A River Runs Through It

Recently, a friend from Tabriz drew my attention to what he and others in the region consider a historical tragedy for their people, namely the Araks River which forms the current northern border of Iran. As a result of the Gulistan Treaty of 1813 which was signed by the Russian Empire and Qajarid Persia in the village of Gulestan in Karabakh at the end of the first Russo-Persian War, the border moved considerably further south as the map below illustrates.

According to the treaty, Persia lost all its territories to the north of the Araks River and was forced to recognize Russia’s authority over them in the future. Persia lost Dagestan, Georgia, Baku, Derbent, Shirvan, Megrelia, Karabakh, Ganja, Shekin, Abkhazia, Mughan, Imeretia, Guria and The khanates of Talysh. The map below shows you more. Notice that the current border between Iran and Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan is formed by the river.

Although the Araks is a convenient natural border which usually would add certain amount of legitimacy as natural borders tend to do, those separated by it see things otherwise. My friend, though an Iranian national, is actually ethnically Turkic and speaks Azerbaijani (or “redneck Turkish”) as his first language and Farsi second. He and others lament the fact that their people were split first by the Treaty of Golestan and later again by a similar treaty known as the Treaty of Turkmanchai which essentially did the same thing after the second Russo-Persian War from 1826 to 1828. Persia had been convinced by Great Britain to reconquer its lost territory and ultimately attempted it though ended up back where it started with even more humiliating terms of defeat.

This was just one of many chapters of The Great Game.

NOTE: Wikipedia in Farsi has a great map of how the borders changed courtesy of the State Dept. For some reason it wasn’t on the English page.