HUSSEIN AHMADI. TALYSHS. FROM THE SAFAVID ERA TO THE END OF THE SECOND RUSSIAN-IRANIAN WAR OF 1826-1828, translated from Persian by F. K. Jafarov; Foreword by A. A. Mammadov, Moscow: LIBROCOM Book House, 2009, 176 p. (Talysh studies)

The reviewed book by Iranian historian Huseyn Ahmadi is published in the series "Talysh Studies", which is produced by the Regional Talysh National Cultural Autonomy of Moscow, other Talysh organizations in Russia and the International Foundation for the Revival of Talysh Culture.

The author presents an overview of the history of the independent Talysh Khanate of the XVIII-XIX centuries, based on the research of Iranian scholars, and sometimes draws on the works of Western authors translated into Persian. At the same time, some significant events and facts of the history of Talysh at the beginning of the XIX century are either omitted altogether, or presented with very noticeable gaps, although there are quite enough documents and studies on this topic in Russian, English, Armenian and Georgian.

Directly from the text of the monograph, one can see the desire to portray the Talyshs as consistent and most stubborn fighters against Russia and its intentions to annex Talysh. Is this true if the Talysh rulers spent more than 30 years trying to incorporate their khanate into the Russian Empire, hoping to escape the military and political anarchy that reigned in Iran in the 1750s and 1790s? during the Zend-Qajar feud? We will try to understand these issues based on the documents and research available to us.

In the introduction, H. Ahmadi explains the difference between the terms " golish "and" talysh", which denote the mountainous and lowland population of the region. However, the etymology of these terms remains unclear. A number of orientalists associate the ethnonym "talysh" with the ancient form "Kadusia", in the Armenian historical literature - "kadish", later - "talysh" [Asatrian and Borjian, 2006, p. 43-72], and the term "Talysh" is also first recorded in the Armenian version of the novel about Alexander the Great, written by Alexander the Great. in the XV century [Istoriya..., 1989].

Let me also remind you that Talysh studies have become more active in Armenia in recent years. In 2005, Tsakhkadzor hosted the first international conference on Talysh studies, organized by Armenian-Iranian scholars. More than 30 Iranian and almost the same number of scientists from Armenia, Georgia, Holland, and Russia took part in the conference, and just before the opening of the conference, a collection of Talysh fairy tales was published under the editorship of a Persian language teacher at Yerevan State University. Kirakosyan. By the way, H. Ahmadi does not mention at all in the monograph that the language "azari" (the ancient language of the Iranian-speaking population of Northwestern Iran) today has separate similarities with the Talysh language, as one of the varieties of the Iranian dialects of Azerbaijan (Aturpa-takana) - the northwestern part of the Iranian state.

On pages 19-20, the author of the monograph speaks about the number of Talysh in Northern Talysh, which is part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. According to these data, 89,398 Talyshs lived in Azerbaijan in 1913, and 77,323 Talyshs in 1999, according to unofficial data of Russian scientists - 100,000 talyshs, while official data of Azerbaijan report 21,200 talyshs in 1989 and 76,800 in 1999 (p. 19). Discussing the reasons for such different figures of the Talysh population of Azerbaijan, H. Ahmadi cites a private opinion of Azerbaijani scientists that, perhaps, between 500 thousand and 800 thousand Talysh people live in today's Azerbaijan. According to the official data of the USSR population census of 1937, first published in 1991, there were 99,145 Talyshs living in Azerbaijan at that time [All - Union Census of 1937, 1991, pp. 94-95], and according to the 1959 census, there were only 100 Talyshs in all of Azerbaijan. But even stranger things happened during the 1979 census in the USSR - the Talysh people completely disappeared from the list of peoples of the USSR and Azerbaijan [All-Union Census of 1979, 1984, p. 102]. However, in 1989 during the next census of the population in the USSR, 21,169 Talysh were found in Azerbaijan [National composition..., 1991, p. 118].

The Talysh themselves claim that there are between 700,000 and 1 million people in modern Azerbaijan [Gummatzoda, 2007, p. 127, 131]. Similar figures are called by Iranian scientists

M.-T. Rakhnamai, A.-E. Hashtpari, S. Amanolahi, etc. ¹ Azerbaijani scientists grudgingly admit that the Talysh figures are probably "not entirely objective, but according to the official data of the 1999 census, there are only 76,800 people in Azerbaijan" (Yunusov, 2003). and in other cities of the republic, "where they prefer to register as Azerbaijanis", and this figure probably reflects the number of Talysh in the areas of historical Talysh, on the border with Iran.

All these metamorphoses with the number of Talyshs are connected with their persecution and demands to be recorded by Azerbaijanis, not Talyshs, during censuses.

Speaking about the foundation of the Safavid state in Iran, H. Ahmadi casually (p.26) mentions the death of Sheikh Haidar in a campaign against Dagestan, forgetting to say that he was killed in Shirvan in 1488 by the troops of Shirvanshah and Sultan Yakub Ak-Koyunlu, and the campaigns to Dagestan were predatory and unfair. The author describes in detail the rescue of the boy Ismail, the future first shah of the Safavids (1496-1499), in Gilan (Lahijan and Ardabil), but does not say that as early as 1488-1496. he was saved from execution by Armenian monks, sheltering in a monastery on the island of Akhtamar (oz. Van), and then in Nagorno-Karabakh. Angelioli, Pietro Della Vale, Sharaf khan Bidlisi, and a number of Armenian chroniclers wrote about this, and it is generally a well-known fact in Europe [A short narrative..., 1873, p. 101-105; Delia Valle, 1972, p. 101-102].

About the struggle for the Shah's throne of Ismail Safavi and how he hid from Sultan Rustam bey Ak-Koyunlu in Ardabil and Lahijan (1496-1500), the author of the monograph writes that the ruler of Biye pas Kirkaya Mirza Ali in his letter to the Sultan reported that he had no information about his whereabouts. However, it is known that when the messenger of Sultan Rustam bey arrived at Kirkaya Mirza Ali, the ruler of Lahijan ordered to put nine-year - old Ismail in a straw basket, hang it on a tree, and with a calm conscience, putting his hand on the Koran, swore that there was no Ismail on Gilan's land [Ross, 1896, pp. 281-282]. This rescue of Ismail is described in Sharaf Khan Bidlisi (Bidlisi 1976, pp. 145-146). The same source of the XVI century. He says that Ismail was born in 1486, and H. Ahmadi writes (p. 30) that in 1499 he was born in the same year. Ismail was 12 years old (probably already 13), and at the age of 14 he led the struggle (in the spring of 1500) for the seizure of power and the throne of Ak-Koyunlu. As early as the end of 1499. Ismail besieged Ganja with several thousand of his Gazis, and went to spend the winter in Erzincan to the Ustajlu and Tekel tribes of Kyzylbash. Authors of this period Myun-nejim-Bashi and Khondemir report on the defeat of Shirvanshah Farukh-Yasar's troops by Ismail and his ghazis, on the murder of Shirvanshah himself, and Sharaf Khan Bidlisi writes about the capture of Tavriz in 1501 and the proclamation of young Ismail as Shahanshah. However, H. Ahmadi's monograph says that Shirvanshah Farrukh-Yasar was still alive in 1502 and was hiding from Ismail's Ghazis in the Gulistan fortress (p. 35). This is not true - in 1502, Shirvanshah had already been dead for two years.

On page 93, the author states that "in the 1740s. Nadir Shah restored Iran's dominance over Transcaucasia." This account of events raises serious objections. It is enough to recall that Haji Celebi, who ruled in Shakki from the Kara Keshish family ("Priests in Black" - this was the name of the family of Shakki rulers who converted to Islam for the second time at the beginning of the XVIII century) , according to the Georgian King Heraclius II, ruled independently from 1743, and two unsuccessful campaigns of Shah Nadir in 1744-1745. They only led to the recognition of the independence of the Khanate of Shakki in 1747.

A letter from the Kartli-Kakheti King Heraclius II to the Empress Catherine II (1769) has been preserved, with a brief description of the states adjacent to his country, in which he writes: "Father Aji Chalabi was an Armenian priest... and then he accepted the Mohammedan faith shortly before his death "[Armenian-Russian relations..., 1990, p. 95]. This could have happened in the 1730s.

In Dagestan and the Jara-Belokan communities of the Avars (the present-day Belakan region of Azerbaijan on the border with Georgia), the Shah's troops were also defeated, and after the murder of Shah Ibrahim Khan's brother by the local leader of the Avars near Jara (1737) [Chronicle..., 1931, pp. 29-30], only 32 thousand Iranian troops were killed. 8 thousand managed to escape to Iran. As is known, the campaign of Nadir Shah himself (1741) with a 100-thousandth army to Dagestan and Shakki did not lead to success - his troops did not fight so much as they struggled with hunger and lack of fodder for horses, and the situation of his army became so acute that in the spring of 1742. he sent a letter to the governor of Astrakhan, Russia, asking them to send him flour and

¹ In their reports at the Tsakhkadzor conference, all these authors defended the figure of 1-1.5 million talyshs in modern Azerbaijan [Essays..., 2007 (appendix)].

dried fish [Kerim Agha Fateh, 1958, p. 45-46; Chronika..., 1931, p. 30; Mustafazade T. Teshb-oglu, 1993, p. 69-70]. At the same time, detachments of Lezgins and Avars led by Galega Khan, the son of the famous Dagestani ruler Surkhay Khan Kazikumukhsky, destroyed the Persian army in unexpected night sorties and partisan raids in narrow mountain gorges. After losing several thousand soldiers, without any noticeable success, except for the destruction of Dagestan, Kubba, Shirvan and Shakka, Nadir Shah retreated beyond the Arak River to the south, and in 1743 the war with Ottoman Turkey resumed and he was forced to forget about Shakki and Dagestan.

On page 96, it is stated that "Nadir Shah (in 1742 - S. M.) demanded that Russia immediately evacuate Derbent and Baku." There is a clear inaccuracy here: the author forgot that two pages earlier he was saying that according to the Ganja Treaty of 1735, Russia returned the Caspian provinces to Iran and in 1742 there was no need to demand from it what it had already fulfilled.

Further, on page 100, the author notes that after the death of Nadir Shah in 1747, "seven independent fiefdoms appeared in the former Iranian possessions in the Caucasus-Ganja, Karabakh, Baku, Kuba, Shamakhi (Shirvan - S. M.), Nakhichevan and Talysh", but he forgot to mention three more khanates, also de facto independent since 1747: Yerevan, Derbent and Shakka. So, in fact, there were ten independent khanates-states.

Describing the events of 1800, when several rulers in the South Caucasus (including the Georgian King Irakli II, Muhammad Khan of Irevan and Mir Mustafa Khan of Talysh) tried to unite their efforts in the fight against the Qajars (pp. 112-113), the author speaks about the events of the year when the Georgian King Irakli II was no longer there his son George XII, the last Georgian tsar, was still alive, and sat on the throne in Tbilisi.

The author of the monograph does not recall the predatory and devastating invasions of the Qajar troops in the South Caucasus in 1795 and 1797, does not talk about the long path of rapprochement and alliance with Russia of the Talysh Khanate, focusing all his attention on the threats to the Talysh Khans from Aga-Muhammad Khan when he talks about the events in Talysh at the end of the XVIII century. On page 116, he only notes the "strong pro-Russian sentiments" of the population of Talysh and Lenkoran Khan Mir Mustafa Khan, and on page 127 he says that in 1809 Mir Mustafa Khan concluded a protectorate agreement with Russia. Here again is an inaccuracy. Letters of Mir Mustafa Khan of Talysh dated autumn 1797 have been preserved, in which he swore allegiance to the Russian crown and asked to be accepted as a Russian citizen: "I swear before the almighty and holy God, the great prophet Magomed and the holy Koran that I will and will remain with my descendants and the people under my control in the exact possession of the loyal subjects of the All-Russian Imperial Throne" [Letters..., 1989, p. 104]. In addition, I would like to remind the author of the monograph that by the decree of Emperor Paul 1 of February 14, 1800 the Russian state took the Talysh Khanate under its protectorate and for its protection it was ordered to keep two warships with a landing team near the island of Sary, near Lenkoran [Astrakhan Port..., 1851, p. 5-6; Markaryan, 2007, p. 60-61], and already in 1802 on the personal instructions of Alexander I A military treaty was concluded between Russia and the Muslim states-the khanates of the Caucasus, on which the khans of Shamakhi, Shakki, Baku, Kubba, Karabakh and Talysh khanates signed and stamped in the city of Georgievsk, near Pyatigorsk [Annexation..., 1972, p.65-66; Markova, 1966, p. 292-295]. Qajar Iran refused to recognize this treaty and in 1804 demanded its annulment, which was one of the reasons for the Russian-Iranian war of 1804-1813 that soon broke out. It is hardly necessary to ignore such obvious facts in the history of the Talysh Khanate.

Ahmadi is very diplomatically silent about the course of military operations and the endless defeats of the Iranian Shah's troops from the Russian army, but he cannot fail to note the brave actions of General P. S. Kotlyarevsky. At the same time, telling about the capture of the Lenkoran fortress on December 31, 1812 by the troops of General P. S. Kotlyarevsky, in which there were 3 thousand Russian soldiers and Cossacks, the author writes about the losses of Russian troops: "16 senior officers, 25 junior officers, 999 ordinary soldiers. 1,723 soldiers were also wounded" (p. 137). It turns out that from the troops of General P. S. Kotlyarevsky, after the capture of Lenkoran, the Russians had no more than 200 soldiers left in the ranks. Yes, this is not a victory, but a complete defeat! Let me remind the author of the monograph that on July 2, 1810, the then Colonel P. S. Kotlyarevsky, with 600 Russian soldiers and several detachments of Armenian volunteers, attacked 8 thousand people. soldier of the Ahmed Khan Army Corps. After 5 days, Ahmed Khan, leaving 800 dead and several hundred wounded soldiers on the battlefield, fled across the Arak River, while the Russian troops lost two officers and 17 soldiers [Report..., 1870, d. 1445, p. 947]. For this victory

P. S. Kotlyarevsky received the rank of Major General ahead of schedule, and in October 1812, he twice - in Karabakh and at Aslanduz-defeated the commander-in-chief of the Iranian army, Crown Prince Abbas Mirza, with 2020 soldiers against 15 thousand Iranian, and received the rank of lieutenant general. After such victories, the figure given in the monograph of losses of Russian troops during the storming of Lenkoran seems unlikely, especially since half of the Persian garrison of the fortress was destroyed then [Igamberdyev, 1961, p. 140, 164].

Finally, concerning the author's claim that "according to the Gulistan Peace Treaty of 1813 ...the borders (of Talysh) were not strictly defined due to the lack of an exact line" (p.138). I will quote article 2 of this treaty: "... the border between the All-Russian Empire and the Persian State from now onwards should be the following line: starting from the Odin-Bazar tract, a straight line through the Mugan steppe to the Yedibulak ford on the Arak River... up the Araks River to the confluence of the Kapanakchaya River with Onaya, then to the ridge of the Migra Mountains... However, since the Talysh domain changed hands during the war, the borders of this Khanate on the part of Zinzil and Ardavil will be determined for greater fidelity after the ratification of this Treaty by Commissioners elected on both sides... so that each side remains in its own possession... "[Yuzefovich, 1869, p. 78-79; Azatyan, 2000, p. 18-19]. And in the Treaty of Turkmanchay (1828), the borders of Talysh are even more clearly defined.

These are the general comments about the reviewed book of the Iranian scientist. Of course, it is difficult to overestimate the significance of its translation into Russian. I would like to note that over the past 20 years, hundreds of monographs and studies by English-speaking authors have been translated into Persian in Iran, and only one notable book on the history of Iran in Russian is the textbook "History of Iran", prepared by the MSU team of authors in 1987. It is a pity that fundamental research in Russian falls out of the field of view of Iranian scientists. It is unlikely that the problem of a translator will be very difficult in our time, but rather we can talk about a certain piety in relation to European studies, especially to English-language works, which are available in abundance in libraries in different cities of Iran.

list of literature

Azatyan G. G. Fateful agreements. Yerevan: Publishing House of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, 2000.

Armenian-Russian relations in the XVIII century. 1760-1800 gg. Sb. dokl. Vol. IV / Ed. by M. G. Nersisyan. Yerevan, 1990.

Astrakhan port from 1783 to 1827 / / Marine Collection, vol. 5. SPb., 1851.

All-Union census of 1937, Brief results, Moscow: Izd. ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE USSR, 1991.

All-Union Census of 1979 / Ed. by A. A. Isupov and N. Z. Shvartser, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1984.

Gummatzoda A. A. "Tolishpress is authorized to declare" / / Essays on the history and culture of the Talishek people. Issue 1. Yerevan, 2007.

Igamberdiev M. A. Iran in International relations of the first third of the XIX century. Samarkand: Ed. University Press, 1961.

The story of Alexander the Great / Ed. by A. Simonyan. Yerevan, 1989 (in Ancient Armenian).

Kerim Agha Fateh. A brief history of the Shakka Khans / / From the history of the Shakka Khanate. Baku, 1958.

Markaryan S. A. Ocherk istorii formirovaniya Talyshskogo khanstva [Essay on the history and culture of the Talysh people]. Issue 1. Yerevan: Mitk Center at the University, 2007.

Markova O. P. Russia, Transcaucasia and International Relations in the XVIII century. Moscow: GRVL, 1966.

Mustafazade T. Teshb-oglu. Azerbaijan and Russian-Turkish relations in the first third of the 18th century Baku: Elm Publ., 1993.

The national composition of the population of the USSR. According to the All-Union Population Census of 1989, Moscow: Finance and Statistics, 1991.

Essays on the history and culture of the Talysh people. Issue 1. Yerevan: Mitk Center under the State Administration of the Republic of Armenia. university Press, 2007.

Letters of Mir Mustafa Khan of Talyshinsky / / Mustafayev D. M. Northern Khanates of Azerbaijan and Russia (late VIII-early XIX). Baku: Elm Publ., 1989.

Annexation of Eastern Armenia to Russia. Sat. doc. 1801-1813 Vol. 1. Yerevan: Publishing House of the Institute of History of the ANArmSSR, 1972.

Report of Colonel Kotlyarevsky / / Acts of the KAK (Caucasian Archeographic Commission). Ed. of the Chancellery of the Viceroy of the Caucasus / Ed. by A. Berge. Vol. IV. Tiflis, 1870. Case No. 1445.

Chronicle of the wars of Jar in the XVIII century. Baku, 1931.

Yuzefovich T. Treaties of Russia with the East, political and trade. Vol. 2. SPb., 1869.

Yunusov A. The ethnic composition of Azerbaijan (according to the 1999 census) - / / http://www.iea.ras.ru/topic/cen-sus/man/yunus-mon.2001.htm / Baku, 2003.

Asatrian G., Borjian H. Talish and the Talishis // Iran & Caucasus. Vol. 9.1 Leiden: Brill, 2006.

A Short Narrative of the Life and Acts of the King Ussun Cassano by Giovani Maria Angiolello // Hakluyt Society. Vol. 49. L., 1873.

Delia Valle P. Viaggi di Pietro Delia Valle. Lettere della Persia / A cura di F. Gaetane, Lockhart. T. 1. Roma, 1972.

Ross D. The Early Years of Shah Ismail. Founder of the Safawi Dinasty // Journal of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 29, Cambridge, 1896.

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