The Causes of Iranian Labor Migration to the Caucasus (The Second Half of the 13th/ 19th Century)

One of the issues faced by the Qajar government in the second half of the 13th/19th century was the mass migration of the people. The migration took place from 1266 AH/1850 AD and to a relatively larger extent, from 1286 AH/1870 AD, from different provinces of Iran to other lands, especially the Southern Caucasus. Consequently, several thousand people left their homeland every year to work. As soon as they arrived in these areas, the migrants were employed in the worst conditions in factories, oil industries, villages, farms, docks, etc. in the worst conditions. In this article, an attempt has been made to use a descriptive-analytical approach based on collecting data from archival sources and adopting the theoretical framework of attraction and repulsion models based on the opinions of thinkers such as Ravenstein, Thomas, and Everett S. Lee, to explain the causes of the Iranian labor force migrates to the Caucasus. This research proposes that the economic, political, and social factors as push and pull factors in the origin and destination created a sort of imbalance that caused the migration of Iranian labor to the Caucasus and this process continued over the years.