Ansicht von Abul und der Residenz des Tataren-Chans Teham Rao bei Schura im Daghestan.

Title

Ansicht von Abul und der Residenz des Tataren-Chans Teham Rao bei Schura im Daghestan.

Description

View of the city Derbent at the Caspian sea in the republic of Degestan. The city is the most southern and oldest great city in Russia. Derbent occupies the narrow gateway between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountainsconnecting the Eurasian steppes to the north and the Iranian Plateau to the south.

ca. 1880

Artist

Linton

Historical Description

A traditionally and historically Iranian city,  it was part of Caucasian Albaniawhich was a satrap of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and is traditionally identified with Albana, the capital. Derbent stayed under Iranian rule, while occasionally briefly taken by the Ottoman Turks such as in 1583 after the Battle of Torches and the Treaty of Istanbul, till the course of the 19th century, when the Russians occupied the city and wider Iranian-ruled swaths of Dagestan. Being briefly taken by the Russians as a result of the Persian expedition of 1722–23 by Peter the Great, the 1735 Treaty of Ganja, formed by Imperial Russia and Safavid Iran , forced Russia to return Derbent and its bastion to Iran. In 1747, Derbent became the capital of the Derbent Khanate of the same name. During the Persian Expedition of 1796, Derbent was stormed by Russian forces but as a consequence of the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813) and the resulting Treaty of Gulistan of 1813, Derbent and wider Dagestan were forcedly and irrevocably ceded by Qajar Iran to the Russian Empire.