| Battle of Derbent (1722) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723) | |||||||
 Entrance of Peter The Great in Derbent | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Russian Empire |  Safavid Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Peter the Great Fyodor Apraksin | Imam Kulibek | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 22,000 | Unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
The Battle of Derbent was the occupation of Derbent by the Russian Empire during the Russo-Persian War. It took place in August 1722.
In August 1722, the Russian army began to rapidly advance towards Derbent. During this campaign, the Russian army also had to deal with the local population. The capture of Derbend was of strategic importance for the Russian army. After the capture of this city, coastal cities along the Caspian Sea could be captured. After Derbend, it was Baku's turn to capture, but due to weather conditions, this march was postponed until next year.
Setting out from Astrakhan, Pyotr I with the cavalry advanced by land and the fleet by sea towards Derbent. On July 25, 1722, Pyotr I wrote a letter to the Safavid shah, and in this letter he stated that he did not come to occupy his lands, but only to punish the rebels who created problems for them, who killed the lives and property of Russian merchants. [2] Leaving on August 5, the Ru sordus encountered some resistance as far as Derbent. The main force organizing this resistance was the local principalities connected to the Ottoman Empire. After repelling these attacks, on August 23, Darbend surrendered to the Russians without a fight. Sources mention this event as follows:
the governor of the city welcomed us and presented the key to the city. [3]
The authorities in Darband were hospitable to the Russian army, their main goal being to establish good relations with the Russia state. Due to the storm that started at sea, the Russian fleet carrying food was seriously damaged. After that, Peter I, who temporarily stopped the campaign, returned to Astrakhan. [4] Derbend was one of the main objectives of the campaign, and according to the plans of Peter I, it should play a key role in the capture of other regions in the future. Also, this city was planned to be one of the main intermediary regions for Russian merchants to buy eastern goods and sell them in the west.
During the Russian Caucasus campaign, Davud Bey, whom Peter I used as an excuse for interfering in the Safavid properties, continued his resistance against the Russians. Although he besieged Daband in 1722, he could not capture the city. After the failure, he retreated, plundering the regions around the city. At the time of this attack, Darbend had been in the hands of the Russians for several months. [5]
According to the agreement signed by Ismayil Mirza, the representative of the new Safavid king Tahmasp II in Petersburg in 1723, the Safavids would be sent from Darband to Gilan against the Afghan rebels. Caspian coastal provinces agreed to pass into the hands of the Russians. However, Tahmasib II, who learned about the terms of this agreement, did not ratify the agreement, and therefore, knowing that he would be executed, the representative Ismail Mirza did not return to the Safavid empire. [6] [7]
The Russian troops, who held the Safavid lands for a while, returned all the lands they had acquired in the campaign of 1722–1723 with the Treaty of Rasht in the first stage, and the Treaty of Ganja in the second stage. [8] [9] [10]
Derbent, formerly romanized as Derbend, is a city in Dagestan, Russia, located on the Caspian Sea. It is the southernmost city in Russia, and it is the second-most important city of Dagestan. Derbent occupies the narrow gateway between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains connecting the Eurasian Steppe to the north and the Iranian Plateau to the south; covering an area of 69.63 square kilometres (26.88 sq mi), with a population of roughly 120,000 residents.
Shirvan is a historical region in the eastern Caucasus, as known in both pre-Islamic Sasanian and Islamic times. Today, the region is an industrially and agriculturally developed part of the Republic of Azerbaijan that stretches between the western shores of the Caspian Sea and the Kura River, centered on the Shirvan Plain.
The Treaty of Gulistan was a peace treaty concluded between the Russian Empire and Qajar Iran on 24 October 1813 in the village of Gulistan as a result of the first full-scale Russo-Persian War. The peace negotiations were precipitated by the successful storming of Lankaran by General Pyotr Kotlyarevsky on 1 January 1813. It was the first of a series of treaties signed between Qajar Iran and Imperial Russia that forced Persia to cede the territories that formerly were part of Iran.
Kakheti is a region (mkhare) formed in the 1990s in eastern Georgia from the historical province of Kakheti and the small, mountainous province of Tusheti. Telavi is its administrative center. The region comprises eight administrative districts: Telavi, Gurjaani, Qvareli, Sagarejo, Dedoplistsqaro, Signagi, Lagodekhi and Akhmeta.
The Russo-Persian Wars or Russo-Iranian Wars were a series of conflicts between 1651 and 1828, concerning Persia and the Russian Empire. Russia and Persia fought these wars over disputed governance of territories and countries in the Caucasus. The main territories disputed were Aran, Georgia and Armenia, as well as much of Dagestan – generally referred to as Transcaucasia – and considered part of the Safavid Iran prior to the Russo-Persian Wars. Over the course of the five Russo-Persian Wars, the governance of these regions transferred between the two empires. Between the Second and Third Russo-Persian Wars, there was an interbellum period in which a number of treaties were drawn up between the Russian and the Persian Empires, as well as between both parties and the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman interest in these territories further complicated the wars, with both sides forming alliances with the Ottoman Empire at different points throughout the wars. Following the Treaty of Turkmenchay, which concluded the Fifth Russo-Persian War, Persia ceded much of its Transcaucasian territory to the Russian Empire.
The Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723, known in Russian historiography as the Persian campaign of Peter the Great, was a war between the Russian Empire and Safavid Iran, triggered by the tsar's attempt to expand Russian influence in the Caspian and Caucasus regions and to prevent its rival, the Ottoman Empire, from territorial gains in the region at the expense of declining Safavid Iran.
The Treaty of ConstantinopleRusso-Ottoman Treaty or Treaty of the Partition of Persia was a treaty concluded on 24 June 1724 between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, dividing large portions of the territory of mutually neighbouring Safavid Iran between them.
The Shirvan province was a province founded by the Safavid Empire on the territory of modern Azerbaijan and Russia (Dagestan) between 1501 and 1736 with its capital in the town of Shamakhi.
Historically, Dagestan consisted of a federation of mountainous principalities in the eastern part of the North Caucasus. Located at the crossroads of world civilizations of north and south, Dagestan was the scene of clashes of interests of many states and until the early 19th century, most notably between Iran and the Russian Empire.
The Derbent Khanate was a Caucasian khanate that was established in Afsharid Iran. It corresponded to southern Dagestan and its center was at Derbent.
The siege of Isfahan was a six-month-long siege of Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, by the Hotaki-led Afghan army. It lasted from March to October 1722 and resulted in the city's fall and the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty.
The Treaty of Ganja was concluded between the Russian Empire and Safavids on 10 March 1735 during the Persian Siege of Ganja (1734) near the city of Ganja in present-day Azerbaijan. The treaty established a defensive alliance against the Ottoman Empire, which had suffered a defeat in the Ottoman–Persian War (1730–1735). The Russian government agreed to return the remaining Persian territories in the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, including Derbend and Baku, that had been conquered by Peter the Great during the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723). The treaty also confirmed the provisions of the 1732 Treaty of Resht whereby Russia renounced its claim to Gilan, Mazandaran, and Astrabad, and Safavid state recognized Vakhtang VI, a pro-Russian Georgian king-in-exile. The treaty provided for Russia a diplomatic advantage in a simmering war with the Ottomans and for the Safavid ruler Nader Shah respite on the western frontier of his empire.
The Treaty of Resht was signed between the Russian Empire and Safavid Empire in Rasht on 21 January 1732. According to this treaty Russia waived its claim to any territory south of the Kura River. This included return of the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Astarabad, conquered by Peter I in the early 1720s. The Iranian cities of Derbent, Tarki, Ganja, etc. north of the Kura river would be returned three years later. In return, the Persians, now de facto ruled by the militarily successful Nader Shah granted trade privileges to the Russian merchants and promised to restore the Georgian king Vakhtang VI, then residing in exile in Russia, on the throne of Kartli as soon as the Ottoman troops could be expelled from that country. The provisions were confirmed by the 1735 Treaty of Ganja, according which treaty all the regions north of the Kura river were returned as well.
The Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 23 September [O.S. 12 September] 1723 concluded the Russo-Persian War of 1722-1723 between Imperial Russia and Safavid Iran. It ratified Iran's forced ceding of its territories in the North Caucasus, South Caucasus, and contemporary mainland Northern Iran, comprising Derbent (Dagestan), Baku, the respective surrounding lands of Shirvan, as well as the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Astarabad. The treaty further specified that the Iranian king would receive Russian troops for domestic peacekeeping.
Iranian Russians or Persian Russians are Iranians in the Russian Federation, and are Russian citizens or permanent residents of (partial) Iranian national background.
The sack of Shamakhi took place on 18 August 1721, when rebellious Sunni Lezgins, within the declining Safavid Empire, attacked the capital of Shirvan province, Shamakhi. The initially successful counter-campaign was abandoned by the central government at a critical moment and with the threat then left unchecked, Shamakhi was taken by 15,000 Lezgin tribesmen, its Shia population massacred, and the city ransacked.
The province of Daghestan was a province of Safavid Iran, centred on the territory of the present-day Republic of Dagestan. Numerous high-ranking Safavid figures originally hailed from the province, or had roots there.
Vasileios Vatatzes, was a Greek figure who flourished in the 18th century. He is best remembered as a scholar, merchant, traveler, pioneer explorer and diplomat. At a young age, he settled in Moscow, from where he travelled to Iran on several occasions. He eventually became acquainted with Nader-Qoli Beg and spent considerable time close to him. Vatatzes wrote a biography in Greek about Nader Shah, known as the Persika, an important work which provides information about Iran in the 1720s, 1730s and 1740s. He also wrote a travel account, the Periegetikon, and drew a map. According to Evangelos Venetis, Vatatzes was "an admirer of Persian civilization and of Nader Shah's rule" and an "important author for Iranian history and Hellenic-Iranian studies". However, his works "have been largely ignored by modern scholarship".
Muhammad Khan, Mammad Khan or Muhammad II of Ganja (1738–1780) was the third Khan of Ganja from 1768 to 1780 from the Ziyadoglu branch of the Qajar clan who ruled the Beylerbeylik of Karabakh as hereditary governors.
From 1724 to 1731, an Armenian rebellion occurred in Karabakh under the leadership of the Melikdoms of Karabakh. Initially directed against the collapsing Safavid state, it fought against the Ottoman invasion of Eastern Armenia. Chronologically, it coincided with the Syunik rebellion.
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