Доклады Международного конгресса ИИСАА. Т. 1

II. Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia / Ближний Восток, Кавказ и Центральная Азия 284 Proceedings of the International Congress on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa.Vol. I. 2020 The compelling story of the embassy sent to the Russian court in 1739 by Iranian monarch Nādir ShāhAfshār (1736–1747) can be considered one of the most remark- able episodes of diplomatic relations between Russia and Iran. 1 This extraordinary embassy, headed by Sardār Khān and later passed under control of Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khān, was aimed at announcing the triumphant victory of Nādir Shāh over the Emperor of the Great Mughals Muḥammad Shāh (1719–1748) and the conquest of Bukhara and Khiva that followed soon after the Indian campaign. Diplomatic gifts brought by the embassy to St Petersburg included high-status jewellery items 2 , lavishly decorated vessels and other precious objects from the Mughal treasury plundered by Nādir Shāh’s army, along with textiles of different 1 For recent studies on the history of Nādir Shāh, see Axworthy M. The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from tribal warrior to conquering tyrant. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006. XIX, 348 p.; Floor W. The Rise and Fall of Nader Shah: Dutch East India Company Reports 1730–1747. Mage Publishers, 2009. 292 p.; Tucker E. S. Nadir Shah’s Quest for Legitimacy in Post-Safavid Iran. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006. XIV, 150 p.; Sabéran F. Nader Chah ou la folie au pouvoir dans l’Iran du XVIIIè siècle. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 2013. 258 p. For further reading, see Axworthy M. The Army of Nader Shah // Iranian Studies . Vol. 40. No 5. 2007, December. P. 635–646; Axworthy M. Nader Shah and Persian Naval Expansion in the Persian Gulf, 1700–1747 // Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society . Third Series. Vol. 21. No. 1. 2011, January. P. 31–39; Tucker E. Explaining Nadir Shah: Kingship and Royal Legit- imacy in Muhammad Kazim Marvi’s “Tārīkh-i ‘ālam-ārā-yi Nādirī” // Iranian Studies . Vol. 26. No. 1/2. 1993, Winter–Spring. P. 95–117; Tucker E. Nadir Shah and the Ja‘fari Madhhab Reconsidered // Iranian Studies . Vol. 27. No. 1/4: Religion and Society in Islamic Iran during the Pre-Modern Era. 1994. P. 163–179; and Crisis, Collapse, Militarism and Civil War: The History and Historiography of 18 th Century Iran / ed. by Michael Axworthy. NY: Oxford University Press, 2018. 247 p., in particular the important article by Sussan Babaie ‘Nader Shah, the Delhi Loot, and the 18 th -Century Exotics of Empire’ (p. 215–234) and valuable contributions by Michael Axworthy and Willem Floor. See also an important work on social and economic relations in Iran during the time of Nādir Shāh, largely based on archival doc- uments, published in Russian by Marianna Arunova and Klara Ashrafyan: Арунова М. Р., Ашрафян К. З. Государство Надир-шаха Афшара: очерки общественных отношений в Иране 30–40-х годов XVIII века / Академия наук СССР. Институт востоковедения. М.: «Восточная литература», 1958 /Arunova M. R., Ashrafyan K. Z. Gosudarstvo Nadir-shakha Afshara: ocherki obshchestvennykh otnosheniy v Irane 30–40-kh godov XVIII veka [The State of Nadir Shah Afshar: Essays on social relations in Iran in the 1730–40s] / Akademiya nauk SSSR. Institut vostokovedeniya. Moscow: “Vostochnaya literatura”, 1958. 284 p. (In Russian). 2 Discussed in Васильева Д. О. Могольские ювелирные украшения в составе даров посольства Надир-шаха // Ювелирное искусство и материальная культура. Сборник материалов конференции. 5–6 марта 2019 г. СПб.: Изд-во Государственного Эрмитажа, 2020. Вып. 6 / Vasil’eva D. O. Mogol’skie yuvelirnye ukrasheniya v sostave darov posol’stva Nadir-shakha [Mughal jewellery as part of gifts by the embassy of Nādir Shāh] // Yuvelir- noe iskusstvo i material’naya kul’tura. Sbornik materialov konferentsii. 5–6 marta 2019 g. St Petersburg: State Hermitage Publishers, 2020. Issue 6. (Forthcoming). (In Russian).