Bidspirit auction | Group of Ten Manuscript folios

Group of Ten Manuscript folios - Persia and Turkey, half 19th century An interesting group of folios, mostly of an epistolary nature, handwritten in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish. As with the following lots, the content of the papers often refers to diplomatic issues between Russia and Persia and all folios date around the mid-19th century. Most of the writings are in Persian and concern the Persian Empire, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, territories that came under the control of the Russian Empire following the Russo- Persian wars of the early 19th century. The hypothesis is therefore that these are epistles, travel permits and letters containing historical events from the private library of a diplomat serving Russia during the period of the Great Game, a term used to describe the strategic and diplomatic rivalry between the British Empire and the Russian Empire in the 19th century for control of Central Asia. This lot includes: - A pamphlet sheet printed in Arabic. This is an advertisement for an important newspaper of the period, Hadiqat Al-Akhbar (The Garden of News) edited by Khalil al- Khuri, a central figure in the Nadha movement. The newspaper was the first Arabic paper published in Beirut, and its origins can be traced back to a group of Syrians gathered in the Médawar Literary Circle. - Letter of collection of a debt, dated 1265 AH (1848 AD). Persian text on paper. - Report of a journey. Persian text on paper, dated 1253 AH (1837-1838 AD as confirmed by the inscription in Latin characters on the back) - Letter for collecting a debt. Persian text on paper. - Letter addressed to the Russian ambassador (Vazire Mokhtar) in Iran apologizing for the use of some ammunition following a theft probably in the Tabriz area. Text in Persian on paper, dated 1248 AH (1832-1833 AD, as confirmed by the inscription in Latin characters at the top. - Letter of collection of a debt. Persian text on paper. - Travel permit for a Russian minister heading to Tehran. Persian text on paper. - Letter reporting a theft. Persian text on paper, dated 1264 AH (1848 AD) - A letter in Ottoman Turkish with text, formulas and mathematical operations - Fragment of a Firman. Turkish text on paper penned in diwani script on a single column of 16 lines of text that would have been surmounted by a tughra originally, now missing.