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On March 9, 1730, the Iranian army exited Shiraz and in a leisurely manner celebrated the new year (Nowruz), after which Nader commenced a rapid forced march westward in the hope of catching the Ottomans off balance. Reaching Ottoman-occupied town of Nahavand via Luristan, Nader put the Turks here to flight towards Hamadan, where, recovering from their initial shock and panic, they regrouped and presented themselves in the valley of Malayer to give battle in the hope of ending the Iranian advance on Hamadan.
The Ottoman force arrayed in front of the Iranian army was of a different nature altogether from all the previous foes the Iranian army had faced up to this point. The Afghan and tribal opponents of Nader had been almost completely devoid of any infantry or artillery units (excluding Murche-Khort), comprised almost exclusively of excellent mounted warriors instead.
Now Nader faced an adversary who in many respects mirrored the Iranian army's own composition in structure as well as constituent unit types. The Turks had drawn themselves up parallel to a stream flowing through the valley, on the other side of which Nader deployed his men into three separate divisions, placing himself in the centre. As the two armies came within musket range of each other, a general fire broke out along the entire length of the line, with the smoke created from the muskets & cannon dancing over shallow body of water separating the two armies, obscuring the Iranians and Ottomans from each other's view. Nader, under the veil of smoke, started strengthening and preparing his right wing for a bold gamble.
After liberating Hamadan along with its 10,000 imprisoned Iranian soldiers, Nader gained Kermanshah, thus liberating large swathes of western Iran from Ottoman rule. Leaving behind a fortified position, he now moved his army to Azerbaijan, where he took Tabriz on August 12, crushing an army sent (too late) to reinforce Tabriz. The Turkish prisoners were treated kindly, with Nader freeing many of the Pashas, dispatching them with messages of peace to Constantinople (Istanbul). In a lightning campaign Nader had reincorporated all the main provinces of the Iranian heartland.
At this time in Constantinople, Patrona Halil, a mob rebellion had produced a change in leadership bringing Mahmud I to power. Sultan Mahmud I appointed a half-Venetian statesman to command in the east at the head of an army which would prove Tahmasp's undoing. Aiming to cloak the Caucasus under Iranian hegemony as in the time of his forefathers Tahmasp aimed to conquer Chokhur-e Sa'd, Georgia and Daghestan from the Turks. An army of 18,000 was led into Chokhur-e Sa'd were Tahmasp found himself scoring a victory over an Ottoman army near Yerevan.
There seems to have been an unintentional initiation of musketry by the inexperienced Iranian infantry leading to a pitched battle where the Iranian cavalry on either flank overcame their counterparts but were let down by the nervous infantry in the centre who were easily put to flight by the advance of the Janissaries which now turned to aid their mounted comrades in a counter-attack on the Iranian horsemen routing them in turn also. Tabriz also fell to Hakimoghlu Khan with Ahmad Pasha complementing his gains by capturing Hamadan.
Tahmasp was obliged to sign a treaty by which he accepted Ottoman suzerainty over the Caucasus and in exchange he would be given back Tabriz, Hamadan and kermanshah. The conclusion of his incompetence in this foreign venture had resulted in signing one of the most humiliating treaties of his dynasty although this seemed to weigh little on his mind as he soon returned to Isfahan to resume a magnificently opulent lifestyle.
On discovering the cataclysmic events that had unfolded in the west Nader abandoned any further conquest in the east to return to Isfahan with much justified anger at the Shah's inept statesmanship which must have been all the more infuriating as Nader's impressive achievements against the Ottomans during the previous year had become utterly irrelevant. This gave Nader the political ammunition to force Tahmasp II to abdicate in favour of his infant son Abbas III in effect making Nader the supreme and unchallenged authority in the realm paving the way for his eventual overthrow of the Safavid dynasty altogether.
As a direct result of Tahmasp II's blunders in his ill-fated invasion of the Ottoman Caucasus all of Nader's previous gains in the theatre were lost and a humiliating treaty had been signed giving away hegemony over the Caucasus to Istanbul. This settlement gave Nader the authority to force Tahmasp's abdication and resume the war against the Turks by launching an invasion of Ottoman Iraq and Mesopotamia.
Ottoman held Iraq seemed a peculiar choice for Nader's invasion as all the western territories of Iran were restored under the ignominious treaty signed by Tahmasp with the Caucasus under Turkish control. Axworthy speculates that Nader intended to seize Baghdad as a bargaining chip in exchange for the Caucasus but with Baghdad being such a strategic prize in itself it is rather doubtful any civil exchange of territory was held in mind at the time at all. Despite the unexpected choice of theatre the Ottomans in the region were well prepared to receive the Iranians.
To achieve a modicum of surprise Nader decided upon a march through the mountains as opposed to a direct advance against the fortified border town of Zohab near Qasr-e Shirin. The mountain path was a difficult and snowy route to negotiate and some amongst the soldiers perished but Nader managed to get his 600 men to descend down into the valley behind the Ottoman battlements and without hesitation struck in the dead of night. Completely out-witted by Nader the garrison of Zohab woke up and fled their posts in terror. Nader ordered a new fort to be built and moved south to join the main Iranian army that had left Hamadan and was heading to Baghdad.
Besieging Kirkuk with a residue force of 7,000 the main Iranian army marched on until they defeated an Ottoman army near Baghdad and then proceeded to encircle the city itself in preparation for a siege after a hard fought campaign of manoeuvre were Nader managed to cross the Tigris. Ahmad Pasha would prove a stubborn defender of the city and held out until the approach of a relief effort in the form of an army of 80,000 under Topal Pasha.
In a cunning ruse Topal drew Nader into a disadvantageous battle where despite losing a quarter of his own men Topal inflicted a crushing defeat on the Iranian army, half of which was destroyed and all its guns lost. This monumental victory allowed the lifting of the siege further to the south where Ahmad Pasha- having heard of Topal Osman's victory -came out with an enthusiastic garrison to chase away the 12,000 Iranians left to maintain the blockade of Baghdad.
Making an almost fantastical recovery from his seemingly irreplaceable losses Nader rebuilt his army in an incredibly short amount of time and invaded Ottoman Iraq once more. After some minor frontier skirmishing he sent Haji Beg Khan to lure out Topal Pasha which he succeeded in doing. The Ottoman advance guard was set upon drowned under the waves of a ferocious ambush after which Nader gathered his men and marched directly against the main Ottoman army nearby.
An intense musketry duel was kept up along the entire breadth of the line until Nader ordered his infantry unsheathe their sabres and charge the Ottomans, supporting them with a pincer movement by his cavalry reserve which put Topal Osman's army in a cauldron of Iranian troops. The Turks crumbling in the face of this manoeuvre found that not even the presence of the old fox in the person of Topal Pasha could rally them and fled leaving all their guns.
Nader however could not pursue his impressive conquest due to a growing uprising in southern Iran which required his immediate attention. Therefore, Baghdad was yet again saved from falling into Iranian hands. The campaign itself did not decide the fate of the war but set the stage for Nader's Caucasus campaign in 1735 where through a shattering defeat of the Ottomans at Baghavard, Istanbul was brought to its knees.
As the Iranian empire set about re-incorporating the lost territories to the west, Hussein sultan of Qandahar intrigued the Abdalis of Herat to raise against their masters while the main Iranian forces were arrayed against the Ottomans thousands of kilometres to the west. The governor of Herat, Allahyar Khan, who was confirmed in his position by Nader after his the war of in 1729 remained loyal but his chief lieutenant Zulfaqar Khan was very much taken by Qandahar's assurances and support.
Allahyar Khan was obliged to flee Herat and was given refuge by Nader's brother Ibrahim Khan. The Abdalis soon invaded Khorasan itself and marched on its capital, Mashad, defeating the Iranian under Ibrahim Khan and forcing it to withdraw into the city walls which now came under siege. Although the Abdalis had little chance of actually taking the city as what little artillery they possessed would make hardly any impression on the battlements of Mashad, these events shook Nader who received word that his power base back in Khorasan was under threat. On August 16 Nader left Tabriz behind and marched his force across 2,250 kilometres over the Iranian plateau with lightning speed, bringing him Mashad where he found the Abdalis in headlong retreat.
Hussein Hotaki was growing increasingly anxious about his position in Qandahar with Nader approaching Herat, prompting him to enter into negotiations with Nader in which he sent back a few captive Safavid princesses. Hussein sultan's support for his proxy, Zulfaqar Khan, however did not cease or even lessen – in fact a Ghilzai force of at least a few thousand strong commanded by Mohammad Seidal Khan was sent from Qandahar to support him.
The final decisive engagement took place outside the city when Zulfaqar Khan and Seidal Khan agreed to a joint coordinated attack against the Iranians. The attack was decimated when Nader sent a flanking force round the Afghans and himself rode directly against their front with a large body of cavalry. The defeat caused Seidal Khan's departure which in turn led to the remaining defenders of Herat asking for terms of submission.
Under the treaty signed by both sides Allahyar Khan was returned his governorship of Herat with Zulfaqar Khan being exiled to Farah. Nader did not however militarily occupy the citadel – an action which would prove a terrible mistake when 4,000 fighters came down from Farah an stoked the fires of rebellion once more. Allahyar Khan was pressured despite his reluctance to join the revolt. Allahyar Khan was also exiled.
The siege of the citadel was hence resumed with the Afghan's sending peace emissaries once they realised their predicament. The negotiations lasted a long while but were eventually concluded, giving Zulfaqar Khan and his brother a chance to escape to Qandahar whilst Herat came under occupation but was surprisingly not looted or sacked by Nader's troops. Ibrahim Khan managed to conquer Farah, helping to pacify the region as a whole in addition to Nader's policies of forced migration for many of the tribes involved in the rebellion as well as incorporating many of their fighters into his own armed forces.
After Nader put down the revolt in Afghanistan, he was able to continue his invasion of the Ottoman Empire and the Caucasus which ended in an Iranian victory allowing Nader to recast Iranian hegemony over almost the entire Caucasus, region, reconconquering it for the Safavid state.
The Caucasus had fallen under Ottoman control since 1722 with the collapse of the Safavid state. The first target of the campaign was the reconquering of the Shirvan Khanate, with its capital Shamakhi falling in August 1734 freeing up the Iranian forces to march west and lay siege to Ganja. The battlements of Ganja as well as its garrison of 14,000 soldiers provided a formidable defence. After Tahmasp Khan Jalayer engaged and routed a joint Ottoman and Crimean Tatar force in the south east Caucasus Nader cut their line of retreat further west dealing them another crippling blow, scattering them into the mountains north.
The mountains to the north in Avarestan made any pursuit of the defeated foe a daunting prospect especially considering the approach of winter, so Nader chose to turn west and besiege Ganja where he was drawn into an intense effort to capture the surprisingly formidable fortress. The Iranian artillery was still severely lacking in strong siege guns and consisted mostly of field batteries which were effective in battles but unable to make significant impact against city walls and battlements.
Failing in their siege artillery capacity the Iranians sent sappers to dig underground to reach the citadels walls from beneath but the Turks received timely intelligence reports revealing the intention of the besiegers. Tunnelling underground the Iranians and Ottomans burrowed into each other's way whence they came to grips in hand-to-hand combat. The Iranians were able to detonate six charges killing 700 Ottoman defenders but still failed in their main object of destroying the citadels walls. The Iranians also lost some 30 to 40 men themselves.
Nader also blockaded Yerevan and Tiflis forcing a response from the Ottoman 'Saraskar' Koprulu Pasha. Istanbul had found the preliminary negotiations by Ahmad Pasha, governor of Ottoman Baghdad unsatisfactory and sent an enormous army consisting of 50,000 cavalry, 30,000 janissaries and 40 cannon to be commanded by Koprulu Pasha foe the defence of Ottoman possessions in the region.
Nader having besieged many of the key cities and fortresses in the area awaited the arrival of Koprulu Pasha's main army of some 130,000 men according to Nader's court historian Mirza Mehdi Astarabadi, prompting Nader to gather his advance guard of around 15,000 men and march them westwards to engage the relief army under Koprulu Pasha. By the time the main Iranian army of 40,000 reached the scene of the battle Nader, despite the enormous disparity in numbers, routed the Ottomans, forcing Istanbul to finally sign a peace recognizing Iranian control of the Caucasus and the border in Mesopotamia already agreed to in the treaty of Zuhab.
The crushing defeat at Baghavard also provided sufficient persuasion to retreat for the 50,000 Crimean Tatars who were commanded by the Turkish Sultan to march south along the coast of the Black Sea descending down into the Caucasus in order to aid Koprulu Pasha's forces.
Emperor Nader Shah, the Shah of Iran (1736–47) and founder of the Afsharid dynasty, invaded the Mughal Empire with a fifty-five thousand strong army, eventually attacking Delhi in March 1739. His army had easily defeated the Mughals at the battle at Karnal and would eventually capture the Mughal capital in the aftermath of the battle.
Nader Shah's victory against the weak and crumbling Mughal Empire in the far East meant that he could afford to turn back and resume war against Iran's archrival, the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, but also the further campaigns in the North Caucasus and Central Asia.
Nader Shah became the official Iranian monarch in 1736, and founded the Afsharid dynasty in that year overthrowing the last puppet safavid shah after the successful campaign of 1730-35. In 1738, Nader Shah conquered Kandahar, the last outpost of the Hotaki dynasty, he, then, began to launch raids across the Hindu Kush mountains into Northern India, which, at that time, was under the rule of the Mughal Empire.
The Mughal empire had been weakened by ruinous wars of succession in the three decades following the death of Aurangzeb. The Muslim nobles had asserted their independence whilst the Hindu Marathas of the Maratha Empire had captured vast swathes of territory in Central and Northern India. Its ruler, Muhammad Shah, proved unable to stop the disintegration of the empire. The imperial court administration was corrupt and weak whereas the country was extremely rich whilst Delhi’s prosperity and prestige was still at a high. Nader Shah, attracted by the country's wealth, sought plunder like so many other foreign invaders before him.
At the Battle of Karnal on 13 February 1739, Nader led his army to victory over the Mughals, Muhammad Shah surrendered and both entered Delhi together.
The keys to the capital of Delhi were surrendered to Nader. He entered the city on 20 March 1739 and occupied Shah Jehan’s imperial suite in the Red Fort. Coins were struck, and prayers said, in his name in the Jama Masjid and other Delhi mosques. The next day, the Shah held a great durbar in the capital.
The Iranian occupation led to price rises in the city. The city administrator attempted to fix prices at a lower level and Iranian troops were sent to the market at Paharganj, Delhi to enforce them. However, the local merchants refused to accept the lower prices and this resulted in violence during which some Iranians were assaulted and killed.
When a rumour spread that Nader had been assassinated by a female guard at the Red Fort, some Indians attacked and killed Iranian troops during the riots that broke out on the night of 21 March. Nader, furious at the killings, retaliated by ordering his soldiers to carry out the notorious "qatl-e-aam" (qatl = killing, aam = publicly, in open) of Delhi.
Areas of Delhi such as Chandni Chowk and Dariba Kalan, Fatehpuri, Faiz Bazar, Hauz Kazi, Johri Bazar and the Lahori, Ajmeri and Kabuli gates, all of which were densely populated by both Hindus and Muslims, were soon covered with corpses. Muslims, like Hindus and Sikhs, resorted to killing their women, children and themselves rather than submit to the Iranians.
Muhammad Shah was forced to beg for mercy. These horrific events were recorded in contemporary chronicles such as the Tarikh-e-Hindi of Rustam Ali, the Bayan-e-Waqai of Abdul Karim and the Tazkira of Anand Ram Mukhlis.
Finally, after many hours of desperate pleading by the Mughals for mercy, Nader Shah relented and signalled a halt to the bloodshed by sheathing his battle sword once again.
It has been estimated that during the course of six hours in one day, 22 March 1739, something like 20,000 to 30,000 Indian men, women and children were slaughtered by the Iranian troops during the massacre in the city. Exact casualty figures are uncertain, as after the massacre, the bodies of the victims were simply buried in mass burial pits or cremated in grand funeral pyres without any proper record being made of the numbers cremated or buried.
The city was sacked for several days. An enormous fine of 20 million rupees was levied on the people of Delhi. Muhammad Shah handed over the keys to the royal treasury, and lost the Peacock Throne, to Nader Shah, which thereafter served as a symbol of Iranian imperial might. Amongst a treasure trove of other fabulous jewels, Nader also gained the Koh-i-Noor and Darya-ye Noor ("Mountain of Light" and "Sea of Light," respectively) diamonds; they are now part of the British and Iranian Crown Jewels, respectively. Iranian troops left Delhi at the beginning of May 1739.
The plunder seized from Delhi was so rich that Nader stopped taxation in Iran for a period of three years following his return. Nader Shah's victory against the crumbling Mughal Empire in the East meant that he could afford to turn to the West and face the Ottomans. The Ottoman Sultan Mahmud I initiated the Ottoman-Iranian War (1743–1746), in which Muhammad Shah closely cooperated with the Ottomans until his death in 1748.
Nader's Indian campaign alerted the East India Company to the extreme weakness of the Mughal Empire and the possibility of expanding to fill the power vacuum.
Nader attempted to ratify the Treaty of Constantinople (1736), by demanding that the Ja'fari, a small Shi'ite sect was to be accepted as a fifth legal sect of Islam.
In early 1744 Nader Shah resumed his offensive and besieged Kars, but returned to Daghestan to suppress a revolt. He returned afterwards and routed an Ottoman army at the battle of Kars in August 1745. The war disintegrated. Nader Shah grew insane and started to punish his own subjects, which led to a revolt from early 1745 to June 1746. In 1746 peace was made. The boundaries were unchanged and Baghdad remained in Ottoman hands. Nader Shah dropped his demand for Ja'fari recognition. The Porte was pleased and dispatched an ambassador but before he could arrive, Nader Shah was assassinated by his own officers.
John Frederick Baddeley (July 1854 – Oxford, 16 February 1940) was a British traveller, writer and journalist, best known by his works on Russia and the Caucasus region.
He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire. After visiting Russia for seven months in 1879, Baddeley became the St. Petersburg correspondent for the London Standard, and began a lifelong relationship with that country, travelling widely and writing several important books on its history. In the summer of 1900 he made his first of several journeys to Siberia and the Russian Far East. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1902-1940.
Other Baddeley's works are "The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus" (1908), "Russia in the 'eighties', sport and politics" (1921) and "The rugged flanks of Caucasus" (1940); this posthumous work is dedicated to the geography, topography, history, archaeology, Natural history, and ethnology of the Caucasus, including the oil fields of Baku and some pages on Nadir Shah.
Filippo De Filippi (1869–1938) was an Italian medical doctor, scientist, mountaineer and explorer. De Filippo was born in Turin on 6 April 1869 to Giuseppe De Filippi, a lawyer, and Olimpia Sella.
As a doctor he specialised in physiological chemistry and in experimental aspects of surgery, lecturing at Bologna and Genoa universities.
He married Caroline Fitzgerald in 1901, a poet, daughter of William John Fitzgerald. In World War I he volunteered as a lieutenant colonel in the Red Cross and was posted to London from 1917 to 1919 where he ran the Italian office of propaganda and information. He was awarded the honorary knighthood of KCIE in 1916.
He was the editor of the travel and exploration section of the "Enciclopedia italiana". He died at Settignano near Florence on 23 September 1938.
Well known as an Alpine mountaineer, in 1897 he joined the Duke of the Abruzzi in an expedition to Alaska where they were the first people to climb Mount Saint Elias on 31 July. Then, in 1903, he explored Asia, crossing the Caucasus and entering Turkestan. In 1906 he wrote the book about (though did not take part in) Abruzzi's exploration of the Ruwenzori mountains on the Uganda–Congo border. In 1909 he again went with the Duke of the Abruzzi, this time in the Karakoram mountains, writing the book describing the expedition.
From 1913 to 1914, De Filippo organised and led a large and highly successful scientific expedition to Central Asia: Baltistan, Ladakh and Xinjiang. Accurate gravity and magnetic measurements were made and wireless signals were used to determine longitude. There were ethnological and anthropological, topographical and geological studies. The exploration determined that the Rimo Glacier formed the watershed of Central Asia. The work was written up in seventeen volumes.
Heinrich Julius Klaproth (11 October 1783 – 28 August 1835) was a German linguist, historian, ethnographer, author, orientalist and explorer. As a scholar, he is credited along with Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, with being instrumental in turning East Asian Studies into scientific disciplines with critical methods.
H.J. Klaproth was usually known as Julius or Julius von Klaproth. His name also erroneously appears as "Julius Heinrich Klaproth".
Klaproth was born in Berlin on 11 October 1783, the son of the chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who is credited with the discovery of four elements including uranium.
Young Klaproth devoted his energies in quite early life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his "Asiatisches Magazin" (Weimar 1802–1803). He was in consequence called to St. Petersburg and given an appointment in the academy there. In 1805 he was a member of Count Golovkin's embassy to China. On his return he was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus on an ethnographical and linguistic exploration (1807–1808), and was afterwards employed for several years in connection with the academy's Oriental publications. In 1812 he moved to Berlin.
In 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816 Humboldt procured him from the king of Prussia the title and salary of professor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. He died in Paris on 28 August 1835.
Klaproth was an orientalist or an "Asiatologist," in that he had a good command not only of
Chinese, but also Manchu, Mongolian, Sanskrit, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and even Caucasian languages. His wide range of interests encompassed the study of the development of individual countries in their Asian context, which contrast with the 21st century focus on specialization.
Klaproth's 1812 "Dissertation on language and script of the Uighurs" ("Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren") was disputed by Isaak Jakob Schmidt, who is considered the founder of Mongolian Studies. Klaproth asserted that the Uighur language was a Turkic language, which today is undisputed, while Schmidt was persuaded that Uighur should be classified as a "Tangut" language.
Klaproth's bibliography extends to more than 300 published items.
His great work "Asia Polyglotta" (Paris, 1823 and 1831, with Sprachatlas) not only served as a résumé of all that was known on the subject, but formed a new departure for the classification of the Eastern languages, more especially those of the Russian Empire. To a great extent, however, his work is now superseded.
The "Itinerary of a Chinese Traveller" (1821), a series of documents in the military archives of St. Petersburg purporting to be the travels of George Ludwig von , and a similar series obtained from him in the London foreign office, are all regarded as spurious.
Klaproth was also the first to publish a translation of "Taika" era Japanese poetry in the West. Donald Keene explained in a preface to the Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai edition of the "Man'yōshū:"
Gustav Ferdinand Richard Radde (27 November 1831 – 2 March 1903) was a German naturalist and Siberian explorer. Radde's warbler and several other species are named after him.
Radde was born in Danzig, the son of a schoolmaster. He had little formal education, and began a career as an apothecary. At an early age he was influenced by Anton Menge and became increasingly interested in natural history, and in 1852 he gave up his career and spent two years in the Crimea with the botanist Christian von Steven, collecting both plants and animals. He made further trips to southern Russia with Johann Friedrich von Brandt and Karl Ernst von Baer. He was botanist and zoologist on the East Siberian Expedition of 1855, led by the astronomer Ludwig Schwarz.
In 1864 he eventually settled in Tbilisi. In the same year he explored the region surrounding Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in the Western Palearctic. As well as collecting many plants he recorded the languages, ballads and customs of the local tribes. He set up a museum (the Caucasus Museum) and library in Tbilisi to exhibit his discoveries. His collecting expeditions included visits along the Black Sea coast and eastwards beyond the Caspian Sea to Askhabad. In 1895 he sailed to India and Japan with the Grand Duke Michael, and two years later he was official naturalist on a visit by members of the Russian imperial family to North Africa. He eventually became a member of the Council of State in Tbilisi.
In 1884 he was honoured with the chairmanship of the first International Ornithological Congress in Vienna. He was also an honorary member of the "Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft", and a foreign member of the British Ornithologists' Union and the Zoological Society of London. He was awarded the Patron's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1889 and the Constantine Medal of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in 1898.
Animals named after him include birds such as Radde's warbler and Radde's accentor, and amphibians and reptiles such as the Mongolian toad ("Pseudepidalea raddei)", the Azerbaijan lizard ("Darevskia raddei)", a toadhead agama ("Phrynocephalus raddei)", and Radde's mountain viper ("Montivipera raddei)".
Radde was an avid entomologist. His insect (and other) collections are divided: Transbaikal and Amur material is in the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Science; Caucasus and Transcaspian material is in the Georgian National Museum Zoological Section, Tbilisi.
This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Radde when citing a botanical name.
In 1892, he wrote a Russian description of his voyage with the grand dukes Alexander and Sergeis Mikhailovitch.
Ivan Alekseyevich Bartolomei (, 28 November 1813 – 5 October 1870) was an Imperial Russian military officer, antiquarian, and writer.
Bartolomei was born in St. Petersburg in the family of a Russian army general, originally of the Livonian noble family of von Bartholomäi. He took part in the Caucasus War and the Crimean War. In 1853, he led a mission to bring the mountaineers of Free Svanetia under Russian suzerainty. He was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1865. Beyond his service as an Imperial general and bureaucrat, Bartolomei was interested in the peoples and cultures of the Caucasus. He collected Georgian, Bactrian, Parthian, and Sasanian coins, which he subsequently donated to the Hermitage Museum. He authored several studies on the Caucasian ethnography and linguistics and first attempts at creating Abkhaz and Chechen primers. He died in Tiflis in 1870.
Vasileios Vatatzes was born in Therapeia near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and was a scion of the Vatatzes noble family. His father was a Greek Orthodox priest who served at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, and he had five siblings.
According to the modern historian Evangelos Venetis, Vatatzes had traveled to Prussia, the Kingdom of France, the Dutch Republic, Great Britain and Denmark by 1732/3. Post-1733 information about Vatatzes's life remains obscure. Venetis notes that in all likelihood, according to Vatatzes's own writings, he "spent much time in the court of Nader Shah, accumulating all necessary information before compiling Nader Shah's biography". In addition to spending much time at court, he also participated in Nader's military expeditions. In 1748, Vatatzes completed Nader's biography (known as the "Persika") in Greek. Vatatzes was proficient in Persian and also drew a map.
According to Venetis, Vatatzes "was associated with the 18th-century Greek Enlightenment of the Danubian Principalities". Venetis adds that Vatatzes either wrote his manuscripts at the court of the Greek Phanariote rulers of the Danubian Principalities or they were reproduced there in large quantities after his death. Anyhow, in all likelihood, Vatatzes was a member of the retinue of the Phanariote rulers. Venetis adds that Vatatzes was "an admirer of Persian civilization and of Nader Shah's rule" and an "important author for Iranian history and Hellenic-Iranian studies". However, his works "have been largely ignored by modern scholarship".
Jean Chardin (16 November 1643 – 5 January 1713), born Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveller whose ten-volume book "The Travels of Sir John Chardin" is regarded as one of the finest works of early Western scholarship on Persia and the Near East in general.
He was born in Paris, son of a wealthy merchant, jeweller of the Place Dauphine, and followed his father's business.
In 1664, he started for the East Indies with M. Raisin, a Lyons merchant.
They journeyed by Constantinople and the Black Sea, reaching Persia early in 1666.
The same year the shah, Abbas II, made Chardin his agent for the purchase of jewels.
In the middle of 1667, he visited India and returned to Persia in 1669. The next year he arrived in Paris.
He issued an account of some events to which he was an eyewitness in Persia, entitled 'Le Couronnement de Soleiman Troisième,' Paris, 1671.
A learned nobleman, Mirza Sefi, a prisoner in his own palace at Isfahan, had entertained him, instructed him in the Persian language, and assisted him in this work.
Peter de la Croix and Tavernier severely criticised it, while Ange de la Brosse as strongly defended it.
Chardin again started for the East, August 1671.
He was at Constantinople from March to July 1672.
A quarrel between the grand vizier and the French ambassador made the position of French subjects dangerous, and Chardin escaped in a small vessel across the Black Sea, and made a most adventurous journey by Caffa, and through Georgia, and Armenia to Ispahan, which he reached in 1673.
At Sapias, he was robbed by thugs in Samegrelo of all he possessed except two small bundles, worth £6,000.
He stayed at Ispahan four years, following the court in all its removals, and making particular journeys throughout the land, from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf and the river Indus, and visiting several Indian cities.
By these two journeys he realised a considerable fortune, and, deciding to return home, reached Europe in 1677 by a voyage round the Cape of Good Hope.
Of four volumes originally projected the first volume was published in 1686, "Journal du Voyage . . . de Chardin en Parse et aux Indes Orientales," London, fol.
This volume contains the author's journey from Paris to Ispahan, and has the author's half-length portrait by Loggan, with eighteen copper plates, mostly folding.
His former work is reprinted there with a fulsome 'Epistle Dedicatory to James II.'
Chardin in his preface announced three other volumes to follow. The last, which was to contain a short history of Persia, along with his diaries for 1675–77, never appeared. The other three volumes (with many additions to the first) were published at Amsterdam, 1711, 4to, "Voyages de Mons. le Chevalier Chardin", as the complete work. In 1711 another edition, with his translation of "La Relation des Mingreliens", by J. M, Zampi, appeared in ten vols., Amsterdam, l2mo; and in 1735 another edition was published in four vols. 4to, containing a great number of passages added from his manuscripts, but with many omissions of violent Calvinistic passages. The most complete reprint is that of M. L. Langles, in ten vols. 8vo, Paris, 1811.
Chardin's style of writing is simple and graphic, and he gives a faithful account of what he saw and heard. Montesquieu, Rousseau, Gibbon, and Helvetius acknowledge the value of his writings; and Sir William Jones says he gave the best account of Mahometan nations ever published.

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