travel, like the literature of crime and of biography, numbers its devotees among all sorts and conditions of readers, and perhaps most among those who read for enjoyment and recreation.”19 Readers from each generation ask themselves again why these people travelled, what they observed and experienced . . . The imagination of the public has always been captivated by the real, positive achievements of these travellers. There was great interest in the new ideas and discoveries they brought back, the progress and change they could help to bring about on the return from an inspiring journey.20 Another author gives a vivid and exhaustive description of the reasons for the popularity of the travelogue: One can perhaps liken its function to that of television in our time – not the news dispatches (monthly journals contained “travel letters” from strategic spots of politics like Constantinople, Philadelphia, and Geneva, for that), but the grab-bag of easily available information . . . The reader of journeys could pick them up and expect to find a bit of everything: perhaps statistics on the mean temperature in Erevan, anecdotes about Englishmen in Paris, semi-documentary observations on the natives in America or harem ladies in Persia, thoughts on the largest cathedrals in Europe, – all against the story line of the journey itself. [Starting in the late eighteenth and early

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Appendix 2: travelogues nineteenth centuries, this] type of material at once made the new travel literature appealing. It contained just enough variety not to be instantly boring, and yet its information was precise enough to satisfy more than superficial tastes.21

A Russian scholar connects the popularity of Russian travelogues in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with the development of the epistolary and memoir style in Russian literature. He points out that the literature of travel was related to those styles: accounts of journeys were often presented in the form of letters or memoirs. In addition, “ethnographic, historical, and cultural material was much in demand with the readers.”22 The following numbers demonstrate the popularity of travel literature in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: “When Karamzin returned to Russia in 1791 he estimated that there were about 6,000 travel writers, while only about 4,000 novelists in the Paris library he had visited.”23 Wallace Cable Brown, who wrote an article concerning the popularity of English travel books about the Near East from 1775 to 1825, gives abundant proof that by 1825 “travel books had assumed an important place as a popular type of literature.”24 Quite apart from the actual number of those accounts published, the popularity of the Russian travelogues about Iran during the period under analysis can be demonstrated indirectly by the attention given them in contemporary magazines. For example, there were six reviews of Berezin’s accounts of his trip to Northern Iran (1852) and up to 19 reviews of Eliseev’s four-volume account of his travels, published from 1894 to 1898, of which the description of Iran constitutes a part.25

Notes

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Notes

Chapter 1 Setting the stage 1 P. P. Bushev, Istoriia posol”stv i diplomaticheskikh otnoshenii russkogo i iranskogo gosudarstv v 1586–1612 gg. (Po russkim arkhivam) (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 29–30. 2 P. P. Bushev, Posol”stvo Artemiia Volynskogo v Iran v 1715–1718 gg. (Po russkikm arkhivam) (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), 23–24. 3 Firuz Kazemzadeh, “Iranian Relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921,” in Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (eds.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 318–319. 4 Ibid., 318–320. 5 Muriel Atkin, Russia and Iran, 1780–1828 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 5. 6 Ariel Cohen, Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 50. 7 Ibid., 61. 8 Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999), xix–xx. 9 Firuz Kazemzadeh, Russia and Great Britain in Persia, 1864–1914: A Study in Imperialism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), 5. 10 On the mission to the Russian court, see S. V. Shostakovich, Diplomaticheskaia deiatel”nost” A. S. Griboedova (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo sotsial’noekonomicheskoi literatury, 1960), 270–272; Ad. P. Berzhe, “Khosrov-mirza, persidskii prints, 1813–1875 gg.,” Russkaia starina 6 (June 1879): 333–352; 7 (July 1879): 401–414; Count P. P. Sukhtelen, “Persidskoe posol’stvo v Rossii 1829 goda,” Russkii arkhiv (1889): 209–260. 11 See information about the siege of Herat in A. O. Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” Russkii arkhiv 5 (1885): 82–126, 6 (1885): 222–256; Count Ivan Osipovich Simonich, Vospominaniia polnimochnogo ministra, 1832–1838, trans. from French by I. G. Miagkova, ed. E. F. Rassadina (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), 112–154; A. Kh. Ienish, “Osada Gerata v 1838 godu (Epizod iz voiny Persii i Afganistana 1837–1838 g. Iz sovremennykh zapisok doktora A. Kh. Ienish),” Voennyi sbornik 249, no. 10 (1899): 286–298; I. Blaramberg, Vospominaiia (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1978), 12–13, 105–146. 12 Rose Greaves, “Iranian Relations with Great Britain and British India, 1798– 1921,” in Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly, and Charles Melville (eds.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 393.

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13 Dietrich Geyer, Russian Imperialism: The Interaction of Domestic and Foreign Policy, 1860–1914 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 4–5. 14 Ibid., 86. 15 Kazemzadeh, “Iranian Relations with Russia and the Soviet Union,” 341. 16 Meyer and Brysac, Tournament of Shadows, xix. 17 Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 1, 123. 18 Rudyard Kipling, Kim (Urbana, IL: Project Gutenburg, 2000, etext # 2226, 2000), 175, 226. 19 George Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1982), 1: 3–4. 20 Kazemzadeh, Russian Imperialism and Persian Railways, Harvard Slavic Studies, vol. 4, ed. Hugh McLean, Martin E. Malia, and George Fischer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 356–373. 21 Nikkie R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 61–62, 70. 22 For more information, see A. Domontovich, “Vospominaniia o prebyvanii pervoi russkoi voennoi missii v Persii,” Russkaia starina 134, no. 2 (February 1908): 331–340; no. 3 (March 1908): 575–583; no. 4 (April 1908): 211–216; V. A. Kosogovskii, Iz tegeranskogo dnevnika polkovnika V. A. Kosagovskogo [sic] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo vostochnoi literatury, 1960); idem., “Persiia v kontse XIX veka,” Novyi Vostok 3 (1923); idem., “Ocherk razvitiia persidskoi kazach’ei brigady,” Novyi Vostok 4 (1923). See also Kazemzadeh, “The Origin and Early Development of the Persian Cossack Brigade,” The American Slavic and East European Review 15 (1956): 351–363; Nugzar Ter-Oganov, “The Persian Cossack Brigade – an Outpost of Russia’s Tsarism in 1879– 1921,” paper presented at the 4th European Conference of Iranian Studies, Paris, September 1999. 23 For additional information on these events, see N. P. Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirshbauma (otdelenie), 1909), 104–158. 24 Kazemzadeh, Russia and Great Britain in Persia, 499–500. 25 Kazemzadeh, “Iranian Relations with Russia and the Soviet Union,” 343. 26 Ibid. Chapter 2 Orientalism Russian style 1 Mary Louis Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992), 6. 2 The following works touch upon some elements of what can be called Russian Orientalism in regard to the subjects of the Russian Empire: Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997); Robert P. Geraci and Michael Khodarkovsky (eds.), Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversions, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001); Geraci, Window on the East: National and Imperial Identities in Late Tsarist Russia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001); Nathaniel Knight, “Grigor’ev in Orenburg, 1851–1862: Russian Orientalism in the Service of Empire?” Slavic Review 59, no. 1 (Spring 2000); Kalpana Sahni, Crucifying the Orient: Russian Orientalism and the Colonization of Caucasus and Central Asia (Bangkok: White Orchid Press, 1997); Orlando Figes, Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002).

Notes 3 4 5 6 7

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Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 3. Ibid., 204. Ibid., 103. Knight, “Grigor’ev in Orenburg,” 77. It has been agreed among most scholars that to a certain extent the ways in which Russia and its Empire evolved are comparable to those of the other European empires, but there is no consensus about the chronological frame of this process. For example, William Henry Chamberlin has convincingly demonstrated Russia’s “double commitment, to Europe and Russia,” and its historical dynamics (William Henry Chamberlain, “Russia between East and West,” Russian Review 19, no. 4 (1960): 309–315. Some scholars are convinced that the similarity emerged only with the reign of Peter the Great (ruled 1689–1725) and talk about Western ways borrowed or imitated by Russia, or at least about the West as an influence on Russia (for example, Brower and Lazzerini (eds.), “Introduction,” Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, xix). Others maintain that the unity of the European world had ended with the division of Christianity into Eastern and Western Churches in 1054 and the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century when the participation of Russia in the spiritual and political processes of the West declined. Then, despite the almost complete isolation of Russia from the rest of Europe, after the second half of the fifteenth century elements of amazing similarities between them emerged, as has been pointed out by a prominent German Slavonic historian Leonid Luks (Rossiia mezhdu zapadom i vostokom, Moscow: Moskovskii Filosofskii Fond, 1993: 7). He explains that it was an era marked by the triumph of a centralized absolutist state in Russia as well as in most other European countries. For her part, Kalpana Sahni, in her book on the Russian conquest of the Caucasus and Central Asia, tries to demonstrate how Russia’s proximity to the Orient and its isolation from Western Europe were combined with a strong Western European influence (Sahni, Crucifying the Orient). There is no unanimity among Russian scholars regarding a comparability of the spiritual evolution of Russia and Western Europe. For example, Luks remarks on their complete disparity (1993: 7), while a famous Russian historian Sergei Solov’ev (1820–79) emphasizes the spiritual affinity between Russia and Europe. Solov’ev saw Russian history as an evolution along general European lines, though moving at a slower pace. It was his view that Russia’s backwardness was not only the result of the specific features of “the Russian soul” but stemmed primarily from objective factors, including the vast territory of the country, its severe climate, its sparse population, and its location far away from its Western brothers (A. S. Madzharov, “Vostok i zapad v istoriograficheskoi samoidentifikatsii Rossii (30–70-e gg. XIX v.),” in Rossiia i vostok: problemy vzaimodeisviia. III Mezhdunarodnaia konferentsiia 29 maia-4 iiunia 1995. Tezisy dokladov, part I (Cheliabinsk, 1995), 92). In his 2000 article, Vladimir Baranovsky has summarized Russia’s search for self-identification throughout the past thousand years: Those in the first group assume that Russia is Europe, that is, genetically descended from the Christian civilization. There are several variations of this approach: Russia is imperfect Europe . . . or, Russia is the best Europe . . . or, Russia is another Europe . . . The second group of ideas underlines Russia’s closeness to Asia, in opposition to Europe . . . The third basic approach states that Russia is neither the West nor the East, neither Europe nor Asia . . . in other words, Russia is special. (Vladimir Baranovsky, “Russia: A Part of Europe or Apart from Europe?” International Affairs 76, no. 3 (2000): 443–444)

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In similar fashion, some Western scholars, such as the German historian R. Wittram, went so far as to declare that Russia had always been a part of Europe and had passed through the same stages of development, though not always simultaneously with the rest of Europe. Wittram considers the traditional contrasting of Russia with Europe artificial, and he furnishes proofs of “Europe-ism” both “hidden” and “obvious” in every aspect of Russia’s religious and political life (R. Wittram, “Russia and Europe,” trans. T. V. Pravotorova, in Rossiia mezhdu vostokom i zapadom: traditsionnye i sovremennye kontseptsii. Khrestomatiia (Moscow, 1994), 110–117). Conversely, Richard Pipes is among the most representative of those Western scholars who view Russia as an element socially and politically alien to Europe, “to which Russia belongs by virtue of her location, race and religion.” Analyzing the development of Russia from ancient times to the present, Pipes comes to the conclusion that Russia belongs par excellence to that category of states which in the political and sociological literature it has become customary to refer to as “patrimonial.” In such states political authority is conceived and exercised as an extension of the rights of ownership, the ruler (or rulers) being both sovereigns of the realm and its proprietors. (Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974, xxi–xxii) 8 Khodarkovsky, “The Conversion of Non-Christians in Early Modern Russia,” in Geraci and Khodarkovsky (eds.), Of Religion and Empire, 116–117. 9 In one of her articles, Liudmila Polonskaia, a prominent Soviet historian of the Middle East, briefly outlines the views of some prominent Russian and Soviet scholars of the Byzantine Empire concerning this dilemma. For example, Fedor Uspenskii (1845–1928) wrote that the history of the Slavs is hidden to a great extent in the history of the Byzantine Empire; Nina Pigulevskaia (1894–1970) stated that Byzantium, the “golden bridge between the East and the West,” played an enormous role in the development of Russian culture, and that “many elements of the spiritual inheritance of Byzantium kept it alive in the culture of Muscovite Rus.” (L. R. Polonskaia, “Vostok. XX vek. Vzgliad iz Rossii,” in Islam v SNG (Moscow: IV RAN, 1998), 62). 10 R. G. Landa, Islam v istorii Rossii (Moscow: “Vostochnaia Literatura” RAN, 1995), 23–25. 11 N. V. Pigulevskaia, quoted in Polonskaia, “Vostok,” 62. 12 Zinaida Udal’tsova, quoted in Landa, Islam v istorii Rossii, 24. 13 Quoted in Landa, Islam v istorii Rossii, 45–46. 14 V. Bartol’d, Istoriia izucheniia vostoka v Evrope i Rossii, 2nd edn. (Leningrad, 1925), 172. 15 Ariel Cohen, Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 31. 16 Landa, Islam v istorii Rossii, 49–51, 61. 17 Polonskaia, “Vostok,” 68–69. 18 The origin of the Volga Tatars and their relation to the Mongols has been disputed. See Geraci, Window on the East, footnote p. 4; also Ravil Bukharaev, Islam in Russia: The Four Seasons (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 3. 19 On the process of cultural integration of “Oriental” and “Asian” minorities and controversies of “Russianness,” see Geraci, Window on the East; articles by Khodarkovsky, Dittmar Schorkowitz, Firouzeh Mostashari and Geraci

Notes

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22

23

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in Geraci and Khodarkovsky (eds.), Of Religion and Empire; articles by Khodarkovsky, Yuri Slezkine, Dov Yaroshevski, Brower, and Geraci in Brower and Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient. Landa, Islam v istorii Rossii, 56–57. Luks, Rossiia mezhdu zapadom i vostokom, 5. Luks quotes Kliuchevskii, according to whom everything not related to religion and the church was viewed as “the idle curiosity of a superficial mind or as unnecessary, frivolous amusements”: Luks, op. cit., 5. One of the most famous Russian historians, Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826) wrote: “Peter limited his reforms to the nobility. Before then, from the plough to the throne, Russians had only differed in some characteristics of appearance and customs; starting from the time of Peter, the highest levels got separated from the lowest, and a Russian peasant, a petty bourgeois, and a merchant saw nemets [a person who speaks unclearly, later meaning a German] in the Russian gentry.” Karamzin, “Zapiska o drevnei i novoi istorii Rossii v ee politicheskom i grazhdanskom otnosheniiakh,” in V poiskakh svoego puti: Rossiia mezhdu Evropoi i Aziei. Khrestomatiia po istorii rossiiskoi obshchesrvennoi mysli XIX i XX vekov, 2nd edn., rev. (Moscow: Izdatel’skaia korporatsiia “Logos,” 1997), 29. Several authorities attest to this; for example, Nikolai Berdiaev (1874–1948), one of the most prominent Russian philosophers, wrote: Peter’s reforms created the gap between police absolutism and the holy kingdom. A fissure opened between the highest ruling circles of Russian society and the masses of people, who had preserved their old religious beliefs and aspirations. Western influence, which led to the magnificent Russian culture of the nineteenth century, did not have a favorable effect on the people . . . The whole of Peter’s era was a struggle between the West and the East in the Russian soul. (Berdiaev, “Russkaia ideia,” in Russkaia ideia: osnovnye problemy russkoi mysli XIX veka i nachala XX veka. Sud”ba Rossii (Moscow: Svagor i K., 1997), 15) According to Vasilii Kliuchevskii (1841–1911), a well-known Russian historian: The boyarin and the serf did not understand things with the same clarity . . . but they drew their understanding from the same sources, repeated the same catechism and therefore understood each other well; they formed a homogeneous moral mass, so to speak. Western influence destroyed that integrity. The schism that occurred in the Russian Church in the seventeenth century was a theological reflection of that moral duality caused by Western influence on Russian society. (V. O. Kliuchevskii, “Zapadnoe vliianie v Rossii posle Petra (1890 –1891),” in V poiskakh svoego puti, 358–61)

24 Berdiaev, Russkaia ideia, 16. 25 Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States: An Inquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977), 83. 26 The term “Oriental Renaissance” comes from the title that Edgar Quinet, a scholar of languages, cultures and religions, gave to a chapter in his Genie des religions (1841). Raymond Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Rediscovery of India and the East, 1680–1880, trans. Gene Patterson-Black and Victor Reinking (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 11. 27 Ibid.

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28 Said, Orientalism, 51. 29 Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance, 449. 30 B. M. Dantsig, Blizhnii Vostok v russkoi nauke i literature (dooktiabr”skii period) (Moscow: Nauka, Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1973), 106–110, 120, 122–123, 225, 230, 345–346. 31 Richard N. Frye, “Oriental Studies in Russia,” in Wayne S. Vucinich (ed.), Russia and Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples (Stanford, CA: Hoover University Press, 1972), 42–43. 32 V. Bartol’d, Istoriia izucheniia vostoka v Evrope i Rossii, 232. 33 Concerning the politics of the Russian government towards its Muslim subjects, see, for example, Landa, Islam v istorii Rossii, 25; A. Iu. Polunov, “Dukhovnoe vedomstvo i pravoslavie na vostoke Rossiiskoi imperii (Povolzh’e i Zabaikal’e) v 1880-kh-nachale 1890-kh godov,” in Rossiia i vostok: problemy vzaimodeistviia. III Mezhdunarodnaia nauchnaia konferentsiia, 67–69; R. G. Kuzeev and Sh. Mukhamed’iarov, “O natsional’noi politike Rossii v Volgo-Ural’skom regione vo vtoroi polovine XVI-nachale XIX v.,” in Rossiia i vostok: problemy vzaimodeistviia. Tezisy dokladov i soobshchenii k mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii, 16–17 noiabria 1993 goda (Ufa, 1993), 18–25; Seton-Watson, Nations and States, 81. 34 Khodarkovski, “The Conversion of Non-Christians,” in Geraci and Khodarkovsky (eds.), Of Religion and Empire, 116. 35 A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinskii, “O romane N. Polevogo ‘Kliatva pri grobe gospodnem,’ ” Sochineniia v 2 tomakh, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1955), 599. 36 Fedor Dostoevskii, “Dnevnik pisatelia,” in Polnoe sobranie Sochinenii, vol. 27 (Leningrad, 1984), 33. 37 Berdiaev, Sud”ba Rossii. Opyty po psikhologii voiny i natsional”nosti (Moscow: Izdanie G. A. Lemana i S. I. Skhavora, 1918), 5, 10, 15. 38 Said, Orientalism, 187–188, 207–208. 39 I. V. Karatsuba, “Obraz Rossii kak velikoi vostochnoi imperii v zapiskakh angliiskikh puteshestvennikov XVI–XIX vekov,” in Rossiia i vostok: problemy vzaimodeistviia. III Mezhdunarodnaia konferentsiia, 44–47. 40 Rudi Matthee, “Between Aloofness and Fascination: Safavid Views of the West,” Iranian Studies 31 (1998): 233–234. 41 Idem., “Between Sympathy and Enmity: Nineteenth-Century Iranian Views of the British and the Russians,” in Beate Eschment and Hans Harder (eds.), Looking at the Coloniser: Cross-Cultural Perceptions in Central Asia and the Caucasus, Bengal, and Related Areas (Berlin: Ergon Verlag, 2004), 320–321, 325–326, 336–337. 42 S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy. Eskizy i ocherki. 1898–1899–1900 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902), 69. 43 Berdiaev, Russkaia ideia, 37. 44 The unique mission of the Muscovite principality was articulated in its extreme form in the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome expressed in the letter of 1511 from the monk Philotheus of Pskov to Vasilii III (ruled 1505– 33). Moscow was seen as the heir to Rome and Constantinople: “Two Romes have fallen, a Third stands, a fourth there shall not be.” This formula is symbolic of the “East–West” relationship: Moscow in its special mission was preceded by the First Rome in the West, which fell as a result of the Latin “heresy,” which had subordinated faith to secular interests, and the Second Rome, Constantinople, in the East, which had been steadfast in the faith, but which had fallen to the “infidels.” The idea of Moscow as the Third Rome was never to become the official doctrine of the Russian government. In the eighteenth century, however, it was absorbed into the imperial ideology.

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45 Berdiaev, Russkaia ideia, 36–37. 46 Layton, “Nineteenth-Century Russian Mythologies of Caucasian Savagery,” in Brower and Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient, 82. See also idem., Russian Literature and Empire, 10. 47 Patric Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830– 1914 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 136. 48 For example, the travelogues by Bailie Fraser, Henry Rawlinson, Henry Layard, George Curzon, Gertrude Bell, Isabella Bishop, Ella Sykes. 49 Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness, 8. Chapter 3 Overview of the Russian travelogues and their authors 1 Ann K. S. Lambton, Qajar Persia: Eleven Studies (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1988), 207. 2 George N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892), 1: 17–18. 3 M. H. Braaksma, Travel and Literature: An Attempt at a Literary Appreciation of English Travel-Books about Persia, from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Groningen-Batavia: J. B. Wolter’s Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1938), 71, 10. 4 V. Bartol’d, Istoriia izucheniia Vostoka v Evrope i Rossii, 2nd edn. (Leningrad, 1925), 173–174. 5 Afanasii Nikitin, “Khozhdenie za tri moria Afanasiia Nikitina,” in Kniga khozhdenii: Zapiski russkikh puteshestvennikov XI–XV vv. (Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia, 1984), 178–384. 6 N. Kuznetsova, “Introduction,” in Khozhdenie kuptsa Fedota Kotova v Persiiu (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo vostochnoi literatury, 1958), 13. 7 Fedot Kotov, “O khodu v Persidskoe tsarstvo i iz Persidy v Turskuiu zemliu i v Indiiu i v Urmuz, gde korabli prikhodiat,” Vremennik Imperatorskogo Moskovskogo Obshchestvo Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh 15 (1852). 8 P. P. Bushev, Posol”stvo Artemiia Volynskogo v Iran v 1715–1718 gg. (Moscow: Nauka, 1978). 9 Evgenii Zevakin, Azerbaidzhan v nachale XVIII veka (Baku: Izdanie Obshchestva Obsledovaniia i Izucheniia Azerbaidzhana, 1929), 3–4. 10 Bushev, Posol”stvo Artemiia Volynskogo, 155–156. 11 John Bell, Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia, to Various Parts of Asia (Edinburgh: Printed by William Creech, 1788). 12 A. N. Popov, “Snosheniia Rossii s Khivoiu i Bukharoiu pri Petre Velikom,” Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 9 (1853). 13 D. M. Lebedev, Geografiia v Rossii petrovskogo vremeni (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1950), 164. 14 I. Gerber, “Izvestie o nakhodiashchikhsia v zapadnoi storone Kaspiiskogo moria mezhdu Astrakhaniiu i rekoi Kuroi narodakh i zemliakh i o ikh sostoianii v 1728 godu, sochinennoe polkovnikom artillerii Ivanom Gustavom Gerberom,” trans. G. F. Miller, in Sochineniia i perevody k pol”ze i uveseleniiu sluzhashchie (1760), 3–48, quoted in Lebedev, Geografiia v Rossii petrovskogo vremeni, 164; V. G. Gadzhiev, Sochinenie I. Gerbera “Opisanie stran i narodov mezhdu Astrakhaniiu i rekoiu Kuroi nakhodiashchikhsia” kak istoricheskii istochnik po istorii narodov Kavkaza (Moscow: Nauka, 1979). 15 “Introduction,” in Iz zapisok F. I. Soimonova (iz “Morskogo Sbornika” 1888 goda) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Morskogo Ministerstva, v Glavnom Admiralteistve, 1888), 1–2. 16 The most significant works are as follows: [F. Soimonov], Opisanie moria Kaspiisogo ot ust”ia reki Volgi, ot protoki Iarkovskoi do ust”ia r. Astravatskoi, polozhenie zapadnogo i vostochnogo beregov, glubiny i gruntov i vidy znatnykh

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22 23 24 25 26 27

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gor (St. Petersburg: Admiralteiskaia Kollegiia, Akademicheskaia tipografiia, [1731] ); F. I. Soimonov, Opisanie Kaspiiskogo moria i chinennykh na onom rossiiskikh zavoevanii, trudami tainogo sovetnika, gubernatora Sibiri, Fedora Ivanovicha Soimonova, vybrannoe iz zhurnala ego prevoskhoditel”stva, v bytnost” ego sluzhby morskim ofitserom i s vnesennymi, gde potrebno bylo, dopolneniiami Akademii nauk konferents-sekretaria, professora istorii i istoriografa G. F. Millera (St. Petersburg, 1763). M. P. Petrov, “Introduction,” in Bibliografiia po geografii Irana. Ukazatel” literatury na russkom iazyke (1720–1954), ed. N. V. Kunin (Ashkhabad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Turkmenskoi SSR, 1955), 11. Ibid., 13. Samuil Gotlib Gmelin, Puteshestvie po Rossii dlia issledovaniia vsekh trekh tsarstv v prirode, vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1785). K* G**[ablits], Istoricheskii zhurnal byvshei v 1781 i 1782 godakh na Kaspiiskom more Rossiiskoi eskadry pod komandoiu flota kapitana vtorogo ranga grafa Voinovicha (Moscow: Tipografiia Selivanovskogo, 1809). P. B[utkov], “O proisshestviiakh, sluchivshikhsia pri osnovanii russkogo seleniia na begeru Astrabadskogo zaliva v 1781 godu,” Zhurnal Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del 9 (1839), [includes extracts from the diary of Lieutenant Radling]. Ed. Murzaev, “Introduction,” in Deviatiletnee stranstvovaniie. K 200-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia avtora, by Filipp Efremov (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo geograficheskoi literatury, 1950), 1–10. Filipp Efremov, Stranstvovanie Filippa Efremova v Kirgizskoi stepi, Bukharii, Khive, Persii, Tibete i Indii i vozvrashchenie ego ottuda cherez Angliiu v Rossiiu, 3rd edn., rev. (Kazan’: V Universitetskoi tipografii, 1811). Bartol’d, Istoriia izucheniia Vostoka v Evrope i Rossii, 224. P. M. Kemp, “Introduction,” in Kotov, Efremov, Danibegov: Russian Travellers to India and Persia (1624–1798) (Delhi: Jiwan Prakashan, 1959), vi–vii. Bartol’d, Istoriia izucheniia Vostoka v Evrope i Rossii, 227; Rafail Danibegov, Puteshestvie v Indiiu (Moscow, 1815); Atanosov, Sibirskii vestnik (1824). It is surprising how little scholarly use has been made of the Russian travelogues about Iran of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – although difficulties of access and translation certainly contributed to this oversight. I have discovered only one study based on a Russian travelogue of the nineteenth century: the article about the Persian Cossack Brigade by Firuz Kazemzadeh, “The Origin and Early Development of the Persian Cossack Brigade,” The American Slavic and East European Review 15 (1956): 351–360. Some Russian travelogues of the seventeenth century have been utilized in the creative and well-argued dissertation by John Emerson: John Emerson, 1971, “Ex Occidente Lux: Some European Sources on the Economic Structure of Persia between about 1630 and 1690,” PhD diss., Cambridge. A work by Mas’ud Nurbakhsh, Ba Karavan-i Tarikh (Tehran, 1991), gives some information about several Russian travelers to Iran in the nineteenth century and includes quotations from their travelogues. Another recent book written by an Iranian writer that deals with foreign travelers to Iran since the time of Herodotus is Nigari Digar bi Diari Kohan by Said Rahbar (Stockholm, 1997). The author refers to just two of the Russian travelers whose works have been published in Western European languages. The passages selected by Rahbar from the travelogues are mainly confined to the authors’ negative judgements of Iran. Russian travelers are also totally overlooked in most works about travelers to the Middle East which usually concentrate on British travelers. The most comprehensive work on English travelogues about Iran has been written

Notes

28 29 30 31

32 33

34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

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by Dr. M. H. Braaksma, Travel and Literature: An Attempt at a Literary Appreciation of English Travel-Books about Persia, from the Middle Ages to the Present. At the same time, the few studies on Russian travelers to the Middle East hardly mention Iran as one of their destinations, for example, V. Bartol’d, Istoriia izucheniia Vostoka v Evrope i Rossii; Dantsig, Russkie puteshestvenniki na Blizhnem Vostoke (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Mysl’ ”, 1965). A number of articles and books are also devoted to one particularly famous person or another who traveled to Iran, such as Il’ia Berezin, Alexander Griboedov, Nikolai Khanykov, Aleksei Ermolov. Hafez F. Farmayan, “Observations on Sources for the Study of Nineteenthand Twentieth-Century Iranian History,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5 (1974): 33. Ibid., 32. Elton L. Daniel, “Preface,” Society and Culture in Qajar Iran: Studies in Honor of Hafez Farmayan (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2002), xi. See a list of Western and Iranian scholars who contributed to the study of Qajar Iran in Ehsan Yarshater, “The Qajar Era in the Mirror of Time,” Iranian Studies 34, nos 1– 4 (2001): 188–190. In addition, the Ottoman archives seem to contain some information on Qajar Iran (Sabri Ates, “The Ottoman Archives as a Source for the Study of Qajar Iran,” Iranian Studies 37, no. 3 (September 2004): 499–509. Emerson, “Ex Occidente Lux,” 33. “Topograficheskoe i statisticheskoe opisanie vostochnogo berega Kaspiiskogo moria ot Astrabadskogo zaliva do mysa Tiuk-Karagana” (A topographical and statistical description of the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea from the bay of Astarabad to the pir of Tiuk-Karagan), Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchvestva, 4 (1850): 49–120 and “Zhurnal vedennyi vo vremia ekspeditsii dlia obozreniia vostochnykh beregov Kaspiiskogo moria, v 1836 godu” (Diary kept during the expedition to study the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea in 1836) Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 4 (1850): 1–48. “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I. F. Blarambergom v 1841 godu” (A statistical survey of Persia composed by LTC I. F. Blaramberg in 1841) Zapiski Impratorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 7 (1853): 1–359 and Vospominaniia (Memoirs) (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi leteratury, 1978). Count Ivan Osipovich Simonich, Vospominaniia polnomochnogo ministra. 1832–1838 (Memoirs of a Minister Plenipotentiary) trans. from French by I. G. Miagkova, ed. E. F. Rassadina (Moscow: Nauka, 1967). P. I. Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za,” 1878). Gornyi zhurnal. Ezhegodnik Zoologicheskogo muzeia Akademii Nauk. Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva. Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete. Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia. Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii. Voennyi sbornik. Materialy po izucheniiu vostoka. Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii. Otechestvennye zapiski. Sovremennik. Russkii vestnik.

218 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

71 72 73 74

75

Notes

Moskovitianin. Russkaia starina. Biblioteka dlia chteniia. Russkii arkhiv. Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. Turkestanskie Vedomosti. [Anastasii] Benderev, Astrabad-Bastamskii raion Persii. Poezdka po raionu v 1902 godu General”nogo Shtaba Polkovnika Bendereva (Ashkhabad: Tipografia shtaba 2-go Turkestanskogo armeiskogo korpusa, 1904). Il’ia Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’; V tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i v Universitetskoi, 1852). I. F. Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe v 1841 godu.” S. Cherniaev, “Sud’ba zhenshchiny na musul’manskom vostoke,” Otechestvennye zapiski 101 (1855): 41–94. Idem., “Den’ persiianina. Ocherk chastnoi zhizni v Persii,” Sovremennik 63 (1857): 81–120. Idem., “Persidskie doktora i persidskie patsienty,” Sovremennik 47 (1854): 155–171. Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999), xxii. M. H. Braaksma, Travel and Literature, 70. Ibid. Percy G. Adams, Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 68–69. Russkii biograficheskii slovar”, under supervision of A. A. Polovtsev (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. Dimakova, 1904), 18: 72. Sergei Mark, Otchet o komandirovke na Persidskii zaliv (v Bender-Abbas) v 1897 g. vracha Sergeia Marka (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. Peterburgskoi tiur’my, 1898), 12. Ali Behdad, Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 110. William Macmichael, The Golden Cane, London, 1828, 157–158. Cited in Wallace Cable Brown, “The Popularity of English Travel Books about the Near East, 1775–1825,” Philological Quarterly 15 (1936): 71. Lambton, Qajar Persia, 111–112. As described by Edward Said, “[There] is in each scholar some awareness, partly conscious and partly non-conscious, of national tradition, if not of national ideology,” and “The refinements, the personal style, the individual genius, may finally supersede the political restraints operating impersonally through tradition and through the national ambience,” Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 263, 271. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, publishers F. I. Brokgauz and I. A. Efron (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Akts. Obshch. Brokgauz-Efron, 1890–1907), 675. Vasilii Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia Rossiisko-Imperatorskogo posol”stva v Persiiu v 1817 godu (St. Petersburg: pri Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1821). E. E. Lachinov, “Zapiski dekabrista E. E. Lachinova o puteshestvii A. P. Ermolova v Iran v 1817 g.,” Istoriko-filologicheskii zhurnal 1 (Erevan) (1967). Aleksander Egorovich Sokolov, “Dnevnye zapiski puteshestvii rossiiskoimperatorskogo posol’stva v Persiiu v 1816-m i 1817-m godakh,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete 2, no. 233 (1910): 3–48. “Otryvki iz puteshestviia v Persiiu,” Blagonamerennyi 8 (1826).

Notes 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83 84

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Puteshestvie po Vostoku. Puteshestvie po Dagestany i Zakavkaz”iu. Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii. See bibliography on Berezin in Jean Calmard, “La Patronage des Ta’ziyeh: éléments pour une étude globale,” in Ta”ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, ed. Peter Chelkowski (New York: New York University Press, 1979). S. A. Vengerov, Kritiko-biograficheskii slovar” russkikh pisatelei i uchenykh (ot nachala russkoi obrazovannosti do nashikh dnei), 2nd edn., rev., vol. 1. (Petrograd, 1915), 32. F. Gruzdev, “Introduction,” in A. Eliseev, Po belu-svetu. Ocherki i kartiny iz puteshestvii po trem chastiam starogo sveta, vol. 4. (St. Petersburg: Izdanie P. P. Soikina, 1898), v–xl; Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, 621–622; Vengerov, Istochniki slovaria russkikh pisatelei, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1900), 356. Vengerov, Istochniki slovaria russkikh pisatelei, vol. 1, 14–15; Vengerov, Kritiko-biograficheskii slovar’, 54. Otchet o poezdke po Persii. “Ot Askhbada do Meshkheda.”

Chapter 4 The travelers’ missions in Iran 1 [Lev] Al’brant, “Komandirovka kapitana Al’branta v Persiiu v 1838 godu, raskazannaia im samim,” Russkii vestnik 68, no. 3 (1867). 2 Ad. P. Berzhe, “Samson-khan Makintsev i russkie begletsy v Persii,” Russkaia starina (1876): 772–778. 3 General Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu generala Ermolova,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete, 2 (April–June 1863): 175–176. 4 Berzhe, “Samson-khan Makintsev,” 778. According to contradictory reports, Alexander Griboedov was able to deliver a band of Russian deserters to Tiflis. Their number and ultimate fate are unclear. See Lawrence Kelly, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran: Alexander Griboyedov and Imperial Russia’s Mission to the Shah of Persia (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002), 65–72. 5 I. Noskov, “Posol’stvo poruchika Noskova v Persiiu s khrustal’noi krovat’iu,” Istoricheskii vestnik 30 (1887): 432–433. 6 Ibid., 235, 439–440. 7 Al’brant, “Komandirovka,” 305. 8 Firuz Kazemzadeh, “Iranian Relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921,” in Peter Avery, Gavin Hably and Charles Melville (eds.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 338. 9 A. O. Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” Russkii arkhiv 5 (1885): 85. 10 I. F. Blaramberg, Vospominaniia (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsia vostochnoi literatury, 1978), 149; also see pp. 105–107, 139 about the Cossack Brigade. 11 Berzhe, “Samson-khan Makintsev,” 779–781. 12 Ibid., 791. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 792–804. 15 A brief, nonjudgmental description of the Brigade can be found in the account by P. A. Rittikh: P. A. Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu i Persidskii Beludzhistan v 1900 godu (St. Petersburg: Voennaia Tipografiia, v zdanii Glavnogo Shtaba, 1901), 86–87. 16 A. Domontovich, “Vospominanie o prebyvanii pervoi russkoi voennoi missii v Persii,” parts 1–3, Russkaia starina 134, no. 2 (February 1908): 331–340;

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18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25

26 27

28 29 30

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no. 3 (March 1908): 575–583; no. 4 (April 1908): 211–216; V. A. Kosogovskii, Iz Tegeranskogo dnevnika polkovnika V. A. Kosagovskogo [sic] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo vostochnoi literatury, 1960); idem., “Persiia v kontse XIX veka,” Novyi Vostok 3 (1923); idem., “Ocherk razvitia persidskoi kazach’ei brigady,” Novyi Vostok 4 (1923). Kazemzadeh, “The Origin and Early Development of the Persian Cossack Brigade,” The American Slavic and East European Review 15 (1956): 351–363. For additional information about the Cossack Brigade, see Nugzar TerOganov, “The Persian Cossack Brigade – an Outpost of Russia’s Tsarism in 1879–1921,” paper presented at the 4th European Conference of Iranian Studies, Paris, September 1999. Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe s 1882 po 1888 g. Ocherki v rasskazakh (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia i Litografiia V. A. Tikhanova, 1897), 140–151. M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha. Ocherki Persii (Tiflis: Tipogrfiia Ia. I. Libermana, 1898), 222. N. P. Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirshbauma, 1909), 8. Ibid., 87, 108. Mamontov considers the Shah to have been saved “temporarily” because, based on the disorder in Persia which he describes, he has come to the conclusion that Iran is unable to govern herself (ibid., 202–203). Ibid., 203–204. Colonel of the General Staff, Iu. D. Mel’nitskii,“Marshrutnye opisaniia putei mezhdu Askhabadom i Meshkhedom G. Sh. Polkovnika Iu. D. Mel’Nitskogo,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 23 (1886): 152–170. Captain of the General Staff L. K. Artamonov, Severnyi Azerbaidzhan. Voenno-geograficheskii ocherk (Tiflis: Tipografiia kantseliarii Glavnonachal’stvuiushchego grazhdanskoi chast’iu na Kavkaze, 1890), 72–74. Artamonov, “Issledovanie, proizvedennoe v 1891–92 godakh General’nogo Shtaba Kapitanom Artamonovym Astrabad-Shakhrud-Bastamskogo raiona i severnogo Khorasana,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 51 (1892); idem, Poezdka v Persiiu. Astrabad-Shakhrudkii raion i severnyi Khorasan. Voennostatisticheskoe issledovanie (Tiflis: Tipogr. Kants. Glavnok. Grazhd. ch. na Kavkaze, LorisMelikova, 1894); see also idem., Persiia kak nash protivnik v Zakavkaz”e (Tiflis, 1889). Captain of the General Staff V. A. Oranovskii, “Voenno-statisticheskoe opisanie severo-vostochoi chasti Khorasana. 1894 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 68 (1896): 101–102. Lieutenant Bel’gard, “Opisanie i marshruty putei Tegeran-SherestanekValiabad-Baude-Sare-Chaulus; Sare-Chaulus-Sarinkala-MahmadabadMeshedesser; Enzeli-Resht-Kazvin i Kazvin-Tegeran,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 62 (1895): 262–264. Captain of the General Staff P. A. Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke po Persii General”nogo Shtaba kapitana Tomilova v 1900 godu (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1902), 2, 5–6, 13–14. A. A. Lomakin, “Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Khorasana (Materialy k otchetu o poezdke v Meshkhed kapitana A. A. Lomakina),” Turkestanskie vedomosti 37 (March 1905): 190. Lieutenant Karl Al’bertovich von Baumgarten, “Poezdka po Vostochnoi Persii L.-Gv. Volynskogo polka poruchika Baumgartena v 1894 godu,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 63 (1896): 258–259, 267–268, 283, 321–322.

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31 S. N. Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” Voennyi sbornik 8 (1913): 178; 10 (1913): 183–184. 32 Lieutenant-Colonel I. I. Strel’bitskii, “Kratkii predvaritel’nyi ocherk poezdki v Persiiu v 1891 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 51 (1892); idem., “Zapiska o vostochnom Khorasane,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 62 (1895). 33 Colonel Anastasii Benderev, Astrabad-Bastamskii raion Persii. Poezdki po raionu v 1902 godu General”nogo Shtaba Polkovnika Bendereva (Ashkhabad: Tipografiia Shtaba 2-go Turkestanskogo armeiskogo korpusa, 1904). 34 For example, see Dmitrii Beliaev, Otchet o poezdke iz Tegerana v Kerman vesnoiu 1905 goda (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga, 1906), 21–23. 35 Beliaev, Otchet o poezdke po Persii S.-P. B. Imperatorskogo Universiteta F. Vostochnykh iazykov Studenta Dmitriia Beliaeva v 1903 i 1905 gg. (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1906), iii. 36 A. Miller, “Otchet o poezdke po Seistanu Vitse-Konsula v Seistane Kollezhskogo Asessora Millera 24–28 Marta 1900 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 76 (1902): 87. 37 Miller, “Politicheskoe znachenie Kermana i persidskogo Beludzhistana. Zapiska nadv. sov. Millera,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 80 (1907): 88. 38 Lieutenant Baron fon-der-Khoven, “Put’ ot Tegerana k Persidskomu zalivu,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 54 (1893): 146. 39 Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga. 40 Kosogovskii, “Persiia v kontse XIX veka,” 447–448. 41 Ibid., 450; idem., “Ocherk razvitiia persidskoi kazach’ei brigady,” 392. 42 Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” 5: 184. 43 Ibid., 186. 44 F. F. Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova v Persiiu v 1826 godu,” Russkaia starina 118 (April 1904). 45 Noskov, “Posol’stvo poruchika Noskova v Persiiu.” 46 Noskov, “Posol’stvo poruchika Noskova v Persiiu”; Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova v Persiiu”; Baron Fedor Fedorovich Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 18 (1836); idem, Vospominania o Persii: 1834– 1835 (St. Petersburg: V Guttenbergovoi tipografii, 1838). 47 Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” 18: 217. 48 Noskov, “Posol’stvo poruchika Noskova v Persiiu,” 431, 433. 49 Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” 18: 217–218. 50 Ivan Osipovich Simonich, Vospominaniia polnomochnogo ministra: 1832–1838 gg., trans. from French by I. G. Miagkova, ed. E. F. Rassadina (Moscow: Nauka, 1967). 51 A. O. Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” Russkii arkhiv 5, 6 (1885). 52 N. A. Khalfin, Foreword to Vospominaniia polnomochnogo ministra by Simonich, 13. 53 Rose Greaves, “Iranian Relations with Great Britain and India, 1798–1921,” in Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (eds.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 393. 54 Khalfin, Foreword, 14–17. 55 Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” 5: 83–84. 56 Ibid., 5: 88–89. 57 Ibid., 5: 108. 58 Diugamel’ further claims that Simonich had a lithograph insulting to the British hanging in his reception room where he received the British envoy,

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“[which] was tactless and broke all the rules of propriety” and concludes: “If Simonich had stayed at his post for one more year, he would inevitably have provoked a war between England and Russia.” In Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” 90–91. Simonich praises Muhammad Shah who had studied the French and Russian languages and points to the Shah’s respect for Napoleon as one of his best qualities: Being an admirer of Napoleon, he ordered the description of the most brilliant victories of the great general to be translated for him; he remembers well the names of the generals who shared his fame and the names of his main battles. He considers himself to be destined to revive the golden age of Nader-Shah’s reign. (Simonich, Vospominaniia polnomochnogo ministra, 161) 59 Ibid., 6: 242. 60 Persidskie zemli. 61 G. K. Mogilev, Persidskie zemli (Tashkent: Tipo-lit. gazety “Turk. Kur’er,” 1914), 3–5. 62 Russkie pereselentsy v severnoi Persii. 63 B. V. Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy v Severnoi Persii (Petrograd: Izdanie Pereselencheskogo Upravleniia Zemleustroistva i Zemledeliia, 1915), 77. 64 Ibid., 88–90. 65 N. A. Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia (Astrabad–Mazenderan– Gilan) (Petrograd: Tipografiia Morskogo Ministerstva, v Glavnom Admiralteistve, 1916), 105–106, 39, 42–43, 74–75, 155–156, 158. 66 N. K. Zeidlits, Ocherk iuzhno-kaspiiskikh portov i torgovli (Tiflis: V Tipografii Glavnogo Upravleniia Namestnika Kavkazskogo, 1870). 67 F. Bakulin, Ocherki torgovli s Persieiu. Azerbaizhan, Mazanderan, Asterabad (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Ministerstva Putei Soobshcheniia, 1875); idem., “Ocherk vneshnei torgovli Azerbaidzhana za 1870–71 g.,” Vostokovedcheskii sbornik (1877); idem., “Ocherk Russkoi torgovli v Mazanderane i Asterabade v 1871 godu,” Vostokovedcheskii sbornik (1877). 68 M. A. Astsaturov, “Opisanie puteshestviia Mervskogo kuptsa M. A. Astsaturova iz g. Serakhsa cherez g. Meshed v Seistan i obratno iz Seistana po Afgansko-Persidskoi granitse cherez Pul’-i-Khutan v Serakhs,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 76 (1902): 140. 69 Miller, “Torgovlia Bakhramabada. (Denesenie konsula v Kermane),” Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii 1 (1907): 13. 70 Miller, “Karavannye puti iz Mesheda v Seistan,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 77 (1904): 143. 71 Miller, “Torgovlia Seistana v 1903–1904 godu,” Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii 5, no. 6 (1904): 253. 72 Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke, 175. 73 “K voprosu o russkoi torgovle v Persii.” 74 Miller, “K voprosu o russkoi torgovle v Persii. (Donesenie konsula v Kermane),” Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii 8, no. 1 (1905): 49–55. 75 Miller, “Otchet o poezdke po Seistanu,” 61, 70; idem., “Otchet o komandirovke v Kerman (11 sentiabria–19 dekabria 1901 g.) Rossiiskogo Imperatorskogo Konsula v Seistane Nadvornogo Sovetnika A. M. Millera,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 77 (1904): 194–199, 208–211; idem., “Proshloe i nastoiashchee Seistana. Ocherk,” Zhivaia starina 15, no. 4 (1906): 299–301; idem., “Politicheskoe

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77

78

79 80

81 82

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znachenie Kermana i persidskogo Beludzhistana,” 88–89; idem., “Ocherk Arabistana,” Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii 10, no. 3 (1907): 211–215 (mostly on Iranian trade with Western European countries). M. L. Tomar, Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Persii. Otchet chinovnika osobykh poruchenii Departamenta Torgovli i Manufaktur M. L. Tomara, komandirovannogo v 1893–94 gg. v Persiiu dlia issledovaniia polozheniia russkopersidskoi torgovli (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. Kirshbauma, 1895). P. Vvedenskii, “Torgovlia Persii v 1904–1905 gg. Donisenie sostoiashchego pri missii v Tegerane P. Vvedenskogo,” Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii 4 (1906); B. Preobrazhenskii, “Astara-Ardebil’skii karavannyi put’,” Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii 4 (1907); N. I. Shavrov, “Persidskoe poberezh’e Kaspiiskogo moria, ego proizvoditel’nost’ i torgovlia,” Zapiski Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 26, no. 10 (Tiflis: Tipografiia K. P. Kozlovskogo, 1913). Baev, Otchet Chinovnika Ministerstva Finansov, General”nogo Shtaba GeneralMaiora Baeva po komandirovke dlia issledovaniia nashei granitsy s Persieiu i Avganistanom v predelakh Zakaspiiskoi oblasti (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirshbauma, 1888): 49–50, 68–73, 100–130. S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy: Eskizy i ocherki. 1889–1899–1900 gg. (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902): 6, 9–10, 14–19, 158–165, 212–213, 298–299, 346–347, 354–356, 371–373, 383–385, 396–398. Beliaev, “Ot Askhabada do Mesheda,” Istoricheskii vestnik 96 (May 1904): 558–560; idem., Otchet o poezdke po Persii, 10–11, 14 –19, 52–53, 56, 61, 69– 73, 81–82; idem., “Ocherk severo-vostochnoi chasti Persidskogo Kurdistana,” Izvestiia Shataba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga 29 (1910): 19. I. Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’: V tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i v Universitetskoi, 1852), 58–70. For example, E. Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii ot Baku do Ispagani, 1885– 86,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 25 (1887): 9–10, 88–93; Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia, 8–10, 20, 154–155; D. N. Logofet, “Po Kaspiiskomu moriu i persidskoi granitse (Putevye ocherki po Srednei Azii),” 9 (1903): 208–209; 10 (1903): 223–224; P. Florinskii [Tsvetkov], “Ot Tashkenta do Seistana. (Putevye zametki),” Sredniaia Aziia 5 (1910): 82–83, 97; Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke, 24, 59, 65, 144–145, 180–183; P. M. Vlasov, “Statisticheskie svedeniia o Deregezskom, Kuchanskom, Budzhnurdskom i Kelatskom okrugakh i kratkii ocherk Khorasana,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 56 (1894): 185–187; idem., “Izvlechenie iz otcheta P. M. Vlasova o poezdke v 1892 g. po severnym okrugam Khorasana: Serakhskomu, Kelatskomu, Deregezskomu, Kuchanskomu i Budzhnurdskomu,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 52 (1893): 6–7; Ia. F. Shkinskii and P. I. Aver’ianov, Otchet o poezdke po Severnomu Azerbaidzhanu polkovnika Shkinskogo i kapitana Aver”ianova v kontse 1899 goda (Tiflis: Tipografiia shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1900), 36–49, 52–56; Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii, 113–125; Strel’bitskii, “Poezdka po vostochnomu Khorasanu v 1890 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 46 (1891): 140, 204–207; Captain L. F. Tigranov, “Vypiska iz materialov po statisticheskomu opisaniiu Persiiu, sobrannykh general’nogo shtaba Kapitanom Tigranovym,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 78 (1905): 129–131; idem., Iz obshchestvenno-ekonomicheskikh otnoshenii v Persii. Svodka putevykh materialov i nabliudenii o zemlevladenii, podatnoi (maliat) i administrativnoi sistemakh (St. Petersburg: Tipo-Litografiia “Iakor’,” 1909), 158–161; P. I.

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Ogorodnikov, “Poezdka v S.-V. Persiiu,” Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 11, no. 1 (1875): 16–18, 25; idem., Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za,” 1878), 153–157; idem., Strana solntsa (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Demakova, 1881), 242–248; idem., Na puti v Persiiu i Prikaspiiskie provintsii ee, 2nd edn. (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. I. Popova, 1878), 38–39; A. G. Tumanskii, “Ot Kaspiiaskogo moria k Khormuzskomu prolivu i obratno. 1894 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 65 (1896): 4, 32–33, 39–40, 56–61, 73–75, 100–103; N. Shetalov, “Gorod Iezd v 1898–1899 gg. (Vostochnaia Persiia),” Obshchestva Vostokovedeniia, Sbornik Sredne-aziatskogo otdela 1 (1907): 162–185; Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 80–82; idem., Politiko-statisticheskii ocherk Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia N. Findeizena, 1896), 119–126; Artamonov, Severnyi Azerbaidzhan, 46–48; Rubio, “Otchet o komandirovke v Turbeti-Kheidari (v Persii) vracha Rubio,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 78 (1905): 93–97; “Putevye zametki o persidskikh gorodakh Marage, Mianduabe i Souchbulakhe,” Izvestiia shataba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga 17–18 (1906): 43–44, 50–53; P. E. Maksimovich-Vasilevskii, “Poezdka v Persiiu,” Izvestiia Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 17, no. 4 (1904): 243–244; I. A. Ogranovich, “Poezdka v Persiiu,” Voennyi Vestnik 52, no. 11 (1866): 169; idem., “Provintsii Persii: Ardebil’ i Serab,” Zapiski Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 10, no. 1 (1876): 185–187; N. A. Zarudnyi, Ekskursiia po vostochnoi Persii, Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva po obshchei geografii 36, no. 1 (1901) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk), 130; A. M. Nikol’skii, Poezdka v severo-vostochnuiu Persiiu i Zakaspiiskuiu oblast”, Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva po obshchei geografii 15, no. 7 (1886) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperskoi Akademii Nauk), 41–42; Von Baumgarten, “Poezdka po Vostochnoi Persii L.-Gv. Volynskogo polka poruchika Baumgartena v 1894 g. (Geograficheskitorgovoe issledovanie),” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topogra-ficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 63 (1896): 319–322, 326, 332–345. Chapter 5 The travelers’ self-representation vis-à-vis the Oriental “Other” and the British “Self” 1 Joan Corwin (1987) “Identity in the Victorian Travel Narrative,” PhD diss, Indiana University, 5. 2 Baron Fedor Fedorovich Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii. 1834–1835 (St. Petersburg: V Guttenbergovoi tipografii, 1838), iii. 3 Ibid, 90, 166, 167, 232; idem., “Ocherki Persii,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 18 (1836): 229, 19 (1836): 17, 18. 4 Il’ia Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’: V Tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i Universitetskoi, 1825), 275–276. 5 See, for example, Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii, 90–91; P. I. Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za,” 1878), 114; Dmitrii Beliaev, “Ocherk severo-vostochnoi chasti Persidskogo Kurdistana,” Izvestiia shtaba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga 29 (1910): 19. 6 L. I. “Tegeran. (Pis’mo russkogo iz Persii),” Otechestvennye zapiski 34 (1844): 78. 7 Baron Klementii Bode, “Puteshestvie v Luristan i v Aravistan. Putevye zametki,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 125 (1854): 117.

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8 I. F. Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I. F. Blarambergom v 1841 godu,” Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 7 (1853): 43. 9 N. P. Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirshbauma (otdelenie), 1909), 44, 46. 10 P. I. Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Demakova, 1881), ii. 11 A. Domontovich, “Vospominanie o prebyvanii pervoi russkoi voennoi missii v Persii,” Russkaia starina 134, no. 2 (February 1908): 337. 12 N. I. Shavrov, “Persidskoe poberezh’e Kaspiiskogo moria, ego proizvoditel’nost’ i torgovlia,” Zapiski Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 26, no. 10 (1913) (Tiflis: Tipografiia K. P. Kozlovskogo): 68. 13 E. Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii ot Baku do Ispagani, 1885–86,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 25 (1887): 34, 74, 75. 14 S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy. Eskizy i ocherki. 1898–1899–1900 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902), 363. 15 Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu Generala Ermolova,” Chteniia v Iimperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete 2 (April–June 1863): 134. 16 Ibid., 129. 17 Ibid., 156–157. 18 Aleksandr Egorovich Sokolov, “Dnevnye zapiski puteshestviia rossiiskoimperatorskogo posol’stva v Persiiu v 1816-m i 1817-m godakh,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete 2, no. 233 (1910): 39. 19 Sergei Mark, Otchet po komandirovke na Persidskii zaliv (v Bender-Abbas) v 1897 g. vracha Sergeia Marka (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. Petersburgskoi tiur’my, 1898), 12. See also pp. 7, 13, 15, 18, 24. On the British telegraph and the bank, see also, M. L. Tomar, Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Persii. Otchet chinovnika osobykh poruchenii Departamenta Torgovli i Manufaktur M. L. Tomara, komandirovannogo v 1893–94 gg. v Persiiu dlia issledovaniia polozheniia russkopersidskoi torgovli (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. Kirshbauma, 1895), 83; P. A. Rittikh, Politiko-statisticheskii ocherk Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia N. Findeizena, 1896), 118–119, 271–272. 20 Entsiklopedicheskii slovar”, publishers F. I. Brokgauz and I. A. Efron (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Akts. Obshch. Brokgauz-Efron, 1890–1907), 56: 149. 21 Prince A. D. Saltykov, “Puteshestvie v Persiiu,” Moskovitianin 17 (1849): 56. 22 S. Chirkin, “Bushiro-Shirazskii karavannyi put’. Donesenie sekretaria general’nogo konsul’stva v Isfagani,” Sbornik konsul”skikh donesenii 2 (1905): 132. 23 Il’ia Berezin, “Inoi mir,” Russkii vestnik 9 (1857): 226–229. 24 Korf, Vospominainiia o Persii, 187. 25 I. Noskov, “Posol’stvo poruchika Noskova v Persiiu s khrustal’noi krovat’iu,” Istoricheskii vestnik 30 (1887): 435–438. 26 Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu i Persidskii Beludzhistan v 1900 godu (St. Petersburg: Voennaia Tipografiia, v zdanii Glavnogo Shtaba, 1901), 306–307. 27 It is rather remarkable that the Russians established their consulates in Seistan (1900) [A. Miller, “Proshloe i nastoiashchee Seistana. Ocherk,” Zhivaia starina 15, no. 3 (1906): 237] and in Kerman (1905) [idem., “Politicheskoe znachenie Kermana i persidskogo Beludzhistana. Zapiska nadv. sov. Millera,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i

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28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50

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statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 80 (1907), 91], which was partially a British sphere of interest. Probably the main purpose of those consulates was to keep an eye on British activities in Iran. See articles by A. Miller. Miller, “Politicheskoe znachenie Kermana i persidskogo Beludzhistana,” 83. Miller, “Otchet o poezdke po Seistanu Vitse-Konsula v Seistane Kollezhskogo Asessora Millera. 24–28 marta 1900 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 76 (1902): 66. N[ikolai] M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Shtaba Otdel’nogo Korpusa Vnutrennei Strazhi, 1844), part I, 298. A. A. Lomakin, “Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Khorasana. (Materialy k otchetu o poezdke v Meshkhed kapitana A. A. Lomakina,” Turkestanskie vedomosti 35 (March 1905): 179. N. A. Zarudnyi, “Predvaritel’nyi kratkii otchet o poezdke v Persiiu v 1900– 1901 g.,” Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 38 (1902): 133. A. M. Nikol’skii, Poezdka v severo-vostochnuiu Persiiu i Zakaspiiskuiu oblast”, Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Obshchestva po obshchei geografii 15, no. 7 (1886) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk), 39. Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 85. On the British in Iran, see also Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 92–93. B. M. Dantsig, Blizhnii Vostok v russkoi nauke i literature (dooktiabr”skii period) (Moscow : Nauka, Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1973), 112–113. V. Bartol’d, “Obzor deiatel’nosti fakul’teta 1855–1905,” Materialy dlia istorii fakul”teta vostochnykh iazykov (St. Petersburg) 4 (1910), 30. Cited in Dantsig, Blizhnii Vostok v russkoi nauke i literature, 113. Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu,” 127. M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, 46. Zarudnyi, Ekskursiia po vostochnoi Persii, Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva po obshchei geografii 36, no. 1 (1901) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk), 3. N. A. Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia. (Astrabad–Mazenderan– Gilan) (Petrograd: Tipografiia Morskogo Ministerstva, v Glavnom Admiralteistve, 1916), 16. N. A. Kuznetsova and B. M. Dantsig, “I. N. Berezin – puteshestvennik po Zakavkaz’iu, Iranu i Blizhnemu Vostoku,” Kratkie soobshcheniia Instituta Vostokovedeniia (Moscow) 22 (1956), 92. Berezin, Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaz”iu (Kazan’, V Universitetskoi tipografii, 1850), part I, 14, 83, 92, 97. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 20. Ali Behdad, Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 101. Behdad uses Michel Foucault’s term emplacement for the institutional sites. Ibid. Ibid., 104. Mary Louis Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992), 204. Villiam Dittel’, “Ocherk puteshestviia po vostoku s 1842 po 1845,” Biblioteka dlia cheteniia 95 (1849): 2. Karl Al’bertovich von Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii L.-Gv. Volynskogo polka poruchika Baumgartena v 1894 g. (Geograficheskotorgovoe issledovanie),” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 63 (1896): 353. S. N. Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” Voennyi sbornik 5 (1913): 149–151.

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51 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 24. 52 Vasilii Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia Rossiisko-Imperatorskogo posol”stva v Persiiu v 1817 godu (St. Petersburg: pri Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1821), 209. 53 Berezin, Puteshestvi po Severnoi Persii, 5, 35–36. 54 B. Dorn, “Otchet ob uchenom puteshestvii po Kavkazu i iuzhnomu beregu Kaspiiskogo moria akademika B. Dorna,” Trudy Vostochnogo otdeleniia Imperatorskogo Arkheologicheskogo Obshchestva 8 (1864): 282. 55 See, for example, Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 102–103; Blaramberg, Vospominaniia (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1978), 91; Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia, 146, 149– 150; E. E. Lachinov, “Zapiski dekabrista E. E. Lachinova o puteshestvii A. P. Ermolova v Iran v 1817 g.,” Istoriko-filologicheskii zhurnal (Erevan) 1 (1967): 109; M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I, 47–48. 56 Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 11. 57 Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 298–299. 58 Noskov, “Posol’stvo poruchika Noskova v Persiiu,” 428 and A. Polovtsoff, The Land of Timur (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1932), 157–164. Chapter 6 The “travelees” – representation of Iran and her people by the Russian travelers 1 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992), 4. 2 Ibid., 7. 3 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 103. 4 David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 13. 5 S. Cherniaev, “Den’ persiianina. Ocherk chastnoi zhizni v Persii,” Sovremennik 63 (1857): 81. 6 Ibid., 82, 83, 84, 85. 7 Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire, 19. 8 Il’ia Berezin, Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaz”iu (Kazan’: V Universitetskoi tipografii, 1850), part 1, 56. 9 M. H. Braaksma, Travel and Literature: An Attempt at a Literary Appreciation of English Travel-Books about Persia, from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Groningen-Batavia: J. B. Wolters’ Uitgevers-Maatchappij, 1938), 73. 10 Vasilii Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia Rossiisko-Imperatorskogo posol”stva v Persiiu v 1817 godu (St. Petersburg: pri Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1821), 124. 11 N[ikolai] M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii (St. Petersburg, Tipografiia Shtaba Otdel’nogo Korpusa Vnutrennei Strazhi, 1844), part II: 57. 12 E. Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii ot Baku do Ispagani. 1885–86 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 25 (1887): 63–64. 13 Leonid Artamonov, Persiia, kak nash protivnik v Zakavkaz”e (Tiflis, 1889), 161. 14 A. V. Eliseev, Po belu-svetu. Ocherki i kartiny iz puteshestvii po trem chastiam starogo sveta, vol. 4 (St. Petersburg: Izdania P. P. Soikina, 1898), 172. 15 N. P. Danilov, “K kharakteristike antropologicheskikh i fiziologicheskikh chert sovremennogo naseleniia Persii,” Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Obshchestva liubitelei estestvoznaniia, antropologii i etnografii 88, Trudy Antropologicheskogo Otdela 17 (1894).

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16 K kharakteristike antropologicheskikh i fiziologicheskikh chert sovremennogo naseleniia Persii. 17 P. A. Rittikh, Politiko-statisticheskii ocherk Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia N. Findeizena, 1896), 38. 18 Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe s 1882 po 1888 g. Ocherki v rasskazakh (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia i Litografiia V. A. Tikhanova, 1897), 35. 19 Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire, 22. 20 The only exception is found in the account by Dittel’, who mentions that in order to enter the shrines of Husayn and ‘Abbas in Kerbela, he “used Persian costume.” Villiam Dittel’, “Ocherk puteshestviia po Vostoku s 1842 po 1845,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 95 (1849): 22. 21 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Dagestanu, part III, 124–125. 22 Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), 27. 23 Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire, 14. 24 Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu Generala Ermolova,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete 2 (April–June 1863): 133, 168. 25 P. I. Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Demakova, 1881), 205. 26 F. F. Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniaz’ia Menshikova v Persiiu v 1826 godu,” Russkaia starina 118 (April 1904): 74. 27 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 8–9. 28 Ibid., 98. 29 P. Florinskii [Tsvetkov], “Ot Tashkenta do Seistana. (Putevye zametki),” Sredniaia Aziia 6 (1910): 74–75. 30 Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu i Persidskii Beludzhistan v 1900 godu (St. Petersburg: Voennaia Tipografiia, v zdanii Glavnogo Shtaba, 1901), 158–159. 31 I. F. Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I. F. Blarambergom v 1841 godu,” Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 7 (1853): 9–12. 32 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’: V Tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i Universitetskoi, 1852), 268. 33 Cherniaev, “Den’ pesiianina,” 94. 34 Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu,” 130, 144, 151. 35 Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe, 38. 36 Cherniaev, “Den’ Persiiania,” 101. 37 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 221. 38 Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova v Persiiu,” Russkaia starina 118 (May 1904): 294. 39 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 10–12. Transliteration and translation are quoted as they appear in the source. 40 Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire, 85, 87. 41 Baron Fedor Fedorovich Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 19 (1836): 28. 42 See, for example, Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 155–156; D. K. Zhukovskaia, “Persidskii anderun. Pis’ma iz Tegerana,” Vestnik Evropy 10 (1886): 510; Karl Al’bertovich von Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii L.-Gv. Volynskogo polka poruchika Baumgartena v 1894 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 63 (1896): 135; N. P. Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirshbauma (otdelenie), 1909), 49.

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43 Rubio, “Otchet o komandirovke v Turbeti-Kheidari (v Persii) vracha Rubio,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 78 (1905): 86–90. See also Doctor N. A. Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia. (Astrabad–Mazenderan–Gilan) (Petrograd: Tipografiia Morskogo Ministerstva, v Glavnom Admiralteistve, 1916), 38, 117. 44 S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy. Eskizy i ocherki. 1898–1899–1900 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902), 20, 41, 50–51, 81. See also Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa, 73 and Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasredin-shakhe, 22, 41. 45 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 202. 46 Cherniaev, “Sud’ba zhenshchiny na musul’manskom vostoke,” Otechestvennye zapiski 101 (1855): 52. 47 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za,” 1878), 354. 48 Prof. A. M. Nikol’skii, Letnie poezdki naturalista v Turkestane, na Ledovitom okeane, v severnoi Persii, na Sakhaline, 2nd edn. (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo, 1924), 153–154. 49 Eliseev, Po belu-svetu, 181–183. 50 Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire, 46, 52–53, 110. 51 L. F. Tigranov, Iz obshchestvenno-ekonomicheskikh otnoshenii v Persii. Svodka putevykh materialov i nabliudenii o zemlevladenii, podatnoi (maliiat) i administrativnoi sistemakh (St. Petersburg: Tipo-Litografiia “Iakor’,” 1909), 65. 52 A. Polovtsoff, The Land of Timur: Recollections of Russian Turkestan (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1932), 152. 53 Dr. N. Shetalov, “Gorod Iezd v 1898–1899 gg. (Vostochnaia Persiia),” Obshchestvo Vostokovedeniia, Sbornik Sredne-aziatskogo otdela I (1907): 110. 54 Captain [Lev] Al’brant, “Komandirovka kapitana Al’branta v Persiiu v 1838 godu, rasskazannaia im samim,” Russkii Vestnik 68, no. 3 (1867): 311, 317. 55 V. A. Kosogovskii, Iz tegeranskogo dnevnika polkovnika V. A. Kosagovskogo [sic] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo vostochnoi literatury, 1960), 76. 56 P. M. Vlasov, “Izvlechenie iz otcheta P. M. Vlasova o poezke v 1892 g. po severnym okrugam Khorasana: Serakhskomu, Kelatskomu, Deregezskomu, Kuchanskomu i Budzhnurdskomu,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 52 (1893): 45. 57 Captain Bel’gard, “Opisanie i marshruty putei Tegeran-Sherestanek-ValiabadBaude-Sare-Chaulus; Sare-Chaulus-Sarinkala-Mahmudabad-Meshedesser; Enzeli-Resht-Kazvin i Kazvin-Tegeran,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 62 (1895): 261. 58 Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu i Prikaspiiskie provintsii ee, 2nd edn. (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. I. Popova, 1878), 40. 59 Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa, 162. 60 Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu,” 135, 153, 126. 61 Eliseev, Po belu-svetu, 173. 62 Baron Klementii Bode, “Ocherki Turkmenskoi zemli i iugovostochnogo poberezh’ia Kaspiiskogo moria,” Otechestvennye zapiski 107, no. 7 (1856): 180–181. 63 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 266–267. See also Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu, 229; Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” 236–237; idem., Vospominaniia o Persii. 1834–1835 (St. Petersburg: V Guttenbergovoi tipografii, 1838), 250–251. 64 Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 74. 65 Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu, 46, 137; see also Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 279.

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66 See, for example, Captain P. A. Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke po Persiiu general”nogo shtaba kapitana Tomilova v 1900 godu (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1902), 58; Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia, 261; Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-shakhe, 36; Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu i prikaspiiskie provintsii ee, 58, 260; Berezin, Puteshestvie po severnoi Persii, 263, 264, 279, 121, 267, 163; Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 97, 112, 141; Bode, “Puteshestvie v Luristan i v Aravistan. Putevye zametki,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 125 (1854): 125; M. AlikhanovAvarskii, V gostiakh u shakha. Ocherki Persii (1883) (Tiflis: Tipografiia Ia. I. Libermana, 1898), 40; M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 6–7, 10, 86, 106, 140, 154, 226, 232, 253, part 2:114; Blaramberg, Vospominaniia (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1978), 98; Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 34, 74, 75. 67 Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire, 41. 68 Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 206–207. 69 Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii, 22. 70 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 118, 121. See also M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 28, 257–258. 71 Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii,” 243, 201. 72 Egor Ivanovich Chirikov, Putevoi zhurnal E. I. Chirikova, russkogo komissaraposrednika po Turetso-Persidskomu razgranicheniiu. 1843–1852 gg., ed. M. A. Gamazov (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia O. I. Baksta, 1875), 208–209, 282, 298. 73 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 62. The author also makes an interesting comment concerning the connection between geography and drinking in Iran: One of Tehran’s old residents tried to convince me that all Persians drink alike. He is not exactly right. It seems to me that if we divide Persia into three belts, northern, central and southern, and calculate the approximate percentage of those who drink, it will turn out that in northern Persia among the Gilakis, Mazanderanis and residents of the Gaz shore those who drink compose 80% of the [area’s] population, in the middle zone with Tehran – 70%, and the southern part of Persia – 40%. (ibid., 379)

74

75 76 77

One cannot help noticing that the mostly heavy drinking areas, according to Lomnitskii, were those in the close proximity to Russia and most influenced by her. Korf, Ocherki Persii (18): 216. See similar comments in Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii, 146; Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia, 119; Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii,” 246, 287; Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri NasredinShakhe, 35; Aleksandr Egorovich Sokolov, “Dnevnye zapiski puteshestviia rossiisko-imperatorskogo posol’stva v Persiiu v 1816-m i 1817-m godakh,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete 2, no. 233 (1910): 13; A. Rzhevuskii, “Poezdka v Meshkhed,” Voennyi sbornik 193, no. 6 (1890): 367, 375; Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu, 266, idem., Strana solntsa, 11, 17, 150; Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova v Persiiu,” April: 79, May: 293; Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 279. Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova,” May: 294. Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa, 153. Nikol’skii, Letnie poezdki naturalista, 152–153.

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78 Dittel’, “Ocherk puteshestviia po Vostoku,” 5. On pishkesh, see also Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii,” 272, and Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 278–279. 79 “Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaz’iu I. Berezina,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 105 (1851): 11. 80 Ibid., 2. See also similar critiques in P. Savel’ev, “Puteshestvie po Vostoku. I. Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaz’iu Berezina, Professora Kazanskogo Universiteta, Magistra Vostochnoi Slovesnosti i proch., Kazan’,” Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia 65 (1850), part VI: 105. 81 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I, 136–137. 82 L. I. “Tegeran. (Pis’mo russkogo iz Persii),” Otechestvennye zapiski 34 (1844): 67. 83 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 265, 267. 84 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 23. 85 Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe, 43. 86 Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia, 116. 87 Rittikh, Politiko-statisticheskii ocherk Persii, 38. 88 Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 73–74. 89 Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii, 65. 90 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 256, 68. 91 A. A. Lomakin, “Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Khorasana. (Materialy k otchetu o poezdke v Meshkhed kapitana A. A. Lomakina),” Turkestanskie Vedomosti 8 (January 1905): 34. 92 Blaramberg, Vospominaniia, 160. 93 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 49, also 224; part II: 13. 94 Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 71. 95 Bode, “Putevye zametki,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 123 (1854): 21. 96 Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu,” 178. Chapter 7 The “travelees” – education, culture and society 1 Sergei Mark, Otchet po komandirovke na Persidskii zaliv (v Bender-Abbas) v 1897 g. vracha Sergeia Marka (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. Peterburgskoi tiur’my, 1898), 8. 2 F. F. Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova v Persiiu v 1826 godu,” Russkaia starina 118 (May 1904): 306. 3 Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nas-edin-Shakhe s 1882 po 1888 g. Ocherki v rasskazakh (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia i Litografiia V. A. Tikhanova, 1897), 37. 4 I. I. Strel’bitskii, “Poezdka po vostochnomu Khorasanu v 1890 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh mateialov po Azii 46 (1891): 219. 5 S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy. Eskizy i ocherki. 1898–1899–1900 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902), 22. On corruption in the administration, see also Baron Klementii Bode, “Ocherki Turkmenskoi zemli i iugovostochnogo poberezh’ia Kaspiiskogo moria,” Otechestvennye zapiski 108, no. 9 (1856): 140–141. 6 “Otryvki iz puteshestviia v Persiiu,” Blagonamerennyi 8 (1826): 89, 92–93. 7 Captain Kublitskii, “Sovremennaia persidskaia artilleriia (1883 g.),” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 11 (1884): 81. 8 “Persidskaia armiia, so slov kompetentnogo russkogo ofitsera 1891 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 49 (1891): 181.

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9 Villiam Dittel’, “Ocherk puteshestviia po Vostoku s 1842 po 1845,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 95 (1849): 11. 10 Baron Fedor Fedorovich Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 18 (1836): 229; see also pp. 225–232, 19 (1836): 40. 11 N[ikolai] M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii (St. Petersburg, Tipografiia Shtaba Otdel’nogo Korpusa Vnutrennei Strazhi, 1844), part I: 122, 169; part II: 172; see also part I: 169–173, 255–258, 273–274 and part II: 158–66, 172–174. 12 V. A. Kosogovskii, Iz tegeranskogo dnevnika polkovnika V. A. Kosagovskogo [sic] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo vostochnoi literatury, 1960), 105. 13 I. F. Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I. F. Blarambergom v 1841 godu,” Zapiski Imperatorsokogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 7 (1853): 49–60; see also about the Persian Army at the siege of Herat in 1837–1838: idem., Vospominaniia (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1978), 115–154. 14 Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe, 114–140. 15 Lieutenant K. N. Bliumer, “Dislokatsiia persidskoi armii i sostoianie Tavrizskogo garnizona,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 49 (1891): 33–42; P. M. Vlasov, “Statisticheskie svedeniia o Deregezskom, Kuchanskom, Budzhnurdskom i Kelatskom okrugakh i kratkii ocherk Khorasana,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 56 (1894): 187–190; P. I. Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu i Prikaspiiskie provintsii ee, 2nd edn., (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. I. Popova, 1878), 299–301; L. I., “Tegeran. (Pis’mo russkogo iz Persii),” Otechestvennye zapiski 34 (1844): 68; I. A. Ogranovich, “Provintsii Persii: Ardebil’ i Serab,” Zapiski Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 10, no. 1 (1876): 191–198; P. A. Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu i Persidskii Beludzhistan v 1900 godu (St. Petersburg: Voennaia Tipografiia, v zdanii Glavnogo Shtaba, 1901), 214–215; Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 26–28, 146–147; E. Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii ot Baku do Ispagani, 1885–86,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 25 (1887): 18–19; Ia. F. Shkinskii and P. I. Aver’ianov, Otchet o poezdke po severnomu Azerbaidzhanu polkovnika Shkinskogo i kapitana Aver”ianova v kontse 1899 goda (Tiflis: Tipografiia shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1900), 78–81. 16 Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii,” 51. 17 Strel’bitskii, “Poezdka po vostochnomu Khorasanu,” 230. 18 Misl-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe, 149. 19 Leonid Artamonov, Severnyi Azerbaidzhan. Voenno-geograficheskii ocherk (Tiflis: Tipografiia kantseliarii Glavnonachal’stvuiushchego grazhdanskoi chast’iu na Kavkaze, 1890), 72. 20 Colonel [Anastasii] Benderev, Astrabad-Bastamskii raion Persii. Poezdki po raionu v 1902 godu General”nogo Shtaba Polkovnika Bendereva (Ashkhabad: Tipografiia Shtaba 2-go Turkestanskogo armeiskogo korpusa, 1904), 252. 21 Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova,” May, 295–297. 22 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part II: 14–15. 23 A. A. Matisen, “Puteshestvie v Persiiu v 1904 godu,” Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 41, no. 3 (1905): 523. 24 Bode, “Putevye zametki,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 123 (1854): 25. 25 M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha. Ocherki Persii (1883) (Tiflis: Tipografiia Ia. I. Libermana, 1898), 48. 26 S. Cherniaev, “Persidskie doktora i persidskie patsienty,” Sovremennik 47 (1854): 165, 159, 160.

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27 Doctor A. V. Eliseev, Po belu-svetu. Ocherki i kartiny iz puteshestvii po trem chastiam starogo sveta, vol. 4 (St. Petersburg: Izdanie P. P. Soikina, 1898), 176, 209. 28 D. K. Zhukovskaia, “Persidskii anderun. Pis’ma iz Tegerana,” Vestnik Evropy 10 (1887): 531–533. 29 G. K. Minkevich, Poezdka v Meshed. Putevye zametki (Ashkhabad: Tipografiia Shtaba Zakaspiiskoi Oblasti, 1896), 54–59; Mark, Otchet po komandirovke, 73–76. 30 N. A. Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia. (Astrabad–Mazenderan– Gilan) (Petrograd: Tipografiia Morskogo Ministerstva, v Glavnom Admiralteistve, 1916), 123–124; see also pp. 121–126. 31 L. I., “Tegeran,” 76. 32 General Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu Generala Ermolova,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete no. 2 (April–June 1863): 155, 166. 33 Vasilii Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia Rossiisko-Imperatorskogo posol”stva v Persiiu v 1817 godu (St. Petersburg: pri Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1821), 47, 212–213. 34 Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” 19: 18, 19, 23–24. 35 L. I. “Tegeran,” 67. 36 Prince A. D. Saltykov, “Puteshestvie v Persiiu,” Moskovitianin 16 (1849): 194–195. 37 Zhukovskaia, “Persidskii anderun,” 525. 38 Blaramberg, Vospominaniia, 128; Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 34–35; M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part II, 115. 39 Eliseev, Po belu-svetu, 172, 199. 40 P. A. Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke po Persii general”nogo shtaba kapitana Tomilova v 1900 godu (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1902), 64. 41 Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 34. 42 A. G. Emel’ianov, Persidskii front. (1915–1918) (Berlin: Gamaiun) 1923. 43 Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” 19 (1836): 24–25, 18 (1836): 246. See also idem., Vospominaniia o Persii. 1834–1835 (St. Petersburg: V Guttenbergovoi tipografii, 1838), 209–210. 44 Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” 19: 20. 45 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part II, 1–7. 46 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 309–312, 328–331. 47 Grigorii Mel’gunov, O iuzhnom berege Kaspiiskogo moria, in attachment to Zapiski Akademii Nauk 3, no. 5 (St. Petersburg, 1863), 274–283. 48 M. H. Braaksma, Travel and Literature: An Attempt at a Literary Appreciation of English Travel-Books about Persia, from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Groningen-Batavia: J. B. Wolter’s Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1938), 86, 87. 49 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 172–173. 50 Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 18. 51 Cherniaev, “Persidskie doktora i persidskie patsienty,” 156. 52 V. Bartol’d, “I. N. Berezin kak istorik,” in Zapiski Kollegii Vostokovedov 1 (1925): 55. 53 A. O. Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” Russkii arkhiv 5 (1885): 114. 54 M. R-ch, “Ot Moskvy do Tegerana i obratno. Iz vospominanii russkoi puteshestvennitsy,” Vestnik Evropy 3 (1879): 297. 55 Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha, 79. 56 Mark, Otchet po komandirovke, 3. 57 Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu, 155.

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58 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za, 1878), 208–209. 59 Shkinskii and Aver’ianov, Otchet o poezdke, 19. 60 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 228. 61 David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 156. 62 N. P. Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirsbauma (otdelenie), 1909), 202–203, 204. 63 Anouar Abdel-Malek, “Orientalism in Crisis,” Diogenes 44 (1963): 109–110. 64 Il’ia Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’: V tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i v Universitetskoi, 1852), 127, 117, 131. 65 Berezin, “Izvlechenie iz godichnogo otcheta puteshestvuiushchego po vostoku magistra Berezina,” Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia 46 (1845): 44–45. 66 Bartol’d, “I. N. Berezin kak istorik,” 54. 67 Mark, Otchet po komandirovke, 7. 68 Dittel’, “Ocherk puteshestviia po Vostoku,” 5. 69 Dittel’, “Obzor trekhgodichnogo puteshestviia po Vostoku magistra Villiama Dittelia,” Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia 56 (1847): 5. 70 Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke po Persii, 64. 71 A. S. Griboedov, “Letter to Griboedova,” 24 December 1828, in Sochineniia (Moscow–Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo khudozhestvenni literatury, 1959), 641. 72 Nikolai Vladimirovich Khanykov, Ekspeditsiia v Khorasan, ed. N. A. Kuznetsova and N. A. Khalfin, trans. from French by E. F. Rassadina (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1973), 94. 73 Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii, 20, 49. 74 Blaramberg, Vospominaniia, 188. 75 Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia, 70. 76 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 8, 91. 77 Ibid., part II, 8–9, 16–17, 30–34. 78 Said, Orientalism, 154, 104. 79 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 291. 80 Bartol’d, “I. N. Berezin kak istorik,” 57. 81 Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha, 234. 82 Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii, 145. 83 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part II: 168–169. 84 Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 107. 85 A. A. Lomakin, “Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Khorasana (Materialy k otchetu o poezdke v Meshkhed kapitana A. A. Lomakina),” Turkestanskie vedomosti no. 35 (March 1905): 179. 86 Benzengr, “Zapiska o Kurdistane,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 84 (1911): 37. Chapter 8 Islam as perceived by the Russian travelers 1 Michael Khodarkovsky, “ ‘Ignoble Savages and Unfaithful Subjects’: Constructing Non-Christian Identities in Early Modern Russia,” in Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 15. 2 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 59–60, 237.

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3 S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy. Eskizy i ocherki. 1898–1899–1900 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902), 86–87. 4 N[ikolai] M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii (St. Petersburg, Tipografiia Shtaba Otdel’nogo Korpusa Vnutrennei Strazhi, 1844), part II: 157–158, 170. 5 Doctor A. V. Eliseev, Po belu-svetu. Ocherki i kartiny iz puteshestvii po trem chastiam starogo sveta, vol. 4 (St. Petersburg: Izdanie P. P. Soikina, 1898), 124–125. 6 Baron Klementii Bode, “Putevye zametki,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 123 (1854): 7, 8, 26, 54. 7 Bode, “Ocherki Turkmenskoi zemli i iugovostochnogo poberezh’ia Kaspiiskogo moria,” Otechestvennye zapiski 107, no. 7 (1856): 151. 8 Nikolai Vladimirovich Khanykov, Ekspeditsiia v Khorasan, eds. N. A. Kuznetsova and N. A. Khalfin, trans. from French by E. F. Rassadina (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1973), 170. 9 [Lev] Al’brant, “Komandirovka kapitana Al’branta v Persiiu v 1838 godu, raskazannaia im samim,” Russkii vestnik 68, no. 3 (1867): 335. 10 Dementii Ivanovich Tsikulin, “Neobyknovennye pokhozhdeniia russkogo krest’ianina Dementiia Ivanova Tsikulina, v Azii, Egipte, vostochnoi Indii, s 1808 po 1821 god, im samim opisannye,” Severnyi Arkhiv 8 (1825): 353–354. 11 S. N. Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” Voennyi sbornik 5 (1913): 154. 12 For example, Eliseev, Po belu-svetu, 165, 179; F. F. Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova v Persiiu v 1826 godu,” Russkaia starina 118 (May 1904): 306; Ia. F. Shkinskii and P. I. Aver’ianov, Otchet o poezdke po severnomu Azerbaidzhanu polkovnika Shkinskogo i kapitana Aver”ianova v kontsee 1899 goda (Tiflis: Tipografiia shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1900), 18, 28; Egor Ivanovich Chirikov, “Otryvki iz putevogo zhurnala polkovnika Chirikova,” Izvestiia Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 1, no. 5 (1872): 174; S. Cherniaev, “Persidskie doktora i persidskie patsienty,” Sovremennik 47 (1854), 156; N. Shetalov, “Gorod Iezd v 1898–1899 gg. (Vostochnaia Persiia),” Obshchestvo Vosokovedeniia. Sbornik Sredne-aziatskogo otdela 1 (1907): 113; P. I. Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za,” 1878), 95; idem, Na puti v Persiiu i Prikaspiiskie provintsii ee, 2nd edn., (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. I. Popova, 1878), 165; A. Rzhevuskii, “Poezdka v Meshkhed,” Voennyi sbornik 193, no. 6 (1890): 371; Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” no. 10 (1913): 172; Khanykov, Ekspeditsiia v Khorasan, 174; Vasilii Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia RossiiskoImperatorskogo posol”stva v Persiiu v 1817 godu (St. Petersburg: Pri Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1821), 260; Il’ia Berezin, “Inoi mir,” Russkii vestnik 9 (1857): 215–216; idem., Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’: V tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i v Universitetskoi, 1852), 62. 13 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 22, 67, 89. 14 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 236. 15 P. A. Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu i Persidskii Beludzhistan v 1900 godu (St. Petersburg: Voennaia Tipografiia, v zdanii Glavnogo Shtaba, 1901), 130. Other references to Muslim “fanaticism” are found on pages 169 and 184. 16 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 30; part II: 166–169. 17 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 246–247. 18 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 129. 19 I. F. Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I. F. Blarambergom v 1841 gody,” Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 7 (1853): 273.

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20 I. A. Ogranovich, “Provintsii Persii: Ardebil’ i Serab,” Zapiski Kavkazskogo otdela Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 10, no. 1 (1876): 188–189. 21 M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha. Ocherki Persii (1883) (Tiflis: Tipografiia Ia. I. Libermana, 1898), 103. 22 D. Beliaev, “Ot Askhabada do Mesheda,” Istoricheskii vestnik 97 (June 1904): 955. 23 Karl Al’bertovich von Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii L.-Gv. Volynskogo polka poruchika Baumgartena v 1894 g. (Geograficheskotorgovoe issledovanie),” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 63 (1896): 276, 136–137. 24 Cherniaev, “Den’ persiianina. Ocherk chastnoi zhizni v Persii,” Sovremennik 63 (1857): 98. 25 I. I. Strel’bitskii, “Poezdka po vostochnomu Khorasanu v 1890 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 46 (1891): 186–187. 26 E. Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii ot Baku do Ispagani, 1885–86,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 25 (1887): 56. 27 See, for example, P. A. Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke po Persii general”nogo shtaba kapitana Tomilova v 1900 godu (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga, 1902), 72; Blaramberg, Vospominaniia (Moscow: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1978), 184; Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha, 46; Strel’bitskii, “Poezdka po vostochnomu Khorasanu,” 184; Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe s 1882 po 1888 g. Ocherki v rasskazakh (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia i Litografiia V. A. Tikhanova, 1897), 153; Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia, 82–83. 28 Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Demakova, 1881), 92– 93, idem., Ocherki Persii, 258–259. 29 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 85. 30 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 121–122, 380–381. 31 Ibid., 127–129. 32 Eliseev, “Sredi dervishei,” Russkii vestnik 7 (1894): 128–132, 136–138, 142– 143; 8 (1894): 27. 33 Prince A. D. Saltykov, “Puteshestvie v Persiiu,” Moskovitianin 17 (1849): 56. 34 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 305. 35 Leonid Artamonov, Severnyi Azerbaidzhan. Voenno-geograficheskii ocherk (Tiflis: Tipografiia kantseliarii Glavnonachal’stvuiushchego grazhdanskoi chastiu na Kavkaze, 1890), 22. 36 Artamonov, Persiia, kak nash protivnik v Zakavkaz”e (Tiflis, 1889), 13. 37 Strel’bitskii, “Poezdka po vostochnomu Khorasanu,” 182–183. 38 Rubio, “Otchet o komandirovke v Turbeti-Heidari (v Persii) vracha Rubio,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 78 (1905): 91. 39 A. Miller, “Karavannye puti iz Mesheda v Seistan,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 77 (1904): 165. 40 Miller, “Proshloe i nastoiashchee Seistana. Ocherk,” Zhivaia starina 15, no. 4 (1906): 302. 41 “Putevye zametki o persidskikh gorodakh Marage, Mianduabe i Souchbulakhe,” Izvestiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga 17–18 (1906): 48. 42 Chirikov, “Otryvki iz putevogo zhurnala,” 166. 43 P. M. Vlasov, “Izvlechenie iz otcheta P. M. Vlasova o poezdke v 1892 g. po severnym okrugam Khorasana: Serakhskomu, Kelatskomu, Deregezskomu, Kuchanskomu i Budzhnurdskomu,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 52 (1893): 44–45.

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44 A. Gagarin, “Persidskii Kurdistan,” Zapiski Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 1 (1852): 258. 45 N. N. Khan-Iomudskii, “Astrabad i Giurgenskaia step’. (Putevye zametki),” Sredniaia Aziia 8 (1910): 98–99. 46 A. Polovtsoff, The Land of Timur: Recollections of Russian Turkestan (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1932), 155–156. 47 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 352–353. 48 Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 147. 49 Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” no. 8, p. 172. 50 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 273–274. 51 Beliaev, “Ot Askhabada do Mesheda,” 96: 572, 97: 951–952, 955. 52 Shkinskii and Aver’ianov, Otchet o poezdke, 28. 53 Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa, 79. 54 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 274. 55 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 95. 56 Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa, 7. 57 Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” 142, 153. 58 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 67. 59 I. Noskov, “Posol’stvo poruchika Noskova v Persiiu s khrustal’noi krovat’iu,” Istoricheskii vestnik 30 (1887): 428. 60 “Shakhsay-Wakhsay” (or “Shakhsei-Vakhsei”) is the name given to the Muharram processions by the Russians because of the people’s chanting: “Shah Husayn, va Husayn.” Many Russian travelers use this term for the Muharram processions. 61 Polovtsoff, The Land of Timur, 157–164. 62 Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 45–46; Firuz Kazemzadeh, “Iranian Relations with Russia and the Soviet Union,” in Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (eds.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 338–339; S. V. Shostakovich, Diplomaticheskaia deiatel”nost” A. S. Griboedova (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo sotsial’no-ekonomicheskoi literatury, 1960), 217–224; G. A., “Rasskaz Ambartsuma” and I. S. Mal’tsov, “Iz Donesenii,” in A. S. Griboedov v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, S. A. Fomichev and P. S. Krasnov (eds.) (Moscow: “Khudozhestvennaia literatura,” 1980). (See a version which challenges standard accounts in Algar, Religion and State in Iran, 1969, pp. 94–99, mentioned by Keddie, Roots of Revolution, p. 280, #4). Laurence Kelly, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran: Alexander Griboyedov and Imperial Russia’s Mission to the Shah of Persia (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002). 63 Baron Fedor Fedorovich Korf, “Ocherki Persii,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 19 (1836): 26. 64 Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 275. 65 A. Domontovich, “Vospominanie o prebyvanii pervoi Russkoi voennoi missii v Persii,” Russkaia starina 134, no. 2 (February 1908): 334. 66 Ogorordnikov, Ocherki Persii, 95. 67 Ad. P. Berzhe, “Aleksandr Sergeevich Griboedov v Persii i na Kavkaze. 1818–1828,” Russkaia starina 10 (1874); idem., “A. S. Griboedov kak diplomat. 1827–1829,” Russkaia starina 11, 12 (1874). 68 Count Ivan Osipovich Simonich, Vospominaniia polnomochnogo ministra: 1832–1838, trans. from French by I. G. Miagkova, ed. E. F. Rassadina, (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), 34, 101–105. 69 A. O. Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” Russkii arkhiv 5 (1885): 87–88. 70 Rittikh, “Nashi snosheniia s Persiei i eie politicheskoe polozhenie v XIX-m stoletii,” Russkii vestnik (June 1896): 49–54.

238 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

85 86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

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Blaramberg, Vospominaniia, 93. Artamonov, Persiia, kak nash protivnik v Zakavkaz”e, 3. Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu, 155. Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 232. Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia, 70–71. Rzhevuskii, “Poezdka v Meshkhed,” no. 6: 371. Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 191. Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova,” May, 309–310. Eliseev, Po belu-svetu, 231–232. Eliseev, “Sredi dervishei,” 24. Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 276. D. N. Logofet, Na granitsakh Srednei Azii. Putevye ocherki v 3-kh knigakh. Kniga 1. Russkaia granitsa (St. Petersburg: Izdal Berezovskii, 1909), book 1: 209. Tsikulin, “Neobyknovennye pokhozhdeniia,” 9 (1825), 66–67. L. I. “Tegeran. (Pis’mo russkogo iz Persii),” Otechestvennye zapiski 34 (1844): 77–78; A. G. Emel’ianov, Persidskii Front (1915–1918) (Berlin: Gamaiun, 1923), 84–85, 124–129; Blaramberg, Vospominaniia, 42, 156–157; Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii. 1834–1835 (St. Petersburg: V Guttenbergovoi tipografii, 1838), 208, 252–258; Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 10–11, 70; M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 290–296, 301–312; Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii,” 149–154; Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 273– 276; Chirikov, “Otryvki iz putevogo zhurnala,” 177–180; Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 218–222; Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 134–144; D. K. Zhukovskaia, “Persidskii anderun. Pis’ma iz Tegerana,” Vestnik Evropy 10 (1887): 538–541; Villiam Dittel’, “Ocherk puteshestviia po Vostoku s 1842 po 1845 g.,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 95 (1849): 8–9. Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii, 292–347. “Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii Berezina,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 119 (1853): 5. K. Ushinskii, “Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii Berezina,” Sovremennik 41 (1853): 89. Jean Calmard, “Le mécenat des représentations de ta’ziyeh,” Le Monde Iranien et l”Islam, Société d’Histoire de l’Orient 4 (1976–1977): 133–162; idem, “La Patronage des ta’ziyeh; éléments pour une étude globale,” in Peter Chelkowski (ed.) Ta”ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1979), 121–131; Peter Chelkowski, “Dramatic and Literary Aspects of Ta’ziyeh-Khani – Iranian Passion Plays,” in Review of National Literature 2 (Spring 1971): 121–138; idem, “Ta’ziyeh: Indigenous Avant-Garde Theatre of Iran,” in Ta”zieyh: Ritual and Drama in Iran; idem, “Mourning Becomes Revolution,” Asia (May/June 1980): 30–45; idem, “Popular Shi’i Mourning Rituals,” and “From Maqatil Literature to Drama,” in Papers from the Imam Husayn Conference, London, 6–9 July, 1984. Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe, 101–113. Strel’bitskii, “Poezdka po vostochnomu Khorasanu,” 185. Bode, “Puteshestvie v Luristan i v Aravistan. Putevye zametki,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia 125 (1854): 131. Emel’ianov, Persidskii Front, 117, 129–130. Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 305. Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii,” 50–58. M[urav’ev], “Pis’ma russkogo iz Persii,” part I: 100, 214–215. Blaramberg, Vospominaniia, 62. Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 202–205. Ibid., 184.

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Chapter 9 Gender and ethnicity 1 David Spurr, The Rhetorics of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 170. 2 Meyda Yegenoglu, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 12. 3 Ibid., 43. 4 Sergei Mark, Otchet po komandirovke na Persidskii zaliv (v Bender-Abbas) v 1897 g. vracha Sergeia Marka (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. Peterburgskoi tiur’my, 1898), 19, 52. 5 G. K. Minkevich, Poezdka v Meshed. Putevye zametki (Ashkhabad: Tipografiia Shtaba Zakaspiiskoi Oblasti, 1896), 49–50. 6 [Lev] Al’brant, “Komandirovka kapitana Al’branta v Persiiu v 1838 godu, raskazannaia im samim,” Russkii vestnik 68, no. 3 (1867): 311. 7 M. [A.] Gamazov, “O Turtsii i Persii. Iz zapisok puteshestvennika,” Sovremennik 64 (1857): 19. 8 Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu Generala Ermolova,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete 2 (April–June 1863): 149. 9 Dementii Ivanovich Tsikulin, “Neobyknovennye pokhozhdeniia russkogo krest’ianina Dementiia Ivanova Tsikulina, v Azii, Egipte, vostochnoi Indii s 1808 po 1821 god, im samim opisannye,” Severnyi Arkhiv 8 (1825): 354. 10 V. A. Kosogovskii, Iz tegeranskogo dnevnika polkovnika V. A. Kosagovskogo [sic] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo vostochnoi literatury, 1960), 110–113. 11 D. K. Zhukovskaia, “Persidskii anderun. Pis’ma iz Tegerana,” Vestnik Evropy 10 (1887): 537, 505. 12 Ibid., 503, 531–542. 13 M. R-ch, “Ot Moskvy do Tegerana i obratno. Iz vospominanii russkoi puteshestvennitsy,” Vestnik Evropy 3 (1879): 297. 14 Yegenoglu, Colonial Fantasies, 12, 75–76. 15 A. O. Diugamel’, “Avtobiografiia,” Russkii arkhiv 5 (1885): 235–240. 16 A. V. Eliseev, Po belu-svetu. Ocherki i kartiny iz puteshestvii po trem chastiam starogo sveta, vol. 4 (St. Petersburg: Izdanie P. P. Soikina, 1898), 172. 17 S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy. Eskizy i ocherki. 1898–1899–1900 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902), 112–113. 18 Ermolov, “Zhurnal posol’stva v Persiiu,” 143. 19 P. A. Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu i Persidskii Beludzhistan v 1900 godu (St. Petersburg: Voennaia Tipografiia, v zdanii Glavnogo Shtaba, 1901), 207. 20 Karl Al’bertovich von Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii L.-Gv. Volynskogo polka poruchika Baumgartena v 1894 g. (Geograficheskotorgovoe issledovanie),” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 63 (1896): 201, 276, f. n. #2. 21 P. I. Ogorodnikov, Na puti v Persiiu i Prikaspiiskie provintsii ee, 2nd edn. (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M. I. Popova, 1878), 287. 22 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za,” 1878), 220, 299. 23 N. A. Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia (Astrabad–Mazenderan– Gilan) (Petrograd: Tipografiia Morskogo Ministerstva, v Glavnom Admiralteistve, 1916), 121. 24 E. Belozerskii, “Pis’ma iz Persii ot Baku do Ispagani, 1885–86,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 25 (1887): 59–61.

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25 F. F. Bartolomei, “Posol’stvo Kniazia Menshikova v Persiiu v 1826 godu,” Russkaia starina 118 (April 1904): 85. 26 Irvin C. Schick, The Erotic Margin: Sexuality and Spatiality in Alteritist Discourse (London: Verso, 1999), 1. 27 Prince A. D. Saltykov, “Puteshestvie v Persiiu,” Moskovitianin 16 (1849): 183, 200, 202; 17 (1849): 32, 4748, 55. 28 Gamazov, “O Turtsii i Persii,” 111–112. 29 Vasilii Borozdna, Kratkoe opisanie puteshestviia Rossiisko-Imperatorskogo posol”stva v Persiiu v 1817 godu (St. Petersburg: pri Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1821), 114, 133–134. 30 P. Florinskii [Tsvetkov], “Ot Tashkenta do Seistana (Putevye zametki,)” Sredniaia Aziia 6 (1910): 75–76. 31 N. N. Khan-Iomudskii, “Astrabad i Giurgenskaia step’ (Putevye zametki),” Sredniia Aziia 9 (1910): 224. 32 “Sud’ba zhenshchiny na musul’manskom vostoke.” 33 S. Cherniaev, “Sud’ba zhenshchiny na musul’manskom vostoke,” Otechestvennye zapiski 101 (1855): 46, 44, 53, 55. 34 Ibid., 67, 73–74, 75, 78, 85. 35 “Den’ persiianina.” 36 Cherniaev, “Den’ persiianina. Ocherk charstnoi zhizni v Persii,” Sovremennik 63 (1857): 87, 114, 118–119. 37 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 103, 104, 107. 38 Ibid., 115–116, 110, 378. 39 N[ikolai] M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Shtaba Otdel’nogo Korpusa Vnutrennei Strazhi, 1844), part II: 35–36, 39, 46–47, 70–71. 40 Ibid., 41–58, 37, 47–48, 61–62. 41 Ibid., 73–100. 42 Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nas-edin-Shakhe s 1882 po 1888 g. Ocherki v rasskazakh (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia i Litografiia V. A. Tikhanova, 1897), 44–53. 43 A Shi’i sect that emerged in Iran in the mid-nineteenth century and whose followers inspired a popular uprising there. It later served as one of the sources of Behaism. 44 A dualistic religion that emerged in the seventh or sixth century BC in Iran and was mostly ousted from there after the Muslim Arabs conquered Iran in the second half of the seventh century. 45 Il’ia Berezin, Putheshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’: V tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i v Universitetskoi, 1852), 164–165. 46 Il’ia Berezin, “Inoi mir,” Russkii vestnik 9 (1857): 219. 47 Mark, Otchet po komandirovke, 52. 48 Zoroastrians in India. 49 N. Shetalov, “Gorod Iezd v 1898–1899 gg. (Vostochnaia Persiia),” Obshchestvo Vostokovedeniia. Sbornik Sredne-aziatskogo otdela 1 (1907): 116–121. 50 Ibid., 113–114. 51 Rittikh, Politiko-statisticheskii ocherk Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia N. Findeizena, 1896), 69, f. n. #1. 52 Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 182–184, 185–187, 207. 53 Rittikh, “Nashi snosheniia s Persiei i ee politichskoe polozhenie v XIX stoletii,” Russkii vestnik June (1896): 74–78, 76. To prove his statements, Rittikh quotes the book by Mirza-Kazem-Bek, Bab i babidy, 1865, and works by Sevriugin and Moshnin, without providing their titles. On the Babis, see similar information in his Politiko-statisticheskii ocherk Persii, 62–71. 54 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 230–231.

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55 A. G. Emel’ianov, Persidskii Front (1915–1918) (Berlin: Gamaiun, 1923), 130, 132–134. 56 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 244–245. 57 I. E. Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I. F. Blarambergom v 1841 godu,” Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 7 (1853): 278. 58 A. Miller, “Otchet o komandirovke v Kerman (11 sentiabria–19 dekabria 1901 g.) Rossiiskogo Imperatorskogo Konsula v Seistane Nadvornogo Sovetnika A. Millera,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 77 (1904): 213–214, 237. 59 Baumgarten, “Poezdka po vostochnoi Persii,” 14, 137–138, 202. 60 M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha. Ocherki Persii (1883) (Tiflis: Tipografiia Ia. I. Libermana, 1898), 89–90. 61 For example, Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia, 89–90; Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 221–225; Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii, 292–296; I. A. Ogranovich, “Poezdka v Persiiu,” Voennyi vestnik 52, no. 11 (1866): 176–177. 62 Dmitrii Beliaev, Otchet o poezdke po Persii S.-P. B. Imperatorskogo Universiteta F. Vostochnykh iazykov Studenta Dmitriia Beliaeva v 1903 i 1905 gg. (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1906), 2–8. 63 Kosogovskii, Iz tegeranskogo dnevnika, 136. 64 Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire, 125–126. 65 Captain of the General Staff Benzengr, “Zapiska o Kurdistane,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 84 (1911): 14–15. 66 V. F. Minorskii, “Kurdy. Zametki i vpechatleniia,” Izvestiia Ministerstva Inostrannykh Del 3 (1915): 220–222, 224–225. 67 S. N. Babich, “Po severnoi Persii,” Voennyi sbornik 5 (1913): 175–176, 11 (1913): 144–147. 68 Rittikh, Politiko-statisticheskii ocherk Persii, 42. 69 Peter Avery, “Nadir Shah and the Afsharid Legacy,” in Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (eds.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 4. 70 A. M. Nikol’skii, Poezdka v severo-vostochnuiu Persiiu i Zakaspiiskuiu oblast”. Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva po obshchei geografii 15, no. 7 (1886) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk), 37; idem, Letnie poezdki naturalista v Turkestane, na Ledovitom okeane, v severnoi Persii, na Sakhaline, 2nd edn., (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo, 1924), 181. 71 Nikol’skii, Poezdka v severo-vostochnuiu Persiiu, 14–15, 22. 72 See, for example, “Putevye zametki o persidskikh gorodakh Marage, Mianduabe i Souchbulakhe,” Izvestiia shtaba Kavkazskogo Voennogo Okruga 17–18 (1906): 47–48; Minkevich, Poezdka v Meshed, 51. 73 Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia, 8, 100–101, 103. 74 Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Demakova, 1881), 17. 75 Khan-Iomudskii, “Astrabad i Giurgenskaia step’,” 8: 104, 9: 226–227. 76 Baron Klementii Bode, “Ocherki Turkmenskoi zemli i iugovostochnogo poberezh’ia Kaspiiskogo moria,” Otechestvennye zapiski 107, no. 8 (1856): 450, 453–454, 456–457. 77 D. N. Logofet, “Po Kaspiiskomu moriu i persidskoi granitse (Putevye ocherki po Srednei Azii),” Voennyi sbornik 9 (1903): 220, 10 (1903): 211, 8 (1903): 185, 206. 78 P. M. Lessar, “Zametki o Zakaspiiskom krae i sopredel’nykh stranakh,” Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 20 (1884): 35, 37. See also Baev, Otchet Chinovnika Ministerstva Finansov, General”nogo Shataba General-Maiora Baeva po komandirovke dlia issledovaniia nashei

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79 80 81

82 83

84 85 86 87

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granitsy s Persieiu i Avganistanom v predelakh Zakaspiiskoi oblasti (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirpibauma, 1888), 36–37. M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 59. Captain A. G. Tumanskii, “Ot Kaspiiskogo moria k Khormuzskomu prolivu i obratno. 1894 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 65 (1896): 42. Captain L. F. Tigranov, “Vypiska iz materialov po statisticheskomu opisaniiu Persii, sobrannykh general’nogo shtaba Kapitanom Tigranovym,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 78 (1905): 128–129. V. Markov, Shakhseveny na Mugani. Istoriko-etnograficheskii ocherk (Tiflis: Tipografiia Kantseliarii Glavnonachal’stvuiushchego Grazhdanskoi Chastiu na Kavkaze, 1890), 20–21, 15. Ia. F. Shkinskii and P. I. Aver’ianov, Otchet o poezdke po Severnomu Azerbaidzhanu polkovnika Shkinskogo i kapitana Aver”ianova v kontse 1899 goda (Tiflis: Tipografiia shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1900), 70–71. Miller, “Proshloe i nastoiashchee Seistana. Ocherk,” Zhivaia starina 15, no. 4 (1906): 302–303. Rittikh, Otchet o poezdke v Persiiu, 256, 266–267, 275–276, 292, 296, 297. P. A. Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke po Persii general”nogo shtaba kapitana Tomilova v 1900 godu (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1902), 86–87. V. A. Oranovskii, “Voenno-statisticheskoe opisanie severo-vostochnoi chasti Khorasana. 1894 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 68 (1896): 63.

Chapter 10 Travelers and travelees 1 A. M. Nikol’skii, Poezdka v severo-vostochnuiu Persiiu i Zakaspiiskuiu oblast”, Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva po obshchei geografii 15, no. 7 (1886) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk), 48. 2 P. M. Vlasov, “Izvlechenie iz otcheta P. M. Vlasova o poezdke v 1892 g. po severnym okrugam Khorasana: Serakhskomu, Deregezskomu, Kuchanskomu i Budzhnurdskomu,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 52 (1893): 12–13, 34, 44, 23. 3 Leonid Artamonov, “Issledovanie, proizvedennoe v 1891–92 goadakh General’nogo Shtaba Kapitanom Artamonovym Astrabad-ShakhrudBastamskogo raiona i severnogo Khorasana,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 51 (1892): 137. 4 Artamonov, Poezdka v Persiiu. Astrabad-Shakhrudskii raion i severnyi Khorasan. Voenno-statisticheskoe issledovanie (Tiflis: Tipogr. Kants. Glavnok. Grazhd. ch. na Kavkaze, Loris-Melikova, 1894), 19, 24–25, 48–49, 69, 77, 81–83, 92–95, 98–99, 103, 106, 121–123, 126–127, 132–133. 5 D. N. Logofet, “Po Kaspiiskomu moriu i persidskoi granitse (Putevye ocherki po Srednei Azii,” Voennyi sbornik 8 (1903): 181, 9 (1903): 220, 10 (1903): 217. 6 A. A. Lomakin, “Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Khorasana. (Materialy k otchetu o poezdke v Meshkhed kapitana A. A. Lomakina),” Turkestanskie vedomonsti 35 (March 6, 1905): 179. 7 Colonel Iu. D. Mel’nitskii, “Marshrutnye opisaniia putei mezhdu Askhabadom i Meshkhedom G. Sh. Polkovnika Iu. D. Mel’nitskogo,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 23 (1886): 157.

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8 A. Miller, “Otchet o poezdke po Seistanu Vitse-Konsula v Seistane Kollezhskogo Asessora Millera. 24–28 marta 1900 g.,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 76 (1902): 57, 71, 87. 9 Logofet, “Po Kaspiiskomu moriu,” 10 (1903): 217 or idem., Na granitsakh Srednei Azii. Putevye ocherki v 3-kh knigakh. Kniga 1. Persidskaia granitsa (St. Petersburg: Izdal Berezovskii, 1909), 222–223. 10 P. I. Ogorodnikov, Strana solntsa (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Demakova, 1881), 76. 11 Ia. F. Shkinskii and P. I. Aver’ianov, Otchet o poezdke po Severnomu Azerbaidzhanu polkovnika Shkinskogo i kapitana Aver”ianova v kontse 1899 goda (Tiflis: Tipografiia shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1900), 31–32. 12 Ibid., 32, f. n. # 2. 13 Ibid., 70. Shkinskii and Aver’ianov explain that most of the territory of the steppe of Moghan was annexed by Russia according to the terms of the Treaty of Turkmanchai. The Shahsevan kept their right to roam into the new Russian territories, but that led to border incidents, accompanied by robberies by the Shahsevan. In 1884, the free movement of the Shahsevan into Russian territory was completely forbidden, which caused their economy to deteriorate. Ibid., 61. 14 Ibid., 72. 15 Captain L. F. Tigranov, “Vypiska iz materialov po statisticheskomu opisaniiu Persii,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 78 (1905): 126–127. 16 Captain of the General Staff Benzengr, “Zapiska o Kurdistane,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 84 (1911): 27–28. 17 N[ikolai] M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Shtaba Otdel’nofo Korpusa Vnutrennei Strazhi, 1844), part I: 43–44. 18 M. Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha. Ocherki Persii (1883) (Tiflis: Tipografiia Ia. I. Libermana, 1898), 29. 19 A. G. Emel’ianov, Persidskii Front (1915–1918) (Berlin: Gamaiun, 1923), 33, 28, 103. 20 P. A. Tomilov, Otchet o poezdke po Persii general”nogo shtaba kapitana Tomilova v 1900 godu (Tiflis: Tipografiia Shtaba Kavkazskogo voennogo okruga, 1902), 50, 65–66. 21 P. E. Maksimovich-Vasilevskii, “Poezdka v Persiiu,” Izvestiia Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 17, no. 4 (1904): 240. 22 N. Shetalov, “Gorod Iezd v 1898–1899 gg. (Vostochnaia Persiia),” Obshchestvo Vostokovedeniia, Sbornik Sredne-aziatskogo otdela 1 (1907): 114–115. 23 Ogorodnikov, Ocherki Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia tovarishchestva “Obshchestvennaia pol’za,” 1878), 55–56. 24 N. P. Mamontov, Ocherki sovremennoi Persii (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. F. Kirshbauma (otdelenie), 1909), 29, 52–57. 25 Alikhanov-Avarskii, V gostiakh u shakha, 195–196. 26 S. Lomnitskii (Redzhep), Persiia i persy. Eskizy i ocherki. 1898–1899–1900 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia S. A. Suvorina, 1902), 119, 197. 27 Miller, “Otchet o poezdke po Seistanu,” 76 (1902): 78. 28 Miller, “Otchet o komandirovke v Kerman (11 sentiabria – 19 dekabria 1901 g.) Rossiiskogo Imperatorskogo Konsula v Seistane Nadvornogo Sovetnika A. Millera,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 77 (1904): 206–207, 211–217, 237, 247.

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29 Shetalov, “Gorod Iezd,” 115, 123. 30 A. V. Eliseev, Po belu-svetu. Ocherki i kartiny iz puteshestvii po trem chastiam starogo sveta, vol. 4 (St. Petersburg: Izdanie P. P. Soikina, 1898), 160; Baron Fedor Fedorovich Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii. 1834–1835 (St. Petersburg: V Guttenbergovoi tipografii, 1838), 105; N. A. Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh”iu Kaspiia. (Astrabad–Mazenderan–Gilan) (Petrograd: Tipografiia Morskogo Ministerstva, v Glavnom Admiralteistve, 1916), 103; I. I. Strel’bitskii, “Kratkii predvaritel’nyi ocherk poezdki v Persiiu v 1891 godu,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 51 (1892): 156; N. V. Charykov, “Opisanie poezdki po beregam r. Tedzhena-Geriruda,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 13 (1884): 142, 146; P. M. Lessar, “Puti iz Askhabada k Geratu inzhenera P. M. Lessar,” Sbornik geograficheskikh, topograficheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii 6 (1883): 2. 31 Mohammed Sharafuddin, Islam and Romantic Orientalism: Literary Encounters with the Orient (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994), ix. 32 The myth of the romantic Orient – or, in the words of M. H. Braaksma, the “determination to see in the East more than an outlet for European commodities, or a diplomatic battleground” – was much stronger in British travel writing than in accounts by their Russian counterparts. In British travelogues the myth of the romantic Orient had not quite faded by the late nineteenth century. The reactions of British travel writers to Iran in modern times varied: By some travelers . . . the romance of the charm and splendor of the East is acknowledged and rejected, sometimes to be replaced by the romance of shabbiness and dirt. A few, however, have managed faithfully to record those experiences which struck them as the most valuable, not valuable in the first place from the point of view of the western curiosity-hunter, but valuable for the memory of pure aesthetic enjoyment or more complete understanding of people and their concerns. (Braaksma, Travel and Literature: An Attempt at a Literary Appreciation of English Travel-Books about Persia, from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Groningen-Batavia: J. B. Wolter’s Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1938), 77–78, 115) 33 Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaz”iu. 34 Il’ia Berezin, Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaz”iu (Kazan’: V Universitetskoi tipografii, 1850), part I, pp. 1–2, 78. 35 Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii. 36 Il’ia Berezin, Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii (Kazan’: V tipografii Gubernskogo Pravleniia i v Universitetskoi, 1852), 15, 35, 42, 140. 37 A hero of Mertvye dushi (Dead Souls) by N. Gogol’, who is always telling the most unbelievable stories when he isn’t telling lies. 38 Lomnitskii, Persiia i persy, 201. 39 M[urav’ev], Pis”ma russkogo iz Persii, part I: 57. 40 Grigorii Mel’gunov, O iuzhnom berege Kaspiiskogo moria, in attachment to Zapiski Akademii Nauk 3, no. 5 (St. Petersburg, 1863), 22. 41 Misl’-Rustem, Persiia pri Nasr-edin-Shakhe s 1882 po 1888 g. Ocherki v rasskazakh (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia i Litografiia V. A. Tikhanova, 1897), 23. Also, see the note by Braaksma concerning “the romance of shabbiness and dirt,” p. 78. 42 Korf, Vospominaniia o Persii, 145. 43 Emel’ianov, Persidskii Front, 93, 146.

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44 S. Cherniaev, “Sud’ba zhenshchiny na musul’manskom vostoke,” Otechestvennye zapiski 101 (1855): 41–43. 45 I. F. Blaramberg, “Statisticheskoe obozrenie Persii sostavlennoe Podpolkovnikom I. F. Blarambergom v 1841 godu,” Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 7 (1853): 55. 46 Prince A. D. Saltykov, “Puteshestvie v Persiiu,” Moskovitianin 16 (1849): 189, 193. 47 Ali Behdad, Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 13. 48 N. I. Shavrov, “Persidskoe poberezh”e Kaspiiskogo moria, ego proizvoditel”nost” i torgovlia,” Zapiski Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 26, no. 10 (1913): 9–10, 12. Conclusion 1 John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Islam and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 196. 2 P. A. Stolypin v vospominaniiakh docherei (Moscow: Agraf, Gareeva, 2003), 67. 3 Sergei Lavrov, “Russia in Global Politics,” Moskovskie novosti (3 March 2006). Appendix 2 1 M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971), 67–68. 2 Percy G. Adams, Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 282. 3 Charles L. Batten, Jr., Pleasurable Instruction: Form and Convention in Eighteen-Century Travel Literature (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), 4. 4 Joan Corwin (1987) “Identity in the Victorian Travel Narrative,” PhD diss., Indiana University, 1. 5 Brigitta Maria Ingemanson, 1974, “On Pushkin and Travel Literature: Puteshestvie v Arzrum,” PhD diss., Princeton University, 178, 20. 6 J. A. Cuddon, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 3rd edn., (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1992), 995. 7 Elvio Guagnini, “New and Traditional Forms of Nineteenth-Century Travel Literature,” in Bruno Magliocchetti and Anthony Verna (eds.), The Motif of the Journey in Nineteenth-Century Italian Literature (Gainsville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1994), 155, 151. 8 Zweden von Martels, “Introduction: The Eye and the Mind’s Eye,” in Travel Fact and Travel Fiction: Studies on Fiction, Literary Tradition, Scholarly Discovery and Observation in Travel Writing (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), xiii. 9 T. Roboli, “Literatura ’puteshestvii,” in B. Eikhenbaum and Iu. Tynianov (eds.), Russkaia proza (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1963), 46. 10 Manfred Link, “Der Reisebericht als literarische Kunstform von Goethe bis Heine,” diss., Cologne, 1963, p. 186, quoted in Ingemanson, “On Pushkin and Travel Literature,” 23. 11 Adams, Travel Literature, 38–72. 12 M. H. Braaksma, Travel and Literature: An Attempt at a Literary Appreciation of English Travel-Books about Persia, from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Groningen-Batavia: J. B. Wolter’s Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1938), 8. 13 Adams, Travel Literature, 42–45.

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14 Ingemanson, “On Pushkin and Travel Literature,” 11, 28, 31, 178, 32. 15 For example, Theiofanis G. Stavrou and Peter R. Weisensel introduce the pilgrim narratives, or khozhdeniia, produced by the Russians and then explain: “By the time of Peter I, the traditional pilgrim account had disappeared, being replaced by writings which had more in common with travel adventure tales than with Orthodox piety.” Russian descriptions of the East by the end of the eighteenth century took on a distinctly secular character. The inclusion of sentimental material and romantic tales in Russian travelogues by the eighteenth century is explained by “the western cultural presence in the life of the court and of the urban gentry.” Theofanis G. Stavrou and Peter R. Weisensel, Russian Travelers to the Christian East from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Century (Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, Inc., 1986), xli–xliii. Mary Louise Pratt, dealing with travel writing about Africa and South America, identifies information-oriented and experiential categories and provides a striking, fundamentally different approach to the classification of travelogues. The first category of travelogues focuses on scientific exploration and natural history which in the second half of the eighteenth century became “a magnet for the energies and resources of intricate alliances of intellectual and commercial elites all over Europe.” This informational/scientific mode of representation is usually characterized by an abundance of precise scholarly information ranging in nature through the geographic, mineralogical, botanical, agricultural, economic, ecological and ethnographic. In the second category, that of the experiential/ sentimental, the traveler-protagonist, “the self-dramatizing speaker,” emphasizes his adventures and emotions. If in the case of scientific writing the author’s self is erased and subordinated to the valuable information presented, experiential representation, by contrast, is centered around the encounter of the Western narrator with the Other (Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992), 23–24, 76–77). According to Wimal Dissanayake and Carmen Wickramagamage, in addition to these two forms of travel writing, a third form has emerged in “more modern times.” In this third form, “the narrative emerges as a kind of intellectual social commentator: . . . The narrator’s authority is derived not from the wealth of information presented or the adventures recounted, but from the acuity of observations and depth of analysis” (Wimal Dissanayake and Carmen Wickramagamage, Self and Colonial Desire: Travel Writings of V. S. Naipaul (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 5). 16 John Emerson, 1971, “Ex Occidente Lux: Some European Sources on the Economic Structure of Persia between about 1630 and 1690,” PhD diss., Cambridge University, 33. 17 Adams, Travel Literature, 57–68. 18 Ingemanson, “On Pushkin and Travel Literature,” 23–25. 19 Braaksma, Travel and Literature, 4. 20 Von Martels, “Introduction,” XVI. 21 Ingemanson, “On Pushkin and Travel Literature,” 33–34. 22 Roboli, “Literatura ‘puteshestvii’ ”, 44–45. 23 Ingemanson, “On Pushkin and Travel Literature,” 4. 24 Wallace Cable Brown, “The Popularity of English Travel Books about the Near East, 1775–1825,” Philological Quarterly 15 (1936): 73. 25 S. A. Vengerov, Istochniki slovaria russkikh pisatelei (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1900), 1: 220 and 1900, 2: 357.

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Index 269

Index

‘Abbas Mirza 15, 19, 52, 54, 60–61, 69, 95, 115 Al’brant, Lev 60, 62, 103, 133, 158 Alikhanov-Avarskii, M. V. 63, 125, 175, 190, 193 Amin al-Sultan 56 Anglo-Persian Oil Company 21 Anglo-Russian Convention 6, 20–21, 52, 59 Ardebil 55, 65, 100, 182 Argoropulo, Kimon 68 Armenians 5, 39, 60, 132, 133, 147, 148, 154, 172–173, 191, 192 Artamonov, Leonid 55–56, 65, 114, 141, 148, 187 Astarabad 3, 14, 21, 39, 43, 72–73, 74, 133, 163, 187, 192 Astrakhan’ 13, 26, 37, 48, 53, 54 Astsaturov, M. A. 50, 75 Atanasov, brothers 39 Aver’ianov, P. I. see Shkinskii Ia. F. and Aver’ianov, P. I. Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis 14, 15, 21, 55, 56, 65, 66, 70, 74, 144, 179, 181, 189 Babich, S. N. 66, 67, 68, 85, 133, 143, 145, 178 Babism 58, 172, 173, 174–75, 176, 193; Russian protection of 176 Baev 76 Bakhtiaris 183–84 Bakulin, F. 74 Baluchis and Baluchistan 4, 67, 75, 81, 87, 142, 182–83, 186, 188–89 Bartol’d, V.: on the Mongol yoke 26; on the study of the Orient in Russia in the nineteenth century 30, 124; on Berezin 129

Bartolomei, F. F. 45, 69, 95, 99, 106, 111, 114, 146, 150, 164 Baumgarten, Karl Al’bertovich, von 66, 85, 105, 138, 163, 175 Bel’gard 65, 103 Beliaev, Dmitrii 45, 52, 58, 66, 76, 138, 144, 176 Bell, John 38 Belozerskii, E. 78, 86, 92, 104, 109, 110, 121, 129, 139, 154, 163, 164 Benderev, Anastasii 43, 50, 58, 66, 114 Beneveni, Florio 38 Benzengr 130, 176, 190 Berdiaev, N. A. 27; on Russia’s “femininity” 32; on the Westernizers 33 Berezin, Il’ia 30, 42, 43, 44, 46, 52, 54, 55, 76, 77, 80, 82, 83, 86, 92, 94, 100, 104, 107, 108, 126–27, 128–29, 134, 143, 145, 147, 152, 172–73, 194–95 Berzhe, Ad. P. 43, 60, 61, 62–63, 147 Bestuzhev-Marlinskii, A. A. 9, 29, 31, 33, 195 Bezsonov, B. 73 Blaramberg, I. F. 42, 43, 44, 48, 52, 78, 97, 110, 113, 127, 136, 148, 154, 175, 197 Bode, Klementii, Baron 43, 50, 78, 104, 110, 115, 132, 153, 181 Borozdna, Vasilii 54, 92, 118, 128, 149, 165; see also Ermolov, Aleksei Petrovich British: colonialism 1, 40; intrigues in Iran 58, 80–81: travelogues about Iran 6, 10, 34, 37, 49, 51; see also Great Game Browne, E. G. 123

270

Index

Caspian Sea and provinces of Iran 6, 13, 14, 15, 20, 38, 39, 42, 50, 55, 59, 65, 73–74, 105, 196, 198; see also Gilan and Mazanderan Catherine the Great (r. 1762–96) 14, 15, 29, 31 Caucasus 2, 6, 9, 10, 15, 18, 25, 28, 29, 34, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 57, 60, 62, 73, 83, 86, 92, 95, 131, 147, 178, 194, 195, 199 Central Asia 6, 9, 18, 25, 28, 29, 34, 39, 46, 48, 50, 73, 95, 131, 180, 185, 192, 199 Charykov, N. V. 194 Cherniaev, S. 43, 46, 90–91, 99, 102, 116, 124, 138, 167–69, 197 Chirikov, Egor Ivanovich 43, 105, 142 Chirkin, S. 80 Chodzko, Alexander 50 Christianity and Christians 5, 7, 9–11, 14, 15, 22, 24–25, 27, 30–33, 35, 53, 60, 62, 79, 87, 131–33, 141–43, 146, 148–50, 153, 155, 156, 166, 172–73, 186; Orthodox (Eastern) 9–11, 24–25, 30, 33, 35, 79, 131–33, 149, 211, 214 “Civilizing mission” see Russia, “civilizing mission” Cossack Brigade 4, 20, 44, 48, 59, 63, 64, 68, 114, 152; see also Domontovich A., Kosogovskii, V. A. and Liakhov, Colonel Crimea 10, 26, 29, 54, 131, 194 Crimean War 18 Curzon, George N. 36–37; 50, 82, 84 Danibegov, Rafail 39 Danilov, N. P. 93 Dittel’, Villiam 30, 45, 82, 85, 107, 112, 127 Diugamel’, A. O. 42, 70–72, 148, 161; Mme Diugamel’s visit to the harem of Muhammad Shah 51, 161, 164, 171 Domontovich A. 44, 63, 68, 78, 147; see also Cossack Brigade Dorn, B., 86 Dostoevskii, Fedor: on the Russian national identity 31 Efremov, Filipp 39 Eliseev, A. V. 16, 17, 45, 46, 47, 51, 57–58, 93, 102, 104, 116–17, 119,

120, 124, 132, 135, 136, 137, 140, 150, 157, 161–62, 194; his sister’s visit to the harem of the khan of Kuchan 161–62 Emel’ianov, A. G. 42, 121, 153, 174, 190, 196 Enzeli 53, 56, 74, 192 Ermolov, Aleksei Petrovich 43, 44, 48, 52, 53–54, 60, 69, 78–79, 82, 95, 98–99, 103, 110, 112, 118, 158, 162; see also Borozdna, Vasilii, Lachinov, E. E. and Sokolov, Aleksander Egorovich Fath ‘Ali Shah (r. 1797–1834) 15, 19, 54, 60, 61, 69, 70, 80, 98, 119, 148, 158 Florinskii, P. [Tsvetkov] 97 Gablits, K. 39 Gagarin, A. 142 Gamazov, M. A. 158, 165 Georgia 6, 15, 53, 147, 148; annexation to Russia 15 Gerber, Ivan 38 Gilan 14, 21, 39, 57, 104–105 Gmelin, Samuil Gotlib 39 Great Game 6–7, 10, 19, 21, 22, 40, 48, 59, 74, 80, 185, 199; see also Kipling, Rudyard Griboedov, Alexander Sergeevich 15, 29, 43, 44, 46, 51, 52, 61, 87, 97, 127; death of 147–48 Gulistan Palace 69–70 Gulistan treaty (1813) 54, 69 Herat 16, 62, 70–72, 188 Iran: Constitutional Revolution 20, 63–64; and Russian deserters 43, 46, 59–63, 133; Russian settlements in 21, 72–74; Russian and British spheres of influence in 20–21, see also Anglo-Russian convention; Russian Bank in 20, 68, 193; Russian trade in 5, 7, 13, 38, 55, 58, 59, 73–76, 81, 185, 193; wars against Russia 69–70, 115, 146; see also Great Game Islam 3–5, 7, 10–11, 22, 31, 53, 56, 57, 58, 63, 79, 127, 131–156, 172, 174–75, 199 ; dervishes (mystics of Islam) 4, 106, 124, 134–40, 153, 198;

Index 271 sayyeds (descendants of the prophet) 58, 108, 134, 137–139; Sufism 3, 134, 153; polygamy 4, 156, 169–71; ‘ulama (the learned class of religious and legal scholars) 15, 56, 65, 108, 134, 137–40, 143–47, 149, 153–54, 163, 169, 173, 191; see also Shi’i/ Shi’ism and Sunni/Sunnism Kazembek, Mirza 82 Kerman 58, 67, 81, 105, 162–63, 173–75, 193 Khan-Iomudskii, N. N. 142, 166, 180 Khanykov, Nikolai Vladimirovich 27, 30, 44, 45, 52, 94, 127, 133 Khorasan 21, 46, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 65–66, 75, 81, 110, 142, 179, 186–90 Khosrov Mirza, Prince 15, 43 Khoven, Baron fon-der 67 Kipling, Rudyard 82; on the Great Game 19 Korf, Fedor Fedorovich, Baron 46, 50, 70, 77, 80, 100, 106, 112, 119, 122, 129, 147, 194, 196 Kosogovskii, V. A. 44, 63, 67–68, 103, 113, 152, 158, 159, 176; see also Cossack Brigade Kotov, Fedot 37 Kublitskii 112 Kurds and Kurdistan 4, 53, 58, 65, 68–69, 141–43, 176–80, 184, 186, 188, 190, 191, 196 Kurmakov 56 Lachinov, E. E. 54; see also Ermolov, Aleksei Petrovich Lavrov, Sergei 201 Lermontov, Mikhail 29, 30, 34 Lessar, P. M. 181 Liakhov, Colonel 4, 63–64; see also Cossack Brigade Logofet, D. N. 151, 181, 187, 189 Lomakin, A. A. 42, 66, 81, 110, 130, 187 Lomnitskii, S. 32, 46, 56–57, 76, 78, 81, 86, 93, 101, 105, 106, 108, 122, 123, 124, 132, 134, 139–40, 143, 146, 148, 155, 162, 169–70, 174, 193, 195 Lurs 176, 181 Macdonald, Sir John Kinneir 60, 80 Majlis 20, 40, 63–64

Makintsev, Samson Khan 43, 60, 63; see also Iran and Russian deserters Maksimovich-Vasilevskii, P. E. 191 Mamontov, N. P. 63–64, 105, 110, 126, 127, 192–93 Mark, Sergei 50, 52, 117, 125, 127, 157, 173 Markov, V. 182 Mashhad 3, 52, 58, 65, 75, 102–103, 139, 149, 163 Mashhad-e Sar 56, 74, 143, 146 Matisen, A. A. 115 Mazanderan 14, 21, 37, 39, 55, 56, 57, 72, 74, 179, 196 Mel’gunov, Grigorii 122, 196 Mel’nitskii, Iu. D. 65, 188 Miller, A. 42, 52, 67, 75–76, 81, 141–42, 175, 182, 188, 193 Minkevich, G. K. 117 Minorskii, V. F. 30, 45, 177 Misl’-Rustem [pseud.] 52, 63, 94, 99, 108, 111, 114, 152, 171, 196 Moghan 189; see also Shahsevan Mogilev G. K. 73 Muharram see Shi’i/Shi’ism: Muharram Muhammad-’Ali Shah (r. 1907–1909) 192 Muhammad Shah (r. 1834–1848) 16, 19, 46, 51, 61–62, 70, 114–115, 161 Murav’ev, Nikolai 46, 81, 82, 92, 96, 99, 101, 107, 110, 113, 115, 122, 128, 129, 132, 134, 154, 170–71, 181, 190, 194, 195 Muzaffar al-Din Shah (r. 1896–1907) 20, 56, 64, 158, 173 Napoleon 9, 15, 28, 44, 48, 50, 53, 78, 79, 95 Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848–1896) 19, 46, 52, 60, 158–59 Nicholas I (r. 1796–1855) 16, 62, 69, 71 Nikitin, Afanasii 37, 44 Nikol’skii, A. M. 45, 81, 102, 106, 109, 179, 186 Noskov, I. 60–61, 69, 80, 87, 146 Ogorodnikov, P. I. 42, 46, 78, 95, 103, 104, 106, 110, 125, 139, 141, 144, 145, 147, 148, 151, 153, 163, 175, 180, 189, 192 Ogranovich, I. A. 137 Oranovskii, V. A. 65 Oriental Renaissance 9, 28–29, 200

272

Index

Orientalism 8, 9, 12, 22–35, 50, 82, 87, 89, 148, 194, 199, 200; as academic discipline 9, 29–30; Russian variant 8, 12, 24, 35, 82, 87, 89, 199, 200, 210 n. 2 “Orientals” 8, 11, 33, 35, 88, 90, 96, 100, 124, 125, 132, 172 Orthodox Christianity see Christianity and Christians, Orthodox (Eastern) Ottomans 13, 14, 15 Peter the Great (r. 1672–1725) 5, 9, 13, 14, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 38, 44, 50, 213 n. 22 Polovtsoff, A. 44, 87, 103, 143, 146 Preobrazhenskii, B. 76 Pushkin, Alexander 28, 29, 33 Qa’im Maqam 60 Qajars (1796–1925) 1–2, 6, 15, 19–20, 22, 36, 40, 52, 89, 101, 185, 199 Radling, Lieutenant 39 Rasht 50, 56, 57, 150, 192 Rittikh, P. A. 80, 87, 94, 97, 105, 108, 143, 148, 149, 162, 173–74, 178, 183 Romanticism 11, 12, 29, 34, 194–95, 197 Rozanov, Vasilii: on Russia’s “femininity” 31–32 Rubio 51, 101, 141 Russia: and Bolshevik Revolution (1917) 1, 6, 21, 74, 200; Byzantine influence on 24–25, 212 n. 9; “civilizing mission” 5, 7, 9–11, 25, 30, 82, 87; Europeanness 10–11, 34, 77–80, 123, 211–12 n. 7; Mongol conquest of 9, 13, 24, 26–27, 200–201, 211 n. 7; and sense of inferiority 3, 10, 27, 34–35, 77, 79; in the Great Game see Great Game Russian national identity 8–12, 24–35, 77, 79, 87, 89, 131, 199, 201; Dostoevskii on the Russian national identity 31 Russian Orientalism see Orientalism, Russian variant Rzhevuskii, A. 149 Sadovskii, Dr. 192 Safavids (1501–1722) 13, 19, 32, 36, 38, 127

Saltykov, A. D., Prince 44, 46, 49, 50, 80, 120, 140, 165, 197 Seistan 67, 75, 81, 141–42, 166, 188, 193 Shahsevan 182, 189 Shapshal 193 Shavrov, N. I. 76, 78, 198 Shetalov, N. 103, 173, 192, 193 Shi’i/Shi’ism 3, 4, 5, 55, 102, 122, 129, 134, 139, 141–42, 146, 149, 152–54, 160, 162–63, 172, 174–76, 184; Muharram, 4, 55, 149–52; sigheh (temporary marriage) 139, 159, 162–63, 167, 169; ta”ziyeh 4, 55, 57, 122, 146, 152, 160 Shkinskii, Ia. F. and Aver’ianov, P. I. 125, 144, 182, 189 sigheh see Shi’i/Shi’ism, sigheh Simonich, Ivan Osipovich, Count 16, 42, 44, 50, 62, 70–72, 147–48 “Slavophiles” 33, 42 Smirnov, K. N. 192–93 Soimonov, F. 38 Sokolov, Alexander Egorovich 54, 79; see also Ermolov, Aleksei Petrovich Solovkin, N. A. 73, 74, 83, 108, 117, 163, 180, 194 Stolypin, Petr Arkad’evich 201 Strel’bitskii, I. I. 111, 113, 138, 141, 153, 194 Sufism see Islam, Sufism Sunni/Sunnism 5, 141–42, 153–54, 172, 176 Tabriz 50, 52, 54, 55, 58, 60, 65, 70, 78, 86, 112, 125, 139, 144, 191 Tatar/Tatars 26–27, 30, 96, 133, 144, 192 ta”ziyeh see Shi’i/Shi’ism, ta”ziyeh Tehran, 3, 15, 16, 18, 38, 50, 52, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 77, 78, 86, 93, 101, 107, 113, 116, 117, 118, 120, 122, 123, 125, 127, 132, 147, 148, 152, 159, 162, 165, 179, 180, 191, 193 Tigranov, L. F. 103, 182, 189 Tolstoi, Lev 30 Tomar, M. L. 46, 76 Tomilov, P. A. 66, 76, 121, 127, 183, 191 Transcaucasia 14, 20, 37, 54, 55

Index 273 travelogues: categories 43–44; classification of 203–207, by female authors 50–51, 125, 159–160, see also Zhukovskaia, D. K.; as a literary sub-category 36; popularity of 207–208; “primary” 41–42, 205–206; “secondary” 41–43, 205–206; see also British, travelogues about Iran Tsikulin, Dementii Ivanovich 50, 53, 133, 158 Turcoman/Turcomans 4, 5, 18, 58, 61, 73, 104, 142, 154, 166, 176, 179–81, 185–87, 189, 193 Turkmanchai treaty (1828) 15, 61–62, 82, 147 Turkmenia 64, 73

Vitkevich, Ian 71 Vlasov, P. M. 103, 142, 186 Voinovich, Count 39, 43 Volynskii, Artemii 13, 38 Vvedenskii, P. 76 “Westernizers” 33, 42, 80 World War I 5, 20, 21, 72–73, 186, 190, 196 Yazd 37, 81, 173, 175, 193 Zarudnyi, N. A. 41, 45, 81, 82 Zeidlits, N. K. 74 Zhukovskaia, D. K. 50, 117, 120, 159, 160 Zoroastrians 5, 57, 133, 172–76, 193