FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ONE INFORMATION OF MIR TEMUR MARASHI

Abstract

Information about the historical relations between Georgia and Iran is pre served in written sources in different languages. Persian historical writings are es pecially important among them. This is primarily conditioned by the centuries-old historical relations between the two countries. It must be stressed, that these relations were mostly hostile. However, there were also periods of peaceful diplomatic and cultural terms between them. As it is known from the history, in the XVI-XVII centuries, Georgia was one of the main arenas of ongoing wars between Iran and the Ottoman Empire, which greatly aggravated the situation of the country divided into kingdoms, caused its economic and cultural degradation. Accordingly, cultural and spiritual values in Georgia were pushed to the background. In contrast to the crisis situation in Georgia, Safavid Iran was a powerful empire at that time. Along with the successful development of various fields, Persian historical writing was also at the zenith of prosperity. Therefore, the Georgian chroniclers of the later period, when narrating the events of relations between Georgia and Iran in 16th and the first half of 17th centuries, primarily used exactly Persian written sources, whose authors were contemporaries or in some case even participants of the events described in their works.
Due to the actuality of studying and researching of Persian written sources, most of them are well known in Georgian scientific literature, although a certain part still needs to be studied and brought into scientific circulation as a result of proper critical analysis. Among them, deserves special attention the work of Mir Temur Marashi, an Iranian chronicler of the 17th century, “The History of the Mazandaran Marashi family” („Tarikh-e khanedan-e Marashi-e Mazandaran”), which, along with rich factual material depicting the political, socio-economic and cultural spheres of the Safavid state, contains interesting information about Georgia and Georgians living in Iran. This time, our attention is focused on one account preserved in the mentioned work, which relates to the events that developed in Iran at the time of the death of Shah Abbas I (in 11629). Specifically, the issue refers to the position of Georgian nobleman promoted in Iran - Rostom (the same Khosro-Mirza Bagrationi) and the measures implemented by him regarding the enthronement of the grandson of Shah Abbas I- Sam-Mirza. The information is noteworthy and interesting from the point of view that the author provides completely different information about this important historical event, the like of which is not recorded in other sources. In particular, the Iranian author describes in detail how and why
Khosro-Mirza opposed the enthronement of Sam-Mirza. However, in the end, it was with his confirmation that the above-mentioned prince ascended the throne of the Safavid state in the name of Shah Safi I (1629-1642).
The information of our interest preserved in Mir Temur Marashi’s work, is compared with written sources in different languages containing parallel refer ences. Based on their critical analysis and also taking into account the logical development of events in a specific historical situation, relevant conclusions are drawn in the paper.