History Of The Wars (1721-1738) by Abraham of Erevan

This book, surprisingly enough, is almost the only primary source that is available in Western historical sources about the complicated conflicts that precipitated and followed the catastrophic fall of the Safavid Dynasty and led to the rise of Nadir Shah (who later became insane), and the restoration of the Persian territories from before the war. Abraham of Erevan was an Armenian noble of pro-Persian political loyalties who suffered through and survived the horrors of the wars between various competing Persian elements, Afghans, Ottoman Turks, and Russians. This book’s contents begin abruptly–as it must have seemed abrupt at the time–with the invasion of the Afghans into Safavid Persia, where after a lengthy siege Isfahan was taken and the Shah and most of his sons killed by the victorious Afghans. This sign of weakness led the Russians and Ottoman Turks to join in the division of the spoils of what looked like a moribund Persia, and also led to attacks on the Persian protectorates, including Georgia and Armenia, leading to massive bloodshed as cities were besieged and stormed and as massive armies fought each other until things returned to the status quo antebellum in 1738, with a new Persian ruler on the throne, even if his dynasty was not long to survive before the Qajaris ended up taking over the Persian throne by the end of the 18th century.

This particular book is about 100 pages in length. The first ten pages consist of an introduction to the text and its author. It talks about the perspective of Abraham of Erevan–who shows himself to be a pious Christian author and, as might be expected, a proud defender of the interests of his people both in Armenia as well as in exile in other areas, including Persia, where they were taken by earlier Safavid shahs during the 17th century. This section also talks about the complex textual history of the work, where what was a somewhat idiosyncratic account in Armenian was edited and given chapters by an editor, which has then been corrected and translated by a contemporary editor to restore of what some of the first editor ignored and also to discuss the disagreements between the two texts as they have passed down to us. The next 90 pages or so are made up of a detailed set of accounts that look at various political, diplomatic, and military conflicts between different Persian factions as well as the Afghans, Ottoman Turks, and Russians who opportunistically sought to seize their lands and population. The author focuses first on conflicts in Armenia and Georgia as well as battles and sieges and treaties made between various parties. Some parties, like the Russians, do not come off looking so badly, as they were quick to restore the lands around the Caspian to the Persians when they saw that they had competent military leadership in Nadir Shah. The conflict between the interests of the Ottoman Sultan and his local pashas on the scene in Kurdistan and Baghdad is also shown, as is the focus of Nadir Shah on recovering Herat and Kandahar for the Persians, which is where the book ends with maps and an index following the conquest of Kandahar in 1738 by Nadir Shah’s army.

If you are looking for a book about a strikingly interesting period in Persian history that covers diplomatic and military and political history, this is a very good one to read. This particular translation is a solid one, if you understand English, at least, and it is written from the point of view of a noble Armenian who was an eyewitness to some of the events and interviewed other eyewitnesses to compile his story. This particular book is full of interesting footnotes, as it survived through a complicated textual history as noted above. The author’s perspective is certainly not one of the Persians themselves, but for whatever reason (possibly due to the massive amount of death and destruction and conflict that occurred between 1721 and 1738) no Persian writer is known to have written a first-hand account that has survived into Western languages like English, though it would be good to find such sources if they were available. How did Persians themselves feel about the chaotic period between 1721 and 1738 when it seemed at first that their world had been destroyed with the collapse of the Safavids, facing starvation in sieges or slavery or conquest to the Afghans, Russians, and Turks, only to find themselves saved by a brave and generally successful military leader who restored them to the land that they had held during a long period of peace that had lasted for some sixty years before the sudden collapse of the Safavids. Is Nadir Shah still honored today as a savior and defender of his people? Is there any truth to the rather gossipy arguments that Nadir Shah made for deposing the unfortunate Safavid shah and then, at least apparently reluctantly, taking the position for himself after ruling for some time through a puppet Safavid child Shah? Inquiring minds want to know.