shah abbas and vienna, crime. 1986-2021 barbad farahani

Diplomatic and Commercial Relations with Persia. Diplomatic and commercial relations between Austria and Persia have a long history, stretching back to the sixteenth century. At that time Shah Esmāʿil I had founded the Safavid dynasty in Persia, while the Hapsburg rulers of Austria were at the same time the German kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation). The Hapsburgs maintained this status until 1806, when Franz II surrendered the crown of the Holy Roman Empire after having crowned himself Austrian Emperor in 1804.

After the end of the “Thirty Years War,” all the European courts ran short of money and tried to increase their income through the means at their disposal: taxes, tolls and tariffs. Therefore every effort was made to improve the administration and to foster trade and export. The time of mercantilism had arrived. In the meantime, the imperial Court had moved from Prague to Vienna. The peace treaty between the Hapsburgs and the Ottoman Empire included favorable terms for trade within and beyond Turkish borders. The merchants had to pay only 3% customs duty (Hassinger, 1942, p. 6). This seemed an opportunity for a wide range of profitable activities, and led, in 1667, to the founding of the first Austrian Oriental Trade Company in Vienna (Hassinger, 1949, pp. 90). The traders used the waterway of the Danube to bring their goods to the Black Sea, whence they sailed to Istanbul and Trabzon. From there the goods could be transported on land to Tabriz, the most important marketplace in Persia at the time. Among the first things imported from Persia in 1668 were cotton veils and silk products (Hassinger, 1942, p. 22). Persian silk and silk threads were especially sought as raw material for silk manufacture. Contacts were made initially by intermediaries, while the first direct contracts were concluded only in 1678 (Hassinger, 1942,, p. 50). Unfortunately the last wave of Turkish expansion to the West, culminating in the siege of Vienna in 1683, brought an end to the first Austrian Oriental Trade Company. However, it should be remembered that this company was the very first to make direct commercial contacts with Persia.