HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 303

1905 Revolution, which he defused with the
October Manifesto.

sian feeling was still running high in Tehran the
following year when a crowd stormed the Rus-
sian embassy and killed its occupants, including
the ambassador, the noted playwright Aleksandr
GRIBOEDOV . The final confrontation took place,
under much more uneven circumstances, in
1911, when Russia sent troops to protect its
interests in the sphere of influence it had carved
out in northern Persia as a result of the Anglo-
Russian agreement of 1907. Russian forces took
Tabriz in the north and marched onto Tehran,
forcing the regency government of Ahmed Shah
(1898-1930) to shut down the assembly and
accept their demands.

Russo-Persian Wars
Between 1722 and 1911, the Russian and Per-
sian Empires fought four major wars, which
contributed to the southward expansion of Rus-
sian territory into the Caucasus and the acquisi-
tion of territories along the northwest shores of
the Caspian Sea. In 1722-23 PETER I the Great
launched a war with Persia, weakened by its own
Afghan rebellions, to preempt possible Turkish
expansion in the Caspian Sea region. The Rus-
sians seized the cities of Derbent, Baku, and
Resht, while the Turks, threatened by Russian
penetration of the area, seized the Georgian cap-
ital of Tbilisi, then a part of Persia. Protesting the
Treaty of St. Petersburg (September 1723), which
gave Russia control of the Caspian coastline
between Derbent and Resht, the Turks forced a
follow-up Treaty of Constantinople (1724). At
the further expense of Persia, Turkey received
parts of western Persia, including Tabriz and Ker-
manshah, and the Russians received territories in
northern Persia and recognition of their previous
conquests. A second Russo-Persian war ensued
in 1804-1813, following the Russian annexation
of Georgia and the Karabakh region, nominally
under the suzerainty of the Persian shah. After a
decade of inconclusive fighting, the Russians
defeated a superior Persian force at the Battle of
Aslanduz in 1812. The Treaty of Gulistan, which
followed in 1813, confirmed Russian possession
of the territories it had annexed earlier. War
occurred again between 1825 and 1828, when
Persia rejected Russia's overzealous interpreta-
tion of the Treaty of Gulistan and attempted to
retake Georgia in 1825. After the Battle of Ganja
on September 26, 1826, Russian troops took
Yerevan and Tabriz in 1827 and marched into the
Persian capital of Tehran in 1828. The Treaty of
Turkomanchi set the Aras River as the Russian-
Persian border, granted Russia the sole right to
station warships in the Caspian Sea, imposed an
indemnity to be paid by Persia, and gave territo-
rial and commercial rights to Russia. Anti-Rus-

Russo-Swedish Wars
Between 1590 and 1808, Russia and Sweden
fought seven major wars, mostly over the issue
of access to and control of the eastern shores of
the Baltic Sea. From 1590 to 1595, under Czar
FEODOR I , Russia attempted to take northern
Estonia from Sweden. After initial advances
helped the Russians besiege Narva in early 1590,
the two sides drew up a one-year armistice that
gave the Russians control of several towns in the
region. When the armistice ended, fighting
resumed and by 1595 Sweden had regained con-
trol of the Baltic coast of Estonia and conquered
most of Livonia (parts of present-day Estonia
and Latvia). During the TIME OF TROUBLES
(1598-1613), Sweden had actively intervened in
the internal dynastic struggles of Russia and
occupied the city of NOVGOROD . In 1613, with
the new ROMANOV DYNASTY in place, the Mus-
covite armies sought to recapture Novgorod. Led
by King Gustavus II, the Swedish armies stopped
the Muscovite attack on Novgorod, but when
they moved against MOSCOW itself, they were
stopped at the town of Pskov, which successfully
resisted a six-month siege in 1614. At the Treaty
of Stolbovo of January 1617, Moscow regained
Novgorod from Sweden and relinquished its ter-
ritories on the Gulf of Finland and all claims to
Estonia and Livonia. In 1656, in the course of
the first Northern War, Czar ALEKSEI made peace
with Poland and attacked Livonia and Estonia,