Migration History of Iranians in the North Caucasus

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of mass migration of the Persian population to the Russian Empire in the 19th-early 20th centuries, its North Caucasian features. Iranians who migrated to Russia, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. constituted an important part of the entire society in the North Caucasus. They participated in the development of industry and business life, in the revolutionary movement, preserving their own community, and interacted with Russian realities. The article analyzes the stages and characteristic features of the migration of the Persian population to the North Caucasus in the 19th century. after the conclusion of international treaties between Russia and Persia (Gulistan 1813, Turkmanchay 1828, Convention on the movement of subjects of both states in 1844). Taking into account the general determinants of migration, for the first time, the existing explanations for the emergence of migrant workers from Persia to the South of the Russian Empire in the English-language literature have been investigated. The origin of labor and social migration in Iran in the 19th century, its orientation towards the Caucasus and its broad consequences are considered in connection with social factors that arose under the influence of political events in Iran, which determined the historical conjuncture. In the study of the characteristics of the Persian resettlement and long-term residence in the settlements of the North Caucasus, the starting points, routes and accommodation of Iranian migrants in the Terek region are of great importance. The Terek region got into the migration history of Iranians as a result of the migration policy of Russia, its geographical location and the peculiarities of the developing economy, which provided more favorable and sparing working conditions. about a large number of Iranians who received passports at the consulates in Urmia and Tabriz. Unlike other movements of the Iranian population in the 19th century, the migration of Persians to Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries had its own differences: it was characterized by regularity, the involvement of a significant number of people of different ages and genders, and was mainly caused by economic reasons. Developing trade relations, economic decline in Persia became the reasons for the ever-increasing migration of the Persians to the Russian borders.