War and Peace in Qajar Persia: Implications Past and ... - Oguzlar.az

IntroductionRoxane Farmanfarmaian*Historical revisionism can be both dangerous and liberating. To rethink andrecalibrate the meanings of the past, imputed by chroniclers of currentevents, is to deny the viewpoint of the witness. This is not a process to betaken lightly. And yet, without the benefit of temporal distance, cross-culturalcomparison and political, social and economic context to better understandthe motives and tactics of men and empires, history remains impoverishedand the lessons to be drawn today remain oblique, if not plain wrong. It isonly in the recognition and analysis of ongoing trends and human responsesover time, what Braudel called “la longue durée”, that history comes into focus,and can provide insight for both policymakers and academics. Thus, historyis constantly in the making, an ongoing process of interpretation that beginsas events unfold but then continues from then on.It is not uncommon, of course, for the spyglass of historical interest to befickle, and ignore certain events and eras while favouring others – that is, to bedrawn to popular periods and places, and only by chance or through eccentricfocus, to discover other, more obscure subjects upon which to turn its enquiringgaze. However, wars and dynasties – the death, dominance and governanceof men, particularly in regions of strife and crisis – remain history’sfocus, especially the more recent they are, for history thrives on documents,and documents are the fodder of the modern world.It may be deemed surprising then, that a state at the heart of a still moderatelyrecent, intensely critical area of international relations, sufficientlyfraught with the implications of territory and empire that it became knownas the Great Game, should itself have remained largely ignored by the criticaleye of historical enquiry. Within the rich analyses by the Ottomans, theRussians, the British and the French during the period stretching generouslyacross the century marks at both ends of the 1800s, evaluation of Persia underthe Qajars remains strangely wooden. Descriptions of the Qajars as condemningtheir country to decline and foreign dependence because of the Shahs’ incompetence,avarice and corruption remain as unvarying and unchallenged asthe assumptions of their military failures and their inability to maintain Persia’sterritorial integrity.These views echo those of many, though not all, of the witnesses of eventsat the time, diplomats, travellers, military personnel and businessmen who