Activities of Iran’s Consular Services in the Caucasus in 1905-1911: According to Iranian Sources

Abstract

The authors analyze the activities of Iran's consular services in the Caucasus, their role in Russian-Caucasian diplomatic relations, in particular, in the processes of Iranian labor migrants’ adaptation to host societies. The authors aim to expand historical knowledge of Iranians’ staying in the Caucasus, to restore a complete picture of the history of migration processes in the region. There are revealed the features of Iranian-Caucasian diplomatic relations in the pre-Soviet period, the situation of migrants and their legal support, the activities of the consulates in preserving the Iranian cultural identity, internal and external problems in Iran’s consular services. There have been introduced into scientific use the documents of political and consular missions of Iran in the Caucasus for 1905-1911 stored in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, materials of Iranian periodicals of the period under consideration, as well as the personal files of the vice-consuls stored in the Persian Table Foundation (f. 144) of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire. They made it possible to determine the significant contribution of consular services to the development of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The conclusion is made about the greatest success of these relations in the Terek region, which is due to the favorable conditions of its developing economy for labor migrants and such subjective factors as the personal qualities of a number of vice-consuls, the level of their interaction with the Russian authorities. The activities of the vice-consuls successfully combined the promotion of the incorporation of migrants into the Russian economy and culture with the creation of conditions for the preservation of Iranian cultural identity.