He played the Great Game and lost George Walden praises this Life of a little-known Russian diplomatist and playwright

From: The Sunday Telegraph London | Date: January 13, 2002| Author: George Walden | Copyright information

Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran: Alexander Griboyedov and Imperial Russia's Mission to the Shah of Persia

by Laurence Kelly

I. B. Tauris, pounds 25, 314 pp

pounds 22 ( pounds 1.99 p&p) 0870 155 7222

THIS BOOK is a lot more entertaining than its cumbrous title suggests. Essentially it is a biography of Alexander Griboyedov, playwright, diplomat and one of the most brilliant Russian minds of his day, who died aged 34 at the hands of a Persian mob in 1829.

In man...

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