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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [883v] (1783/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
628
PERSIA
ruins, and bridges broken down, is apt to think that all virtue las
gone out both of the people and of the country, and that the huger
of doom has already traced its fatal Mene, Mene, Tekel, Ujoharsm,
upon the wall. Proud as the Persians are of their heritage, and
convinced that Iran is the first of nations, they are woefully deficient
in patriotism in any but the most passive sense of the term. They
are ready enough to swagger about the glory and the beauty of
their country, 1 but there is not one in a hundred who would pull
his sword from the scabbard to vindicate its independence. In
every manifestation of national spirit or ' activity they appear to
have succumbed to a creeping paralysis which is slowly making its
way upward from the extremities to the head. By the least dis
play of statesmanship, combined with a sufficient demonstration of
force, they might have pacified the Turkomans of Transcaspia,,
instead of leaving them a prey to the tender mercies of Russia.
Any government less careless or corrupt would have made of the
Kurds on the north-west and north-east, and of the Lur tribes on
the south-west, the most magnificent frontier garrisons in the
world. As it is, they abhor the Central Government, and would be
useless in the hour of danger. There is a total lack of initiative in
public no less than in private life. Just as a Persian cottager
would sooner absorb disease from a filthy pool at his threshold than
walk 200 yards to a fresh spring, 2 so does the State require to be
prodded and goaded into any act of administrative energy or
vigour. Just as a Persian gentleman will build a mansion of mud
when there is a marble quarry almost at his door, so will the
Persian Government, if left to itself, prefer the outworn furniture of
Oriental existence to the novel paraphernalia of European commerce
and culture. Peculation is dear to the heart of every official in
the country, from the most powerful governor to the meanest clerk,
and he asks nothing better than that the blessed word mudakhil
shall sum up the vocabulary of possible happiness in his time.
Persia knows well enough that she is weak, but at the bottom of
her heart she would prefer to be left alone in her weakness. She
is certainly not thirsting, like Japan, for a new life, and when she
1 There is great continuity in national character; 2,300 years ago Herodotus
said of the Persians of his time vo[al£ovt€s ewutovs givcu uvdpcoTrccv juccKptp tcc 'kq.vtcl
apicrrovs (lib. i. 134:).
2 When Colonel Val. Baker was at Kelat-i-Nadiri in 1873, hefouncl the people
decimated by typhus from drinking bad water, though there was an excellent
spring at a little distance (Clouds in the East, p. 202).
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [883v] (1783/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213850.0x0000b8> [accessed 6 June 2026]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain