This study aims to throw some lights on certain aspects of pre-modern social life in the south Caucasus. Focusing on Shushi as a typical case, it attempts to explain different characteristics of urban life in 18th century south Caucasus in relation to the political, ecological and social conditions of the region. Central to this study is an attempt to explain the contribution of tribal force to the formation of urban life. Following a general look on the historical background, it traced the process through which a tribal governor established Shushi as his center of power and developed it to become a small town. In the meantime, it surveys the physical as well as social structures of the town as a part of its historical development. Finally,

This article touches at a somewhat neglected aspect of traditional local governments in Iran. Financial resources seem to play a pivotal role in the formation of any local power. The article focuses on a case of local government in precolonial southern Caucasia, ie the Khanate of Shirvan, one of those several local Iranian rules in southern Caucasia which was annihilated after Tsarist Russia’s conquest of the region. Central to this study is the nature and quality of the economic resources available to the local governor as well as the mechanism through which he managed these resources to maintain and exert his power. The main reason behind this selection is the publication of “The 1820 Russian Survey of Shirvan Khanate.” This invalua

For a long time, the Caspian Sea played a significant role in commercial relations between Muslims and the people who lived in the flatlands in south Russia as well as Eastern Europeans. The history of these commercial relations can be traced back to ancient times. Some Greek and ancient Iranian sources had references to these relations. Nevertheless, there are numerous evidence that point to the existence of a prosperous trans-Caspian trade in the early and medieval Islamic period. The volume of this trade experienced its zenith during the 10th and 11th centuries of which a good part belonged to the Iranian people. These people were living in the lands around the Caspian Sea from Darband (modern Дербент) in the west to Mianqishlagh

Social life of Southern Caucasia in pre-colonial period is a subject which mostly missed Iranian’s scholarly attention. Bearing this in mind, this paper attempts to shed new lights on a less studied aspect of this subject; its focus is on the historical aspects of urban life in eastern Caucasia before Russian dominance. Drawing on observational material which gleaned from multi-languages sources, it is organized into three parts: the first one deals with the historical situation of Shamakhi in the Safavid period, the second part has focused on the historical developments of Sham?kh? in early 18th century, and the last, traces the decaying process during which this main urban center of precolonial southern Caucasia was destroyed. As result

Tsarist Russia's dominance over the Caucasus in the 19th century was a turning point in the history of this region. It was a consequential change that determined the future destiny of the Caucasian people within the colonial strategy of the Russian empire. The birth of “Caucasus” as a modern phenomenon with its multidimensional and geopolitical connotations was the result of this process. This process most often viewed and surveyed from European or Russian perspective and the resulted studies naturally reflect a Russo-Orientalist/Euro-Centrist narrative. The present paper aims to propose a rather different perspective; keeping in mind the pre-colonial history of the so-called Caucasus region, it will trace the process during which Tsari

Russian conquest of Transcaucasia had multidimensional consequences for Muslim population of the region. A substantial part of these population was composed of shi’ite muslims who mostly lived in the southern or the pre-Iranian provinces. Based on some newly found archival documents, this study aimed to shed some lights on one aspects of this problem which so far has been neglected by most of the specialists of this field. As a pivotal question it seeks to ask what was the policy of Russian colonial governemt of transcaucasia toward the shiite muslims of the region. To provide an answer for this question it draws on a bunch of archival data which are gleaned from scattered documents and have been analysed inside a greater theoretical fram