The paper will focus on the archival and published documents dealing with the British side of the event that is still very sensitive for the history of diplomacy in all three countries concerned: Russia, Iran and Britain, namely the attack of the Russian embassy in Tehran on 11 February 1829 and the massacre of its staff, including the newly appointed envoy, Alexander Griboedov.
The main reason has always been associated with Griboedov’s involvement in drafting the Turkmanchay Treaty, according to which Persia lost its important Caucasian territories, which caused the greatest national humiliation of Persia, while Griboedov became a symbol of Russian colonial policy in the region. His ambitions plans to establish in Georgia and the newly annexed lands the so-called Russian Trans-Caucasian Company, which would follow the patterns of the two existing Russian colonies in California and Siberia and even more so the English East India Company famous for its exceptionally independent status. These intentions were reflected in his proposal submitted to the Tsar only several months before the massacre.
My paper will argue that one of the main reasons for the Tehran tragedy was Griboedov’s close relationship with his British counterpart envoy, John Kinneir MacDonald, Colonel of the East India Company and his brother Captain Ronald MacDonald. They both enjoyed the support and patronage of John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay and his wife Charlotte, the sister of John MacDonald’s wife Amelia, both daughters of Alexander Campbell, commander-in-chief at Madras. This friendship with the British envoy, who was residing in Tabriz, reinforced the hostility towards Griboedov of MacDonald’s opponents in the British Legation in Tehran, namely the first secretary Henry Willock, his brother George and Dr John McNeill, the most influential British diplomat at the court of Fath Ali Shah.
It was the wrong gambit in this round of the Great Game, when two envoys representing rival states were playing against their compatriots in Tehran, Tabriz, London and St Petersburg, which brought both of them to the tragic endspiel, when the brothers Willock and McNeill overcame the brothers MacDonald, sisters Campbell and Griboedov.
