The Evolution of Kasravi's History

Eurasiatica: Quaderni di studi su Balcani, Anatolia, Iran, Caucaso e Asia Centrale (special volume: "Armenia, Caucaso e Asia Centrale. Ricerche 2021"), 2021

This essay examines six Persian-language historical works that were produced in the Caucasus during the nineteenth century. These works have conventionally gone unnoticed due to the language of composition and the predominant approach to the region as a Russian imperial province. Interestingly, these texts bear the mark of the Afsharid period, and demonstrate a marked interest in the figure of Nader Shah. They demonstrate that the Safavid collapse and the subsequent developments of the eighteenth century had an important impact on conceptions of political legitimacy in the Caucasus. They also suggest that the birth of new local Persianate historiographical traditions in the region should not only be viewed through the lens of Russian imperial modernity and instead be better situated in their local and historical context.

2021

2016

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, political élites of some of the former Soviet republics, especially the Turkic-speaking ones, found themselves in ideological limbo. The first President of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov (Saparmyrat Nyýazow), has trodden his way out from the vacuum of legitimacy in the most original and interesting manner. In 2001, Niyazov, known also as Turkmenbashi (Türkmenba §y), made public his book, Ruhnama , which later has been translated into about fifty languages.

's " Reminiscences of the Maidan-i Shah " combine discussion of the development of Isfahan as imperial capital by Abbas I with the author's childhood memories of growing up in the Safavid royal quarters adjoining the Maidan in the house of his grandmother, a Qajar princess and " first lady of Isfahan. " The house had formerly been the residence of the last Safavid Chief Eunuch and stood amidst a number of other buildings surviving in various states of repair from the Safavid age. Bakhtiar recollects some of these now vanished buildings in vivid and precise detail and gives also fascinating glimpses of the life and uses of the Maidan during the first half of the 20th century. Charles Melville takes as his subject the apparent lack of interest in historical subjects among Safavid painters (in contrast to Timurid, Ottoman, and Mughal practice). An extensive survey of manuscripts allows him to qualify the previously held assumption of Safavid neglect of historical painting. First, he finds that the Timurid tradition of illustrating histories continued under the Safavids, though primarily in 16th century Shiraz before the consolidation of Safavid control there and not, as far as we know, through the patronage of Safavid princes. Second, he notes that while Safavid court chronicles were not illustrated, manuscripts of several popular, romanticized histories did frequently contain pictures. This type of history was preferred for illustration, Melville suggests, because of the epic-romantic nature of the text itself, which lent itself to the kind of pictorial treatment given to the Shahnama and other verse epics and romances. Melville does not challenge the consensus that the Safavids showed little interest in the illustration of contemporary historical events, but he argues that this may have been because the mythologized past, first and foremost in the shape of the Shahnama, provided sufficient outlet for the illustration of idealized royal exploits. The principle difference, he suggests, with Ottoman practice was that Safavid artists, whose patrons remain for the most part unidentified, preferred to depict an idealized past, while their Ottoman counterparts, working for official commissions, concentrated on the present. The final chapter by Paul Losensky is a gem of an article on Safavid architectural chronograms— poems inscribed on buildings to record their date of construction and other information. It opens with an introduction to the subject, based on a single simple chronogram that allows the non-specialist reader to understand the mechanics of this highly specialized genre of poetry. This is followed by a discussion of the variety and complexity of the Safavid chronogram and the breath-taking virtuosity of its exponents. An appendix listing the architectural chronograms examined in researching the chapter provides all that would be needed to introduce students to this class of inscription, which is so important for dating and contextualizing buildings. Regrettably, the book is marred by errors and typographic slips in several chapters. However, despite the uneven quality, this is a useful volume containing several contributions that will become essential reading for those working in the field of Safavid studies. The chapters by Matthee and Losensky also particularly lend themselves for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate teaching. In Persia in Crisis, Rudi Matthee focuses on political and economic trends and events that catalyzed the downfall of the Safavid dynasty in 1722. Drawing on a lifetime of research on socioeconomic history of late Safavid Iran, this book coalesces the conclusions Matthee had already drawn in his

Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 17/1, pp. 82-85 , 2014