February 2015 | BIPS Travel Grant
From 13 to 23 February 2016, I conducted archival research in Vienna for my research project Persian Shahs in Imperial Europe, 1873-1905. During my stay, I consulted collections both in the National Archives (Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv) and in the National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek).
In general, my research project examines the European tours of the Qajar monarchs Nasir al-Din Shah (1873, 1878, and 1889) and Muzaffar al-Din Shah (1900, 1902, and 1905) in the era of high imperialism. Both monarchs were received with full pomp by the emperors, monarchs, and statesmen in St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Brussels, London, and Edinburgh. They met Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II, and many other crowned heads of Europe. The study will shed new light on the relationship between European and Iranian rulers in an age of European domination. It will seek to show that participation in the rituals and ceremonials of a state visit – including formal receptions, hunts, military manoeuvres, and the exchange of gifts – gave expression to the non-European monarchs’ dynastic legitimacy and their countries’ sovereignty. State visits thus became an instrument that the Persian monarchs used to integrate their countries into a world order that was dominated by the Concert of Europe. The work draws on sources both from European and Iranian archives, including the Persian travelogues (safarnamas) of the shahs. I will publish the results in a book, which is under contract with Oxford University Press.
The research stay in Vienna was highly successful, and allowed me to reconstruct and understand the royal visits of Nasir al-Din Shah and Muzaffar al-Din Shah to the Habsburg Empire, including their stays in Vienna, Salzburg, and Budapest, and their spa visits to Gastein, Marienbad, and Karlsbad. Overall, the shahs’ stays in the Habsburg Empire were among the most significant of their European tours: it was the only European empire that they visited on each of their six journeys.
During my stay in Vienna, I spent the most time in the Austrian National Archives, where I consulted both the court documents and the documents of the Foreign Office on the shahs’ stays. The documents were relatively easy to locate, thanks to the excellent databases and finding aids of the archives.
In the files of the Foreign Office (Ministerium des Äußeren) I consulted the reports from the Austrian diplomats in Tehran about the planning, organisation, and consequences of the European tours (Classmarks: Politisches Archiv, Karton 7, 8, 10 12, 13 and 606), as well as the documents of the ministry in Vienna concerning the visits (Classmarks: Administrative Registratur, Fach 2, Karton 15, 18 and 24; Fach 34, Karton 150). These files include detailed diplomatic reports and exchanges about the political and economic aspects of the visits to the Habsburg Empire as well as long reports from Tehran, ranging from documents about internal Iranian disputes about the visits to those describing the shahs’ official departure and arrival ceremonies in Tehran.
Moreover, I consulted the official court files on the visits: the so-called ceremonial files (Zeremonialakten) (Classmarks: Hofzeremonielldepartement: NZA, XV: Karton 342 for 1873, 362 for 1878, 394 for 1889, 426 for 1900, 430 for 1902, and 439 for 1905), as well as the ceremonial protocols (Zeremonialprotokolle) (Classmarks: ZA-Prot: Buch 90 for 1873, 91 for 1873, 101 for 1878, 113 for 1889, 124 for 1900, 126 for 1902, and 129 for 1905). These files include detailed documents about the receptions held by Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth, and about the galas, banquets, and balls in the Vienna Hofburg Palace, Schönbrunn Palace, and Laxenburg Castle. Overall, I was able to find more or less every existing document on the six visits of the Qajar monarchs, and I scanned 2,600 documents concerning the visits.
Moreover, I spent some time in the National Library consulting the picture collection, which includes a number of important illustrations of the shahs’ stays in the Habsburg Empire. I have acquired reproductions of five of these illustrations, which will be included as part of my study.
Finally, I also consulted contemporary newspapers, including Wiener Zeitung, Illustriertes Wiener Extrablatt, Morgenpost, Die Presse, Kronen-Zeitung, and Salzburger Volkszeitung, which are stored in the National Library and are, in some cases, also available through the National Library’s online resources. They featured numerous articles about the shahs’ visits to the Habsburg Empire and about the European tours more generally.
The stay in Vienna has brought me much closer to the completion of my archival research. I have now finished my archival work in Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria. This summer, I plan to complete my archival research in the French and Belgian archives.
Overall, the archival stay was very productive, and I am most grateful to the British Institute of Persian Studies for its generous support in making this research possible.