xii Preface
the large number of their tribal inhabitants, had long traditions of
sedentary urban culture and links to Iran —from the Avars, Lesghis,
Qumuqs, and other tribes of the high Caucasus, whose traditions
were markedly different. Moreover, these tribes were brought into
the Russian Empire through a much longer process than the khanates
were.
For other geographical names, I have used the anglicized form
when one exists, such as Iran instead of Iran, and the more accurate
anglicization where possible, as, for example, Tehran rather than
Teheran. Some anglicized forms are far more cumbersome than a
direct transliteration. Thus, the standard Gandzha is an anglicization
of a russianization of an Iranian place name that may be more simply
transliterated as Ganjeh. Some Caucasian places have names that take
different forms in Persian, Russian, Georgian, and Armenian. The
choice of form may imply a political judgment. The capital of Georgia
is now officially known by the Georgian form of its name, Tbilisi,
although the Iranians called it Teflis and the Russians, Tiflis. Similar-
ly, the capital of Soviet Armenia is known in Armenian as Yerevan;
as a part of the tsarist empire, it was called Erivan;and to the Iranians,
who sometimes governed it, it was Iravan. In the case of both cities,
I chose to use the version of the name used in the native languages.
I have also used anglicized equivalents for nongeographical terms,
such as bazaar and shah (rather than bazar and shah), except when a
title is quoted as part of a person's name, as in the case of Fath
'Ali Shah. In transliterating unfamiliar Persian words (and loan words),
I have tried to indicate the way they are pronounced in Persian rather
than impose the theoretical reconstruction of the pronunciation of
classical Arabic.
The different calendars in use in Russia, Iran, and western Europe
present a possible source of confusion. In the period considered here,
Russia employed the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calen-
dar used in western Europe. For clarity, I have given dates according
to the Gregorian calendar in the text. In the footnotes, all dates are
given as they appear on the documents. During the eighteenth cen-
tury, the Julian calendar lagged behind the Gregorian by eleven
days, and, in the nineteenth century, by twelve. In the same era, Iran
used the Arabic lunar calendar of 354 days reckoned from the date
of Mohammed's departure from Mecca for Medina in A. D. 622.
Any dates given according to this calendar are accompanied by their
equivalents according to the Gregorian calendar.