Plünderung von Şamaxı
Vorlage:Good article The Sack of Shamakhi took place in 1721,Vorlage:Efn-ua when rebellious Sunni Lezgins, within the declining Safavid Empire, attacked the capital of Shirvan province, Shamakhi (in present-day Azerbaijan Republic).Vorlage:Sfn The initially successful counter-campaign was abandoned by the central government at a critical moment and with the threat then left unchecked, Shamakhi was taken by 15,000 Lezgin tribesmen, its Shia population massacred, and the city ransacked.
The deaths of Russian merchants within Shamakhi were subsequently used as a casus belli for the Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723, leading to the cessation of trade between Iran and Russia and the designation of Astrakhan as the new terminus on the Volga trade route.
Background
By the first decade of the 18th century, the once-prosperous Safavid realm was in a state of heavy decline, with insurrections in numerous parts of its domains.Vorlage:Sfn The king, Sultan Husayn, was a weak ruler, and although personally inclined to be more humane, flexible, and relaxed than his chief mullah, he went along with the recommendations of his advisers regarding important state decisions.Vorlage:Sfn He reigned as a "stationary monarch", preferring, apart from the occasional hunting party, to be inside or near the capital of Isfahan at all times, invisible to all "but the most intimate of courtiers".Vorlage:Sfn Having seen not much more of the world than the harem walls, he had quickly fallen under the spell of the leading ulama, most notably Muhammad Baqir Majlisi.Vorlage:Sfn Majlesi, who had already gained considerable political power during the reign of Sultan Husayn's predecessor [[Suleiman I of Persia|SuleimanVorlage:NbspI]] (Vorlage:Reign 1666–1694), instigated the persecutions directed towards Safavid Iran's Sunni and Sufi inhabitants, as well as its non-Muslim religious minorities, namely Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Though the Christians, mainly represented by the Armenians, suffered less than other groups, they were also targeted from time to time.Vorlage:Sfn As Prof.Vorlage:NbspRoger Savory states, even though Sultan Husayn did not show personal hostility towards Christians, he was persuaded by the clergy (Majlisi in particular), who had great influence over him, to issue "unjust and intolerant decrees".Vorlage:Sfn The tense religious atmosphere in the late Safavid era would prove to be a significant factor in the revolts by Sunni adherents from various places within the empire.Vorlage:Sfn As Prof.Vorlage:NbspMichael Axworthy notes: "The clearest example was the revolt in Shirvan, where Sunni religious men had been killed, religious books destroyed and Sunni mosques turned into stables".Vorlage:Sfn
The Sunni population in the northwestern domains of the Safavids, comprising Shirvan and Dagestan, felt the burden of the Shia persecution during Sultan Husayn's reign.Vorlage:Sfn Daud Beg, a rebel mountaineer chieftain of the Lezgins and a Sunni cleric who had been imprisoned in the Safavid city of Derbent, was released shortly after the Afghan attack on Safavid Iran from within its far easternmost domains.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Efn-ua Sultan Husayn was hoping that Daud Beg and his Dagestani allies would assist in countering the revolt on the eastern front, but Daud instead put himself at the head of a tribal coalition, and then launched a campaign against both the Safavid government forces and the empire's Shia population, eventually marching upon the provincial capital of Shamakhi.Vorlage:Sfn 1718 saw an intensification of the Lezgin incursions into Shirvan,Vorlage:Sfn rumoured, according to Rudi Matthee, to have been incited by then grand vizier Fath-Ali Khan Daghestani (1716–1720).Vorlage:Sfn Russia's ambassador to Safavid Iran, Artemy Volynsky, who was in Shamakhi in 1718,Vorlage:Sfn reported that, because local officials considered the grand vizier "an infidel", they considered his orders invalid and even questioned the king's authority.Vorlage:Sfn Florio Beneveni, an Italian in the Russian diplomatic service, insisted that Shamakhi's inhabitants were ready to revolt against the government for "extorting large sums of money from them".Vorlage:Sfn The maurauding raids, incursions, and pillages nevertheless carried on; in April of the same year, the Lezgins took the village of AkVorlage:NbspTashi (located near Nizovoi), but not before abducting a number of its inhabitants and plundering a caravan of 40Vorlage:Nbsppeople on the road to Shamakhi.Vorlage:Sfn After these events, numerous additional reports in relation to the rebels are reported.Vorlage:Sfn
Attack and sack
By early May 1718 some 17,000 Lezgin tribesmen had reached a distance of Vorlage:Convert from Shamakhi, occupying themselves with looting settlements in Shamakhi's surrounding areas.Vorlage:Sfn In 1719 the Iranian government decided to send the sepahsalar Hosayn-Qoli Khan (VakhtangVorlage:NbspVI of Kartli) to Georgia with the task of confronting the Lezgin rebellion.Vorlage:Sfn Assisted by the ruler of neighboring Kakheti, as well as the beglarbeg of Shirvan, Khan made significant progress in putting a halt to the Lezgins.Vorlage:Sfn However, in the winter of 1721, at a crucial moment in the campaign, he was recalled.Vorlage:Sfn The order, which came after the fall of grand vizier Fath-Ali Khan Daghestani, was made at the instigation of the eunuch faction within the royal court, who had persuaded the shah that a successful end of the campaign would do the Safavid realm more harm than good. In their view, it would enable Vakhtang, the Safavid wali, to form an alliance with Russia with an eye to conquering Iran.Vorlage:Sfn
Shortly before the siege, the Sunnis of Shirvan province appealed for help from the Ottomans, their co-religionistsVorlage:Sfn and the arch-rivals of the Safavids.Vorlage:Sfn The Lezgin "coalition", having mobilized some 15,000 tribesmen, and now assisted by Surkhay Khan of the Ghazikumukh, laid siege to Shamakhi on 15Vorlage:NbspAugust 1721.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Eventually, the Sunni inhabitants of Shamakhi opened one of the gates of the city, upon which thousands of Shia residents were massacred,Vorlage:Efn-ua while Christians and foreigners were "merely" robbed.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Several Russian merchants were killed as well.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn The stores of the many Russian merchants were looted, resulting in grave economic losses for them.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Efn-ua Amongst the merchants was Matvei Evreinov, "reputedly the wealthiest merchant in Russia", who suffered huge losses.Vorlage:Sfn The Shia Safavid governor of the city, his nephew, and the rest of his relatives were "cut to pieces by the mob, and their bodies thrown to the dogs".Vorlage:Sfn After the province was completely overrun by the rebels, Daud Beg appealed to the Russians for protection, declaring his loyalty to the Tsar.Vorlage:Sfn Upon being rebuffed, he appealed to the Ottomans, this time successfully; he was then designated by the Sultan as Ottoman governor of Shirvan.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
Aftermath
Artemy Volynsky reported to then Tsar Peter the Great (Vorlage:Reign 1682–1725) on the considerable harm done to the Russian merchants and their livelihoods.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn The report stipulated that the 1721 event was a clear violation of the 1717 Russo–Iranian trade treaty, by which the latter had guaranteed to ensure the protection of Russian nationals within the Safavid domains.Vorlage:Sfn With the Safavid realm in chaos, and the Safavid ruler unable to fulfill the provisions of the treaty, Volynsky urged Peter to take advantage of the situation and to invade Iran on the pretext of restoring order as an ally of the Safavid king.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Indeed, Russia shortly afterward used the attack on its merchants in Shamakhi as a pretext to launch the Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn The episode brought trade between Iran and Russia to a standstill, and made the city of Astrakhan the terminus for the Volga trade route.Vorlage:Sfn
See also
Notes
References
Sources
- Muriel Atkin: Russia and Iran, 1780–1828. U of Minnesota Press, 1980, ISBN 978-0-8166-5697-4.
- Michael Axworthy: The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant. I.B. Tauris, 2010, ISBN 978-0-85772-193-8.
- Vorlage:Cite encyclopedia
- William Bayne Fisher, P. Avery, G. R. G Hambly, C. Melville: The Cambridge History of Iran. Band 7. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1991, ISBN 978-0-521-20095-0 (google.nl).
- Rudolph P. Matthee: The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 978-0-521-64131-9, S. 120 (google.nl).
- Rudolph P. Matthee: The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900. Princeton University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-691-11855-0.
- Rudi Matthee: Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan. I.B.Tauris, 2012, ISBN 978-1-84511-745-0.
- Alexander Mikaberidze: Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO, 2011, ISBN 978-1-59884-336-1, Russo-Iranian Wars.
- E. Nathalie Rothman: Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul. Cornell University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-8014-6312-9.
- Roger Savory: Iran Under the Safavids. Cambridge University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-04251-2 (google.nl).
- Martin Sicker: The Islamic World in Decline: From the Treaty of Karlowitz to the Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, ISBN 978-0-275-96891-5.