Historiography & Iran in Comparative Perspective

Pejman Abdolmohammadi
History, National Identity and Myths in the Iranian Contemporary Political Thought: Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh (1812-1878), Mirza Agha Khan Kermani (1853-1896) and Hassan Taqizadeh (1878-1970)

Despite the vast research on Iranian studies, little has been done to study, in a systematic way, the concept of national identity in the history of political thought in contemporary Iran. This paper examines the political thought of three of the most notable Persian intellectuals, Kermani, Akhundzadeh and Taqizadeh, whose ideas, in different books and articles, put forward constitutionalist and nationalist ideas for the first time in Iranian contemporary history. After being in contact with the liberal and constitutional ideas of western thinkers and also after a new revision of their own Persian history and philosophy, they were able to work out a new way of thinking which created the ideological basis for the Iranian constitutional movement of 1906. These thinkers, by the use of the ancient Persian literature (Avesta and Shahnameh) together with the implication of the myths such as Kave-ye Ahangar and Zahhak, contributed to theorise the Iranian nationalism. This research aims to provide a clear picture of the process of the national identity construction in Iran, during the years 1880-1953. It analyses the political theories of these thinkers and examines the level of influence which the European political thought exercised on the evolution of their ideas. The paper contributes to systematise the process of the evolution of the idea of nationalism and national identity process in contemporary Iran, offering scientific frameworks to develop future researches on the similar topics.

 

Lindsay Allen
The New Crusade’: pictorial reportage and America’s archaeological mission to Iran in the 1930s.

American institutions launched several archaeological expeditions to Iran following the new Pahlavi government’s decision to end a French monopoly on digs in the 1920s. Their discoveries were publicized in British and American pictorial newspaper and magazine spreads, official reports to the Iranian government, exclusive photographic souvenirs distributed both in Iran and America, elite tourism marketing, and even moving pictures. The overseas media created a compelling narrative of adventure and exploration of Persia, an unfamiliar country that had only just emerged on the American cultural horizon. The popular characterization of this ‘new crusade,’ in the words of Henry Breasted, founder of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, provides an illuminating case study of the blending of ideas from Iranian national history with the expectations of American patrons and public.

This paper focuses on a sequence of illustrated articles, photographic records and films produced during the 1930s, which featured Persepolis (Takht-i Jamshid) the Achaemenid-period imperial ruin, prominently. These catered to a supporting web of private patronage and benefaction in both the US and Iran. Commentaries in English highlighted a ‘dead’ imperial civilization, ethnological curiosities and imported technology. Gifts to Iranian political patrons concentrated on the revelation and preservation of an illustrious history. Excavators used the ideal of visibility and accessibility to promote their scientific viability and importance to both audiences. Persuasive snapshots of finds, dig life and discoveries, broadcast far in advance of formal publication, formed an influential and satisfying hybrid vulgate narrative in the popular imagination, in parallel to archaeological analysis. The multinational dig staff of ex-patriots, exiles and Iranians produced a charismatic and influential image of a ruin populated with royal ghosts.

 

Stephen P. Blake
History and Chronology in Early Modern West and South Asia: The Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires

The Hijri Era (epoch 622 CD) was a divine revelation. Allah’s requirement  (Quran 9: 36-7) that his followers employ a lunar calendar and era (with no interpolations) placed the agrarian empires of the early modern period in a chronological bind. How they were to manage their finances were—collect land revenue and pay salaries—without the benefit of a chronological framework that tracked the seasons?  If they were to adopt a solar era (as all three did), how were they to reconcile the different calendars and eras? How to accurately maintain records and write histories? 

While the Hijri remained an important chronological marker in all three empires, the different cultures meant that each state crafted a different solution to the temporal problem, a different way of reconciling the lunar and solar calendars and eras? For the Safavids the memory of their pre-Islamic imperial glory remained vivid. Although nearly 900 years had passed since the Arab conquest, Nau Ruz (the first day of the Zoroastrian calendar) remained at the center of Iranian culture, and three solar eras (all introduced after the coming of Islam) remained in use—the Yazdegird (epoch 632 CE), the Jalali (epoch 1079 CE), and the Turkish Twelve-Year Animal. How did the historians of the Safavid period sort out this chronological confusion? How did they organize and date their narratives? To answer these questions I look at four historians of   Shah Abbas I—Mahmud b. Hidayat Allah, Afushtah-I Natanzi, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Yazdi, Iskandar Beg Munshi, and Mirza Beg b. Hasan Junabadi—and their accounts of the founding of the new Safavid capital of Isfahan.

To better appreciate the Safavid solution to the chronological problem, I examine the approaches taken by their contemporaries—the Mughals and the Ottomans. In India the Mughals, like the Safavids, encountered an ancient and sophisticated system of calendars and eras. That the Mughals were the only one of the three states to create and publically employ an entirely new solar era is clearly the result of the chronological complexity of early modern India. Although the Ottomans used the Julian calendar of their Christian subjects in their fiscal documents and accounts, they were never able to tear themselves completely away from the liturgical era. The Hijri, along with a solar financial era that required constant adjustment, persisted until the establishment of the Turkish republic in 1926.

 

Dr Mohammad T. Imanpour
The growth of historical nationalism and new trend in historiography of Iranian in early 20 century: the Case of Pirniya’s Ancient history

Iranians were aware about Sasanian history through traditional historical writings but knew relatively nothing about Achaemenid history. Following European travellers to Persia from at least 16th century who were well prepared by reading the Classical and Biblical texts, Persepolis and Pasargadae were rediscovered and Achaemenid History established in 19 century. This development led to historical nationalism in early twenty century in particular during the reign of Reza Shah. The grand emphasis on Nationalism and ancient Iran that characterized the reign of Reza Shah left a deep impact on Iranian Historiography. Hassan Pirniya was one of those nationalist historian wrote the first scholarship history of Ancient Iran in 1933 in three volumes in which many sources in European languages as well ancient and modern Near East was consulted. In this paper the process of establishment of Achaemenid history is reviewed. It discusses how the establishment of Achaemenid history raised the historical nationalism. It also examines the historical method that was used by Pirniya to write ancient history of Iran which made it comparable with those of European in that time. The paper concludes that the growth of historical nationalism and emphasis on national particularities had an important role in writing ancient history of Iran by Pirniya using new historical method.

 

Shahram Kholdi
Politics of Memory and the Historiography of the 1979 Revolution

The historiographical context of post-revolution Iran is shaped, to a great degree, by various revolutionary history institutions that have emerged since a few years after the founding of the Islamic Republic (IRI). The body of historiographical products published by these institutions is a strong indicator of the existence of an historical engineering process.  More importantly, it appears that the more the IRI proceeds farther from its founding temporal point in 1979, the politics of historiography as politics of memory increasingly takes a more central role in the present factional rivalries.

Prior to the present study, only Abbas Amanat and Charles Kurzman, have briefly discussed these institutions and their role in shaping the historiography of the Revolution. Yet, the findings of the aforementioned, and their assessment, could not shed much light on the origins and operations of these entities, as a majority of these revolutionary history institutions were still in the process of building their intellectual, archival, and publishing infrastructure in the 1980s and 1990s. By 1997, when Mohammad Khatami was elected President, many of these institutions became mature enough to play a greater role in the politics of historiography of the IRI.

In an attempt to address this desideratum in the scholarship on the historiographical actors of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the proposed paper will examine the origins of these institutions, their evolution, and their impact on the politics of memory in the IRI during the past thirty years.  This survey will include an outline of the past and present political affiliations of the factional figures in charge of these institutions(such as the circle of Haghani school graduates). Comparatively, the role of the institutions in politics of memory in the IRI parallels the efforts of rival factions in states such as Turkey and Israel, where rival political factions use historical institutions to promote a certain narrative of the nation’s past for the purposes of promoting competing political agenda.

The paper will close with a case study of these institutions and their protagonists treated the political memoirs of two, past and present, leaders of the revolutionary struggle and the IRI: Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hossein Ali Montazeri. Through this case study, it will be established how the politics of memory and factional power struggle mutually influence each other. The paper will particularly argue that the uproar caused by the third volume of Rafsanjani’s memoirs, Beh S?ye Sarnevešt, in the run up to the prospective 2007 Experts Assembly elections exposed the importance of the politics of memory in the competition over critical seats of power in the IRI. Rafsanjani’s case would especially serve to show how the politics of memory play an important role in defining and redefining politicians with controversial political record. Rafsanjani’s memoirs and their impact on the factional politics of the IRI can comparatively parallel Kurt Waldheim’s memoirs published prior to his election to Austrian Presidency, and Hillary Clinton’s and Barak Obama, published prior to their campaigns for public office in the United States.

 

Abid Masood
Renaissance Humanism, Classical Persia and 16th Century English Drama

One of the consequences of Renaissance humanist interest in classical learning was the spread of knowledge in Europe about the Achaemenid Persia. Specifically, it was because of the translations of the historical works of Herodotus and Xenophon that the European reading public came to learn about classical Persia. The stories of Achaemenid kings, Cambyses, Cyrus and Darius were appropriated by the English dramatists for the early modern audience. This paper looks at the images of classical Persia in early modern English drama in the wake Renaissance flowering of classical learning. After explaining the significance of Xenophon for the early modern authors, it analyses the plays such as Cambises (1561), Darius (1565), and Wars of Cyrus (1594) highlighting some of the dominant images of classical Persia in these texts. Finally, the paper concludes with some comments on why the 16th century playwrights chose classical Persia as a site for their dramatic art and whether they were conveying contemporary messages in the garb of classical Persia.

 

Menachem Merhavy
From "The Great Civilization" to "False Cyrus" Legacy of ancient Iran as reflected in Pahlavi discourse

From the late Qajar period and especially in the first half of the twentieth century, Iranian intellectuals were influenced by the research and researchers of Iran. The influence from this dialog ranged from rising awareness to Iranian history in pre-Islamic periods to rejection of centuries of Iranian history from the fall of the Sassanid empire (651 CE) and the domination of Islam following the Arab conquest of Iran in the seventh century CE.
I would like to give three examples of such influence and the way it has pervaded Iranian nationalist discourse in the Pahlavi period (1921-1979).

In my presentation I shall dwell on the contours of the dialog between Iranian intellectuals from embracement and adoption of Iranian studies as a proof to the uniqueness of Iran in the history of ‘Islamdom’ all the way to an all out rejection of western research on Iran as a means of domination. This tendency which evolved throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s became popular and was voiced by religious as well as secular intellectuals.

I shall dwell on the inspiration drawn from research on Iran from such figures as Ali Sami and Ezzat Allah Negahban, compared to the rejection and even repulsion directed at this field  by later thinkers as for example expressed By Jalal Al-e Ahmad.

The Iranian case, in my opinion, could add an interesting angle to the intricate and ambivalent relations between research of ‘the orient’ and the nationalism that developed at its shadow. Colonial intensions of western powers taken into consideration, the picture seems more multi-faceted since the research on Iran was used in opposite directions by different Iranian intellectuals according to the political messages they wished to draw from it. Thus, for example, the interest raised by western research to the ancient past of Iran, was conceived by the earlier intellectuals as giving Iran its right place of honor among the nations while to later thinkers saw it as putting Iranians in a museum as artifacts devoid of any role in the present judging them to passivity in face of the encroachment of western countries on Iran, its resources and its identity.

 

David Motadel
Evolution and Transfer of the Term ‘Aryan’ in Modern Intellectual and Political History

After the turn of the twentieth century, the term ‘Aryan’ became a strong political concept, which had significant impact on the invention of national identities in both the European and Iranian context. My paper analyses the development of the meaning of the term in European and Iranian intellectual and political history.

The first part of my paper examines the evolution of the term in Europe, e.g. its discovery by European archaeologists in the ancient Persian inscriptions of Naqsh-i Rustam in the late eighteenth century, its introduction into historical science and linguistics in the early nineteenth century and finally its adoption and re-conceptionalisation in volkish thought and race theory. As a historical, as well as a linguistic, racial and volkish concept, the term ‘Aryan’ eventually became politicised and popularised when being employed for the construction of ethnic identity. Focusing on Nazi Germany in particular, the first part of the paper concludes by treating the political instrumentalisation of the term ‘Aryan’ in Europe.

The second half of the paper discusses the transfer of the term ‘Aryan’, including its linguistic and racial connotations, to Iran during the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1930s in particular, both German and Iranian diplomats frequently stressed their alleged common ‘Aryan’ descent when dealing with one other. In this context, the paper reassesses the role of German diplomats and scholars in the process of changing the official name of ‘Persia’ into ‘Iran’ in 1935 – the name ‘Iran’ is a cognate of ‘Aryan’ and refers to ‘Land of the Aryans’. ‘Thanks to enlightened European scholars’, a Nazi diplomat in Berlin boasted in 1935, ‘Iranians would feel as Aryans today’. In fact, the term played a significant role in the conceptual nationalisation of Iran during this time. In Pahlavi Iran, intellectuals and propagandists used the concept to construct a national identity as well as to legitimise the ruling dynasty. Most prominently, Shah Reza Pahlavi declared himself ‘leader of the Aryan race’; and also his son and successor Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who called himself by the newly created title ‘King of the Kings, Light of the Aryans’, propagated the ‘Aryan Myth’ in Iran.

Combining methods of historical semantics with an analysis of knowledge transfer and entangled history, my paper expands and questions research conducted by Léon Poliakov and Josef Wiesehöfer in the field. It draws on German, French, English and Persian primary literature as well as on documents from Iranian and German archives.

 

Anja Pistor-Hatam
History and Its Meaning in the Islamic Republic of Iran: The Case of the Mongol Invasion and Rule

Modern Iranian nationalism emerged during the Constitutional Revolution at the beginning of the 20th century, it was fortified by the Pahlavi shahs, and seems to be still powerful in the Islamic Republic. As regards the narratives of Mongol history and the perceptions of the Mongols existing in contemporary Iran, nationalism seems to play an important part. Retrospectively, the Mongolian rulers of the Iranian plateau who did not belong to an ‘Iranian culture’ as it was constructed throughout the 20th century came to be regarded as ‘foreign.’ Consequently, in the case of ‘foreign rule’ nationalistic concepts recognize rulers and ruled as a dichotomist pair because they are perceived as belonging to different ‘cultures’, ‘nations’, ‘peoples’, ‘ethnic groups’, ‘creeds’ etc. Turning to modern history and the construction or imagining of a modern Iranian nation, two questions come to mind in relation to the Mongol era: First, what is the significance of the Mongols concerning a modern Iranian identity and self-awareness? Second, why should the Mongol invasion be significant as to the meaning that Iranians gain from the creation of their history? Drawing on Jan Assmann’s idea of the history of meaning (Sinngeschichte), I will examine how contemporary Iranian scholars relate to the Mongol invasions and their rule, and the way they construct meaning and fictions of coherence to incorporate the Mongol legacy into the Iranian past and present. Consequently, the focus of my paper will be on the fabrications, constructions, and projections that compose the ‘fashioning of meaning’ [Assmann].

 

Elisa Sabadini
From reign of freedom to land of oppression: 17th century Persia through Italian eyes.

Italian travelers during the second half of 16th century and the early 17th century describe Ottoman lands as a reign of barbarism, rudeness, oppression, ignorance and illiteracy. In marked contrast, they tended to show a positive attitude towards the Persian World.

Voyagers as the roman Pietro Della Valle and the venetians Giovanni Battista Vecchietti and Vincenzo d'Alessandri portrayed Safawid Empire as welcoming, safe and rich in opportunities, as a land of freedom and high civilization, not inferior to Christendom. These attitudes, nevertheless, did not survive the end of the 17th century. Reports, correspondences and memories dating to the second half of the 17th century (Legrenzi’s, Bembo’s, Gemelli Careri's), record a significant change in perspective.

Alongside previously positive themes, there begins to appear the topic elements of the orientalistic vision: moral corruption and feminine faintness (with a consequent military weakening); perversion and inability are ascribed to the ruling class. Persia shifts, in Italian representation, from a righteous country to one beset by oppression and despotism.

My work is intended to point out this switching and its reasons through the analysis of unpublished Archival sources (manuscripts and printed fonts) and published memories and reports. I’ll try to underline differences and recurring themes in Italian representation of Persia, comparing them with coeval European descriptions. In particular, I'll try to examine the biases and stereotypes that voyagers carry and spread and that historians will absorb and fix in their works in order to trace the distinctive features of the building of western imagery about Persia.

 

Yadullah Shahibzadeh
The Implications of Recent Historiographical Trends in Iran

In recent years, there have emerged a body of historical writings focusing on local and regional history in different parts of Iran. The authors of these historical writings explicitly or implicitly challenge the existing historiography of their regions. They question the theoretical presuppositions, modes of documentation, interpretive strategies, modes of explanation through which Western and Iranian historians have concealed historical truths about their local societies and region, and in doing so obscured the contribution of the region’s past to formation of the modern Iranian national identity. The appearance of these new trends of historiography is more obvious in the southern provinces of Khuzestan and Bousher than any other places in Iran. The local and regional historical writings define the particular historical identity of the local societies and regions and try to discover the point of convergence of the local and national identity within a new narrative of national history. These local and regional historiographical endeavours that critically evaluate the Western tradition of historiography of Iran in general and of the region in particular entail important epistemological and pragmatic problems to be discussed and clarified. By gathering different sorts of historical objects, ranking them as less or more important evidences in a  new historical narrative these new historiographical trends like all historical writings claim to historical truth about a particular historical event, a series of events or a period. This paper will investigate, on what grounds and by whose cognitive authority can we validate or repudiate the claims of these new trends of historical writing to historical truth.

 

Mohsen Zakeri
From ‘Two Centuries of Silence’ (Du qarn suk?t) to ‘The Dawn of Islam’ (B?md?d-e Isl?m): A new approach for writing the early Islamic history of Iran  (Frankfurt)

Iranian historical writing has been often marred by the ideological motivation of the authors who have written it. This tendency is nowhere more dramatically visible than in the works that deal with the first two centuries of Islamic era in Iran. Authors moved by a nationalistic sentiment have considered and written about two centuries of subjugation and total devastation of the Iranian culture and ancient heritage under Muslim yoke. Those inspired by Islam and its extraordinary conquest of the world, saw those two centuries as the beginning of a new age in Iranian, and for that matter human, history. It is the more amazing when at times these diametrically opposing approaches are united in the work of a single author (i.e. Zarrinkub), presenting radically different narratives of one and the same historical phenomenon in successive writings. This is certainly not a matter of interpretation due to discovery of new historical documents, but rather a product of the particular time of writing and personal experience of the authors involved.

During the first two or three centuries after hijra no independent history of Iran was written; neither has anybody done so during the last two centuries of modern historical writing. As a result the contour of Iranian history and its actors before the rise of indigenous national dynasties remains still in the dark. This history is still waiting to be written. The question that imposes itself at this juncture is what has gone wrong, and how we should proceed in writing a realistic and genuine native history of Iran for that period. The paper will present some original ideas towards fulfilling that ideal.