Bahman Mirza Qajar


Bahman Mirza was a Persian prince of the Qajar Dynasty, son of Abbas Mirza and grandson of Fath Ali Shah. He was Vicergerent of Azerbaijan and Governor-General of Tabriz. He later migrated to neighboring Imperial Russia, where he was received with great honor and lived a prestigious life in Shusha. Many of his offspring either returned to Iran where they had political or military careers, or served in the Russian military, and later played an important role in the military of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Beside political figures, he is also the great grandfather of Afrasiyab Badalbeyli, Azerbaijani composer and author of the first Azeri balet and the first ballet in the Muslim East.
Bahman Mirza is the ancestor of the Bahmani family with the branches of the Russian Princes Persidskii, and the Bahmanov and Kadjar lines of Azerbaijan as well as of the Iranian families Bahmani-Qajar and Bahman. Thus, Bahman Mirza was also the grandfather of Ambassador Ali Akbar Bahman.

Life

Bahman Mirza, influenced by the European Enlightenment, was the fourth son of Prince Abbas Mirza, viceroy and crown prince of Fath Ali Shah by his first wife and cousin, Assiyeh Khanom, daughter of Amir Mohammad Khan Qajar-Davallu. Thus, with the younger Ghahreman Mirza he was the only full brother to Mohammad Shah Qajar. Bahman Mirza was born in Golestan Palace at Tehran on 11 October 1810 and educated privately in Tabriz. 1831 to 1834 he was appointed governor of Ardabil, in 1834 governor of Tehran and commander-in-chief, then governor-general of Borujerd and Silakhor, and governor of Hamadan from 1834 to 1841. After the death of his brother Ghahreman Mirza in 1839 he succeeded him as prince-governor of Azerbaijan in 1841, but was forced to resign and exiled to Tiflis in 1848 due to political intrigues at court. He moved to Shusha in the Russian occupied Karabakh region in 1853 and died there on 11 February 1884. He was buried in his mausoleum at the cemetery in Barda, near Shusha.
Bahman Mirza was an able governor, well-educated and a patron of literature and art, interested in geography, European history and modern natural history. He gave scholars, poets and artists a special place of honour. Therefore, authors and translators dedicated many works to him. The first Persian translation of One Thousand and One Nights from Arabic was translated by Abdol-Latif Tasooji by the order of Bahman Mirza.
From 1831, the birth of Nasir al-Din Shah, to 1853, the birth of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, Bahman Mirza played a key role in the royal line of succession, when Great Britain and Russia began to intervene in Persia's domestic affairs. Both European powers saw Bahman Mirza as the powerful and strong senior prince of the imperial house, able to take the crown after his ill-fated brother. Thus, the right of succession of weak infant crown princes was legal according to the Qajar rule of succession but seemed sometimes not very realistic. But at the end Prince Bahman Mirza was forced into exile and the young heirs presumptive reached age of maturity and ascended the Peacock Throne.

Orders and decorations

Bahman Mirza received as well the highest decoration of Persia as of the Russian Empire:
When in 1873 the European heads of state met in Austria for the World Exhibition in Vienna, Bahman Mirza sent several notes to the foreign monarchs as well as to the German Reichskanzler Prince Otto von Bismarck addressed to the German crown prince Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia to ask for mediation and help to regain six of his confiscated estates.
Two years later Bahman Mirza asked for a meeting with the Germans during his tour through Europe. Therefore, in October 1875 he corresponded with the German delegation, telling his full story. It even caused a diplomatic affair when Bahman Mirza wanted to visit the crown prince at Neues Palais in Potsdam. Several telegrams between Minister Karl Freiherr von Wilmowski the head of the Kaiser’s Privy Civil Council 1869-1888, Major Eduard von Liebenau the personal adjudant to the crown prince, Joseph Maria von Radowitz the Director for Oriental Affairs at the Foreign Office 1873-1875, and Count George Herbert zu Muenster the acting Ambassador to London 1873-1885 investigated and finally confirmed the origin and background of that Persian prince.
At the end on 25 October 1875 Bahman Mirza had an audience with the German crown prince, who promised support, and again members of his family were reinstated as Princes of Persia and invited to come back.

Family

Wives

Bahman Mirza had 16 wives, mostly from the Qajar aristocracy or local Azerbaijan nobility. Some of his permanent wives are known by name:
Bahman Mirza had 31 sons and 30 daughters. Some of them became ancestors of the Azerbaijani and Russian Qajar families: Persidsky, Bahmanov and Kadjar.
His 31 sons in order of seniority:
His daughters known by name in order of seniority: