Kelly Laurence, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran

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The next day, the tumult round the embassy had died down suffi-

ciently for the bodies to be removed. According to one account,

Griboyedov’s corpse was so badly mutilated that it was only identified

by the scar on his finger from his duel with Yakubovich; the secretary,

however (who may have wished to spare the family), insisted that his

features were clearly recognisable, and that his body had not been

subjected to any indignities. After funeral rites had been performed,

Griboyedov’s body was placed in an Armenian church outside the city;

his fellow Russians were buried in the churchyard, and the rest of the

victims in a common pit nearby.

It was four days before order could be restored in the city, during

which the Shah and his court were virtually prisoners behind the locked

gates of the citadel. At the end of that time, the people, having neither

leaders nor objective, began to weary of insurrection. The Shah was

then able to send out his guards, who killed all those found bearing

arms on the spot; other known ringleaders were arrested and executed,

or had their eyes put out; five of the heads of districts were decapitated;

the rest of the population was subdued and terrified into submission. It

was now time to contemplate the full enormity of what had happened,

and to wonder fearfully what the reckoning would be.

Mal’tzov, closely guarded in the citadel, knew his life hung by a

thread. As the sole surviving European witness, his testimony could be

severely damaging to the Shah. Tynianov’s novel includes a scene in which

Mal’tzov is secretly warned by a ferrash that he is to be entertained with

every possible honour, sent on his way to Russia – and killed en route.

If not true, it at least reflects the reality of the situation. Mal’tzov’s one

hope of safety lay in absolving the Persian Government of all blame, and

in putting the responsibility on the uncontrollable fanaticism of the mob,

and on Griboyedov’s mistakes of judgement. It was only by sticking to

this line, which was duly formalised in his official report, that he was

released some three weeks later and allowed to return to Tabriz. By then

the task of damage limitation had begun.

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The destruction of the Russian mission would be endlessly examined

and discussed,

both in its immediate aftermath and in years to come.

According to Yermolov, who read all the various accounts of the disaster

closely, and who knew as much as anyone about the realities of the

Persian scene, the account by the unknown secretary, published in

Blackwood’s, came closest to the truth of what had happened; he

recommended it as such to Zhandr. A number of questions remained.

How much did the Shah know beforehand? Mal’tzov’s official report, not

surprisingly, gives no suggestion of his complicity. In private, however,

he was convinced that the Shah was determined to destroy Mirza

Yakub, because of his intimate knowledge of his financial and domestic

affairs. He knew that he could not seize him by force without violating

the Treaty which had already cost him eight kurors; nor could he kill

him secretly as long as the Russian Ambassador was alive. Once every

other means of getting Mirza Yakub back had failed, he could let the

fanatics of the mob do their work, and claim that he was unable to

control them. Mal’tzov was certain this was the true explanation, and

Griboyedov’s final denunciation of the Shah – ‘Fath Ali Shah! Fath Ali

Shah! Je m’en fous’ – suggests that he felt the same.

A number of other explanations have been put forward.

Allah Yar

Khan, who hated the Russians and despised the weakness of the Shah,

may have had a hand in inciting the mob; if the Qajar dynasty could be

unseated by a further war with Russia, he might well become the Shah

himself. It has also been suggested that rumours of a delivery of bullion

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to the mission, for salaries and expenses, had excited the greed of the

mob, providing a further incentive to attack the mission. However,

Mal’tzov, who would have known of any such delivery, makes no

mention of the matter in his report. A further explanation, scarcely

mentioned at the time, but later much favoured by Cold War Soviet

historians, was that the British, jealous of Russian influence in Persia,

had deliberately fomented the uprising. There is not a shred of evidence

in either the British or Russian archives (see Appendix I) to support this

view. As has been seen, it was completely contrary to British interests

to put the stability of Persia at risk.

In retrospect, it is clear that Griboyedov had been given an impossible

remit by his masters in St Petersburg, or set himself an unrealistic list

of aims. The harshness of the terms he had to impose made him a hated

figure from the start. He had been given no leeway in negotiating the

payment of the indemnity, or in dealing with the demands for repatriation

of those who claimed to be Russian subjects. Intensely proud of his

position as the personal representative of the Tsar, he regarded it as a

sacred duty to enforce the terms of the Treaty, however dangerous in

practice. Perhaps, too, as a survivor of the Decembrist tragedy, he felt a

moral debt to his friends who had been executed or imprisoned, and was

determined to make no compromises where his country’s honour was at

stake. In support of this theory, it is worth considering his refusal to

consider any of the rescue options offered by the Persians: the suggestion

by the Foreign Minister that Mirza Yakub should be sheltered in a mosque,

the request by the Shah’s chief adviser (which came too late) for an urgent

meeting on the morning of the uprising, the confectioner’s offer to spirit

him away to his shop next door. Whatever Griboyedov’s failings, he was

a passionate and committed Russian patriot. It is appropriate, in this

context, to quote Pushkin’s epitaph: ‘I do not know of anything more

enviable than the final years of his stormy life. Even his death which

befell him in the midst of a valiant, unequal battle held nothing terrible,

nothing agonising for Griboyedov. It was instantaneous and beautiful.’

Pushkin’s was a poet’s judgement. But in the political and diplo-

matic re-evaluations that took place after the destruction of the mission,

it became convenient to cast Griboyedov not as a hero but a scapegoat,

whose ‘excess of zeal’ in carrying out his duties had helped to trigger

the catastrophe. It was in everyone’s interests to play down what had

happened. The Shah, having achieved his aim in destroying Mirza

Yakub, was desperate to avoid the resumption of the war which had

already all but ruined his country. He would do everything to blame the

massacre on the mullahs and the religious fanaticism provoked by

Griboyedov’s mistakes; and as far as was possible with words and self-

abasement, would do his utmost to placate the Russians. The British,

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concerned to preserve the Qajar dynasty, and to save Persia from dis-

memberment, were equally eager to temper the Russian fury, and would

do their best to act as intermediaries and peacemakers. As for the

Russians, in the midst of their campaign against the Turks, the last

thing they wanted was a war on two fronts. Paskievich had neither

the troops nor the inclination to hold down a hostile Persian population;

provided Russian face could be saved, and the Persians showed them-

selves sufficiently contrite, Russia was ready, if not to overlook, at least

to accept the Persian explanation of the tragedy.

Certainly nothing could seem more heartfelt and remorseful than

the way that Abbas Mirza broke the news to Sir John Macdonald in

Tabriz. (Amburgherr, the Russian consul, was at that moment in

Nakhichevan). Macdonald tells the story in his report to the political

secretary of the East India Company, dated 19 February 1829:

At a late hour of the night on the 18th inst., I received through one of

the confidential servants of the harem, an intimation that his Royal

Highness the Prince Abbas Mirza wished to speak to me without delay

on a matter of the first importance.

In obedience to these commands I repaired on the instant to the

palace, where I found his Highness and the Kaimakam closeted together

and impatiently awaiting my arrival. Both appeared to be in a state of

the utmost consternation. The Prince was in tears, and marks of sorrow

were strongly depicted on his countenance. He was indeed so greatly

agitated that for some moments after I had entered the apartment, he

could only repeat, ‘La ilah ila’ llah’, there is no God but one God, am I,

alas! doomed never to know a moment’s repose? The waters of the

Danube would not wash away our crimes …’ Continuing bitterly to

bewail his own misfortunes, and the unspeakable calamities impending

over his house, he was for some time, either unable or reluctant to

communicate to me, what had occurred nor could I define the cause of

his distress, until he desired, or rather made a sign to his minister, to

read aloud certain letters, which had just arrived from Teheran, and

which I deeply lament to say, announced the appalling intelligence that

M. Griboyedov the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of

his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, had together with nearly

the whole of his suite, been massacred by the inhabitants of the capital,

during a popular commotion which took place in that city.

After describing the events that had occurred, Macdonald expressed his

conviction that neither the Shah, nor any member of his Government

had in any way been responsible for the catastrophe, which were solely

to be ascribed, he thought,

to a sudden and irresistible ebullition of popular frenzy, caused by the

treatment experienced by the women, the haughty demeanour of those

attached to the mission, the deaths of several citizens, and in an over

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zealous invasion of those customs, which more than anything else, is

calculated to rouse the prejudices, and inflame the wild and ungovern-

able passions of a Mahomedan mob, prone to fanaticism, adverse to any

encroachment of their religious usages, and above all jealous, even to

madness, of the sanctity of the harem.

It was the explanation which, with minor variations, would be generally

accepted by all concerned. It was combined in Macdonald’s case with

genuine grief at Griboyedov’s death. In concluding his report, he paid a

moving tribute to his qualities:

To the generous, manly, though perhaps somewhat unbending character

of the deceased, no one can bear more ample testimony than myself,

having long lived with him on terms of personal intimacy, been connected

with him in the transaction of business, as well public, as private, and

in short, enjoyed numberless opportunities of duly appreciating the many

virtues which adorned his mind, and of perceiving that a high sense of

honour, formed on all occasions, the rule, and guide of his actions.

The wheels of diplomacy now began to turn. In the absence of Amburgherr,

Macdonald’s brother, Captain Ronald Macdonald, travelled to Tehran to

receive apologies and an explanation from the Shah, and to escort

Mal’tzov back to Tabriz. Meanwhile, the news had reached Paskievich

in the field. Amburgherr, briefed in Nakhichevan by Abbas Mirza’s

first minister, reported that neither the Shah nor his ministers were

responsible for the catastrophe, which were entirely due to an outburst

of fanaticism from the mob. Macdonald wrote to him on the same lines,

adding that he was declaring public mourning for two months for all

British nationals, and protesting formally to the Persian Foreign

Minister. The abject self-abasement of the Shah and Abbas Mirza, who

promised to send a resplendent mission of apology to the Tsar, headed

by a prince of the blood, made it easier for Paskievich to do what he

already wished, that is to make threatening noises but do nothing. ‘It is

quite impossible,’ he told Nesselrode, ‘to start another war with Persia.’

On 16 March, he received his first official guidance from St Petersburg.

The Tsar, he was told, was gratified to learn that the Shah and the heir to

the throne had nothing to do with the inhuman and despicable events that

had taken place. The occurrence must be attributed to ‘the impulsive

and excessively zealous efforts of the deceased Griboyedov’,

and his

misunderstanding of the ‘crude and vulgar customs’ of the Persian

rabble. Griboyedov’s own team had disowned him.

No-one in Tabriz had dared to break the news to Nina, now six

months pregnant, and staying with Macdonald’s wife. Macdonald had

the difficult task of explaining to her why the stream of letters from her

husband had dried up, using the weather and the appalling state of

the Persian roads as an excuse. The return of Amburgherr to Tabriz,

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and the arrival of Mal’tzov from Tehran, made his position easier.

Mal’tzov was charged to tell her that her husband was well, but too busy

to write, and that he had asked her to return to her mother in Tiflis

to await him. Her father wrote separately with the same request. The

sixteen-year-old had little option but to accept, however suspicious

she might be. Escorted by Amburgherr, she left for Tiflis. Upon arrival

at her mother’s, she found no letter from her husband. Paskievich’s

wife, Griboyedov’s cousin, called on her to explain away Griboyedov’s

silence. Bursting into tears, she lost control and blurted out the truth.

Nina became hysterical, and on the following day gave birth prematurely

to a son, who lived only a few hours. (Muravyov-Karsky, in a different

version of the story, says that it was Madame Akhverdova who gave her

the news, and was severely blamed for doing so; which version is correct

is impossible to know.)

Griboyedov’s coffin travelled slowly back to the Russian border.

When it passed through Tabriz, it received no special recognition from

Abbas Mirza, nor from the British mission. On 2 May, it reached

Nakhichevan, and once on Russian soil was treated with appropriate

honours. At the Araxes river, a Major-General greeted it with a battalion

of the Tiflis infantry regiment drawn up in two ranks. Arms were

presented, the Russian equivalent of the Last Post was sounded. Later,

the coffin was placed on a hearse, pulled by six horses draped in black,

accompanied by black-clad mourners, and a service according to the

Armenian rite was held in the church at Nakhichevan.

On 11 June, there took place the famous meeting between the coffin

and Pushkin,

on his way to join his brother at the Turkish front. His

description of the circumstances is so evocative that it is worth quoting

in full:

I began the ascent of Bezobdal, the mountain which separated Georgia

from ancient Armenia. A wide road shaded by trees winds around the

mountain. On the peak of Bezobdal I passed through a small gorge

called, it seems, the Wolf’s Gate, and found myself on the natural

border of Georgia. New mountains rose before me, a new horizon; below

me stretched fertile green wheatfields. I glanced once more at scorched

Georgia and began to descend: along the sloping side of the mountain

toward the fresh plains of Armenia. With indescribable pleasure I noted

that the heat had suddenly decreased: the climate was already different.

My man lagged behind with the pack-horses. I rode alone in the

flowering wilderness surrounded by mountains in the distance. Absent-

mindedly I rode past the post where I was to change horses. More than

six hours went by and I began to be surprised at how long it was taking

between stations. Off to one side I saw piles of rocks resembling native

saklyas and set off toward them. Indeed, I arrived at an Armenian

village. A few women in colourful rags were sitting on the flat roof of an

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underground saklya. I made myself understood somehow. One of them

went down into the saklya and brought me some cheese and milk.

Having rested a few minutes, I set out again and saw opposite me on the

high bank of a river the fortress of Gergery. Three streams plunged down

the high bank foaming noisily. I crossed the river. Two oxen harnessed

to a cart were descending the steep road. Some Georgians were accom-

panying the cart. ‘Where do you come from?’ I asked them. ‘From

Teheran.’ – ‘What do you have on your cart?’ – ’Griboyed.’ This was the

body of the slain Griboyedov, which they were taking to Tiflis.

On 17 July, after an inspection of the body at the quarantine station of

Dzhelal Oglu (Muravyov-Karsky was told later that one hand was

missing), the coffin arrived in Tiflis. The doleful procession entered the

precincts of the city along the right bank of the river Kura, passing along

the tall city walls and the vineyards they enclosed. It was night-time. In

the flickering torchlight, one could barely distinguish the white veils of

the Georgian women, their weeping mingling with the mournful dirges

of the clergy. The whole population, both military and civil, had turned

out to do honour to the fallen majesty of the Tsar’s representative, who

had married one of them. His widow, surrounded by her family, led the

mourners. At the first sight of the coffin, she fainted, and did not recover

consciousness for some time. The next day, the Military Governor of

Tiflis attended the requiem mass in Sion Cathedral sung by the Exarch

of Georgia, the Metropolitan John. His mutilated body was finally laid to

rest in the monastery of Saint David on the hillside above Tiflis. Before

leaving for Tehran, Griboyedov had told Nina that if he died in Persia, it

was his wish to be buried there. Later Nina ordered a funeral monument

for him, where she was eventually buried beside him. She had the

following words engraved on it, still to be seen today: ‘Your spirit and

your works remain eternally in the memory of Russians; why did my

love for thee outlive thee?’

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The Persian mission to St Petersburg was headed by Abbas Mirza’s

twenty-three-year-old son Khosraw Mirza, accompanied by the Crown

Prince’s diplomatic adviser Mirza Saleh (familiar to Griboyedov from Tabriz

and Karaziadin) and a numerous suite. He carried with him a personal

letter of apology from the Shah to the Tsar, together with a variety of gifts

from the Shah’s treasury, of which the most important was an enormous

diamond, the Nadir Shah, which had been looted from Delhi in 1739.

The diamond, which, without being too fanciful, can be described as the

price of Griboyedov’s blood, can be seen in the Kremlin today.

Khosraw Mirza, young, good-looking and well-spoken, was lionised

in St Petersburg. (In Tiflis, he had been made to feel by Paskievich that

he had come not as a guest but to ask pardon.) A palace was put at his

disposal, and during his two months there he was feted at balls and

dinners, as if the reason for his embassy had been a happy one. On

13 August, after a solemn audience at the Winter Palace, at which the

Shah’s apology, blaming the ‘unheard of evil deeds’ of the mob, was

read out before the Tsar, Nicholas pronounced ‘that he consigned the

ill-fated affair in Teheran to eternal oblivion’.

Better still, after further

discussions, Nicholas struck one kuror off the remaining two still owing

as war reparations, and postponed the payment of the other for five

years. Griboyedov, whose life had been so bedevilled by the ‘accursed

contribution’ might well feel his efforts had been in vain.

It is pleasing to note that on his way through Moscow, without

telling anyone of his intention, Khosraw Mirza called on Griboyedov’s

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mother to express his sympathy at the loss of her son; sadly there is no

record of the interview. Meanwhile, the Tsar, showing some compunction

at the fate of his murdered envoy, had written to Paskievich to ask

about the financial situation of Griboyedov’s dependants, namely his

mother and his wife. Paskievich replied that all Griboyedov’s loose cash

had been looted in Tehran, and that his mother was in very straitened

circumstances due to the money she had spent on her son’s education.

(We may be sure that Madame Griboyedova had been at pains to make

this clear.) Nesselrode later passed on the news of his master’s generosity:

both Nina and Griboyedov’s mother were granted pensions of 5000 roubles

each, one sixth of Griboyedov’s salary, together with a lump sum of

30,000 roubles. As we know, this did not prevent Griboyedova from

accusing Bulgarin of embezzling her son’s gratuity after Turkmanchai,

an accusation Bulgarin vigorously rejected.

Nina never remarried. She died in 1857 of cholera, having rejected

all suitors. She is occasionally glimpsed in the memoirs of visitors

to Georgia, and must have known Lermontov (a cousin of Madame

Akhverdova’s) when he was stationed in Tiflis. She always found solace

in the piano, and is recorded as knowing all Griboyedov’s compositions

by heart. Their delight in music had been one of the closest bonds

between them.

Griboyedov’s friends mourned him in their different ways. Despite his

sometimes irascible nature, few people had a greater gift for friendship.

His mother and sister in Moscow saw relatively little of him as an adult.

His long periods of absence, either in Persia or the Caucasus, had forced

him to select an alternative family, comrades and friends drawn from

the camps, regiments and headquarters where he spent most of his

working time. In St Petersburg, in the flowering of the arts that followed

the war of 1812, a passion for literature, music and the theatre had

drawn him to those of like mind and talents. These were the days, as

Herzen wrote, ‘in which Pushkin reigned supreme; in which the

Decembrists … set the tone; in which Griboyedov laughed’.

Following the débacle of 1825, he remained intensely loyal to his

friends: Odoyevsky, Bestuzhev, Küchelbecker. In his last letter to

Paskievich before leaving Tabriz, Griboyedov had made an impassioned

plea for Odoyevsky, though it was not until 1833 that his transfer to the

Caucasus came through; he was killed in action six years later.

Bestuzhev was more leniently treated; possibly thanks to Griboyedov’s

efforts, he was transferred to Georgia at the end of 1829, there to begin

a second life as a soldier and the author of a string of bestselling novels

with Caucasian settings. One of his first actions on arrival in Tiflis was

to visit Griboyedov’s tomb. ‘How much this man did for me,’

he wrote.

‘He died, and all is turned to ashes.’ In 1837, following the death of

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Pushkin in a duel, he arranged a requiem for his two fellow writers. ‘I

wept then as I am weeping now,’ he wrote to his brother afterwards,

with hot tears, for a friend [Pushkin] and a comrade in arms [Griboyedov],

and for myself. When the priest chanted, ‘for the immortal souls of the

two murdered boyars Alexander and Alexander’ my sobs tore at my

breast. The phrase seemed to me to be not only a remembrance, but

also a premonition … Yes, I feel that my death will be just as violent and

unexpected, and that it is close at hand.

He died in battle three months later.

Küchelbecker alone was never allowed to leave Siberia. He was

sustained in his 20 years of imprisonment and exile by his memories of

his friends, his deep Orthodox faith, and his reading of the Bible.

‘Farewell!’

he wrote in a last, smuggled letter to Griboyedov. ‘Until we

meet again, in that world you forced me to believe in.’ The letter, inter-

cepted by the censor, was written in May 1829; he had not yet heard the

news of his friend’s death.

Beguichov, Griboyedov’s oldest and most faithful friend, lived on

until 1857. There was an element of simplicity in his character: it was

sometimes suggested that he was the model for the good-natured Platon

Mikhailovich, overwhelmed by Moscow and his wife, in Woe from Wit.

But for Griboyedov, he was the first person who recognised his true

value as a writer; he also helped him out in various financial difficulties,

regarding his loans, as he said, ‘almost as a subsidy to art’.

Beguichov’s biographical article about Griboyedov, written just

before he died, for Plyushar’s Universal Enyclopedia of 1858, was the

first official memoir of his friend; he had been helped in writing it by a

number of Griboyedov’s contemporaries, including Zhandr and Vladimir

Odoyevsky. He had also talked earlier to Griboyedov’s distant cousin

and would-be biographer, Dmitri Smirnov. Born in 1819, and therefore

only ten at the time of Griboyedov’s death, Smirnov had taken it upon

himself to interview as many as possible of Griboyedov’s surviving

friends. These valuable findings began to be published after 1874, and

were eventually published in their entirety under the title Griboyedov

in the Memoirs of his Contemporaries by the Griboyedov scholar S.A.

Fomichev in 1980. The picture that emerges is not always flattering.

Griboyedov could be coldly ambitious, ungrateful to former benefactors,

such as Yermolov and Shakhovskoy, prickly and sarcastic in company.

But he remained a hero to those who knew him best, not only for his

courage, gifts and patriotism, but at the simplest level: in the words of

Beguichov,

he was ‘a good son, a good brother, a true friend’. Bulgarin,

whom Smirnov privately regarded as ‘an appalling shit’, had staked

his claim to Griboyedov early in his essay ‘My Unforgettable Friend’,

published in the Northern Bee in 1830. He gained reflected glory from