The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia

by Voltaire

Baku is situate near Shamache, but is neither so well peopled, nor so rich as the latter. It is chiefly remarkable for the naptha, with which it furnishes all Persia. Never was treaty so speedily concluded as that of Ishmael Beg. (Sept. 1723.) Czar Peter promised to march with his forces into Persia, in order to revenge the death of his subjects, and to succour Thamaseb against the usurper of his crown, and the new sophi in return was to cede to him, not only the towns of Bachu and Derbent, but likewise the provinces of Ghilan, Mazanderan, and Asterabath.

Ghilan is, as we have already observed, the ancient South Hyrcania; Mazanderan, which joins to it, is the country of the Mardi, or Mardians; and Asterabath borders upon Mazanderan. These were the three principal provinces of the ancient Median kings; so that Peter beheld himself, by the means of arms and treaties, in possession of the original kingdom of Cyrus.

It may not be foreign to our subject to observe, that by the articles of this convention, the prices of necessaries to be furnished to the army were settled. A camel was to cost only sixty franks (about twelve rubles) a pound of bread no more than five farthings, the same weight of beef about six. These prices furnish a convincing proof of the plenty he found in these countries, that possessions in land are of the most intrinsic value, and that money, which is only of nominal worth, was at that time very scarce.

Such was the deplorable state to which Persia was then reduced, that the unfortunate sophi Thamaseb, a wanderer in his own kingdom, and flying before the face of the rebel, Mahmoud, who had dipt his hands in the blood of his father and his brothers, was necessitated to entreat the court of Russia and the Turkish divan to accept of one part of his dominions to preserve for him the rest.

It was agreed then, between czar Peter, sultan Achmet III. and the sophi Thamaseb, that the first of these should keep the three provinces above-named, and that the Porte should have Casbin, Tauris, and Erivan, besides what she had already taken from the usurper. Thus was this noble kingdom dismembered at once by the Russians, the Turks, and the Persians themselves.

And now the emperor Peter might be said to extend his dominions from the furthest part of the Baltic Sea, beyond the southern limits of the Caspian. Persia still continued a prey to violations and devastations, and its natives, till then opulent and polite, were now sunk in poverty and barbarism, while the Russian people had arisen from indigence and ignorance to a state of riches and learning. One single man, by a resolute and enterprising genius, had brought his country out of obscurity; and another, by his weakness and indolence, had brought destruction upon his.

Hitherto we know very little of the private calamities which for so long a time spread desolation over the face of the Persian empire. It is said, that shah Hussein was so pusillanimous as to place with his own hands the tiara or crown of Persia on the head of the usurper Mahmoud, and also that this Mahmoud afterwards went mad. Thus the lives of so many thousands of men depend on the caprice of a madman or a fool. They add furthermore, that Mahmoud, in one of his fits of frenzy, put to death with his own hand all the sons and nephews of the shah Hussein to the number of a hundred; and that he caused the gospel of St. John to be read upon his head, in order to purify himself, and to receive a cure for his disorder. These and such like Persian fables have been circulated by our monks, and afterwards printed in Paris.

The tyrant, after having murdered his uncle, was in his turn put to death by his nephew Eshreff, who was as cruel and bloody a tyrant as Mahmoud himself.

Shah Thamaseb still continued imploring the assistance of Russia. This Thamaseb or shah Thomas, was assisted and afterwards replaced on the throne by the famous Kouli Khan, and was again dethroned by the same Kouli Khan.

The revolutions and wars which Russia had afterwards to encounter against the Turks, and in which she proved victorious, the evacuating the three provinces in Persia, which cost Russia more to keep than they were worth, are events which do not concern Peter the Great, as they did not happen till several years after his death; it may suffice to observe, that he finished his military career by adding three provinces to his empire on the part next to Persia, after having just before added the same number on that side next to Sweden.