James Dee Clark. The history of the Iranian province of Azerbaijan, 1848-1914. Dissertation (1999)

James Dee Clark. The history of the Iranian province of Azerbaijan, 1848-1914: dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin, 1999, VIII+478 p.

Abstract

Most studies dealing with the Qajar period (1796-1925) have focused on events at the center of government in Tehran, the actions of the shah and high officials, and foreign involvement in the country, despite the fact that Iran remained a collection of diverse regions governed by a decentralized administration which delegated a significant degree of authority to the provincial governors and officials. This dissertation therefore shifts the historical focus to the province of Azerbaijan and provides a narrative of mainly political events during the momentous period extending from 1848 to 1914. It cites Persian sources such as chronicles and memoirs extensively heretofore little utilized in order to give a Iranian view of those events.

Throughout the period, Azerbaijan was the most important province in Iran in terms of the army, the amount of revenues it contributed, its agricultural production, the size of its population, and its common borders with the Russian and the Ottoman empires. A thriving trade with Europe, particularly along the Tabriz-Trabzon route, made it preeminent in commerce during the middle of the century, and Tabriz subsequently became the largest city in Iran. This made control of its administration of particular importance and resulted in recurring struggles between the central government and provincial officials during the reign of Naser od-Din Shah (1848-1896). The Kurdish revolt of 1880 during Mozaffar od-Din Mirza’s governorship (1861-96) brought reforms by Naser od-Din aimed at bringing the province under greater control of the central government that ultimately failed.

Greater exposure to European political notions as well as discontent with the heavy-handed rule of Mohammad Ali Mirza (1896-1907) exacerbated by persistent inflation and famine tumed the province’s pro constitutionalists into the most radical elements of the Iranian Constitutional Movement (1905-11), a role they lost following the siege of Tabriz in 1908-9. Occupation by the Russians in 1912 and a royalist administration isolated the province from the rest of Iran, presenting a stark contrast to its former prominence in the affairs of the country.

Contents

List of Tables … viii
Introduction … 1
Chapter 1. The Land and History of Azerbaijan, 1750-1848 … 15
Chapter 2. Azerbaijan During the Govemorship and Early Reign of Naser od-Din, 1848-1860 … 68
Chapter 3. The Governorship of Mozaffar od-Din Mirza in Azerbaijan, 1860-1880 … 114
Chapter 4. The Kurdish Revolt of 1880 in Azerbaijan … 172
Chapter 5. Azerbaijan During the Last Years of Naser od-Din’s Reign, 1880-1896 … 226
Chapter 6. The Years of Mohammad Ali Mirza’s Governorship in Azerbaijan, 1896-1906 … 269
Chapter 7. Azerbaijan in the Years of the Constitutional Movement, 1907-1910 … 328
Chapter 8. The Third Siege of Tabriz and the Russian Occupation, 1911-1914 … 396
Bibliography … 457
Vita … 478