Olga Gillen

Thesis: Affective objects as diplomatic gifts: Iranian gifting policies from the Safavids (1501-1722) to Nader Shah Afshar (1688-1747).

Supervisor: Professor Sussan Babaie

My research project explores the conceptual strands of Iranian gifting policies from the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1722) to Nader Shah Afshar (1688-1747) across the Russian, Ottoman and Mughal courts. Scholarship on Safavid and Afshar diplomatic connections is rich in analysis of historical events and political outcomes. However, Safavid and Afshar gifting as an instrument of state strategy within the broader framework of statecraft has never been examined as a coherent theme across multiple geographies, partly due to the loss of much relevant documentation from Iranian records. Scholarship has been content with generalised assumptions on gifts and reciprocity, ignoring the deliberative processes of producing the objects for gifting. In my thesis, I examine the theories of gifting and further call into question the concept of reciprocity as the suggested main principle of gifting. This study investigates the role gifts played in creating and developing over time a flexible gifting approach as a tool of statecraft in the Safavid diplomatic relations at a turning point in the composition and alignment of modern states.

My research also takes a closer look at the grand spectacle of Nader Shah’s gifting to various courts following his conquest of India in 1739, when thirty thousand camels, one thousand-seven hundred elephants and seven hundred lions were used to transport his Indian booty. The most opulent objects from this plunder were dispatched to the Russian court in 1739 and the Ottoman court in 1741. While it’s widely known that gifting was a royal prerogative and that spoils of war were often presented, the specific intent behind Nader Shah’s selection, the nuanced messaging of these gifts, and their perception by the recipient courts are areas of study that offer fresh insights into the dynamics of gifting in the post-Safavid era.

Overall, this study helps test the very phenomenon of gifting as understood through an early modern Iranian/Perso-Shi’i cultural lens.