Abdolhossein Teymurtash

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Abdolhossein Teymurtash.

Abdolhossein Teymurtash or Tejmurtash ( Persian عبدالحسین تیمورتاش Abd-ol Hossein Teymurtāsch ; * 1883 ; † October 3, 1933 ) was several times a member of the Majles , governor of Gilan (1919–1920), minister of justice (1922), governor of Kerman (1923–1924), minister of labor (1924–1925) and after the election of Reza Chans to the shah 1925 to 1932 Hofminister ( court marshal with the rank of minister ). He is considered one of the architects of modern Iran . He was fluent in Persian, French and Russian as well as German, English and Turkish. He was initially married to Sorour ol Saltaneh, the niece of the regent Azod al Molk , who bore him four children. He had two children with his second wife, Tatiana.

Youth and education

Teymurtash as a young cadet.

Abdolhossein (Chan) Teymurtash ( Sardar Moazam Chorasani) was in 1883 as a descendant of one of the most prominent families in Iran Bojnourd in the province of Khorasan born. His father Karimdad Chan Nardini (Moa'zes-al Molk) was a large landowner in Khorasan. He left Iran at the age of eleven and went to school in Eshghabad , Russia. He graduated from the Tsarist Nikolaev Military Academy in Saint Petersburg .

Professional career

In Iran, he began his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a translator. At the age of 24 he was sent to Europe in 1907 as a member of a delegation from Mohammed Ali Shah .

During the Constitutional Revolution , Teymurtash was a member of the Khorasan Constitutional Society headed by Malek al-Mutakallimin . During the coup of Mohammed Ali Shah against the constitutional government in 1909, Teymurtash sided with the parliamentarians despite his proximity to the court and took command of the volunteers who had come to protect Parliament against the troops of Mohammed Ali Shah. In 1909, at the age of 26, Teymurtash was elected the youngest member of parliament to represent Neyschabur .

After the First World War , Teymurtash became governor of Gilan in 1919 and had to deal with the Jangali movement and its leader Mirza Kutschak Khan . As early as 1920 he went back to Tehran, whereupon Mirza Kutschak Chan proclaimed the Persian Soviet Republic in Gilan, which was supported by the communist government in Russia . On February 21, 1921, a coup led by Seyyed Zia al Din Tabatabai took place in Tehran . Tabatabai offered Teymurtash a position in his new cabinet, but the latter declined. A little later he was arrested along with many other political opponents of Tabatabai and held captive in Qom until Tabatabai was overthrown.

Teymurtash visits Europe as a member of a Persian delegation (1907).

After his release from prison, Teymurtash became Minister of Justice in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hassan Pirnia ("Moschir-al Dowleh"). He had been given the task of reforming Iran's judicial system. A little later he became Minister of Labor. In this capacity, he introduced a bill to finance the construction of the Trans-Iranian Railway by taxing tea and sugar in parliament in 1924 . Another important bill by Teymurtash was to repeal all concessions given by the Qajar shahs to foreign companies. The bill drafted by Teymurtash in 1924 could not be passed by parliament until 1927 after the fall of the Qajar dynasty under Reza Shah .

In the 1920s, Teymurtash was a co-founder of the "Society for the Cultural Heritage of Iran". He supported Allameh Ghazvini, who was traveling through Europe's libraries to copy ancient Persian manuscripts and bringing them back to Iran, and Ahmad Kasravi , who researched the history of the Constitutional Revolution , with government funds . In addition, he campaigned for the establishment of libraries and museums and took an active part in the redesign of the tombs of Firdausi in 1934 and Hafiz in 1938.

Teymurtash with the new crown of the Pahlavi dynasty.

After 1925 Teymurtash was Reza Shah's court minister until 1933 - a position that allowed him to participate in all state projects. Sir Robert Clive, the British ambassador to Tehran at the time, describes the position of the court minister in a telegram sent to Whitehall in 1928 as follows:

“As Minister of Justice, Teymurtash is the Shah's closest political advisor. His influence is omnipresent and his power exceeds that of the Prime Minister. He takes part in all cabinet meetings and one can compare his position with that of the Reich Chancellor without having direct political responsibility. "

It was Teymurtash and Ali-Akbar Davar who convinced the parliamentarians in 1925 that the Qajar dynasty should be replaced and Reza Chan crowned the new Shah. They formulated the bill put to the vote on October 31, 1925, which was then adopted with 80 to 5 votes, thus clearing the way to the throne for Reza Chan.

Teymurtash in the official court uniform.

Reza Shah made it clear with the sentence "Teymourtash word is my word" that he trusts Teymoutash completely in the redesign of Iran.

The Court Minister's task was first and foremost to organize cooperation between Reza Shah, the cabinet and parliament. In addition, the Interior Ministry was required to report directly on internal security. Together with Firuz Nosratdoleh and Ali-Akbar Davar, Teymurtash formed a triumvirate that initiated the urgently needed reforms of Iran on the way to a nation state during the first seven years of Reza Shah's reign.

Teymurtash was particularly devoted to reforms in education. Under his leadership, Iran's entire educational system was completely renewed. The school system has been completely secularized. The elementary schools now operated under the supervision of the state and not the clergy. A high school education with a national curriculum was introduced. Textbooks were printed with government funds and made available free of charge. In 1928, a scholarship law was passed that allowed 100 Iranian students to study abroad in Europe every year. Special efforts have been made to increase the proportion of female students. In 1929, a commission was formed to found Iran's first university, Tehran University.

One of the first foreign policy activities as court minister was the trip to the Soviet Union in 1926, which led to an economic agreement between the Soviet Union and Iran. Teymurtash tried to bind Iran more closely to the USA, Italy and Germany in foreign policy in order to soften the British and Russian influence on Iranian politics. He also improved relations with the neighboring countries Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan through visiting trips and worked on building an alliance between these countries and Iran. In 1937 a non-aggression pact was signed between these countries.

The economic policy reforms suggested by Teymurtash led to the renegotiation or complete abolition of the concessions granted by the Qajar Shahs to foreign companies. For example, the British Imperial Bank of Persia was deprived of its monopoly on printing Iranian banknotes, an Iranian national bank was established and the Iranian state now issues Iranian cash itself. Decisive for the further economic development of Iran were the renegotiations of the contracts of the British state owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company , which were based on the concession given to William Knox D'Arcy in 1901 and provided for Iran only a 16% profit share. The contracts renegotiated from 1928 onwards secured Iran a higher percentage of oil revenues and confirmed that the central government in Tehran was the sole contractual partner.

Teymurtash with deputies of the eighth Majles.

Special agreements with the local tribal leaders and special payments to provincial princes were excluded in the future. The negotiations, which were held in Tehran, Lausanne, London and Paris, were to last until 1933. Teymurtash demanded that 25% of APOC's share capital be transferred to the Iranian state and that a minimum dividend of 12.5% ​​should be paid on the shares. In addition, 2 cents per barrel plus 4% sales tax should be paid to the Iranian state. Furthermore, the area in which the APOC was allowed to search for new oil wells and which had so far included almost 50% of Iranian national territory should be severely restricted. When the treaties were still not ready for signature in November 1932, Reza Shah took the negotiations and declared the D'Arcy concession invalid. The British took the matter to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In 1933 Teymurtash was dismissed from office by Reza Shah. A short time later he was arrested and charged with making special arrangements with the British for his own benefit. After negotiations were restarted, the Hague proceedings were suspended. In April 1933 the new agreement was ready for signature. It was ratified by the Iranian parliament on May 28, 1933. The new agreement ran for 60 years and reduced the eligible area to 100,000 square miles. The APOC had to pay the Iranian state an annual concession fee based on the production volume and market prices, with a minimum of £ 750,000.

Teymurtash, incarcerated, was sentenced to 5 years of solitary confinement, £ 10,000 and Riyals 585,000 for embezzlement, embezzlement and bribery. Teymurtash has always denied the allegations made against him. On October 3, 1933, Teymurtash died in prison under unspecified circumstances. According to the official press release, Teymurtash died of heart failure.

After his death, the Teymurtash family's extensive land holdings were almost completely confiscated and most of the family was placed under house arrest. House arrest was only lifted in 1941 after Reza Shah's abdication.

literature

  • Teymurtash Documents and Correspondence (Reza Shah's Minister of Court 1925-1933) (Vezarate-h Farhang va Ershad Eslami: Tehran, 1383) ISBN 964-422-694-1 .
  • Agheli, Bagher, Teymourtash Dar Sahneye-h Siasate-h Iran ("Teimurtash in the Political Arena of Iran") (Javeed: Tehran, 1371).
  • Ansari, Ali, Modern Iran Since 1921: The Pahlavis and After (Longman: London, 2003) ISBN 0-582-35685-7 .
  • Atabaki, Touraj & Erik J. Zurcher, Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernization Under Ataturk and Reza Shah (IB Tauris: London, 2004). ISBN 1-86064-426-0 .
  • Avasti, Alireza, Iran in the last 3 Centuries (Tehran: 2003). Vol1 ISBN 964-93406-6-1 Vol2 ISBN 964-93406-5-3 .
  • Cronin, Stephanie, The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society Under Reza Shah (Routledge: London, 2003) ISBN 0-415-30284-6 .
  • Ghani, Cyrus, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power (IB Tauris: London, 2000). ISBN 1-86064-629-8 .
  • Majd, Mohammad G. Great Britain and Reza Shah: The Plunder of Iran, 1921-1941 . University Press of Florida, 2001.
  • Rezun, Miron, The Soviet Union and Iran: Soviet Policy in Iran from the Beginnings of the Pahlavi Dynasty Until the Soviet Invasion in 1941 by Miron Rezun (Westview Press: Boulder, 1980).
  • Sheikholeslami, Javad, So-oud va Sog-out-e Teymourtash ("Rise and Fall of Teymourtash") (Tous: Tehran, 1379) ISBN 964-315-500-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Pariah Countries'". In: Time Magazine . November 22, 1926, accessed August 9, 2008 .
personal data
SURNAME Teymurtash, Abdolhossein
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Teymūrtāsh, Abdolhossein
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian politician and court minister
DATE OF BIRTH 1883
DATE OF DEATH October 3, 1933