Читать книгу Solace of Lovers. Trost der Liebenden - Helena Perena - Страница 8

In the last few decades, several Austrians have lived in Persia, partly as researchers and partly as teachers. Some of them returned to their homeland years ago; some are now covered by the cool earth there, while others are still working in their profession. The question has often been asked how the teachers’ mission came about, what it achieved, whether it left behind any civilising traces and whether it was of benefit to their motherland by initiating friendly relations and providing knowledge of Persia’s resources. Since I was one of the members of the mission, I would like to paint a picture of our lives, our activities, our aspirations and achievements, our hopes and also some of the disappointments we experienced so far from home. I wish to render account, as it were, in the conviction that every country that bears the considerable costs of their education and training also has the right to require duties of its sons in foreign lands. In the course of my narrative, I will introduce people who had a significant influence on our fate and who may well be remembered by many people either from the World’s Fair or as a result of their earlier visits to Vienna.

In order to assess the achievements made, I am compelled to provide some retrospective data as a basis for comparison with what already existed. When I speak of cultural activities, one should certainly not expect such conditions to prevail as are described by knowledgeable travellers and ethnographers in the case of native peoples in Central Africa, for example, for the Persians, as an Iranian race, are highly gifted and extremely capable in all abstract and practical disciplines. A very experienced diplomat recently said to me: the Persians have a talent for everything – even honesty.

In ancient times, the country produced one of the greatest legislators, Zardusht (Zoroaster), whose statutes alone made it possible to develop a flourishing agriculture and feed a dense population in a land with so little rainfall. During the great epoch of the caliphs, Persia produced statesmen, engineers, architects and artists; indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that the so-called Moorish style of architecture and the Moorish irrigation systems, the remains of which we can still admire in Spain, originated from Persian engineers.

A nation that created such a beautiful, richly developed, clear and melodious language and so completely absorbed the foreign Arabic elements, that produced such illustrious poets as the epic poet Ferdowsi, the lyricist Hafez, the didactic poet Saadi and others, a nation whose astronomers precisely measured the solar year in the 11^th century, calculated the famous astronomical tables and built observatories in Maragheh and Baleh, a nation that maintained its own production of carpets, shawls, brocades, embroidery, weaving, horticulture and the like must have had an outstanding culture.

Nor was there any lack of geographers, historians, philosophers, lawyers and doctors; I recall, among others, Avicenna, who was something of a Humboldt, as he combined and also enriched all the knowledge of his time. Although his works are written in Arabic and he was born in Bukhara, he was Persian by birth and education. In 1853 I visited his tomb in Hamadan, where I found the simple inscription: “The scholar of scholars, the excellent of the excellent Ibn Ali Sina (Avicenna)”.

This much is certain: should the Book of Destiny determine the downfall of Persia as an independent state, the nation will leave more behind in cultural history than a few recipes and colossal human slaughter such as the Huns, Mughals, Tatars and others are remembered for.

“... old sagas recall / the heroes great and small,

whose golden hordes abroad they led / to magnitudes of human dead,”

as the song of Mirza Shafi tells us. With the invasions of the Mughals and Tatars, the nation’s heyday passed; science, art and industry declined; no matter how hard the successors of Genghis Khan and Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) tried to preserve the remains, success eluded them. It was only with the reappearance of the local Safavid dynasty (1505–1722) that the country found a new lease of life and the arts of peace were able to flourish again. Under their relatively quiet rule, with its religious tolerance, Europeans visited the magnificent capital of Isfahan with its 800,000 inhabitants. French, Spaniards, Italians, Dutch and English came to the country as missionaries, diplomats, tourists and merchants. It was through newcomers like these that the Persians first learned to make firearms. The Englishman Shirley – later Sir Robert – cast several cannons for them. They also captured about 80 from the Portuguese when they took Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf. Some of the Portuguese cannons are still to be found in the castle of Tehran and provide asylum for malefactors². On the whole, however, heavy artillery was rare, and light camel artillery – a Persian invention – was used. On his famous march on Delhi in India, for example, Nader Shah had only 12 pieces of heavy artillery and 250 pieces of light camel artillery, but the Asian Napoleon’s genius was compensation enough for his inadequate armaments.

At the beginning of this century, the country’s military was completely reorganised. Two things made this possible: firstly, Abbas Mirza, the then Crown Prince designated by Fath-Ali Shah, was imbued with a remarkable organisational spirit and made use of some Russian defectors to lay the foundations of a new system of military drill and to learn something of their tactics himself; secondly, in 1803 Napoleon I sent General Gardane to Tehran as an envoy; he was accompanied by some very capable officers, such as Fabvier, Raboul, Lamy and Verdier. The purpose of their mission was to bolster the military strength of the country so that it could be deployed as required as a diversion against Russia or with Russia against England’s possessions in India. It must be acknowledged that these officers achieved great things in a short time; in particular, the organisation of the infantry by Verdier made rapid progress. The English, jealous of the success of the French, sent a legation from India with unprecedented pomp and inexhaustible funds. They initially encountered many difficulties, but when a daily cash payment was offered, the king’s strict attitude swayed, all the more so as Fath Ali Shah had a sensitive disposition and great poetic talent.

In a public Salaam (Royal Levee) the Shah expressed his views towards Napoleon, calling him the greatest man who ever lived, whom neither the birds in the air nor the fish in the water could resist, whose heart was as big as the ocean – but the English were offering money, and that was positive! And so the French were dismissed. They were followed by English instructors; at the time English policy was to strengthen Persia as a rampart against India, a policy that was later abandoned and has only very recently been reinstated, as advocated by Sir Henry Rawlinson. Most of these Anglo-Indian officers were exceptional and enterprising men; it is to them that Persia owes the first organisation of its artillery and the arsenal as well as major geographical, ethnographic and archaeological discoveries in the field of science. They included men like Linsay, Sheil, Rawlinson and Farrant, most of whom later represented their country in Persia as envoys. The organisers of the arsenal also included Armstrong, who was later to become famous, and it is a curious coincidence of fate that, during the last Anglo-Persian War (1856), when a few shots from an Armstrong cannon caused uproar in the entire Persian army at Mohammerah (Khorramshahr), the Persians exclaimed: “Mashallah, how well this Armstrong has learned the art of artillery from us!”

However, when plans to capture Herat and Marv were developed against the will of the British and with the approval of the Russians, and an expedition was launched, the officers resigned their posts. It was around this time (1833) that an Austrian from Friuli by the name of Colombari arrived in Persia with his mother, joined the army and rose to the rank of colonel. In the first few years, he participated in some military campaigns against the Kurds. Later he lived in Tehran and won the favour of the Grand Vizier Haji Mirza Aqasi. The most amusing anecdotes about this grand vizier still circulate today. A priest (mullah) by profession, he gained the favour of the king, who revered him not only as an infallible advisor but also as a more highly gifted being, a Murshid, although he presented himself as a blind follower (Murid).³ One of the passions of this strange old man was to be the best artilleryman in the world. His greatest concern was therefore for the arsenal in Tehran, where he spent his time casting cannons to conquer the world. Colombari was put in charge of the camel artillery. As such he did excellent service by improving the gun carriages and introducing a new manoeuvring technique. The camel artillery also includes the Naqareh-Khaneh (court wind band). Like the red tent, the red sunshade and a golden pommel on the horse’s tail, this is one of the prerogatives of the king, as are the mint and Friday prayers (Khutbah).

The instruments consist of kettledrums, cymbals, drums, pipes and Roman tubas. Every musician drums, whistles, blows and plays as he sees fit, without beat or coordination. In short, it is the official charivari, which man can doubtless endure but not a nearby horse, which will always bolt. It is well known that a man in his bivouac has greater powers of resistance than a horse.

As already mentioned, Hadji Agassi showered Colombari with medals and gifts. The latter also rendered good service by translating the memoirs of Napoleon into Persian with the help of a scribe. It is worth noting that Colombari was the first to recognise the importance of Mohammerah harbour at the confluence of the Karun and the Shatt al-Arab (Arvand Rud) rivers and to draw up a plan for the construction of a port and docks. Of course, the plans never came to fruition, although the site, as the only safe emporium at the tip of the Persian Gulf, has a great future ahead of it, but not under the Persians.

When Mohammad Shah (Qajar) suddenly died and the minister had to seek asylum in Shah-Abdol-Azim, his life also under threat, Colombari assisted him in his escape to Karbala on Turkish soil, where he died soon after. Colombari left Persia, where his good name lived on. He later resided in Paris, where he died a few years ago. His mother was also a remarkable woman: although generously supported by her son, she was driven back to Persia by impatience and boredom. At the age of 70 she made her sixth and last journey to Tehran, where she finally succumbed to the hardships. She wrote a curious little book about her adventures, which I believe was printed in Klagenfurt.

Kotschy, the famous Austrian traveller to Africa, visited Persia during the reign of Mohammad Shah. His studies on the flora of Persia, his discovery of large numbers of new species, additions made to all botanical gardens, museums and herbariums and some excellent geographical works concerning the distribution of plants ensure him a lasting memory.

In the summer of 1848 Ida Pfeiffer née Reyer passed through Kurdistan and Azerbaijan (Tabriz) on her journey from Mosul to Yerevan. Her powers of observation are exceptional, her ethnographic descriptions exemplary, which is all the more admirable as she stayed in the country for only a short time and was almost completely ignorant of the language. Her ability to make correct judgements from human physiognomies is almost incredible; one only has to read the section about the present Naser al-Din Shah (Qajar) when he was the 17-year-old heir to the throne and the horoscope she assigned to him. There are some privileged individuals who see more in one glance than others do in years; Ida Pfeiffer is one of them. Her book “Frauenfahrt um die Welt” was published in three volumes in Vienna in 1850 and appeared in English as “A Woman’s Journey round the World” in 1851.

Earlier, in 1835, the natural scientist Dr. Johann Wilhelm Helfer from Prague visited the Persian Gulf on his journey to India. The notable findings of this unusually talented and enthusiastic man were printed in Leipzig thanks to his wife, who accompanied him on his travels and in her second marriage bears the name Pauline Countess Nostitz. In addition to much instructive content, one finds in the work a noble naivety that is not unlike “The Vicar of Wakefield”.

Dr. Barb, now director of the Oriental Academy, travelled to Persia in 1846 and 1847 and became familiar with the language, country and people. He has enriched the literature with several scholarly works and still makes use of his extensive studies to the profit of that excellently managed institution.

Colombari’s presence in Persia and his acquaintance with the Armenian dignitary Dawud Khan drew the attention of Mirza Taghi Khan (Amir Kabir), a man of rare talent and Grand Vizier of the now reigning Naser al-Din Shah, to the possible recruitment of Austrians as teachers for the newly founded military academy in Tehran. Thinking that English or Russian teachers would be impossible in the event of unforeseen political complications, which could easily disrupt the lessons, the Grand Vizier decided to turn to a more neutral power for the purpose. This was Austria, because the reputation of the illustrious old dynastic house and the name of Austria had spread to the farthest reaches of Asia as a result of the Turkish wars.

In 1851, Dawud Khan came to Vienna with letters of authorisation and engaged six teachers for the new college, four from the military and two from civilian life, namely the captains Gumoens and Zatti, the first lieutenants Krziz and Nemiró, the mineralogist Czarnotta and myself for the medical classes. The contacts were established by Dr. Barb, who at the time was acting as court and ministerial principal.

It was natural that, unfamiliar as we were with Dawud Khan, his promises and contacts were received with some suspicion; but to his credit it must be said that he never knowingly deceived us in any way, and in fact he promised far less than was actually provided. I take pleasure in making this public testimony for the deceased, all the more so since the Khan was doubtless known to many readers.

To our – as I said – unjustified mistrust came another unsatisfactory state of affairs. The ministry at that time under Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg was not particularly well disposed towards the recruitment; it was feared that imperial officers in Persia could be subjected to unworthy treatment without having any direct means of obtaining satisfaction. But a solution was found: the Imperial officers were to lose their status on crossing the national border, only to regain it when returning to the fatherland. This circumstance, as we shall soon see, had a paralysing effect on the mission.

In the late summer of 1851, we left Vienna and soon reached Constantinople. In that city I visited Professor Riegler and his clinic in Galata Serai. I mention this circumstance because it was two Austrians, Professor Riegler and Dr. Bernard, who organised scientific medical teaching in Turkey and still enjoy a good reputation there. Honour to their memory! How committed Riegler was to his profession may be illustrated by the following oral communication. He showed me the manuscript of his later work on Turkey and assured me that he had been carrying the essays around with him for five years for fear of a fire, while leaving all his other possessions in the house without worrying.

In Trebizond we found the last piece of our Austrian home in the house of the worthy Consul Ceschini; he accompanied us on the first stage of a caravan route and then drank a few bottles of champagne with us to the success of our mission. From then on we were on our own. None of us spoke a word of the vernacular languages, Turkish or Persian. We were joined by a German adventurer, whom we initially found very useful because of his knowledge of the country, but in the Armenian villages he surrendered himself so entirely to drink that we could only continue the journey with him tied to his horse, and we finally had to leave him behind as a superfluous burden. Such individuals, especially Germans and Slavs, are frequently to be encountered in the Orient; although they have a trade and do occasional work, they suffer an ignominious fate due to drunkenness, finishing up derelict in a hospital or on the bare soil of a foreign land!

In addition to the hardships of the journey, First Lieutenant Krziz and I fell seriously ill with malaria and had to endure the rigours of the ride in the most wretched condition. I still remember that, exhausted from the chills, I signalled to the guide some stops before Tehran to let me lie on the ground for a while. After a short period of unconsciousness, I mounted the horse again. When I arrived at the next station, I found that all my money, namely 25 napoleons, was missing. My colleagues tried to persuade me to return to the nearby place, but I reasoned: either I will not reach Tehran alive, in which case I do not need any money, or I will, and then I shall have to earn some.

On 21^st November 1851 we arrived in Tehran. The proximity of the capital is not announced by an increase in the volume of traffic as it is elsewhere; in short, we would hardly have believed we had entered the capital had it not been for a stake near the gate with the remains of a condemned man indicating the presence of the courthouse.

We were very much surprised that no Mehmandar, i.e. official escort, was sent to meet us on Persian soil in accordance with the customs of the country and as we had been promised, that no man of rank – not even the official executioners in their red livery – was assigned to welcome us when we arrived, and that we were led to a draughty apartment without further ado and above all without any household effects.

But the mystery was soon resolved. The Grand Vizier, who had arranged for us to come from Austria and who had placed so much hope in our teaching, was no longer at the helm; he had been interned at Fin Garden near the city of Kashan and later killed by opening his veins à la Seneca. Among the Qajar rulers it is the custom – or trade practice in commercial language – to have the first grand vizier executed. This is what Fath Ali Shah did with Ibrahim Khan, Mohammad Shah with the Qa’em-Maqam (Mirza Abu’l-Qasem) and Naser al-Din Shah with the Amir (Kabir), so that a form of life insurance is granted to their successors, and it is perhaps regrettable that no European insurance company has as yet capitalised on this opportunity for life. Eight years later, I visited Fin Castle and saw where the plaster had been scraped away to eliminate the traces of blood on the ceiling.

A few days before his death, conscious of his tragic end, the Amir summoned the Dawud Khan and said to him: “I sent for the poor Nemses (Germans); I fear that they will fare badly. Do all you can to improve their lot.” This was the reason why our arrival was ignored; the Amir was now powerless, and the new Grand Vizier Mirza Aqa Khan (Nuri) was thinking of sending us home as we were an embarrassment to him.

For other reasons, however, this did not happen. Although he had executed the Amir – in self-defence, he claimed –, Naser al-Din Shah did not want any of his work, including our mission, to be interfered with. And then there was another, more material reason. In the public Salaam (a large public reception with a kind of king’s speech), the ruler liked the elephant, the giraffe and also some Europeans in their traditional attire to embellish the event, and this was all the more essential as the death of the ostrich from indigestion had greatly diminished the pageantry. A few days later we were received by His Majesty in the small throne room. The Shah was sitting on the jewel-encrusted throne captured from Delhi, from which some gems were missing, probably due to the poor quality of the settings.Through an interpreter, the king bade us welcome and ordered a mixed commission to prepare a programme for us. That was duly done. The commissioners included Hussein Khan, literally one of the biggest men in Persia. As an aside, it is worth mentioning that in 1836, on his way to England, this Khan spent some time in Vienna because of the entanglements with Herat, and he was admitted several times to the Hotel Metternich. He revered the memory of this family with special devotion and had several good Viennese miniatures of them. When I returned to Europe nine years later, he instructed me to pay his respects especially to the Princess, believing that in Europe, as in Persia, it was not a problem for a simple doctor to call at the Chancellor’s residence.

When the commission assembled, the programme was forgotten; all the dignitaries merely wanted to ask questions designed to demonstrate their own expertise. The first conference was all about pontoons and bridge construction, although there was not a single navigable river nor any timbers suitable for warfare to be found in the whole of the empire. The only practical outcome was the conclusion that each of us would do what we thought best, and that was the wisest thing in the whole consultation. We were each assigned a number of students.

Before I discuss the field of activity of each of the teachers, I would like to describe the overall impression the stay made on us. As we had no knowledge of the language and were therefore restricted to our own company, life was very sad in the beginning. A letter from Europe took about two months to arrive, and telegraph services were no more available then than they are now, hence our existence was not very different from solitary confinement. Add to that some serious acclimatisation disorders, a circumstance which had a very depressing effect on the spirit. Think of our community as being cut in half, with no female creature ever to be seen – because the veiled mummies, which are more like stuffed woolsacks or corked champagne bottles, could not reasonably be counted as women – and you will understand that we newcomers were afflicted with an indescribable melancholy. It is like the rosebush without roses and the nightingale without its song; one is sure to tire of bush and bird. In such a condition the only remedy is either work and study or the bottle. Happy is he who chooses the former!

Moreover, there was another very depressing aspect for our officers. Mindful of their rank, they assumed no other titles than those which were rightly theirs at home; they did not load themselves with gold braid and gilded themselves even less with galvanoplastic trimmings. On the other hand, every Persian of good family enters the army as a Sarhang, i.e. colonel, and so beardless boys looked down disdainfully on lieutenants and captains. As chance would have it, shortly after our arrival some Italian refugees entered Persian service, and they were prudent enough to at least claim the title of colonel and the gold braid.

In this connection I remember well an amusing episode. One day the Grand Vizier sent for me to examine a new colonel in militaribus. The minister handed him a rifle for the drill. From the position with the upper body leaning forward with outstretched arms, I saw immediately that the colonel had at best been serving the fine people of his country with firearms from behind a counter. When the minister remarked with a smile that he was not very familiar with the rifle, the colonel offered the excuse that he had previously served in the cavalry, and he was soon put to good use in that service and later brought some horses to Vienna. In this difficult situation in which some of us found ourselves, our motherland also forgot to enquire about our activities; no questions were asked about us, and no awards were made, which would have elevated everyone in the public eye, especially since the other nationals were in a much more felicitous position. I am not complaining; I merely note the situation which was bound to arise as a result of the ambiguous position of the officers without status. In the case of subsequent appointees, our government seems to have avoided such vexations, and it has not stinted with favours for the returnees, but

“What one wishes in youth,

one has in full when old.”

First Lieutenant Krziz, now Major (Ret’d), resident in Chrudim, is a competent mathematician who, in the tradition of the Austro-Hungarian artillery, took his duties very seriously. At first he had 25 students, whose number later grew to 50. Most of them are now in military service and hold senior positions in the Persian army. Although, as mentioned above, the artillery was initially organised by the British, it was Krziz who taught theory as well as practice and wrote definitive Persian-language textbooks for all disciplines, thus providing a solid foundation for future teaching. Given the limited availability of books in the Orient compared to the Occident, every book is highly esteemed; indeed they even go so far as to recognise every religion whose statutes are written down in a book as Saheb-e Ketab, meaning owner of a book, and thus legitimate, while the others are considered idolatry.

For nine years Krziz taught arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mechanics, physics, chemistry, artillery theory and so on; he performed practical measurements of peaks and valleys, supervised the construction of artillery batteries and redoubts and improved the workings of the arsenal – in short, a wealth of specialist work, which it would take too long to enumerate. I must nevertheless mention a number of notable achievements: Krziz drew a precise map of Tehran, 100 paces to the inch, and although the city has since been greatly extended to the northeast, it remains a permanent asset because the presence of so many harems meant that accurate surveying was only possible under particularly favourable conditions. He also mapped the surroundings of the city, at 1,000 paces to the inch, from the Alborz range to the ancient city of Ray in the south. The demanding work on these maps could only be completed with the help of his students. He also measured the highest peak of the Alborz Mountains near Tehran, putting its height at 12,000 feet, and performed a trigonometric survey using barometers and thermometers of Mount Damavand, one of the highest and most majestic mountains in the world, calculating its height at almost 20,000 feet.

If we look at recent maps of Persia, we find telegraph lines serving all points of the compass, one connecting with Europe via Tbilisi, Baghdad and Egypt and another with the Indian telegraph system by cable and wire via Baluchestan. These lines were all constructed in the period after 1860, but Krziz was the first to construct a telegraph line, albeit only 800 metres in length, and the interesting thing about it is that he made all the equipment himself or had it made by craftsmen in Tehran; only the wire was drawn in Isfahan. The apparatus was of the electro-magnetic type, with a Daniell cell used to supply the current. After nine years, Krziz retired from Persian service and published “Die Beschreibung, wissenschaftliche Zergliederung und Gebrauchsweise des persisch-arabischen Astrolabiums” (Greifswalde) (Description, Scientific Structure and Use of the Persian-Arab Astrolabe). This was a mathematical achievement of great significance, as Asian astronomers used this instrument for their work. His activities have left their mark on the recent cultural history of Persia and are a credit to our country.

Far more limited in their impact were the activities of the other officers. This was due partly to the disciplines involved and partly to the circumstances. In most cases they had no option but to complain that they were not being provided with the necessary men and weapons for training and drill, to which the Grand Vizier would give his standard reply: “If the salary is paid, there can be no cause for complaint.” Indeed, every European who feels the urge to achieve something must be willing to procure the materials himself; all that is officially expected of him is his presence.

Captain Gumoens, a Swiss, looked to find the orderly conditions of the Austrian army everywhere, so he stumbled at every straw and every straw caused him to fall. Mirza Shafi has words for his case:

“No-one ever lends an ear / When you start: I’m wisest here!

So if you want the men to learn / Make adaptation your concern.”

He left the service in his second year.

Captain Zatti of the Military Engineers was a capable but eccentric man who soon found himself at odds with the conditions in Persia, but he did make some significant and major improvements to the arsenal. After one year’s service, he accidentally died from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was my task to determine the cause of death by dissection – the first dissection ever to be performed in Persia, regrettably on a fellow countryman. Although First Lieutenant Nemiró had a talent for getting on well with the Persians and was a popular figure in their circles, his mission – to train a regular cavalry battalion – was difficult, if not impossible. Because of the horses, cavalry service requires punctuality, and this was simply not to be had. The Asian does not need to be fed and is content even without pay; in his frugality he finds food, wood and shelter everywhere. That does not apply to the horses; they need to be provided for on a regular basis. Their riders were often forced to pawn their steeds and weapons, and during manoeuvres had to make do with caravan nags pour l’honneur du drapeau. After his departure, the regular cavalry was dissolved again, and rightly so, for they would always cut a sorry figure compared with the excellent irregular cavalry. A few years later, Nemiró travelled to Persia for a second time but died on the outward journey. With his command of the Persian language limited to his needs in the way of food and drink, he left no books to posterity.

The mineralogist Czarnotta, who was highly expert in his field, had the misfortune to be a spiritualist; he was always plagued by mountain spirits. A deeply mistrustful person, he sought to conceal every find. He always marked them with ciphers of his own invention lest someone try to rob him of his claim to priority. He explored the mineral treasures on Mount Damavand and in August 1853 decided to climb it. Out of sheer fear of being murdered, he climbed the mountain without a guide, lost his way, and had to spend the night in a solfatare to avoid freezing to death. The villagers sent after him found him frozen stiff and carried him back down. When he recovered, he treated the harmless people as thieves and murderers and demanded that they be punished. A few months later he undertook another expedition; a broken and mentally disturbed man, he spurned the use of quinine in a severe bout of malaria and died from the fever. His extensive collection and records were all found to be in encoded form. They were sent to Europe but were lost en route without trace. A sad outcome for science!

To complete the picture, I hope I will be forgiven for saying a few words about myself. I was assigned 22 students, whom I was to train to become Hakims (doctors). I sought to discharge my duties more efficiently by quickly learning the Persian language. After eight months, I was in a position to teach without the help of an interpreter. One of my paramount duties was to establish the terminology, and I consider this arduous task to be my greatest achievement, because the right word for a particular concept is the basis for all future research and progress. It was in no way my ambition to produce fully qualified doctors; the individual is much too weak for that, and I lacked the necessary teaching materials. I merely wished to lay the foundations for an enlightened understanding of nature and to train doctors to the level of the barber surgeons formerly produced by our basic courses at home, some of whom could then continue their training at a European university, as was later the case. I taught anatomy from a skeleton, specimens, drawings and animal dissections, as well as physiology, external and internal pathology and oculistics; I also had the manuals in each subject lithographed. During the numerous operations I performed – I conducted 156 operations for stones, for example – I was attended and assisted by my students, some of whom became very good surgeons and are still frequently consulted – even by Europeans – today. I was the first in Persia to perform painless surgery using anaesthesia, to the astonishment of all.

There were no military physicians in Persia, nor were there any civil or military hospitals. In military campaigns the seriously wounded usually perish. The stuffed scalps of the enemy are placed on pikes and carried home as trophies. The fact that many a scalp of one’s own soldiers also finds its way into the collection is an excusable failing in the quest for gloire. My ambition was to build a military hospital, and after some difficulties I was successful. When the building was finished, however, I was provided with neither gowns nor straw sacks nor sheets, beds being considered unnecessary in a country where everyone sleeps on the ground in any case, and the soldiers refused to perform guard and attendant duties because they said they had only been recruited for war. After significant sacrifices of time and my own money, I had to abandon the project as an impossibility; however, as I have since heard by letter, the idea was taken up again and the first model hospital is now in use for sick soldiers. I also sent a good student to the area around Zanjan in order to improve the lot of the unfortunate lepers there. This disease, once widespread in Europe – hence the leprosariums – is still to be found in some parts of northwest Persia; the unfortunates – rightly expelled from their towns and villages – live miserable lives in wretched mud huts far from all human settlement. Here, too, I found that the food the king had arranged to be distributed to the unfortunates was charged for but never delivered. This is how Orientals are: they would never refuse a morsel of bread to the hungry, not even to a dog, even if it meant going without themselves, but they have no compunction about depriving the absent of their rights.

Upon the death in 1855 of Dr. Cloquet from the famous Cloquet family of scholars, I was appointed royal personal physician, Muqarrab al-Khaqan (Privy Councillor) and also General in partibus infidelium. My duties from then on were both difficult and simple, as one takes it, for I was not born to be a courtier. I strove to teach the otherwise healthy king and to give him a good grounding in history, geography and the like; I also taught him the French language, in which he is now quite proficient. Since, like all Austrians, I took pride in never begging for anything, the emoluments were hardly adequate in relation to the manifold services provided. Sometimes my functions were heterogeneous. When I once accompanied the king to an artillery target shooting exercise, for example, he ordered me to aim a cannon. I was so happy not to have killed any of the attendants standing around the target!

In the spring of 1860, I returned to Europe. As I had written books, had saved the lives of many poor people by operating on them, was versed in Persian calembours and had also dabbled in poetry, I left behind a memory secured through deeds and words – or so I believe.

Since that time, in addition to my practice, I have continued to occupy myself with Persia; I have acclimatised various plants, written a book about the country and its people (Leipzig 1865) and other medical and technical essays for scientific journals, because through my dealings with all social classes and my travels I became better acquainted with the country and its products than other Europeans and even natives. This made it possible for me to write a manual for participation in the World’s Fair, where I was appointed Imperial Austrian Commissioner, which was translated into Persian and sent to Tehran as a guide for the Persian delegation⁴. In addition, I sought to contribute to that global undertaking by writing the catalogue and the official exhibition report.

Finally, I would beg you to excuse many a word of self-praise, not with Goethe’s saying about modesty but with a tame xenia from the “West-Eastern Diwan”:

“Before, the boast was not your style.

Where have you learnt to boast the while?

The Orient taught me the boast’s essentials:

But now I’m back on western ground,

where to my relief I find and found

some hundreds who are Orientals.”

I would also like to say a few words about our successors, the last-but-not-leasts who were certainly not epigones but whose work was facilitated by the active support provided by the Austrian legation since established there.

Shortly after our departure, Dervish Hermann Vámbéry arrived in the country. He visited several parts of the empire and various cities as a dervish and also spent a few months in Tehran in the Turkish legation hotel in order to prepare for his long journey to Bukhara, Samarkand and Herat. The art of understanding foreign customs and circumstances may be something that Vámbéry shares with many others, but what makes him so special is his ability to adapt to foreign customs, traditions and languages so well that he can be taken for a native and can even play the part of the dervish minstrel and endure hunger, thirst, heat or the third Egyptian plague. The range of his experiences was so overwhelming that one was initially tempted to consider the reports apocryphal. Whereas the re-habilitation of Marco Polo was a process that lasted centuries, in our fast-living age a few years and confirmation from Russian and Asian witnesses – for the mountain came to Muhammad – were enough to bring the truth to light. Vámbéry is rightly regarded as the leading authority on Central Asia – including Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries – but he also has an open eye for Iran. Should a commemorative coin be struck in his honour, I would propose the following inscription by analogy with Sassanian coins: Hekim Ilan u Anilan, i.e. researcher on Iran and Turan.

In 1860, the Tyrolean engineer Gasteiger took service in Persia as a muhendis (engineer and pioneer). As is well known, there were no paved roads in Persia; the caravans followed the tracks that had been trodden for thousands of years. The mostly dry ground, the excellent quality of the horses and the limited amount of traffic made roads more dispensable than elsewhere. “If you had such good horses in Europe as we have,” the king once said to me, “you would also have poor roads.” Shah Abbas the Great did have paved roads (Khiaban) built on more difficult terrain, such as in the marshlands, on the Caspian Sea and in the Qaflankuh Mountain Range, and he also sought to facilitate transport through the construction of monumental Caravanserais, but as they have not been maintained for more than two centuries, they can hardly serve their purpose anymore. The present king has had short stretches of road built but only to serve a country retreat or hunting ground.

I myself was once a witness to such improvised road construction. We were riding with the king on a hunt in the mountains. The ascent was rough under foot and strewn with loose stones, and the king complained about the poor state of the track; when we returned a few hours later, however, about a hundred men were busy clearing the ground. The sudden appearance of all these people in such barren countryside was a mystery, but it was soon resolved: they were petitioners from the nearby villages, whom the minister had pressganged for a useful purpose in the meantime.

Soon after his arrival, Gasteiger assembled a pioneer corps of 600 men and deployed them to construct the following important roads: 1. a road across the Alborz Mountains (11,500 feet above sea level) via Shahrestanak to Aliabad on the Caspian Sea, 18 German miles; 2. a road from Qazvin to Rasht, height of the pass at Khersun 7,500 feet; 3. on the occasion of the king’s pilgrimage to Karbala near Baghdad, a road to Hamadan over the Alvand (6,000 feet) via Kangavar to the Turkish border and on the return journey from Kangavar to Qom, a total of 120 German miles; 4. a road from Tehran via Damavand city to Amol in Mazandaran Province. Everywhere in the mountains, rock had to be blasted and tunnels excavated and parapets had to be built for protection. The abundance of box trees in Mazandaran is evidenced by the fact that the parapets were often made of this precious wood. Special attention had to be paid in the mountains to installations offering protection against snowdrifts. Gasteiger was also widely involved in the construction of the Anglo-Indian telegraph, and in his book the famous General Goldsmith lavishes impartial praise on Gasteiger’s felicitous work. The latter also enjoyed full royal recognition; he was made a general and Khan, and he had the honour of accompanying the king on his journey through Europe (1873). He now lives in otium cum dignitate in Vienna. As the study of the geology of Persia has not yet made the same progress as in the case of botany, I arranged in 1873 for Dr. Tietze from our world-famous geological institute to travel to Persia, initially on behalf of Baron Reuter, the entrepreneur behind the Persian railways. Later he took royal service. Investigations in the Alborz Mountains, the Siah-Kuh, the mountain range between Kashan, Khansar and Isfahan and the discovery of rich coal and ore deposits are the fruits of his efforts, the details of which will only be fully known to the scholarly world following study of the crystals and fossils he brought back with him.

In 1874, the Royal Persian Government asked the Austro-Hungarian Government to recommend two capable men to organise the postal system and national mint. As a result of the negotiations, Postal Councillor Riederer of Linz and Councillor Pech of the Vienna Mint entered into Persian service for three years.

According to Herodotus, Persia already had an organised postal system. From station to station, a relay of couriers was placed to carry parcels day and night. According to the Book of Esther, the distances from Hind to Kush (from India to Nubia) were enormous. Like other state institutions, this one also disappeared with the decline of the Great Persian Empire and was replaced by privately employed or freelance messengers on foot or on horseback. It was not until the present king came to the throne (1848) that post houses were established with a few government horses at approximate intervals of five German miles to transport state and diplomatic parcels. Private letters were also transported depending on the circumstances, but there was no fixed postage. Also, the letters often arrived damaged and opened, so that private persons could not place their trust in such an erratic system. The speed with which the government couriers were able to reach their destination, even though there was only a change of horses and not riders, can be illustrated by the following examples: the distance from Tehran to Trebizond is about 200 German miles and to Bandar-e Bushehr a little less, and yet the former was covered in ten days and the latter in nine.

There could hardly have been a more worthy choice for organising this essential state institution than Riederer, a man of great strength and energy, with a passion to create something new. He took advantage of his outward journey to confer in Tbilisi about the connections to be arranged and to learn about the principal commercial cities and their needs with regard to services. Shortly after his arrival in the capital, he organised post offices, recruited competent officials who knew the relevant languages, had stamps printed and set the postage at a reasonable rate.

Up to now he has succeeded in running a weekly scheduled mail service with a change of couriers over a total distance of 144 German miles on the northern lines. The service is used to carry simple correspondence, registered letters, money and small consignments of valuables. He also instituted a very practical system of telegraphic communication for sending money from one city to another, with merchants paying out the sums forwarded for a charge of half a percent, thus introducing the beneficial institution of postal money orders to Asia. The confidence of the business community in these innovations has already been demonstrated by expressions of gratitude, a testimony that is all the more eloquent as the business community maintains a certain independence and does not give thanks to order. A major obstacle to proper administration will always be the fact that in oriental cities the streets have no names, the houses no numbers and the individuals no surnames, which makes it almost impossible to reach them in their homes.

Riederer has also endeavoured to link the domestic postal system with those of other countries, especially to establish a direct connection to Russia and Turkey via Trebizond. Given the mutual benefits, the remaining difficulties should soon be overcome. From the results obtained in this short period of time, it can be expected that the new Persian service will not commence before all the post houses on the main lines and the connections with Europe, Mesopotamia and India have been established (cf. Monatsschrift für den Orient, no. 12, 1875: “Das Postwesen in Persien” by Dr. J. E. Polak).

The task of establishing a mint and defining the coinage standard was entrusted to Councillor Pechan. In Persia, the gold Toman is the coinage standard; its value is somewhat lower than that of the Austrian ducat (a thousand Tomans equals 3.3048 kilograms of fine gold, the Austrian ducat 3.4906 kilograms). The alloy for the Toman also contains silver (960 parts fine gold, 30 parts silver and 10 parts other metals). The Toman is soft, pliable, prone to wear and unedged. As a result, in view of the hereditary defect of all Orientals to remove metal from the coins, one rarely finds a full-weight coin, although they all have approximately the same weight, namely 34,425 grams, when they leave the mint. The governors of many cities, such as Qazvin, Rasht, Barfrouch, Isfahan, Shiraz, Kerman and Kermanshah, have the right to mint coins. There are many counterfeit coins in circulation, which makes it necessary to check each individual Toman for its weight and pliability or to hire the services of a money changer (Sarraf) for the purpose. The situation is not much better with the silver coin, the Qiran, which has the additional drawback of a variable fine silver content and therefore, also in view of the high price of gold, is only accepted for payment in small amounts.

These evils prompted the government to purchase minting machines in France and also to recruit a mint master there. Because of the difficulty of transporting the machinery, however, the heavy components were left unprotected on the shores of the Caspian Sea for a long time and only the lighter parts arrived in Tehran. The mint master therefore spent several idle years before he finally left the capital without fulfilling his mission. Councillor Pechan first made it his business to collect the disjecta membra. Two Austrian mechanics who happened to be passing through on their way to India were hired, the machines were cleaned and assembled, and finally a large building with a steam engine was constructed for the mint. The latest news is that a mint satisfying all the requirements will be established in a very short time. Only two obstacles still stand in the way: firstly, the need to define the coin standard, which causes a great many difficulties everywhere, and secondly, the shortage of the precious metal caused by the continuing silkworm disease, which means less gold is received in payment, while the country itself has no precious metal resources. At all events, Pechan has certainly achieved as much as can be achieved under the given circumstances.

In conclusion, I believe I am entitled to say that we Austrians have contributed our share to the knowledge of the country and the dissemination of culture in Persia. Every healthy idea cast on fertile ground sprouts and bears fruit, which multiplies from generation to generation. As it says in the Bible: “For just as the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth.”

¹ This lecture was given by Jakob Eduard Polak at the Oriental Museum in Vienna on 13 December 1876 and published in book form by Alfred Hölder in the same year. The text appears in this “Studioheft” with the kind permission of the Austrian National Library; it was produced using the digitised version available at http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ256627506 (date of access: 12.8.2020). The orthography of the original text has been modified by the editors.

² In all countries where punishment is seen as retribution, as revenge on the model of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, there has to be room for the charitable institution of asylum. In Persia it takes various forms; for minor offences it is enough to enter the royal stable or to grip the cannons and so on, while for capital crimes there are specially designated sanctuaries, such as the temples of Shah Abdol Azim and Qom.

³ With the widespread sectarianism and secret societies of the Asians, including those of the Russians and Jews (sadikim), a relationship often develops between the teacher (murshid) and the students (murids), in which the former is regarded as a higher being, to whom blind obedience is owed and whose most insignificant items, such as saliva and rags of clothing, are kept as relics. Clear examples are provided by Murshid Shamil in the Caucasus and his warlike murids and the Old Man of the Mountain and the Assassins.

⁴ It may be of some interest to note that this was the first original work in Europe ever to be written and printed in Persian.