1. Ḥaydar Khān was born in the family of Tariverdiov in Alexsandropol, currently known as Leninakan, in Armenia. His birthdate is not clearly known, but considering that he had just graduated from college when he came to Iran in 1901, he was probably born in the late 1870s. His stay in Iran coincided with a revolutionary period in Iranian history in which he participated eagerly. Following his departure from Iran in 1911, he continued his technical education in Paris. During the First World War, he enlisted in the Ottoman Army. When the Russian Revolution took place, he went to Russia. He helped in the organization of ^ᶜAdālat, the first Iranian Communist Party. In 1921 he joined the Soviet Republic of Gīlān. In October of the same year, he was killed by the more moderate faction of the Republic, who resented the Russian influence.

2. The account was published in two installments. The first part, ^ᶜAbbās Iqbāl, “Ḥaydar Khān ^ᶜAmū Ughlū,” Yādigār, Vol. 3, No. 5 (1946), pp. 61-80, covered Ḥaydar Khān's life from the time of his departure for Iran until Atābak's return to Iran and his premiership. The second part of the account, which included Atābak's assassination, appeared in Yādigār, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1946), pp. 50-51.

3. See Yādigār, “Unsigned articles,” Vol. 5, Nos. 1-2 (1948), the back cover.

4. Ibrāhīm Munshīzādah came to Iran from Eriwan with his father in 1889, where both became Persian citizens. Resentful of Russian officers in the Cossack brigade, he resigned his commission in 1907 and thereupon joined the constitutionalists. In 1915 he formed the Retribution Committee, through which several Iranian statesmen were assassinated. During Vuūq's government, Munshīzādah was to be banished from Tehran, but was murdered en route by his gendarme guards in 1917. For his biography see Bāmdād, Mahdī, Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i rijāl-i Īrān dar qarn-i 12, 13, va 14 hijrī (Biographies of Iranian statesmen of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries A.H.), Vol. 1 (Tehran, 1347), pp. 29–31Google Scholar; Farrukh, Mahdī, Khātirāt-i sīyāsī-i Farrukh (Farrukh's political memoirs) (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 10–12Google Scholar; ^ᶜAbd Allāh Bahramī, Khātirāt (Memoirs) (no place of publication, n.d.), pp. 487-525.

5. See the translation of the account above.

6. Bāmdād, op. cit., p. 469; Ḥasan I^ᶜẓām Qudsī, Kitāb-i khātirāt-i man (The Book of my memoirs), Vol. 1 (Tehran, 1963), pp. 162–163Google Scholar; see also Maḥmūd, Maḥmūd, “Memoirs” in Ādamīyat, F., Fikr-i āzādī (The idea of freedom) (Tehran, 1961), p. 334.Google Scholar

7. See the translated text, p. 32 above.

8. Qazvīnī, Muḥammad, “Vafayāt-i mu^ᶜaṣirīn” (Recent deaths), Yādigār, Vol. 5, Nos. 4-5 (November, 1948-January, 1949), pp. 84–85.Google Scholar

9. ^ᶜAbd al-Ḥusayn Navā'ī, “Ḥaydar ^ᶜAmū Ughlū va Muḥammad Amīn Rasūlzādah,” Yādigār, Vol. 5, Nos. 1-2 (September-October, 1948), p. 56.

10. See footnote 4 above.

11. Iqbāl, op. cit., p. 62.

12. Kazemzadeh, F., The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917-1921 (New York, 1951), p. 12Google Scholar, discusses this problem in regard to Georgia. The same can be said concerning Azerbaijan.

13. Ibid., pp. 19-22.

14. See the translation, PP. 35-37 above. See also S. Jāvīd, Nahzat-i mashrūtīyat-i Īrān va naqsh-i āzādī khāhān-i Jahān (The Iranian constitutional movement and the role of international freedom-lovers) (no place of publication, 1968), p. 59.

15. See the translation, p. 35 above.

16. Zabih, Sepehr, The Communist Movement in Iran (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966)Google Scholar; Laqueur, Walter E., The Soviet Union and the Middle East (New York, 1959), p. 18.Google Scholar

17. Kasravī, A., Tārīkh-i mashrūṭīyat-i Īrān (History of Iranian constitutionalism), 7th Ed. (Tehran, 1967), p. 447.Google Scholar

18. Hidāyat, Mahdī Qulī, Khātirāt va khatarāt (Remembrances and perils), 2nd Ed. (Tehran, 1965), pp. 157–158.Google Scholar See the rebuttal of the thesis of the Adamīyat involvement in the murder in F. Ādamīyat, op. cit., pp. 256-275. In fact, on the advice of Ṣanī^ᶜ al-Dawlah, the Speaker of the House and Hidayat's brother, the governor of Tehran arrested the head of the Ādamīyat group, charging him with the murder of Atābak. He was released in two days. See Ādamīyat, ibid., pp. 271-273.

The Ādamīyat Society was a Freemasonic group. For the history of freemasonry in Iran, see Algar, Hamid, “An introduction to the history of Freemasonry in Iran,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3 (October, 1970), pp. 276–296CrossRefGoogle Scholar; F. Ādamīyat, op. cit., particularly pp. 199-338. According to the memoirs of ^ᶜAwn al-Mamālik, one of the founders of the Ādamīyat Society, Atābak appeared before a committee of the Society and swore to be faithful to the Constitution.

According to the same source, Atābak was trying to reconciliate the Shah and Parliament. See Ādamīyat, op. cit., pp. 260-268. Some sources, like Sāsānī, Khān Malik, Sīyāsatgarān-i dawrah-i Qājārīyah (Statesmen of the Qajar period), Vol. 2 (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 309–321Google Scholar, claim that they are in possession of “documents” proving the Shah's participation in Atābak's murder. However, no documents have been produced so far. Sāsānī claims that the Russians, finding out about Atābak's good will towards Parliament and the British, planned his assassination. Kasravī, however, seems to think that the British had previous knowledge of the assassination. Kasravī, op. cit., pp. 449-450.

19. Yaḥyā Dawlat ā b ā d ī, Ḥayāt-i Yaḥyā (Yaāyā's life), Vol. 2 (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 136-145; Browne, Edward G., The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 150–154.Google Scholar

20. Kasravī, op. cit., pp. 449-450, thinks that Taqīzādah was the master mind behind the plot. Taqīzādah himself vehemently denies this. See Ḥasan Taqīzādah, “Ākhirīn difa^ᶜ-i Taqīzādah” (Taqīzādah's final defense), Rāhnamā-Yi Kitāb, Vol. 13, Nos. 3, 4 (May-June, 1970), pp. 223. This is an answer to accusations raised by Ṣafā'ī, Ibrāhīm, Rahbarān-i mashrūṭah (Leaders of the constitutional movement) (Tehran, 1965)Google Scholar. The rebuttal was published posthumously. While the antipathy of Kasravī, as well as of Ṣafā'ī, for Taqīzādah is well known, a more impartial writer, Javād Shaykh al-Islāmī, also insists that Taqīzādah was an important member of the terroristic organization which Ḥaydar Khān refers to (see the translation p. 21 above). See Javād Shaykh al-Islāmī, “Ravish-i Taḥqīq darbārah-yi asnād-i marbūṭ bi tārīkh-i mashrūṭiyat-i Iran va shīvah-i arzyābī-i daqīq-i ānhā” (The Methodology for the study of Iranian constitutional documents and their careful evaluation), Sukhan, Vol. 15, No. 7 (July, 1965), pp. 718-732. Taqīzādah claims that he has no knowledge of any terroristic organizations and he regards as completely baseless Ḥaydar Khān's assertion that there was a “Secret Committee” which ordered the “Execution Committee” to have Atābak done away with (see the translation, p. 41 above). He asserts that Ḥaydar Khān alone is responsible for Atābak's death. (See Sukhan, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1966), pp. 45-48.) In regard to Atābak's death, see also the memoirs of Sharaf al-Dawlah, who was elected to the first Majlis from Tabriz. Yaḥyā Ẕakā’, “Khātirāt-i Sharaf al-Dawlah va jarayāni qatl-i Atābak” (Sharaf al-Dawlah's memoirs and the incident of Atābak's murder), Sukhan, Vol. 16, No. 4 (April, 1966), pp. 383-388.

21. Dawlatābādī, op. cit., pp. 139-140; see also the texts of Atābak's letter to the Shah demanding that he should be a constitutional monarch and the latter's acceptance in F.O. 416/33, Sir Spring-Rice to Sir Edward Gray (secret), September 13, 1907, No. 200, Inclosures 1 and 2.

22. Dawlatābādī, op. cit., pp. 125-126.

23. Malikzadah, Mahdī, Tārīkh-i inqilāb-i mashrūṭīyat (The history of the Constitutional revolution), Vol. 3 (Tehran, n.d.), p. 45.Google Scholar

24. Dawlatābādī, op. cit., pp. 180-181, 191-194.

25. Malikzādah, op. cit., pp. 52-53, 68.

26. Ibid., pp. 49-51; Browne, op. cit., pp. 150-154.

27. Dawlatābādī, op. cit., pp. 148-149.

28. Lambton, Ann K. S., “Secret societies and Persian revolution of 1905-6,” in Hourani, A., ed., Middle Eastern Affairs, No. 1, St. Anthony's papers, No. 4 (London, 1958), pp. 49–51.Google Scholar

29. Khān, Muḥammad Ḥasan, I^ᶜtimād al-Salṭanah, Rūznāmah-i khāṭirāt-i I^ᶜtimād al-Salṭanah (I^ᶜtimād al-Salṭanah's diary), ed. Āfshār, I. (Tehran, 1967), pp. 934–935, 986.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 221, 688.

31. Browne, op. cit., pp. 112-113.

32. Dawlatābādī, op. cit., pp. 163-165; Browne, op. cit., p. 162.

33. Kasravī, op. cit., pp. 548-551.

34. Sayyid Muḥammad ^ᶜAlī Jamālzādah, “Taqīzādah,” Rāhnamā-i kitāb, Vol. 13, Nos. 3 and 4 (May-June, 1970), p. 167.Google Scholar

35. Ducroq, Georges, “La politique due gouvernment des Soviets en Perse,” Revue du monde musulman, Vol. 52 (December, 1922), p. 145.Google Scholar

36. Hidāyat, op. cit., p. 151; Malikzādah, op. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 213-214.

37. Taqīzādah, Ḥasan, Tārīkh-i avā'il-i inqilāb va mashrūṭīyat-i Īrān (The history of the beginnings of the revolution and the Iranian constitution) (Tehran, 1958), pp. 58–59.Google Scholar

38. ^ᶜAbd al-Ḥusayn Navā'ī, op. cit., p. 48.

39. Ibid., pp. 50-51; Kasravī, op. cit., pp. 800-804; Khīzī, Ismaīl Amir, Qīyām-i Azerbaijan va Sattār Khān (The Uprising in Azerbaijan and the role of Sattār Khān) (Tabriz, 1960), pp. 219–224, 233-234.Google Scholar

40. Banani, A., “Hizb, Section 111, Persia,” Encyclopedia of Islam, New Ed., Vol. 3 (1971)Google Scholar, fasc. 49-50, pp. 49-5- 1967; Ādamīyat, op. cit., p. 324.

41. Malik al-Shu^ᶜarā’ Bahār, Tārīkh-i mukhtaṣar-i aḥzāb-i sīyāsī, inqirāz-i Qajarīyah (A Short history of political parties, the demise of the Qajars), Vol. 1 (1944)Google Scholar, p. v; Navā^ᶜī, op. cit., p. 53.

42. Maḥmūd Maḥmūd, “Memoirs,” in Ādamīyat, op. cit., pp. 334-335. Muḥammad Qazvīnī categorically says that Bihbihānī was killed in the hands of Ḥaydar Khān. See Muḥammad Qazvīnī, “Vafayāt mu^ᶜāṣirīn” (Recent deaths), Yādigār, Vol. 5, Nos. 8-9 (March-April, 1949), p. 71.

43. Kasravī, Aḥmad, Tārīkh-i hijdah Sālah-i Azerbaijan (Eighteen years in Azerbaijan history), (Tehran, 1954), pp. 127–131, 523-524.Google Scholar

44. Taqīzādah, “Ākhirīn difā^ᶜ,” op. cit., pp. 221-223.

45. Malikzādah, op. cit., Vol. 6, p. 219.

46. Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah was born in 1853, acceded to the throne on June 8, 1896, and died on January 14, 1907, soon after he granted the Constitution. His reign was marked by various loans from Russia and an oil concession to the British. See Keddie, Nikki R., “Iranian politics 1900-1905: background to revolution,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 5 (1969), No. 1, pp. 3–31, and No. 2, pp. 151-167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Also known as Mīrzā Maḥmūd Khān Burūjirdī, he was Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah's personal physician. When Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah was crowned, Hakīm al-Mulk came to Tehran with him. Upon his arrival in Tehran like the rest of the party who came to Tehran with Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah, he accumulated wealth and power and constituted a dangerous rival for Atābak. The latter, however, managed to send him to Gīlān as the governor, where he was found dead shortly after his arrival on August 14, 1903. For his biography, see Bāmdād, op. cit., Vol. 4, pp. 35-38; Hidẓyat, op. cit., p. 136; for the conflict between Ḥakīm al-Mulk and Atābak, see Mustawfī, A., Sharḥ-i zindigānī-i man yā tārīkh-i ijtimā^ᶜi va idārī-i dawrah-i Qājārīyah (The story of my life or the social and administrative history of the Qajars), Vol. 2 (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 53–54.Google Scholar

48. Also known as Sulṭān Ḥusayn Mīrzā, he was the grand son of Fatḥ ^ᶜAlī Shah (1797-1834). Like many other statesmen of the late nineteenth century, he started his career as a personal servant to Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (1848-1896). Upon the death of his father in 1888, he inherited his father's title and some of his official governmental positions. This practice had generally become universal in the second half of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah's reign. In 1900, when Muḥammad Taqī Mīrzā Rukn al-Dawlah, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah's brother and governor of Khurāsān, died; Nayyir al-Dawlah became the governor. (Most governorates used to be held by members of the Qājār royal family.) He was dismissed in 1903 following the incident that Ḥaydar Khān mentions in his account. See I^ᶜtimād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., p. 643; Bāmdād, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 86-91.

49. Chief administrator or the shrine endowments of Mashhad has been with the ruling monarch, as the mutivallī. He delegates his authority to a nāi'b al-tawlīyah, who is either governor-general of Khurāsān or equal to him in rank. The day-to-day administration of the endowments was left in the hands of a functionary, usually referred to as the mutivalli bāshī. For a general description of the administration of the Holy Shrine endowments just prior to Ḥaydar Khān's arrival, see Mustawfī's account of the trip he took to Mashhad in 1898. See Mustawfī, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 38-42.

50. ^ᶜAlī Naqī Mīrzā, the eldest son of Muḥammad Taqī Mīrzā Rukn al-Dawlah inherited his father's title in 1900 upon the latter's death. In 1903 he became the governor of Khurāsān, a position his father had held up to the time of his death in 1900. He was governor of Khurāsān until 1904. See the editor's notes in Aḥmad ^ᶜAlī Khān Vazīrī Kirmānī, Tārīkh-i Kirmān (A History of Kirmān), ed. Bāstānī Pārīzī (Tehran, 1961), pp. 440–442.Google Scholar

51. M. Joseph Naus was a Belgian financial expert. In December, 1903, he was appointed Director of the Customs. In 1904, he became the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs as well. Finally, he became the High Treasurer. His arbitrary manner of handling the affairs of the state had created much resentment. When it became known that he had himself photographed in the dress of the Muslim clergy, the resentment against him received the emotional spark which it needed to explode. Grievances against him were a factor in the movement that developed into the Constitutional Revolution. See Browne, op. cit., pp. 109-112, 136-138.

52. The demands for the removal of Naus, the formation of a house of justice, as well as other demands, resulted in a riot in which 18 people were killed, two of them sayyids (believed to be descendants of the Prophet). A large crowd took sanctuary in the Masjid-i Jum^ᶜah (Friday Mosque), whence they left for the Holy Shrine at Qum. Around the same time, 5,000 people took sanctuary in the British Embassy. The demands at this point became more substantial: namely, a constitution and a representative national assembly. On August 5, 1906, the Shah acceded to the people's demands. Browne, op. cit., pp. 112-124.

53. Sulṭan ^ᶜAbd al-Majīd Mīrzā, known as ^ᶜAyn al-Dawlah, was Fatḥ ^ᶜAlī Shah's grand son. He was the chief minister when the Constitutional Revolution began; and his reactionary and harsh personality may indeed have accelerated the Revolution. He was dismissed, as demanded by the constitutionalists on July 24, 1906. Yet he twice became premier in the constitutional period in 1914 and again in 1917.

54. Ṣanī^ᶜ al-Dawlah and two of his brothers, Mukhbir al-Ṣaltanah and Mukhbir al-Mulk, all educated in Europe, were prominent in the Constitutional Movement. Ṣanī^ᶜ al-Dawlah helped draft the electroal law and became the first Speaker of the House. Upon the murder of Atābak, he resigned his Speakership, despairing of any meaningful reform. He was finally killed by a Georgian on February 6, 1911. See Muḥammad Qazvīnī, “Vafayāt-i mu^ᶜāṣirīn,” Yādigār, Vol. 5, Nos. 4-5 (November, 1948-January, 1949), pp. 84-85; Browne, op. cit., pp. 129, 137, 140.

55. Ghulām Ḥusayn Khān Ghaffārī, governor of Tehran and minister of the court. See Dawlatābādī, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 114-115, 120.

56. A mosque school in the southern part of Tehran, which was one of the centers of political gatherings during the Constitutional Movements.

57. About 500 absolutist clergymen, led by Shaykh Fal Allāh, took bast (sanctuary) in the shrine of Shah ^ᶜAbd al-Aẓīm, whence they waged propaganda warfare against constitutionalism. The ostensible reason for their bast was that the Majlis should not interfere with Islamic religious principles. They took bast just before Atābak became premier and upon his death they returned to Tehran. Ḥaydar Khān's claim that Shaykh Fal Allāh worked for Atābak is questionable. Sayyid ^ᶜAbd Allāh was the main pillar among the clergy upon whom Atabāk relied. The enmity between the Sayyid and the Shaykh was so intense that they could not be in the same camp. For this very reason the Shaykh left the constitutionalists and was willing to rejoin them if they dissociated themselves from the Sayyid. See Dawlatābādī, op. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 59-62, 64-65, 88-91.

58. Malik al-Mutikallimīn and Sayyid Jamāl Vā^ᶜiẓ were two radical members of the first Parliament. When Muḥammad ^ᶜAlī Shah staged a coup against the constitutionalists in 1908, he had them executed. For details on the two, see the study by Malik al-Mutikallimīn's son: Mahdī Malikzādah, op. cit.

59. Ḥaydar Khān seems to have made a mistake in recording the date. Atābak was murdered on August 31st.