Ferdowsis Legacy: Examining Persian Nationalist Myths of the Shahnameh The 20th century Iranian modernization project linked the Shahnameh to a secular nationalism that hailed purity and homogeneity over multiculturalism. With the adoption of Persian nationalism as state doctrine after 1925, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh emerged as a prime target for politicization. The Shahnameh suited the Pahlavi dynasty’s goals in two key ways. First, by linking ancient pre-Islamic Persia and today, the Pahlavis sought to distinguish themselves from the Semitic Arab World by underlining Iran’s uninterrupted “Aryan” linguistic and, thus, racial credentials. Second, by portraying Ferdowsi as an anti-Arab figure, the Pahlavis created an icon of secular Persian nationalism that opposed Islam’s “corrupting” influence, justifying the contemporary political projects of forcible secularization. The new pseudo-academic Shahnameh scholarship taught Iranians that Ferdowsi symbolized opposition to Arab influence... As this ideology was integrated into every aspect of public life, Ferdowsi streets and squares blossomed across the nation. Eager to provide a suitable “Persian nationalist” tomb for their “Persian nationalist” hero, nationalists did not spare Ferdowsi’s tomb in the northeastern Iranian city of Tus. In the 1920’s the Society for National Heritage (Anjoman-e Asar-e Melli) emerged with the aim of preserving Iran’s cultural patrimony, building and rebuilding dozens of mausoleums and national monuments, shaping them to represent contemporary political beliefs regarding Iran’s past. The Society applied Pahlavi ideology to the public sphere, erasing the complexity of Iranian cultural and architectural history. The 1934 reconstruction of Ferdowsi’s Tus mausoleum was central to this effort, involving the destruction of the existing monument in order to erect one that suited Persian modernist taste and highlighted a chauvinist view of history that erased influences deemed insufficiently “Persian.” ... Ferdowsi’s tomb at Tus embodied his centrality to the Pahlavi ideological project, its reconstruction removing the beautiful cultural fusion and complexity of centuries of mixing that his work represented. Instead, it propagated a reductionist version of Iranian history that prided itself on cultural purity and ignored the diversity of contributions not only to the Shahnameh but also to Iranian culture at large.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 00:32:23 +0000
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