Kelly Laurence, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran

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that I share this loss with a being who is so comforting and serene. The

future which is a mystery may offer a darker contrast. It is indeed

uncertain! Will my happiness be constant? Every night when the moon

appears I feel a transformation has taken place within me I never anti-

cipated or imagined.

On 20 September, Griboyedov and his party reached Erivan. In a letter

to his father, Adelung described the proud moment of their entry.

Griboyedov, seated motionless in his saddle, received the homage of the

assembled khans and grandees of the province, accompanied by a

prancing cavalcade of 500 horsemen. The embassy then cantered for-

ward to be greeted by the city’s leaders and a short speech of welcome

in stilted Russian by the Russian-appointed town commandant.

Ceremonial salvos followed, blinding them with powder smoke. As they

crossed the numerous irrigation channels at the foot of the citadel, the

Russian uniforms, thick with dust, became soaked, changing their

colour from yellow to a dampish grey. The Armenian and Russian clergy,

in full canonicals, greeted them on the bridge across the Zanga river

with candles, icons and smoking censers.

That evening, dressed in formal uniforms, the Russian party attended

a formal banquet given by the Sardar of Erivan. In deference to

European custom, it was a seated dinner around a table, with the

garrison officers joining in. Adelung reported that there were 30 different

courses, handed round on enormous trays, together with champagne

and Kakhetian wine. Dolmas and stewed rice pilaffs swimming in thick

mutton grease put the young diplomat from St Petersburg completely off

his dinner, which he roundly described as ‘disgusting!’

Adelung met the distinguished Major General Prince Chavchavadze

the next day, remarking, somewhat patronisingly, that ‘there was no

trace of a Georgian in him’.

The Prince had been campaigning in the

Turkish pashalik of Bayazid, having stormed the fortress of that name

a few weeks earlier. He had only a few days to entertain his daughter

and new son-in-law, and to introduce them to Dr Malmberg, the head

of the military hospital in Erivan, who would be accompanying them

to Persia. On 25 September, after a further round of ceremonies and

banquets, the mission set off for Tabriz, the Prince and his wife accom-

panying them in their carriage for the first few miles.

The weather had grown colder, and their route through wintry

mountain passes was a tough one. Nina was now in the first stages of

pregnancy, and Adelung commented on the ordeal the journey meant

for her. He noted the discomfort of the freezing windowless huts in

which they stayed and the problems of eating in the open air when the

party stopped for meals. To make matters worse, their steward (the

scapegrace Gribov) had broken most of their glass and china, which

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would take an inordinate length of time to replace. Meanwhile Nina was

suffering from toothache and was often sick. She was faced, too, with

the prospect of separation from her husband, for she would have to

stay behind in Tabriz, with only the wives from the English mission for

company, when he went on to Tehran. In her pregnant condition it

would be too dangerous for her to accompany him.

As he travelled to Tabriz, Griboyedov kept his eye on the main issues

that awaited him. Writing to Amburgherr, already installed there as

Russian consul, he told him that the various delays en route had

suited him. He knew that Abbas Mirza would try to put off paying the

eighth kuror.

He may imagine that as I am coming from our Sovereign I will be able

to make concessions. You must make it clear to Abbas Mirza that I find

it indecent and dishonourable to approach him whilst a fundamental

Article of the Treaty is unfulfilled. As this kuror has to be in cash, it is

different in importance from the other Articles, such as the return of

prisoners, or the property of the repatriated Armenians. If this is not

dealt with …the Tsar has expressed the following resolution: ‘If the

Persians prevaricate further, let them be, and ignore them till military

circumstances allow me to take care of them’. I have this in a despatch

from the Vice Chancellor [Nesselrode].

On 7 November, Griboyedov arrived in Tabriz, where he formally handed

over the ratified copy of the treaty with the Tsar’s signature to Abbas

Mirza.

As he had expected, the Crown Prince was making difficulties

over the eighth kuror. The Shah had flatly refused to help him further,

pleading that his treasury was exhausted by the war. However, Abbas

Mirza was eager to recover his province of Khoi, which was a relatively

prosperous one, and had already made a downpayment of 300,000

tomans in cash to the commander there; a painting by Moshkov depicts

the convoy with the Persian gold wending its way across the mountains

towards Russia. He now wished to be released from paying the final

200,000 tomans, or at least to reopen bargaining on the matter.

It was Griboyedov’s unpleasant task to insist, under the veiled threat

of military action, that no negotiations were acceptable: the Russian troops

would not withdraw till payment had been made in full.

Fortunately,

the British, who were as interested as the Crown Prince in getting the

Russians out of Azherbaijan, came forward to act as bankers for half the

amount. 100,000 tomans would be paid in promissory notes, secured

against future taxes in the province. The remaining 100,000 tomans were

to be raised from Abbas Mirza’s treasury, jewels, gold plate, candelabras,

his golden throne, even his wives’ rings and the jewelled buttons from

their dresses. They would be stored in the citadel, to be shipped to Russia

the following spring, unless the Shah could be persuaded to redeem them.

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Courtship and Marriage

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176

It was one thing to drive a hard bargain from St Petersburg, another

to enforce it down to seizing ladies’ buttons on the spot. It was no

wonder that Griboyedov’s letters to Paskievich increasingly refer to the

‘accursed contribution’, or that his other discussions with Abbas Mirza

were poisoned by the subject. Of the remaining questions arising from

the Treaty, the most immediate was the repatriation of former prisoners-

of-war and Christians held against their will in Persia. A number of

these had already attached themselves to Griboyedov’s party, adding

greatly to the expenses of the mission. A further, more wide-ranging,

question was the agreed evacuation of some 40,000 Christian

Armenians from Azherbaijan to Georgia and the new Russian territories

of Erivan and Nakhichevan. For Abbas Mirza, the removal of a valuable

part of his labour force, mostly farmers and small tradesmen, seriously

affected the income-producing capacity of Azherbaijan, and as such was

highly unwelcome.

For Griboyedov, besieged night and day with the

problems of their transfer, the operation was an administrative night-

mare. Not only were they being transported through the mountains in

appalling winter conditions, but the funds to resettle them were often

delayed. Between badgering Paskievich for money to alleviate their plight

and dealing with their demands for compensation for their property,

Griboyedov, as he informed Rodofinikin angrily, was reduced to being ‘a

common, scribbling, low-grade clerk’. The problem would be compounded

by huge numbers of Armenians from Turkish territories following

Paskievich’s conquests there.

In the midst of these complications, Griboyedov was still desperately

short of funds. The mission’s accommodation left everything to be

desired. ‘We are so poorly lodged here that all my staff are ill,’ he wrote

to Nesselrode.

Any or every English officer is better housed than I am. Indeed, numerous

prisoners and their relatives are thronging my own premises, as they

have no other shelter but our mission’s quarters. My ten Cossack guards

are in detestable accommodation, whose owners have been ejected. It is

not Abbas Mirza’s fault, his own palace is in the most appalling condition.

I am principally concerned with the health of my staff.

Cholera and the plague were raging in the area, and Griboyedov was

still very weak from his Tiflis fevers.

He had arrived in Tabriz, as he

confessed only ‘half alive’. A further concern was Nina’s health; she was

suffering from frequent bouts of sickness, and would have been in a still

worse state but for the kindly ministrations of Macdonald’s wife.

Griboyedov’s fury at his situation was compounded by the fact that his

salary and allowances had still not been paid, so that he was subsidising

the mission out of his own pocket. Rodofinikin, he wrote privately to

Bulgarin, was ‘a swine’.

Harassed and frustrated on all sides, Griboyedov found his greatest

comfort in Nina’s company. In a letter to Varvara Miklashevich, he

writes how ‘after a fretful and alarming day I return to the privacy of my

harem where I find my sister, wife and daughter, all united in one

adorable little face’.

If Varvara wanted to know what she looked like,

she should go to see the Murillo painting of the Virgin as a shepherdess,

‘hanging in the Malmaison Gallery in the Hermitage, on the right just as

you enter’.

He knew that he must leave her soon, that he was already

being criticised for lingering in Tabriz too long. ‘I have been married for

two months and love my wife boundlessly,’

he wrote to Rodofinikin. ‘I

shall have to abandon her alone in order to hurry to the Shah, in

Teheran or Isphahan, where he is presently destined.’

Writing at the same time to Paskievich, Griboyedov declared openly

that he had no ambition, and could expect little further from his diplo-

matic career, which had ceased to be his dominant passion. Once his

mission was over, he hoped to retire to Kakhetia and the beautiful estate

at Tsinondali, where Nina had been brought up. Moscow and his mother’s

family home were out of the question. He had just received a ‘perfectly

poisonous letter’ from his mother, instead of expressions of pleasure

and congratulations on his marriage.

By the beginning of December, the payment of the eighth kuror had

been completed and 400,000 tomans had been sent to Russia. The

remaining 100,000 tomans worth of jewels and treasure was stored in

the citadel in Tabriz, though Griboyedov still hoped to persuade the

‘miserly Shah’ to redeem them for his bankrupt son. With his main

task in Tabriz accomplished, it was time for Griboyedov to present his

credentials (now duly signed) in Tehran; the Shah had been quelling an

uprising in the provinces, and was expected there the following month.

Macdonald had offered to care for Nina in the British embassy while he

was away, evidence of the close personal relations existing between

them. Although the British were opposed to the Russian war with

Turkey, fearing it would destabilise the Ottoman empire, the two great

powers remained on good terms in Persia, as a letter from Macdonald to

his masters in the Foreign Office makes clear:

I learn from Mr Grebayedof that the most friendly and confidential

relations continue to subsist between the Courts of London and St

Petersburg, and he has in consequence been instructed by the Count de

Nesselrode to cultivate the best understanding with the British Mission.

In this, I apprehend, he will experience little difficulty, since his

Excellency and myself have long been on terms of personal intimacy,

and so far as my knowledge of his character enables me to judge there

are few men who have less of that jealousy usually to be found amongst

the Russian functionaries than Mr Grebayedof.

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Courtship and Marriage

On 9 December, after bidding a sad farewell to Nina and leaving his final

instructions with Amburgherr, Griboyedov left Tabriz for Tehran. The

journey, in difficult winter conditions, was expected to take just over a

month. The Tsar’s presents for the Shah had still not caught up with

him, but he hoped he would find them when he got to Tehran; he was

taking the calculated risk of incurring the Shah’s displeasure by arriving

without them. Neither he nor Macdonald expected the visit to be more

than a purely ceremonial one. ‘I almost lament I did not accompany

Griboyedov to Teheran,’ Macdonald commented later,

as I am disposed to think my presence and mediation might have been

attended with good effect, in preventing matters from going to extremity,

but as his Excellency went to court with the sole purpose of presenting

his credentials and with a fixed resolution of immediately returning

to Tabreez when he had seen the King, I was reluctant to quit

Abbas Mirza.

Griboyedov himself seemed to have shed his earlier forebodings, though

he warned Rodofinikin to expect no diplomatic triumphs from the

mission. His chief object was to go through with it as quickly as possi-

ble and return to Nina in Tabriz.

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178

Griboyedov left Tabriz with a numerous convoy. Accompanying him at

the head of his departing cavalcade were his diplomatic secretaries,

Mal’tzov and Adelung, the doctor, Malmberg, and two Georgian managers,

called Dadash-Bek and Rustem-Bek, in charge of administration and

supplies. They were followed by 16 Kuban Cossacks and 30 servants of

miscellaneous origins: Muslims, Russians, Georgians and Armenians.

Also attached to the mission was a mehmendar, or ‘adviser’, called

Nazar Ali Khan, an experienced senior officer appointed by Abbas Mirza

as his special representative. A secretary, described as ‘a scribe and

accountant to the Mehmendar’, was to join him from Tehran.

The name of this secretary is not recorded, but his description of the

journey and its sequel, later translated and published in Blackwood’s

Edinburgh Magazine of September 1830,

under the title ‘Narrative of

the proceedings of the Russian mission from its departure from Tabreez

on 14th Jummade (6 December 1828) until its destruction on

Wednesday the 6th of Shaban (30 January 1829)’ is one of the two

main eye-witness accounts of Griboyedov’s final weeks. The other is

the official report of the only surviving member of the mission, Ivan

Mal’tzov. Some Russian historians, both Soviet and otherwise, cast

doubt on the secretary’s so-called narrative. They claim that it has been

‘edited’, or even rewritten, probably by McNeill and George Willock, to

suit British and Persian perspectives; they also point out its similarities

with the official Persian version, which places the chief blame for the

destruction of the mission on Griboyedov’s mishandling of the local

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populace. However, the narrative contains sufficient circumstantial detail

to suggest that, even if written from a Persian viewpoint, it is based on

first-hand experience, and as such is an invaluable record of events.

The secretary met up with the Russian mission a few miles outside

Tabriz, despite the icy conditions, snowdrifts and heavy snowstorms

which had hampered his progress along the largely buried roads. From

the first, his impressions of the mission were unfavourable. He spoke

highly of Griboyedov, praising his impartiality and desire to behave fairly

towards the local population. The problem lay with his followers. ‘I must

emphasise,’ he wrote, ‘the mission’s servants were unruly and disorderly,

and not subject to adequate discipline, especially the Georgians and

Armenians, whose conduct gave rise to many complaints from my coun-

trymen. The obligations of a Mehmendar were onerous and unpleasant’.

The mission was expected to live off the land, collecting supplies from

the villages along the route. A day’s requirement, according to the

secretary, included one ox, one calf, 30 fowls, 200 eggs, 84lbs of rice,

5 sheep, 240lbs of bread, 360lbs of wood and logs, 120lbs of charcoal

and 300 bottles of wines and spirits. It was estimated that all this would

cost 60 tomans, or 75 Dutch florins, daily. Obtaining all this was well

beyond the potential of the villages in winter time, and the Georgian

manager, Rustem-Bek, had taken to demanding money instead, some-

times receiving as much as 15 tomans as a substitute for goods. ‘We

could not approve his conduct,’ wrote the secretary,

and assumed Griboyedov knew about it, turning a blind eye to these

irregularities and depredations. The Persians described the journey as

a series of ‘tortures’ and ‘dangers’. Griboyedov used to canter ahead in

the snowdrifts escorted by only two Cossacks and very often lost his

convoy till they met late in the evening. We considered him to be a

‘novice’ in his role as envoy.

Quite apart from Rustem-Bek’s extortions as a quartermaster,

Griboyedov’s choice of him as an administrative officer showed a curi-

ous lack of judgement.

Only a year before, at the time of the Russian

capture of Tabriz, Rustem-Bek had played an active role in arresting

and humiliating the military commander Allah Yar Khan. The episode

is described by Muravyov-Karsky, who with Prince Eristov had been

responsible for taking Tabriz. Allah Yar Khan, who had let the city go

without a fight, was intending to escape to Tehran, but was betrayed by

a compatriot, who told the Russians of his hiding-place nearby.

‘We reported this to Eristov,’ wrote Muravyov-Karsky,

and we gathered up a a ‘Sotnya’, a Don Cossack squadron of about 25

lancers …and went off to arrest Yar Allah. The Armenian [sic] Rustem

accompanied us at dead of night. He enjoyed the title of diplomatic

courier, and had asked to join me on the march to Tabriz …At two a.m.

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180

the soldiers returned with their capture. The officer commanding the

Cossacks had found a small house which Rustem was the first to enter.

Allah Yar Khan was not expecting such unwelcome visitors, and dashing

up a small staircase he reached the roof, from which he hoped to make

his escape. Initially pinned down by the lances and pikes of the

Cossacks he then beat a retreat down the stairs, with his pistol at the

ready, and meeting Rustem, he cocked it. The pistol misfired. Rustem,

a very tall man, strong and enterprising, seized him with both hands,

which prevented him from causing any further trouble. Allah Yar Khan

had to surrender, and gave up his pistol (as well as a dagger, heavily

encrusted with jewels) which he carried on his belt.

Allah Yar Khan had been released in time to take part in the signing of

the Treaty, and had returned to Tehran, where, as the Shah’s son-in-law

and a senior member of the Qajar family, he was an important figure at

the court. As one of the leading instigators of the war, he hated the

Russians, and Griboyedov personally, for the humiliations inflicted on

Persia at the Treaty of Turkmanchai. The last person he would wish to

see as a member of the Russian mission would be his former captor,

Rustem-Bek.

Meanwhile, on the journey itself, Rustem-Bek’s high-handed actions

had been stirring up further trouble. Griboyedov had brought with him

a list of men and women alleged to have been captured or abducted by

the Persians from Russian possessions; a great number of Georgians who

hoped to see their friends or relatives freed through his intervention had

joined him en route. Rustem-Bek was the chief agent in charge of these

‘slave searches’ in the towns and villages through which they passed.

Matters came to a head in Qazvin, where the mission at first met

with a friendly reception. They were greeted by a senior minister, Mirza

Nabi Khan. He offered them five ‘running footmen’ and ten ferrashes as

tent-pitchers, and presented them with horses from the Prince’s stables,

equipped with sumptuous saddlecloths. (The mission was always short

of serviceable horses, frequently commandeering them from passers-by.)

When the question of freeing captives arose, it was discovered that a

young German girl had been brought to Qazvin by one of the servants of

Husayn Khan, the former ruler of Erivan. Rustem-Bek insisted on her

being produced. The servant stated that he had sold her to a merchant

of the town; the latter, under interrogation, declared that he had

surrendered her to a certain Sayyid (or descendant of the Prophet),

Abul al Aziz, a cousin of the town’s chief judge. She was now the

Sayyid’s second wife and had had two children by him. Rustem-Bek had

the Sayyid hauled before him by two Cossacks and two ferrashes, and

taken to the main square in front of the envoy’s house. He demanded

that the Sayyid should release his wife. When he refused to do so,

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despite repeated threats, he ordered him to be flogged with the knout, to

teach him ‘obedience and compliance’. The square was full of bystanders,

who had been attending a wedding, and who quickly manifested their

displeasure.

Alarmed by their cries, Mirza Nabi Khan ordered Rustem

to cease his torture of the Sayyid, as he could no longer control the

people’s fury.

While the mehmendar, Nazar Ali Khan, hurried off to inform

Griboyedov of what was happening, Mirza Nabi got the Sayyid to send

for his wife. She was taken before Griboyedov, with her two children.

The Sayyid stood by with his hand on his kinjal, swearing that he would

cut himself to pieces if his wife were removed by force. If she wished to

leave he would relinquish her without regrets. Griboyedov had a lengthy

consultation with the woman, and asked her if she wished to return or

stay in Persia. She replied that she preferred not to separate herself

from her husband and her children. On hearing this, Griboyedov

ordered that she should be returned to the Sayyid. ‘This manifestation

of justice,’

wrote the secretary, ‘produced a great impression on all

the bystanders, who had expected a decree of separation. Mirza Nabi

invited Griboyedov to dinner that evening, and expressed his gratitude

on behalf of the townspeople.’

Rustem-Bek showed no signs of having learnt his lesson. A few days

later, at Rassiabad, a village near Qazvin, he was continuing his usual

practice of seeking money instead of provisions. His asking figure was

11 tomans, and when a village elder offered him only seven instead,

he flew into a fury and wildly hit him on the head. The elder’s cries

were heard by Griboyedov, who emerged from his house to demand

an explanation, and appeared very surprised at the behaviour of his

representative. It was the first time, he said, that he had heard of such

occurrences, and he reproached the mehmendar for not reporting them

to him. The mehmendar replied that he supposed ‘his Excellency’

knew about it,

as since the beginning of the journey the secretary

had accounted for sums amounting to 160 tomans. Griboyedov then

announced that all the money thus extorted would be returned when

they rode back to Tabriz. The mehmendar, according to the secretary,

said how pleased he was at such an undertaking, adding that he had no

confidence in Rustem-Bek, who was an ‘evil man’. To this, Griboyedov

listened equably, and promised that on return to Tabriz he would

dismiss his quartermasters, but for the present he needed their services.

Riding with him later, the secretary took the opportunity to say that

the British, with whom he had served at different times, clearly under-

stood the need for internal ‘house’ discipline, and always ensured that

their people behaved with respect towards other people. Griboyedov

may well have understood the point; he knew that he was unpopular,

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and that his nickname among the Persians was ‘Sakht-tir’ or, as he

translated it himself, ‘un coeur dur’. In a letter to Varvara Miklashevich

before leaving Tabriz, he wrote that the Persians found him ‘menacing

and threatening’, an unusual confession in one committed to impose

the Treaty regardless of local opinion. But overwhelmed as he was by the

administrative and emotional problems of the Armenian families to be

repatriated, the situation was already slipping out of his control.

‘The prisoners [he meant the candidates for repatriation] have driven

me mad,’ he wrote to Nina from Qazvin on 24 December. ‘Some will not

give themselves up, others will not return of their own desire. I have

been here in vain and am completely irrelevant!’

In four days’ time, he told her, he was leaving for Tehran. ‘Now I really

feel I know what it is to love, the further I am from you the worse it

becomes.’

He described a wedding feast of Mirza Nabi’s, which reminded

him of his own courtship,

how we exchanged kisses for the very first time, brooking no delay, how

we came together so sincerely and forever, and I held you in my arms in

the corner of the window seat, and how we kissed each other more and

more passionately, you blushing furiously. And then I fell ill, and you

came to see me in the camp, my darling! …When will I return? I am

terrified for your sake …I hope that Derejan [the maid] will sleep with

you at night and will not abandon you. Perhaps next year we can

travel this road together and I can show you the mosques, bazaars and

caravansarays. I am sleepless, the doctor says it is from coffee, but I

believe it is from a completely different cause. I kiss you on the lips,

bosom, hands, and feet from top to toe.

Griboyedov had undertaken his journey at a lightning pace, driven

perhaps by his impatience to accomplish his mission and return to

Nina, but also by the weather. ‘To begin with,’ he wrote to Macdonald,

the cold was unbearable, I galloped, I trotted, I ran at full speed from

one station to another. My Mehmendar Nazar Ali Khan pointed out in a

friendly manner that this was not the custom in Iran, where the envoy

of a great sovereign must go slowly and with solemnity, even if he should

die of the cold.

On 30 December, he reached Tehran. His ceremonial entry was marred

by two ominous coincidences. The first, of which Griboyedov had been

warned by his own mehmendar, was that, according to Persian astrologers,

the sun would cross the path of Scorpio around the date of his arrival.

It was a highly unpropitious sign, but the Persians had not pressed the

point, agreeing amongst themselves that it would be a waste of breath

trying to convince such heathens as the Russians.

The second, and symbolically the more important, was that

Griboyedov’s arrival took place at the time of the annual re-enactment

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