Iranians’ Views of Russians and the English before the Nineteenth Century: From Suspicion to Admiration

Abstract

This article examines Iranian perceptions of Russians and the English before the nineteenth century and argues that these perceptions were neither entirely hostile nor simply admiring. Rather, they developed within a spectrum of suspicion, caution, pragmatism, curiosity, and selective admiration. Before the Russo-Iranian wars, imposed treaties, and intensified Anglo-Russian imperial rivalry transformed Iranian political consciousness in the nineteenth century, Iranian experiences of these two powers were shaped mainly through trade, diplomacy, border contacts, maritime presence, commodity exchange, missionary activity, and courtly relations. Russians entered Iranian perception primarily through the northern frontier, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and overland commerce, and gradually became associated with military power, border anxiety, and territorial expansion. By contrast, the English were known largely through the Persian Gulf, navigation, the East India Company, maritime trade, and rivalry with the Portuguese; their image was connected to commercial skill, technical capacity, naval power, and economic influence. The findings indicate that Iranian suspicion toward both powers derived from religious difference, cultural distance, political anxiety, commercial competition, and awareness of their military and economic capabilities. Yet these same capabilities also generated admiration and selective attention. Iranians distrusted foreign intentions, but they also recognized English maritime strength, Russian military organization, European goods, commercial methods, and diplomatic skill. The article concludes that the pre-nineteenth-century period was a formative stage in the emergence of a dual Iranian mentality toward Russians and the English. These powers were viewed simultaneously as useful and dangerous, impressive and suspect, culturally distant yet practically significant. This dual perception later became one of the major foundations of nineteenth-century Iranian political and historical thought, especially as Russian expansion and British influence became increasingly central to Iran’s foreign relations.