Pavel Dmitrievich Zizianow

Pawel Zizianow with his military awards

Pawel Dmitrijewitsch Zizianow ( Russian Павел Дмитриевич Цицианов , Georgian პავლე ციციშვილი ; born September 19, 1754 , † February 20, 1806 in Baku ) was a Georgian nobleman and general of the Imperial Russian Army . From 1802 to 1806 he was the Russian Commander-in-Chief in the Caucasus, during the Russo-Persian War from 1804 to 1813 he drove Russian territorial gains in the South Caucasus at Persian expense.

Zizianow came from the important Georgian aristocratic family Zizischwili, which was related to the royal family. He joined the Preobrazhensk body guard regiment in 1761 , and in 1785 he was promoted to colonel of a grenadier regiment. He served in the Russo-Austrian Turkish War (1787–1792) and in the Russo-Persian War of 1796 .

In 1801 he was transferred to the Caucasus and in 1802 appointed commander in chief of the troops there. A strong Russian imperialist, he carried out administrative and social reforms and suppressed resistance to Russian domination. He despised the "Asians" and "Persians", got angry about their brutality, while his own troops committed terrible massacres. Between 1804 and 1805 he expanded Russian influence to Mingrelia and today's Armenia . In the Battle of Ganja , he captured the strategically important fortress of Ganja , massacring between 1500 and 3000 people. After a Persian invasion across the Aras River , he counterattacked Shirvan and forced the Khan of Shirvan to recognize Russian rule. In 1805, the tsar wanted to end the war in the Caucasus, as he had to go into the field against Napoleon at the same time . Zizianov opposed any peaceful settlement of the Russo-Persian War and proposed a "peace plan" that included an attack on Gilan and Qazvin , followed by insults at the Shah's address and an offer that Persia should accept the Aras River as a border and one Pay a million rubles to save Tehran from destruction.

In February 1806 he reached Baku, where he also wanted to impose Russian supremacy on the Baku Khan . On February 20, 1806, he was lured into a trap by the Khan and murdered by the Khan's bodyguards. His body was thrown in a ditch near the city wall.

literature

Владимир Викентьевич Лапин: Цицианов . Молодая гвардия, Москва 2011, ISBN 978-5-235-03484-6 .

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Alexander Mikaberidze: Historical Dictionary of Georgia . Scarecrow Press, Plymouth 2007, ISBN 978-0-8108-5580-9 , pp. 644 f .
↑ Firuz Kazemzadeh: Iranian relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921 . In: Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (Eds.): The Cambridge History of Iran . tape 7 . Cambridge University Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-521-20095-0 , pp. 333 .

personal data
SURNAME	Zizianow, Pavel Dmitrievich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Цицианов, Павел Дмитриевич (Russian); პავლე ციციშვილი (Georgian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Georgian nobleman and general of the Imperial Russian Army
DATE OF BIRTH	September 19, 1754
DATE OF DEATH	February 20, 1806
Place of death	Baku

[Mikaberidze644f-1] Alexander Mikaberidze: Historical Dictionary of Georgia . Scarecrow Press, Plymouth 2007, ISBN 978-0-8108-5580-9 , pp. 644 f .

[Kazemzadeh333-2] Firuz Kazemzadeh: Iranian relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921 . In: Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (Eds.): The Cambridge History of Iran . tape 7 . Cambridge University Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-521-20095-0 , pp. 333 .