HIST363: Global Perspectives on Industrialization

Along with the Ottoman Empire, the other major Middle Eastern power had long been Persia (Iran), a country whose ancient history stretched back to the Achaemenid dynasty begun by the legendary Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE.  By the modern period, however, Persia was in many ways a shadow of its glorious past.  A ruling dynasty known as the Qajars seized power in 1779 but struggled to maintain control over the various tribal groups that had long competed for power and influence.  Likewise, the Qajar shahs (kings) were unable to resist the encroachment of European powers as the latter expanded their influence in Central Asia.  Like the Ottoman Empire, Persia was not formally colonized by a European power, but Europeans were still able to dictate international politics in the region.

For most of the nineteenth century, Britain and Russia were the two European powers that most often competed against one another for power in Persia, with the Qajar shahs repeatedly trying and failing to play the European rivals off against each other in the name of Persian independence.  Russia seized control of the Caucasus region from Persia (permanently, as it turned out) in 1813, and subsequently imposed capitulation agreements on Persia that were a direct parallel of those that so hobbled the Ottomans to the west.  In the following decades succession disputes within the Qajar line were resolved by Russia and Britain choosing which heir should hold the Qajar throne, an obvious violation of Persian sovereignty.  Persia was spared actual invasion largely because of what a British diplomat referred to as the "great game":  the battle for influence in the region in the name of preserving the British hold on India on the one hand versus the expansion of Russian power on the other.  Neither European power would allow the other to actually take over in Persia as a result.

One effect of European domination in Persia was the growth of Iranian nationalism.  The central government proved utterly incapable (and mostly uninterested) in economic development, with the fruits of industry technology arriving at a glacial pace across the country.  Instead of trying to expand the country's infrastructure directly, the Qajar state handed off "concessions" to European banks, companies, and private individuals to build railroads, issue bank notes, and in one notorious case, monopolize the production and sale of tobacco.  Public outcry often forced the cancellation of the concessions, but foreign meddling in the Persian economy remained a constant regardless.  Reformers, some of them religious leaders from the Shia ulama (Muslim clergy), others members of the commercial classes familiar with European ideas, demanded a more effective government capable of protecting national sovereignty.  

Mass protests finally forced the issue in 1905.  The ruler Muzaffar al-Din Shah signed a "Fundamental Law" on his deathbed that created a parliamentary regime, and in 1907 his successor Muhammad Ali Shah signed a supplement to the law that introduced civil equality and recognition that national sovereignty is derived from the people.  The period of reform was short-lived, however, with a near civil war followed by the dismissal of the parliament in 1911.  The dynasty limped toward its end in the years that followed, losing practically all authority over the country until a Russian-trained military officer, Riza Khan, seized power in a coup in 1925.  

In sum, the Qajar dynasty coincided with a dismal period in Persian history in which European powers called the shots both politically and economically.  Reform movements did emerge around the turn of the twentieth century, but modernization did not begin in earnest until after the Qajar period finally came to an end.  The dynasty that began with Riza Khan, known as the Pahlavis, sought to radically reform the very nature of governance and society in Iran, inspired by the one meaningful achievement of the attempt at reform in the late Qajar period: the idea that Iran was a nation that should assert its national identity on the world stage.