Mohammad Reza Beg
Mohammad Reza Beg | |
---|---|
Sultan Husayn | |
Personal details | |
Died | 1717 |
Occupation | Governor, Diplomat |
Mohammad Reza Beg (
Biography
Mohammad Reza Beg was the mayor of Erivan and a high-ranking official to the governor of the
On 19 February 1715, at 11 AM, Mohammad Reza Beg made his entry into the
Mohammad Reza Beg entered the Hall of Mirrors, accompanied by an interpreter. Reportedly pretending to understand French, he said he was unhappy with the translation.[5] After a long audience, he attended the dinner given in his honour. He left Versailles after visiting the young Louis XV, whom he reportedly liked[5] He was received for the last time by the king during his reign on 13 August.[5]
On 12 September 1715, he embarked at Le Havre and returned to Persia via Muscovy. He reached Erivan in May 1717, after a journey of some twenty-one months.[6] But the political climate had changed and Reza Beg had lost the gifts meant for his master. In despair, he poisoned himself.[7]
Influences in literature
During the time he spent in Paris, however, feverish speculation ran rife about this exotic personage, his unpaid bills, his lavish but exotic lifestyle, the possibilities of amours, all concentrated in a pot-boiler romance of the beautiful but repeatedly kidnapped Georgian, Amanzolide, by M. d'Hostelfort, Amanzolide, nouvelle historique et galante, qui contient les aventures secrètes de Mehemed-Riza-Beg, ambassadeur du Sophi de Perse à la cour de Louis le Grand en 1715. (Paris: P. Huet, 1716).[8][9] It was quickly translated into English, as Amanzolide, story of the life, the amours and the secret adventures of Mehemed-Riza-Beg, Persian ambassador to the court of Louis the Great in 1715[10] a true turquerie, or fanciful Eastern imagining, which did not discriminate too finely between Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia.[11]
More permanent literary results were embodied in
in which a satiric critique of French society was placed in the pen of an imagined Persian homme de bonne volonté, a "man of good will".The Memoirs of
References
- ^ a b c Floor & Herzig 2015, p. 312.
- ^ a b c Ebrahimnejad 2013, p. 186.
- ^ a b Calmard 2000, pp. 127–131.
- ^ Hagopdjan de Deritchan, Consul de Perse en France.
- ^ a b c d e f g "1715 Reception of the Persian embassy". Chateau de Versailles (official website). Archived from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
- ^ "Supplementary Letter IV". Montesquieu. 15 April 2020.
- ^ Herbette, Maurice (1907). Une ambassade persane sous Louis XIV (in French). Paris: Perrin. pp. 326–327.
- ^ Bibliographic details, summary.
- ^ a b Floor & Herzig 2015, p. 353.
- ^ In German, Amanzolide oder des vor zwey Jahren in Franckreich gewesenen Persianischen Ambassadeurs Mehemed-Riza-Beg Liebes und Lebens-Geschichte (Leipzig: M. Georg Weidmann, 1717).
- ^ For the cultural context, see B. Naderzad, "Louis XIV, La Boullaye et l'exotisme Persan", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, L89 (January I972).
- ^ Montesquieu 2014, p. 13.
- ^ Duc de Saint-Simon, ed. & trans Lucy Norton; Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, Vol. 2, pp. 403-406, p. 403 quoted, 1968, Hamish Hamilton, London.
- ^ Norton, Vol II, 403
Sources
- Calmard, Jean (2000). "France ii. Relations With Persia to 1789". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. X, Fasc. 2. pp. 127–131.
- Ebrahimnejad, Hormoz (2013). Medicine in Iran: Profession, Practice and Politics, 1800-1925. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137052889.
- Floor, Willem; ISBN 978-1780769905.
- Mokhberi, Susan (2012). "Finding Common Ground Between Europe and Asia: Understanding and Conflict During the Persian Embassy to France in 1715". Journal of Early Modern History. 16. Los Angeles: Brill: 53–80. .
- Montesquieu (2014). Persian Letters: With Related Texts. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Raymond N. MacKenzie. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 978-1624661822.