Persia/Iran:
The First Century of the Qajar Dynasty,
into the era of Iranian Modernization
1794:1896
[SOURCE]
Wkp article contains vast timeline of Persian (Iranian) history [W]

<>1779:Agha Mohammad Khan, a leader of the Qajar tribe, set out to reunify Iran
*--The Qajars were a Turkmen tribe with ancestral roots in the northwestern frontiers of Persian authority (now Azerbaijan)
*--He defeated numerous rivals and brought all of old Persia under his rule, establishing the Qajar dynasty =

<>1794:1925; Persia was ruled by the Qajar Dynasty for over one century

<>1794:1896; The first century of Qajar Dynasty preceded the era of Iranian Modernization

• 1794:Agha Mohammad Khan defeated all rivals and reasserted Persian sovereignty over former Persian territories in Georgia and the Caucasus
• He established his capital at Tehran, a village near the ruins of the ancient city Ray (now Shahr-e Rey)

<>1796:Agha Mohammad Khan was formally crowned shah, but a year later he was assassinated

<>1797:1834; Fath Ali Shah succeeded to the throne

• Soon Persia was at war with Russia, which was expanding from the north into the Caucasus Mountains
• This was an area of historic Persian interests and influence
• Iran suffered major military defeats
• 1813:Treaty of Gulistan forced Persia to recognize Russia's annexation of Georgia and ceded to Russia most of the north Caucasus region. A second war with Russia followed
• 1828:Treaty of Turkmanchai acknowledged Russian sovereignty over the entire area north of the Aras River (territory comprising present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan)
• Remember = Azerbaijan was the old Qajar family homeland
• Russian successes opened a long era of intense European diplomatic rivalry over Persia

<>1834:1848; Mohammad Shah succeeded to the throne of his grandfather, Fath Ali Shah

• Persia attempted a shift from hostility with the Russian Empire to cooperation and alliance
• Under the influence of Russia, Persia made two unsuccessful attempts to capture Herat (in modern-day Afghanistan)
• Herat was within the sphere of Persian authority in Safavid times [ID] but had slipped away for almost a century

1848:1896; Persia(Iran) ruled for 48 years by Naser-e-Din Shah, son of Mohammad Shah

• This was the greatest era of Qajar dynasty rule
• In these years European science, technology, and educational methods were introduced and economic modernization got under way =

1848:1851; Persia briefly (2 1/2 years) entered into a self-sustained period of modernization and reform

• The young Shah awarded his closest adviser, Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Nezam, the position of Prime Minister and the title Amir Kabir, the Great Ruler [ID]
• Prime Minister Amir Kabir initiated important reforms in virtually all sectors of Persian life
• Government expenditure was slashed, and a distinction was made between the privy monarchical budget and that of the national government
• The instruments of central administration were overhauled
• The Prime Minister assumed responsibility for all areas of the bureaucracy
• Foreign interference in Iran's domestic affairs was curtailed, yet foreign trade was encouraged
• Public works such as the bazaar in Tehran were undertaken
• Amir Kabir issued an edict banning ornate and excessively formal writing in government documents. This marked the beginning of a modern Persian prose style
• Amir Kabir began construction of Dar-ol-Fonoon, the first modern Persian university
• He hired French and Russian instructors as well as Iranians to teach foreign languages, medicine, law, geography, history, economics, and engineering
• The university was designed to be a center of higher European-style learning where a new cadre of Iranian administrators and specialists would be trained to fill the needs of a thoroughly modernized Persia
• These reforms antagonized various old-school notables who were now removed from the centers of Persian power
• They regarded the Prime Minister as a social upstart and a threat to their interests
• They formed a coalition against him, in which the queen mother was active
• She convinced the young shah that Prime Minister Amir Kabir planned to usurp the throne
• 1851oc: The shah dismissed Amir Kabir and exiled him to Kashan, where he was murdered on the shah's orders

1852:1896; Not only were internal forces at work to spoil this early national reformist era, but even more damaging international forces intervened =

• "The Great Game" [LOOP] resulted in serious deformation of Persian development, much as modern European imperialism, in general, deformed historical development in many areas of the non-European globe
• Persia did what it could to preserve Persian independence by playing the two greatest European imperialist threats, Great Britain and Russia, against one another
• Nonetheless, foreign interference and territorial encroachment increased
• Persia was finally unable to resist English and Russian encroachment into regions of traditional Iranian influence, especially after the Crimean War [ID] =

• England supported the city's incorporation into Afghanistan, a country which England helped create in order to establish a northeastern buffer between its imperial authority in India and Russia's expanding empire in Central Asia
• To the southwest, England also solidified its control over the Persian Gulf

• Iranians increasingly felt humiliation at the hands of European imperialist powers =
• Russian conquest of present-day Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan brought European imperialist power directly against Persia's northeastern borders
• Russia severed historic Persian ties to the the great trading cities Bukhara and Samarqand
• England pressured Persia to make several trade concessions that put Persian economic affairs largely under British control
• Persia was virtually bankrupt, its central government was weak, and its rule over its own internal provinces slackened
• The utter extinction of Persia seemed possible
• In response to this possibility, there arose a "nationalist" resistance to imperialist intrusion and, at the same time, a desire for reform and modernization, even if on a "Western" pattern

• Government revenue declined as a result
• Corruption reigned. EG=Concessions to Europeans in return for generous payment to the shah and other insider officials