....A further explanation, scarcely mentioned at the time, but later much favoured by Cold War Soviet historians, was that the British, jealous of Russian influence in Persia, had deliberately fomented the uprising. There is not a shred of evidence in either the British or Russian archives (see Appendix I) to support this view. As has been seen, it was completely contrary to British interests to put the stability of Persia at risk. In retrospect, it is clear that Griboyedov had been given an impossible remit by his masters in St Petersburg, or set himself an unrealistic list of aims. The harshness of the terms he had to impose made him a hated figure from the start. He had been given no leeway in negotiating the payment of the indemnity, or in dealing with the demands for repatriation of those who claimed to be Russian subjects. Intensely proud of his position as the personal representative of the Tsar, he regarded it as a sacred duty to enforce the terms of the Treaty, however dangerous in practice. Perhaps, too, as a survivor of the Decembrist tragedy, he felt a moral debt to his friends who had been executed or imprisoned, and was determined to make no compromises where his country’s honour was at stake. In support of this theory, it is worth considering his refusal to consider any of the rescue options offered by the Persians: the suggestion by the Foreign Minister that Mirza Yakub should be sheltered in a mosque, the request by the Shah’s chief adviser (which came too late) for an urgent meeting on the morning of the uprising, the confectioner’s offer to spirit him away to his shop next door. Whatever Griboyedov’s failings, he was a passionate and committed Russian patriot. It is appropriate, in this context, to quote Pushkin’s epitaph: ‘I do not know of anything more enviable than the final years of his stormy life. Even his death which befell him in the midst of a valiant, unequal battle held nothing terrible,nothing agonising for Griboyedov. It was instantaneous and beautiful....