6 Introduction
vention as vengeance for an unlawful attack on people under their
protection by a party that was not the rightful government of Iran.
In Peter's reign, the casus belli was the attack on Shirvan and second-
arily the Afghan challenge to Safavi authority. Catherine justified her
Iranian Campaign as a reprisal for the 1795 attack on Georgia by Aqa
Mohammad Khan, the founder of the Qajar dynasty. She proclaimed
to all the people of the region that her intention was not only to safe-
guard the Georgians (who had been under Russian protection, at
least theoretically, since 1783) but also to protect all Iranian subjects,
including Muslims, from the tyrannical rule of the usurper Aqa Mo-
hammad Khan.l
Another common attribute of Russian policy toward Iran at the
beginning and the end of the eighteenth century was the special inter-
est in Armenians and Georgians. Peter and Catherine both toyed with
the notion of liberating the Caucasian Christians from Muslim rule,
an idea strenuously encouraged by the two Christian communities,
which urged the Russians to send troops not only to take them under
protection but also to conquer the central provinces of Iran. The
Caucasian Christians promised military cooperation as well. In the
1720s, they gathered troops to join with Peter's army. However, he
failed to take advantage of the opportunity. By the 1790s, neither
the Georgians nor the Armenians were able to organize substantial
military forces of their own. Nonetheless, spokesmen for both groups
continued to promise cooperation with Russian troops should any be
sent to the region. Peter and Catherine were also interested in the Ar-
menians and Georgians as valuable commercial intermediaries in trade
with Asia. A consistent trait of eighteenth century Russian policy
toward these groups was the acceptance of their declarations of sup-
port unmatched by effective Russian protection. In Peter's campaign,
King Vakhtang of Georgia was hopelessly compromised by his pre-
parations to join forces with the Russians and as a result was forced
into exile for the rest of his life. The Armenians who had cooperated
with him took shelter in inaccessible mountain reaches. During Cath-
erine's reign, the Georgians complained repeatedly of the inadequacy
of Russian protection that had been guaranteed them by treaty, es-
pecially when nothing was done to prevent the sack of their capital,
Tbilisi, in 1795.
Despite the immense prestige that eventually accrued to Peter's
activities and the general similarities between Russia's Iranian interests
at the beginning and the end of the century, Catherine's policy owed
very little to Peter's influence. The real beginning of Russia's modern
interest in Iran occurred in Catherine's reign. She occasionally referred