VIThe Origins of
the First Russo-Iranian War
The war between Russia and Iran was not caused by Iran's sending
20,000 men to attack Tsitsianov in 1804, as Foreign Minister Adam
Czartoryski directed Russia's ambassador in Constantinople to tell
the Turks.^1 Still less was it the result of British manipulation of Iran
for the purpose of expelling Russia from the Caucasus, or Russia's
need to block British or French imperialist expansion in the region
or Russia's need to prevent the Iranian "feudal elite" from seizing
control there, as some Soviet writers have alleged.^2 The first explan-
ation reflects the characteristic inability of Russian officials to under-
stand that people might perceive their own interests as different from
those of Russia. The other explanations have more to do with Cold
War propaganda than with history. The French and the British did
not become involved in the conflict between Russia and Iran until
after the fighting had begun. Russia sought and occasionally received
the support of local rulers and tribal chiefs whom Soviet writers usu-
ally describe as the "feudal elite." One Soviet author went so far as
to fabricate evidence to support his charge that British economic im-
perialism provoked Russia into fighting a defensive war. He claimed
that consul Skibinevskii alerted his superiors to the fact that an 1801
treaty between Iran and Britain gave Britain permission to build
ships in Lankaran and monopolize the purchase of Gilani silk.^3
Neither the commercial nor the political treaty of 1801 contained
such provisions, nor did Skibinevskii's report on Anglo-Iranian rela-
tions mention those nonexistent details.^4
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