On the Eastern Borderlands of Iran: The Baluch in Nineteenth-Century Persian Travel Books
During the late nineteenth century, as Iran’s eastern borderlands were being demarcated, Persian officials and administrators from the reigning Qajar Dynasty traveled to the eastern frontier province of Baluchistan to survey its land, people, and culture. Through the writing of travel books (safarna...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2007
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| In: |
History compass
Year: 2007, Volume: 5, Issue: 4, Pages: 1399-1411 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | During the late nineteenth century, as Iran’s eastern borderlands were being demarcated, Persian officials and administrators from the reigning Qajar Dynasty traveled to the eastern frontier province of Baluchistan to survey its land, people, and culture. Through the writing of travel books (safarnama) they depicted the cultural differences and ethnicities on the periphery of Iran. Travel narratives attempted to define and make coherent the diverse terrains, identities, and cultures on Iran’s frontiers. Based on a reading of a number of neglected safarnama on the province of Baluchistan, this article explores Qajar imperial perceptions of Iran’s eastern borderlands. At the heart of these perceptions of the frontier was the ethnic identity of the Baluch tribes, an autonomous nomadic population on the edge of the empire. Following a discussion of a number of travel books on Baluchistan written between the 1860s and 1890s, this article will detail the four-month journey of Firuz Mirza Farman Farma (1817-86), the Qajar provincial governor of Kirman and Baluchistan, on the frontier in 1880. Through the travel book of Farman Farma, Safarnama-yi Kirman wa Baluchistan, we are given a view of environment, ethnicity, and culture on the eastern Iranian frontier. |
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| ISSN: | 1478-0542 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: History compass
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00454.x |
