The "Sad" Era of Iran's Modern History: The Qajar Dynasty
The Islamic Republic of Iran, commonly known as Iran. Before 1935, it was called Persia by the outside world, located on the Iranian Plateau in Western Asia, with a hot and dry climate, its north bordering the Caspian Sea and its south facing the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Iran has a long history in art, music, architecture, poetry, philosophy, and literature.
Persian language has a history of more than 2,500 years, leaving considerable written records. Persian literature is highly regarded worldwide. Poets such as Hafez, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Nizami, Saadi Shirazi, and Ferdowsi have left many excellent works. The elegance of Iranian poetry and lyrics has also received worldwide praise.
Seeking social justice and fairness is an important characteristic of Iranian culture. Respecting the elderly and treating foreign guests hospitably are also part of Iranian traditional etiquette.
The Iranian New Year, Nowruz, is celebrated on the spring equinox, which is on March 20 or March 21 every year. Nowruz was nominated by UNESCO as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2004.
In the early 16th century, Ismail I resisted the Ottoman Turkish Empire and established the Safavid dynasty, making Shia Islam the state religion. In the 18th century, the Zand dynasty and the Qajar dynasty rose successively, but due to prolonged wars, the country declined, repeatedly suffering from foreign invasions. During the Anglo-Russian Great Game period, the Russian Empire seized large areas of territory in the north. In order to block Germany's influence from penetrating into the Middle East, Russia and Britain agreed in 1907 to divide Persia, with Russia controlling the north and Britain the south, leaving only a central buffer zone governed by the Qajar dynasty.
In the Russian-Persian War of the early 19th century, Persian territories in the Caucasus were occupied by the Russian Empire, and the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 finally established the boundary between Russia and modern-day Iran.
The Treaty of Gulistan was a peace treaty signed between the Russian Empire and Persia on October 24, 1813, in the village of Gulistan (now in the Goygol district of Azerbaijan).
Between 1804 and 1813, Russia and Persia fought a war, and Russia defeated Persia. This treaty confirmed that Persia ceded the current Dagestan, eastern Georgia, most of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and northern Armenia to Russia.
The Treaty of Turkmenchay was a treaty signed between the Qajar dynasty of Persia (Iran) and the Russian Empire on February 10, 1828, in Turkmenchay, ending the war between the two sides. In the treaty, Persia ceded parts of the South Caucasus to Russia, including the current Armenia and southern Azerbaijan. The Persian signatory was Abbas Mirza, and the Russian signatory was Ivan Paskevich. Like the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, this treaty was signed after Russia's victory over Persia, with Paskevich threatening to occupy Tehran within five days unless the treaty was signed.
This treaty led Persia to cede several regions in the South Caucasus: the remaining parts of the Erivan Khanate, the Nakhchivan Khanate, and the Talish Khanate, with the treaty boundary between Russia and Persia located along the Aras River. It roughly corresponds to the current Armenia, southern Azerbaijan, Nakhchivan, and the Turkish Edirne province.
Through the final treaty of 1828 and the treaty of 1813, Russia had completed the conquest of the Caucasus region from the Qajar dynasty, which are now part of the Russian Federation's Dagestan, eastern Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, which have been part of the Transcaucasian concept for centuries. The areas north of the Aras River, such as the territories of the contemporary countries of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the Russian Dagestan Republic in the North Caucasus, were ruled by Iranians until they were occupied by Russia in the 19th century.
The further results of these two treaties were that the former Iranian territories became part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union for the next 180 years, and since then Dagestan has always been Russian territory. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, three independent countries were formed on most of the territories: Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.
The Greater Iran, also known as the Great Persia or the Iranian Cultural Continent, refers to the area around the Iranian Plateau, where Iranian tribes settled and were influenced by Persian culture; it stretches from the Caucasus to the Indus River in present-day Pakistan, conforming to the historically recognized entire Iranian territory.
The concept of Greater Iran is unrelated to any political entity, and it can be applied as early as the post-Bronze Age Iranian scattered tribes, at least several centuries before the emergence of the earliest political entities. The Sasanian dynasty first used the term "Iran" with political connotations in the third century, and the multi-ethnic Iranian region included Anatolia, excluding the two salt desert basins east of Iran, but it applied in a cultural context.
American Oriental scholar Richard Nelson Frye defined Greater Iran as "most of the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia, with cultural influence extending to China, the western part of the Indian subcontinent, and the Semitic-speaking world." According to Frye, "Iran is the area where people speak Iranian languages and where Iranian languages circulate, as well as where Iranian culture prevails."
Richard Foltz said, "Greater Iran is a cultural region stretching from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus to Khwarezm, Central Asia, Bactria, the Pamir Mountains, where various peoples, including Persians, Medes, Parthians, and Sogdians, were Zoroastrians before the Islamic period."
The Greeks considered the extent of Greater Iran to reach the Indus River.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1859054664453132/
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