1st Edition
Iranian-Russian Encounters Empires and Revolutions since 1800
Over the past two hundred years, encounters between Iran and Russia have been both rich and complex. This book explores the myriad dimensions of the Iranian-Russian encounter during a dramatic period which saw both Iran and Russia subject to revolutionary upheavals and transformed from multinational dynastic empires typical of the nineteenth century to modernizing, authoritarian states typical of the twentieth.
The collection provides a fresh perspective on traditional preoccupations of international relations: wars and diplomacy, the hostility of opposing nationalisms, the Russian imperial menace in the nineteenth century and the Soviet threat in the twentieth. Going beyond the traditional, this book examines subaltern as well as elite relations and combines a cultural, social and intellectual dimension with the political and diplomatic. In doing so the book seeks to construct a new discourse which contests the notion of an implacable enmity between Iran and Russia
Bringing together leading scholars in the field, this book demonstrates extensive use of family archives, Iranian, Russian and Caucasian travelogues and memoirs, and newly available archives in both Iran and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Providing essential background to current international tensions, this book will be of particular use to students and scholars with an interest in the Middle East and Russia.
Contents List of illustrations Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Note on transliteration IntroductionIntroduction: Empires and Revolutions: Iranian-Russian Encounters since 1800 Stephanie Cronin 1 The Impact of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union on Qajar and Pahlavi Iran: Notes toward a Revisionist Historiography Afshin Matin-asghari Part One: Romanovs and Qajars 2 The early Qajars and the Russian Wars Maziar Behrooz 3 Khosrow Mirza’s mission to Saint Petersburg in 1829 Firuza Abdullaeva 4 Russian Land Acquisition in Iran: 1828 to 1911 Morteza Nourai and Vanessa Martin 5 How Russia hosted the entrepreneur who gave them indigestion: New revelations on Hajj Kazem Malek al-Tujjar Fatema Soudavar 6 Deserters, Converts, Cossacks and Revolutionaries : Russians in Iranian Military Service 1800-1920 Stephanie Cronin Part Two: Revolutionary Russia and Iran; Revolutionary Iran and Russia; 7 The Question of the Iranian Ijtima‘iyun-e ‘Amiyun Party Sohrab Yazdani 8 Georgian Sources on the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911): Sergo Gamdlishvili’s Memoirs of the Gilan Resistance Iago Gocheleishvili 9 Constitutionalists and Cossacks: the Constitutional Movement and Russian Intervention in Tabriz, 1907-1911 James Clark Pahlavi Iran and the Soviet Union 10 Duping the British and outwitting the Russians? Iran’s foreign policy, the ‘Bolshevik threat’, and the genesis of the Soviet-Iranian Treaty of 1921 Oliver Bast 11 The Comintern, the Soviet Union and Working Class Militancy in Interwar Iran Touraj Atabaki 12 An Iranian-Russian Cinematic Encounter Emily Jane O’Dell 13 The Impact of Soviet Contact on Iranian Theatre: Abdolhossein Nushin and the Tudeh Party. Saeed Talajooy The Islamic Republic and post-Soviet Russia 14 Iran, Russia and Tajikistan’s Civil War Muriel Atkin 15 Iran and Russia: a Tactical Entente Clément Therme Index
Biography
Stephanie Cronin is lecturer in Iranian History at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, and a member of St Antony’s College. She is the author of Shahs, Soldiers and Subalterns (2010); Tribal Politics in Iran (Routledge, 2006); and The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910-1926 (1997); and editor of Subalterns and Social Protest (Routledge, 2007); Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran (Routledge, 2004); and The Making of Modern Iran (Routledge, 2003). She is currently working on a comparative history of state-building in the Middle East.
'these authors shine flashes into the corners and cupboards of Irano-Russian history which add to our knowledge but leave us avid for more.' – James Buchan, Asian Affairs, Volume 44, Issue 3, 2013
