Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎357r] (718/879)

MODERN “PERSIAN LETTERS.”
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It is always well, in the fine phrase of Voltaire,
“to give one’s soul as many different forms as
possible.” To some degree, this is done when
one candidly considers a familiar thing from an
unfamiliar point of view. What with the Vice
roy’s visit, and other happenings, Persia is
more than ever to the front just now. But it is
almost impossible for us not to look at Persia
from the South, up the familiar Gulf, and
through English eyes and brains. The North
ern view, if it could be attained, would be at
least interesting and instructive. We have not
yet arrived at anything like a realization of the
complexity and richness of modern intellectual
life in Russia. It seems that there is a Russian
book bearing much the title of those " Lettres
Persanes ” of Montesquieu which made such a
flutter in the middle of the eighteenth century.
These, however, are not the letters of an imagin
ary Persian in Europe, but of a real Russian who
was .in Persia, taking notes, in 1898 and 1899.
We do not know just when his book was publish
ed ; but it is an unfortunate habit with travellers
to wait at least a year or two before sending ineir
impressions to the market. The name of the book
is “ Pisma is Persii," which means “ Letters from
Persia,” or “Persian Letters” ; and the author is
M. Lomnitsky. This gentleman hates us and all
our doings with a refreshing hatred which does
not, apparently, prevent him from being a good
man and a good observer. In substantive im
portance his work would seem to rank with Lord
Curzon's book a dozen years ago, or with Mr.
Valentine Chirol’s "The Middle Eastern Ques
tion ” to-day. Awaiting a complete translation
into French or English, M. Lomnitsky’s “Per
sian Letters” have been made partially attain-
able, through the French, by M. Michel Delmes,
who has distilled their substance, with comments
not wholly pro-Ru=: ian, in the course of ayseries
or artcies in a monthly magazine.
M. Delines begins by reminding us that, as the
Russians cannot now bear to remember, the
English first stepped into Persia across the petty
Russia of the Dukes of Muscovy. In 1557
Anthony Jenkins (why is there no Life of him ?)
founded the British Muscovy Company, and,
embarked in a Russian sailing ship, unfolded
for the first time an English flag upon the
Caspian. Less than a quarter of a cen
tury later, his Company was firmly planted
in Persia. At a later date, Russia
allowed us to build boats specially designed tor
traffic with Persia, across the Caspian Sea. Yet
later, an Englishman named John Elton actually
obtained from Nadir Shah permission to trade in
all the lands stretching from the Caspian to the
Indies. The same bold adventurer conceived the
genial plan of establishing upon the Caspian an
entire fleet, the crews of which should consist, in
equal numbers, of Englishmen and of Russians.
M. Delines says that this plan, if carried out,
would have advanced civilization in all those
parts, and would have been more profitable to the
Russians than to ourselves. Yet Catherine II.,
yielding to intrigues, entirely closed to us the
overland route to Persia. Such were some of the
steps by which we were driven to take the torrid
route of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . “ the Asiatic Mediter
ranean,” as French writers call it.
At Resht, in 1898 M. Lomnitsky found a Rus
sian merchant, flourishing greatly by reason of
the immunity which he enjoyed from the exac
tions practised by the Government upon all native
merchants. The naif self-gratulations of this
stout Slav well illustrate the advantages of extra
territoriality in Asia : “ The Government can
not touch me : at Resht I have my Consul, at
Teheran our Ambassador, and in the Caucasus
bayonets by the hundreds of thousands. ‘ There
are here Persians and Armenians who are Rus
sian subjects—everyone envies them. I assure
you that if they could do it. if they were not
withheld by religious fanaticism, all the Persians
would become Russians. Whenever there are dis
orders at Tauris, half the inhabitants of the city
come to beseech our Russian Consul to take them
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MODERN “PERSIAN LETTERS.”
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It is always well, in the fine phrase of Voltaire,
to give one's soul as many different forms as
possible." To some degree, this is done when
one candidly considers a familiar tiring from an
unfamiliar point of view. What with the Vice
roy s visit, and other happenings, Persia is
more than ever to the front just now. But it is
almost impossible for us not to look at Persia
from the South, up the familiar Gulf, and
through English eyes and brains. The North
ern view, if it could be attained, would be at
least interesting and instructive. We have not
yet arrived at anything like a realization of the
complexity and richness of modern intellectual
life in Russia. It seems that there is a Russian
book bearing much the title of those “ Lettres
Persanes ” of Montesquieu which made such a
flutter in the middle of the eighteenth centurv.
these, however, are not the letters of an imagin
ary Persian in Europe, but of a real Russian who
was .in Persia, taking notes, in 1898 and 1899.
We do not know just when his book was publish
ed ; but it is an unfortunate habit with travellers
to wait at least a year or two before sending ineir
impressions to the market. The name of the book
is Pisma is Persii,” which means " Letters from
Persia,” or “Persian Letters” ; and the author is
M. Lomnitsky. This gentleman hates us and all
our doings with a refreshing hatred which does
not, apparently, prevent him from being a good
man and a good observer. In substantive im
portance his work would seem to rank with Lord
Curzon’s book a dozen years ago, or with Mr.
Valentine Chirol’s “The Middle Eastern Ques
tion to-day. Awaiting a complete translation
into French or English, M. Lomnitsky’s “Per
sian Letters ” have been made partially attain-
able, through the French, by M. Michel Delmes,
who has distilled their substance, with comments
not wholly pro-Russ ian, in the course of aseries
of articles in a monthly magazine.
M. Delines begins by reminding us that, as the
Russians cannot now bear to remember, the
English first stepped into Persia across the petty
Russia of the Dukes of Muscovy. In 1557
Anthony Jenkins (why is there no Life of him?)
founded the British Muscovy Company, and.
embarked in a Russian sailing ship, unfolded
for the first time an English flag upon the
Caspian. Less than a quarter of a cen
tury later, his Company was firmly planted
in Persia. At a later date, Russia
allowed us to build boats specially designed for
traffic with Persia, across the Caspian Sea. Yet
later, an Englishman named John Elton actually-
obtained from Nadir Shah permission to trade in
all the lands stretching from the Caspian to the
Indies. The same bold adventurer conceived the
genial plan of establishing upon the Caspian an
entire fleet, the crews of which should consist, in
equal numbers, of Englishmen and of Russians.
M. Delines says that this plan, if carried out,
would have advanced civilization in all those
parts, and would have been more profitable to the
Russians than to ourselves. Yet Catherine II.,
yielding to intrigues, entirely closed to us the
overland route to Persia. Such were, some of the
steps by which we were driven to take the torrid
route of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , “ the Asiatic Mediter
ranean,” as French writers call it
At Resht, in 1898 M. Lomnitsky found a Rus
sian merchant, flourishing greatly by reason of
the immunity which he enjoyed from the exac
tions practised by the Government upon all native
merchants. The naif self-gratulations of this
stout Slav well illustrate the advantages of extra
territoriality in Asia : “ The Government can
not touch me: at Resht I have my Consul, at
Teheran our Ambassador, and in the Caucasus
bayonets by the hundreds of thousands. There
are here Persians and Armenians who are Rus
sian subjects—everyone envies them. I assure
you that if they could do it. if they were not
withheld by religious fanaticism, all the Persians
would become Russians. Whenever there are dis
orders at Tauris, half the inhabitants of the city
come to beseech our Russian Consul to take them
under his protection.” Yet, owing chiefly, says M.
Lomnitsky, to Russian- official stupidity, every
nation except Russia carries on a profitable com
merce with the Empire of the Sun. All the
South of Persia, he declares, is in the hands of
the English, who “advance with a sure step to
wards the North and the North-West, while the
Russian journals, from time to time, utter cries
of terror on learning that the British Government
have taken possession of some island in the Per
sian Gulf.” M. Lomnitsky was greatly impres
sed with the dirtiness of everything in Persia,
beginning with Resht. It seems that horsemen
(usually on mules or donkeys) ride through the
streets in Persia with exactly our Indian cry of
“Khabarda!” (Look out!). The “pearls of the
East,” as the women are there called, are gen
erally mere shapeless bundles, walking circum-
spectly, with covered faces, close to the walls.
The typical Persian seems, to M. Lomnitsky, to
be a petty tradesman. “Thou hast no specula
tion in thine eye!” the traveller seems to say to
the native. In vain would you seek in his eyes
a • recollection of the past or a pre-occupation
with the future.” All Persians alike, “the pale
fanatic mullah, the shopman inhaling the odours
of his pipe, the sarbase (soldier) selling melons,
the sentinel before the Palace, the high function
ary upon his prancing thoroughbred—all give the
impression of having long been petrified in the
midst of a stagnant civilization.”
The minds of the people, concludes M. Lomnit-
sky, have been befogged and benumbed by reli
gion and by old tradition, by an abject, yet often
blundering, slavery to what is thought to be the
letter of the Koran. Even in commerce, which
is the special aptitude of the Persians, it is to be
noted that they lack genius. “Persia knows
neither law nor tribunals, and the sole right
which she practises is that of the strongest. Life
and property are guaranteed to no one.” Human
—fe’ like everything else in Persia, is reckoned
at its monetary value, and the assassin has but
to pay a given sum to the wife or to the relatives
of his victim. M. Lomnitsky was once floating
on a river, trying a favourite new rifle upon the
herons who were fishing for frogs among the reeds.
One of his boatmen artlesslyasked what fun
there could be in using so good a weapon against,
birds ? “ Aim rather at one of those men who are
walking along the bank. The Saab is doubtless
rich, he can kill whom he pleases, he will pay. . .”
Later on, when M. Lomnitsky, discussing the
Shah and the politics of Teheran, remarks what
a pity it is that there are no laws in Persia, he is
rather unkindly pulled up by his European in-
troducer, M. Delines : ‘ No more is there any
law in Russia to limit the power of the Tsar or
even to define it.”
We cannot pause upon the vicissitudes of mule-
travelling, the same, after all, the world over be
tween Resht and Kazvan. The working popula
tion is largely drawn off to the petroleum-wells
of Baku. the Persian who has ventured be-
yond the Russian frontier brings back a taste for
civilization, and a love for Russia.” M. Lomnit
sky reproaches his countrymen with doing nothing
to increase their prestige in Persia, particularly
as this would be so easy after the miserable way
in which we lost face” over the tobacco mono-
poly. He gives an amazing account of how we
were defeated by the fanatic efforts of the Per
sian clergy, who laid a ban upon English tobacco,
as being “ pedgis ” or impure. In vain the Shah
smoked it in public : his courtiers, any one of
whom he could bastinado or slay, pleaded all sorts
of absurd ailments, producing doctors’ certificates
to show why they must not smoke, until the
monoply had to be withdrawn. It is pleasant to
read elsewhere that M. Lomnitsky thinks that
half the clergy of Persia, the mullahs and the
mouchteides, ought to be hanged. For their own
purposes they have, in the last few generations,
deliberately increased the fanaticism of the
people, inventing the idiotic and reactionary
taboo expressed by " pedgis" (“ceremonially
defiled ) and endeavouring to forbid all inter
course with Feringhis. Even a century or two
ago, as the accounts of many travellers show,
no such artificial barrier existed between Persians
and foreigners. Russians have more prestige in
Northern Persia than any other Europeans ; yet
even they have not what would be called prestige
in India. We confess to a liking for M
Lomnitsky 5 s Cossack, who once tumbled over a
dreadful precipice uninjured, hugging his master’s
cashbox close all the time. This worthy fellow
could not endure to have the Persian grooms
assume airs of ceremonial superiority, calling
him “ pedgis,” and refusing him their cooking
vessels. “ It is you who are pedgis,” he would
cry ; “ my saddle is cleaner than your faces,
which you never wash! You don’t know what
soap is!” and laying about him with his riding-
whip, he took possession of the vessels.
We cannot follow M. Lomnitsky further than
Teheran, if so far. The Persians are said to be
still nomads in soul. All the well-to-do classes
spend the open part of the year, spring, summer
and autumn, in tents on the hills round about.
Even at Teheran the houses have the appearance
of being an afterthought. When M. Lomnitsky
met the Shah it was at a summer-palace, under
a tree, beside a rushing channel. There is much
drunkenness in Persia ; but the difference be
tween that land and Europe in this respect, and
it is a huge difference, is that people drink only
at night, so that there is never any visible breach
of decorum. We would like to dwell upon the
pretty idyll of four pages, narrating the loves
of M. Lomnitsky and Fatma, the delicious four-
year old orphan niece of his gardener near
Teheran : the little mite sat at table with him,
learned to use a fork and spoon, and tried to
teach him Persian : he wanted badly to adopt her
and take her back to Russia, but Moslem fana
ticism forbade. All this, with his interesting
attacks upon ourselves, and many another good
thing, we must omit. But even in an abridgment,
M. Lomnitsky’s “ Persian Letters " are good to
read, as showing, among other things, our com
mon humanity, both with Persians and with
'Russians.