Mirza Abolhassan Khan Ilchi (; 1776 – 1845) also called Abolhassan Khan Shirazi Ilchi Kabir or Abu'l Hassan Khan was an Iranian politician and diplomat who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs twice, first from 1824 to 1834, and then again from 1838 until his death in 1845. He also served as the ambassador to Russia and Britain, and was the main Iranian delegate at the signing of the Golestan and Turkmenchay treaties with Russia in 1813 and 1828 respectively.
Born in Shiraz, Mirza Abolhassan was the nephew of Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi, the minister of the two Qajar shahs (kings) of Iran, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar () and Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (). When Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi fell out of favor and was executed in 1801, all of his relatives either escaped, were executed, or were blinded. Mirza Abolhassan, who held the governorship of Shushtar at the time, fled to India, where he served in the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He was granted a royal amnesty after two and a half years, at which point he went back to Iran and entered Fath-Ali Shah's court.
Between 1809 and 1810, Mirza Abolhassan served as the Iranian ambassador to Britain, finalizing the "Preliminary Treaty of Friendship and Alliance" between the two countries, and also unsuccessfully tried to receive British assistance in getting Russia to hand over the occupied Iranian territories in the Caucasus to Iran. He documented his journey in the Hayratnameh ("Book of Wonder"). During his stay, the British East India Company started paying him a salary of 1,000 rupees per year, which they continued to do until his death. In March 1813, Mirza Abolhassan signed the Treaty of Golestan on behalf of Iran, thus concluding the Russo-Iranian War of 1804–1813 and leading to the loss of most of the Iranian holdings in the Caucasus. Following the treaty, Mirza Abolhassan served as the Iranian ambassador to Russia between 1814 and 1816 to discuss the recovery of some of the lost territory, which failed.
In 1823, he was made the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. He kept this position and participated in the majority of significant Iranian foreign policy decisions until Fath-Ali Shah's death in 1834. Mirza Abolhassan was part of the faction that opposed another war with Russia, fearing the capability of the Russian Empire and wanted armed conflict to be avoided at all costs. However, they were outmanoeuvred by the faction that advocated for war, leading to the second Russo-Iranian War in 1826. The Iranians eventually lost the second war with the Russians, and were thus forced to sign the Treaty of Turkmenchay on 28 February 1828, in which they agreed to cede Erivan and Nakhichevan. It was Mirza Abolhassan and the crown prince Abbas Mirza who signed the treaty on behalf of Iran.
Following Fath-Ali Shah's death in 1834, Mirza Abolhassan supported the prince Ali Shah Mirza as his successor, since the other prince Mohammad Shah Qajar had appointed Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam as his minister. Mohammad Shah eventually defeated Ali Shah and entered Tehran, which led Mirza Abolhassan to seek refuge in the Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine in February 1835. There he stayed until 26 June 1835, when the now disgraced Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam was executed. The latter was succeeded by Haji Mirza Aqasi, who restored Mirza Abolhassan as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1838, which he held until his death in 1845. Mirza Abolhassan is viewed in a positive light by the majority of contemporary British travelers. However, the majority of Iranian academics' assessments of his personality are negative.
Background Mirza Abolhassan was born in 1776 in the southern city of Shiraz. He was the second son of Mirza Mohammad-Ali, who had served as a scribe under the Afsharid shah (king) of Iran, Nader Shah (). His mother was a sister of Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi, the minister of the two Qajar shahs of Iran, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar () and Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (). Before his service under the Qajars, Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi had served under the Zand dynasty (1751–1794), in whose court Mirza Abolhassan had received his early education.
When Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi fell out of favor and was executed in 1801, all of his relatives either escaped, were executed, or were blinded. Mirza Abolhassan, who held the governorship of Shushtar at the time, was exiled to Shiraz. He left for Basra out of fear for his life, traveled to India from there, and subsequently enrolled in the Nizam of Hyderabad's court. He was granted a royal amnesty after two and a half years, at which point he went back to Iran. He entered Fath-Ali Shah's court with the assistance of his wife's powerful relative Hajji Mohammad Hossein Isfahani, and amassed a substantial fortune.
Career Eruption of war between Iran and Russia
In 1804, a war erupted between Iran and Russia, when the Russian Empire seized the city of Ganja, which had been governed by the Ganja Khanate of Iran. Mirza Abolhassan was given the title of ilchi ("envoy") after his first expedition, which was to the court of the British king George III (). During this period, the focus of the major powers' interest in the East had shifted to Iran as a result of Napoleon's preparations to march to India. Fath-Ali Shah wanted to reclaim Georgia from the Russians with the help of Napoleon, who had made a pact of friendship with Iran in the Finckenstein Palace in 1807. Fath-Ali Shah, however, switched to the British when Napoleon made peace with the Russians at Tilsit in the same year.
The British were driven by worries about Napoleon attacking India, while the Iranians were worried that the French would abandon them despite the Treaty of Finckenstein. This culminated in Iran and Britain agreeing to the "Preliminary Treaty of Friendship and Alliance" in 1809. Mirza Abolhassan was sent as the Iranian ambassador to London to wrap up the treaty. It is uncertain why he was assigned to the task. According to the British ambassador to Iran, Harford Jones-Brydges, it was him who had insisted that Mirza Abolhassan get assigned to the task, since the latter had become somewhat familiar with British etiquette and customs during his stay in India. Meanwhile some 20th-century sources assert that Mirza Abolhassan was hired because of his relationships with important courtiers, or they assert, citing British reports, that no one desired to work at the court of an "infidel". According to the Iranian-American historian George Bournoutian, Mirza Abolhassan was given the assignment due to his familial ties.
Mission to Britain
On May 7, 1809, Mirza Abolhassan set out from Tehran with Harford Jones-Brydges and James Justinian Morier, who was serving as the mission's secretary at the time. They arrived in Plymouth on November 25, 1809. A thorough and frequently sarcastic description of the trip was provided by Morier in A Journey Through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople, in the years 1808 and 1809. Morier later based several occurrences of his Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan on the events of this journey. Brydges provides another report in An Account of His Majesty's Mission to the Court of Persia, in the years 1807-1811.
The well-known orientalist Gore Ouseley was chosen to be Mirza Abolhassan's host while he was in London, and they grew close over time. The goal of Mirza Abolhassan's mission was to enlist England's assistance in getting Russia to hand over the occupied Iranian territories in the Caucasus to Iran. However, according to a letter Mirza Abolhassan wrote to Richard Wellesley in December 1810, none of the Iranians' goals were achieved. During his stay, Mirza Abolhassan started learning English and eventually picked up conversational skills. Two letters he wrote to an unnamed English nobleman and published in The Morning Star on May 29, 1810, demonstrate his improvement.
Mirza Abolhassan drew the attention of the high society during his time in London, and newspapers and private letters as far away as the United States covered every move and word he made. At this time, the British East India Company started paying him a salary of 1,000 rupees per year, which they continued to do until his death. Later historians regarded this as evidence of his betrayal, or at the minimum, that he was a strong advocate for the British. The Iranian historian Naghmeh Sohrabi, however, opposes this viewpoint: "it is important to keep in mind that fidelity to the state had different meanings in the context of early nineteenth-century Iran. The money given to Ilchi was public knowledge in the Qajar court, and there is no evidence that it brought under question Ilchi's loyalty to Fath 'Ali Shah at any point." Another Iranian historian, Hasan Javadi, notes that "Receiving gifts was not uncommon among the courtiers of Fath-'Ali Shah, but a regular annuity from a foreign government was unusual."
On July 16, 1810, Mirza Abolhassan left Portsmouth for Iran with Morier and Ouseley, who was the new British envoy to Iran. Their ship was driven to South America by a violent storm, and they eventually arrived at Bushehr on 1 March 1811. The first Iranians to travel to South America were likely Mirza Abolhassan and his retinue of eight servants.
Peace negotiations with Russia
Fath-Ali Shah gave Mirza Abolhassan the honorific title of "Khan" after he returned to Iran. Due to British pressure and promises, actual financial difficulties, and military difficulties elsewhere, Fath-Ali Shah ultimately conceded defeat to the Russians. On the recommendation of the chief minister Mirza Shafi Mazandarani and others, he grudgingly agreed to this arrangement in the hopes that the British, acting as the Russian emperor's intermediary, could secure a more favorable agreement for him. One observer hypothesized that Fath-Ali Shah's acceptance of peace with Russia was due to Iranian political officials' little knowledge of the world's affairs and their reliance on Ouseley's pledge to advocate for the return of some of the territories under Russian occupation. It was well known that Mirza Shafi, who favored peace with the Russians, knew more about European politics than other politicians in Tehran. He had already come to the conclusion that the war with Russia was unwinnable, therefore he may have tried to stop additional land loss by convincing Fath-Ali Shah to make peace with Russia. Numerous domestic uprisings as well as economic issues were taking place in Iran.
Mirza Abolhassan was chosen by Mirza Shafi Mazandarani to be the only representative of Iran, since Abbas Mirza and Mirza Bozorg refused to ratify any agreement that called for the loss of Iranian territory. On October 2, 1813, with a retinue of 350 people, Mirza Abolhassan departed the city of Tabriz and by October 9 he was at the Golestan village in northern Karabakh, which had been chosen the last negotiation location. He was greeted by the Russian general and negotiator Nikolay Rtishchev, who had been accompanied by a full retinue of soldiers and had been at the village since October 5. Bournoutian states that; "It is clear that Ouseley had decided to cooperate fully with Russia and abandon Iran to its fate. In fact, on October 12, Rtishchev sent a letter to Ouseley in which he thanked the latter for his great services to Russia in these negotiations".
Mirza Abolhassan gave Rtishchev a note by Ouseley, which he requested to be inserted in the draft of the treaty. The note asked for permission for Iran to send an ambassador to Russia in order to ask for the return of their lost lands. As he waited for a reply, Mirza Abolhassan asked Rtishchev whether Russia could give Iran a very little piece of land as an act of goodwill. Rtishchev accepted, thus giving Iran back the town of Meghri, which the Russian army had already withdrawn from. On October 24, Mirza Abolhassan and Rtishchev signed the Treaty of Golestan, on behalf of Iran and Russia, respectively.