Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T03:19:53.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Russian Settlements in Iran in the Early Twentieth Century: Initial Phase of Colonization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Elena Andreeva  and
Morteza Nouraei
Elena Andreeva
Affiliation:
Virginia Military Institute
Morteza Nouraei
Affiliation:
University of Isfahan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reveals the story of Russia's attempts to colonize Astarabad and Mazanderan provinces of Iran in the early twentieth century. By backing and sponsoring Russian settlements there, the Russian government sought to eventually annex the territories in the northeast of Iran. Drawing on Russian and Iranian sources, the article follows the development of the settlements from their spontaneous beginning in 1907 to a state-supported colonization project by 1914. After the Russian government tried to accelerate colonization of the occupied Iranian territories during the First World War, this ambitious project came to an end with the Bolshevik coup of 1917.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Power Interplay Between Iran and Russia from the Mid-Seventeenth to the Early Twenty-First Century , May 2013 , pp. 415 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mogilev, I.G., Persidskie zemli (Tashkent, 1914), 23–24.Google Scholar

2 See for example Gregorii Mel'gunov, O iuzhnom berege Kaspiiskogo moria, Attachment to Zapiski Akademii Nauk 3, no. 5 (1863)Google Scholar; Artamonov, Leonid, Poezdka v Persiiu. Astrabad-Shahrudskii raion i severnyi Khorasan. Voenno-statisticheskoe issledovanie (Tiflis, 1894)Google Scholar; Benderev, [Anastasii], Astrabad-Bastamskii raion Persii. Poezdka po raionu v 1902 godu General'nogo Shtaba Polkovnika Bendereva (Ashgabat, 1904)Google Scholar; Dorn, B., “Otchet ob uchenom puteshestvii po Kavkazu i iuzhnomu beregu Kaspiiskogo moria akademika B. Dorna,” Trudy Vostochnogo otdeleniia Imperatorskogo Arkheologicheskogo Obshchestva 8 (1864), 245–317Google Scholar; Khan-Iomudskii, N.N., “Astrabad i Giurgenskaia step'. (Putevye zametki),” Sredniia Aziia 8 (1910), 9 (1910), 8 (1910): 97–107Google Scholar; 9 (1910) :214–46.

3 MacKenzie, Charles Francis, Safar nameh-ye shemal, trans. Ettehadiyeh, Monsoureh (Tehran, 1359), 181, 208Google Scholar.

4 Kazehzadeh, Firuz, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914: A Study in Imperialism (New Haven, 1968), 676Google Scholar; Vanessa Martin and Morteza Nouraei, “Foreign Land Holdings in Iran 1828 to 1911,” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society series 3, 21, no. 2 (2011): 142–43.Google Scholar

5 Abdullaev, I. N., Astrabad i russko-iranskie otnosheniia (vtoraia polovina XIX—nachalo XX v.) (Tashkent, 1975).Google Scholar At least some references are inaccurate.

6 Solovkin, N.A., Po iuzhnomu poberezh'iu Kaspiia. (Astrabad-Mazenderan-Gilan) (Petrograd, 1916).Google Scholar

7 Mogilev, I.G., Persidskie zemli (Tashkent, 1914)Google Scholar; Mogilev, I., Persidskie zemli (kak priobretaiut zemli v severnoi Persii) (Baku, 1916)Google Scholar; Mogilev, I., Persidskie zemli. Rybolovnye vody iuzhnogo Kaspiia (Ashgabat, 1916).Google Scholar

8 Bezsonov, B.V., Russkie pereselentsy v Severnoi Persii (Petrograd, 1915).Google Scholar

9 Sakharov, A., Russkaia kolonizatsiia Astrabadskoi provintsii v Persii (Petrograd, 1915).Google Scholar

10 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv [Russian State History Archive] (RGIA), f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 94–107, 27–49; d. 307: 1–2ob., 48–52, 122–42ob, 143.

11 Vakilodowleh, Hoseinqoli Maqsoudlou, Mokhaberat-e Astarabad (Tehran, 1363).Google Scholar

12 Araqi, Kavosi, Fehrest-e asnad-e mukammil-e Qajariyeh, vols. 65–75 (Tehran, 1384).Google Scholar

13 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 36–36ob. (20–21).

14 A Christian sect that split off from Russian Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century.

15 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 67–70.

16 Abdullaev, Astrabad, 98.

17 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 79.

18 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 14.

19 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 34ob. (16).

20 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 60, 67.

21 Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu poberezh'iu, 43–44.

22 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 41.

23 Kliuchevskii, V.O., Kurs russkoi istorii, reprint (Ann Arbor, MI, 1948), 20–21.Google Scholar

24 Huttenbach, Henry R., “Russian Imperialism Reconsidered,” in Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution, ed. Hunczak, Taras (New Brunswick, NJ, 1974), 19–21.Google Scholar

25 Mostashari, Firouzeh, “The Politics of Colonization: Sectarians and Russian Orthodox Peasants in Nineteenth Century Azerbaijan,” Journal of Central Asian Studies 1, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1996): 16–17, 25.Google Scholar

26 [oshchinin], V.V., Pereselencheskii vopros v Gosudarstvennoi Dume (St. Petersburg, 1912), 18–19Google Scholar, 11.

27 Abdullaev, Astrabad, 107.

28 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 3; Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voenno-Istoricheskii Arkhiv [Russian State Military Archive] (RGVIA), f. 400, op. 1, d. 4341: 6–7.

29 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 105 ob.–106.

30 Voshchinin, Pereselencheskii vopros, 21.

31 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 39.

32 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306:37ob.–38 (22–23).

33 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 58.

34 Ibid., 58–59.

35 Ibid., 22–23, 58–59.

36 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507: 3–4.

37 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 20; RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306:39–41 ob. (25–30), 43–45 (33–37), 53; Mogilev, Persidskie zemli, 21–31; RGIA, f. 23, op. 11, d. 130.

38 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 15–16.

39 Ibid., 88–89. See also Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 22–25; RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 40 ob. (28); Mogilev, Persidskie zemli, 9–12, Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 5–9.

40 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 9.

41 Mogilev, Persidskie zemli, 6–7.

42 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 61.

43 Ibid., 9; RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 32 (11).

44 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 29 ob.–31 (6–9).

45 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507: 16.

46 RGIA, fond 23, op. 11, d. 130: 2.

47 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 22 ob., 46–47 (39–41).

48 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 57.

49 The classic book by Lambton, Ann K.S., Landlord and Peasant in Persia (London, 1953)Google Scholar deals with the complicated system of land ownership in Iran.

50 Floor, Willem, Agriculture in Qajar Iran (Washington, 2003), 75.Google Scholar

51 Martin and Nouraei, “Foreign Land Holdings,” 136.

52 See the text in Kulagina, L.M., Rossiia i Iran (XIX-nachalo XX veka) (Moscow, 2010), 217–18.Google Scholar

53 Martin and Nouraei, “Foreign Land Holdings,” 132–34, 138.

54 Damghani, Mohammad Taqi, Sad sal pish az in (Tehran, 2537), 228.Google Scholar

55 Ali Jamalzadeh, Seyed Mohammad, Khaterat-e Siyasi (Tehran, 1362), 183.Google Scholar

56 Martin and Nouraei, “Foreign Land Holdings,” 135–36

57 Gilbar, Gad G., “Resistance to Economic Penetration: The Karguzar and Foreign Firms in Qajar Iran,” The International Journal of Middle East Studies 43, no. 1 (February 2001): 13–14.Google Scholar

58 Martin and Nouraei, “Foreign Land Holdings,” 143–44.

59 Litten, Wilhelm, Iran az nofuz-e mosalamat amiz ta tahtolhemayegi 1860–1919, trans. Ahmadi, Maryam Mir (Tehran, 1367), 102–8, 116–17.Google Scholar

60 Grant Duff to Marquis of Lansdowne, 11 November 1903, FO 416, no. 192: 176.

61 Litten, Iran, 93–127.

62 See for example Araqi, Fehrest, 108–9, 384–85, 558–59.

63 Nouraei, Morteza, “Mo'arefi-ye nameh-ye Korzon hasht sal pish az qarardad-e 1907,” Iran and International Policy in the Early 20th Century (Tehran, 1388), 309.Google Scholar

64 MacKenzie, Safar nameh, 210.

65 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 95–95 ob.

66 See for example Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 61–65; Mogilev, Persidskie zemli, 3–5; Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 14–15, 43; RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 32 ob.–35 ob. (12–18); RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507: 13–13 ob.

67 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 11.

68 Martin and Nouraei, “Foreign Land Holdings,” 141.

69 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 71–72.

70 Vakilodowleh, Mokhaberat, 1: 408–9, 441–45, 496–97; 2: 534.

71 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 81.

72 Abdullaev accuses consul Ivanov and commissar Lavrov of deliberately spreading exaggerated gossip about the attractiveness and availability of lands in the Caspian provinces and of land speculation using Iranian figureheads. At the same time, according to Abdullaev, these officials sometimes indirectly sabotaged Russian colonization since they often preferred to rent lands at their disposal to Iranian peasants whom they considered more hardworking and less demanding. Those officials even started to turn down Russian settlers in search for lands using the excuse of land shortage. Abdullaev also claims that Mogilev, the author of Persidsie zemili, bought a piece of land near Ashref for a significant sum of 22,500 rubles but does not specify the source of this information. Abdullaev, Astrabad, 104–5, 108.

73 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 81.

74 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 42, 44.

75 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 35–36 ob. (17–18, 20); Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 44–45.

76 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 45.

77 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 35 (17).

78 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 42 (31).

79 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507:12 ob.

80 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 121.

81 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 153.

82 Mogilev, Persidskie zemli, 5.

83 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 44.

84 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 42 ob. (32).

85 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 300: 95 ob.–97.

86 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 52–57.

87 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 49 ob.–50 ob.

88 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 12, 64–65, 67–68, 72, 74, 91.

89 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 77–80.

90 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4341: 8–9.

91 Solovkin, Po iuzhnomu pobereszh'iu, 43; RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 103–4.

92 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 103–4.

93 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 68, 71.

94 RGIA, f. 391op. 6, d. 306: 104 ob.

95 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 50–50 ob., 60.

96 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 104 ob.

97 See Aleksandr, Igumen (Zarkeshev), Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov' v Persii-Irane (1597–2001 gg.) (St. Petersburg, 2002).Google Scholar

98 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 105.

99 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 71–72.

100 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 72.

101 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 48–48 ob.

102 RGIA, f. 391op. 6, d. 306: 106–7.

103 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 50 ob.–51, 59.

104 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 48 ob.–49 ob.

105 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 28.

106 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 37 (21).

107 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 66–67, 76–84.

108 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 306: 94 ob.

109 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 25.

110 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 677: 19. Abdullaev, who used materials in Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Uzbekskoi SSR [Central State Archive of the Uzbek SSR] (TsGAUzSSR), quoted similar numbers: in 1915, more than 3,500 Russians lived in Astarabad province; by the fall of 1916, this number was 1,200. Abdullaev, Astrabad, 108.

111 Burrell, R.M. and Jarman, Robert L., eds., Iran: Political Diaries 1881–1965 (London, 1997), 5: 502, 507–8.Google Scholar

112 Names in this list are based on transliteration from Russian.

113 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507: 19.

114 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 48, 51.

115 Vakilodowleh, Mokhaberat, 1: 43, 70, 75, 95, 105, 122, 126, 135, 151, 152, 185, 188, 215, 217, 231, 233, 273, 307, 309, 313, 321, 329, 339, 340–42, 346, 350, 357, 374, 379, 380, 382, 385, 391, 450, 455, 506, 720, 863.

116 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 24–26.

117 TsGAUzSSR, f. 16, op. 1, d. 1073: 2, quoted in Abdullaev, Astrabad, 99.

118 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 17.

119 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 73.

120 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 17–18.

121 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 71–74.

122 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 19–20.

123 Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 82–83.

124 Ibid., 70–71.

125 Ibid., 75–76.

126 Ibid., 76–84.

127 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 30–38

128 Ibid., 74–75.

129 Ibid., 42–53. About private land owners and renters see also Bezsonov, Russkie pereselentsy, 85–86.

130 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 112–15 ob.

131 Sakharov, Russkaia kolonizatsiia, 72.

132 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 74.

133 Nasiri Moqadam, Mohammad Nader, Gozideh-ye asnad-e Darya-ye Khazar va manateq-e shomali-ye Iran dar jang-e jahani-ye avval (Tehran, 1374), 251.Google Scholar

134 Vakilodowleh, Mokhaberat, 506.

135 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 1–2ob.

136 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 20–24 ob., 44–45.

137 Abdullaev, Astrabad, 108.

138 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 83, 89, 93, 96.

139 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507: 11.

140 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507: 16–18.

141 RGIA, f. 391, o. 6, d. 307: 122.

142 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 122–42 ob.

143 RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 4507: 19.

144 Aliev, S.M., “Tahavolat-e mohem dar siyasat tosee'eh talabi-ye Rusiyeh dar Iran 1906–1917,” in Iran and World War I, ed. Akhavan, Safa (Tehran, 1380), 94.Google Scholar

145 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 148–53 ob.

146 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 153 ob., 160, 171–72.

147 RGIA, f. 391, op. 6, d. 307: 168.