Culture and Cultural Politics Under Reza Shah: The Pahlavi State, New Bourgeoisie and the Creation of a Modern Society in Iran

343 Pages·2013·5.632 MB·English

by  Bianca Devos, Christoph Werner (eds.)

Culture and Cultural Politics Under
Reza Shah
Culture and Cultural Politics Under Reza Shah presents a collection of
innovativeresearchontheinteractionofcultureandpolitics accompanyingthe
vigorous modernization program of the first Pahlavi ruler. Examining a broad
spectrumofthismultifacetedinteractionitmakesanimportantcontributionto
the cultural history of the 1920s and 1930s in Iran, when, under the rule of
Reza Shah Pahlavi, dramatic changes took place inside Iranian society. With
special reference to the practical implementation of specific reform endeavors,
the various contributions critically analyze different facets of the relationship
between cultural politics, individual reformers, and the everyday life of
modernist Iranians.
Interpreting culture in its broadest sense, this book brings together con-
tributions from different disciplines such as literary history, social history,
ethnomusicology, art history, and Middle Eastern politics. In this way, it
combines for the first time the cultural history of Iran’s modernity with the
politics of the Reza Shah period.
Challenging a limited understanding of authoritarian rule under Reza
Shah, this book is a useful contribution to existing literature for students and
scholars of Middle Eastern History, Iranian History, and Iranian Culture.
Dr Bianca Devos is Assistant Professor/Lecturer at the Center for Near and
Middle East Studies at the University of Marburg (Germany). Her main
fields of research are Iran’s modern history, particularly the press and early
modern entrepreneurship, and literary history.
Professor Christoph Werner holds the Chair of Iranian Studies at the Center
for Near and Middle East Studies at the University of Marburg (Germany).
His main fieldsofinterestareQajarhistory,vaqfstudies,and modernPersian
literature.
Iranian Studies
Edited by
Homa Katouzian, University of Oxford and
Mohamad Tavakoli, University of Toronto
Since1967theInternationalSocietyforIranianStudies(ISIS)hasbeenaleading
learned society for the advancement of newapproaches in the studyof Iranian
society, history, culture, and literature. The new ISIS Iranian Studies series
published by Routledge will provide a venue for the publication of original
and innovative scholarly works in all areas of Iranian and Persianate Studies.
1 Journalism in Iran 10 City of Knowledge in Twentieth
Hossein Shahidi Century Iran
Setrag Manoukian
2 Sadeq Hedayat
Edited by Homa Katouzian 11 Domestic Violence in Iran
Zahra Tizro
3 Iran in the 21st Century
Edited by Homa Katouzian and 12 Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam
Hossein Shahidi Todd Lawson
13 Social Movements in Iran
4 Media, Culture and Society in
Simin Fadaee
Iran
Edited by Mehdi Semati
14 Iranian–Russian Encounters
Edited by Stephanie Cronin
5 Modern Persian Literature in
Afghanistan
15 Iran
Wali Ahmadi
Homa Katouzian
6 The Politics of Iranian Cinema 16 Domesticity and Consumer
Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad
Culture in Iran
Pamela Karimi
7 Continuity in Iranian Identity
Fereshteh Davaran 17 The Development of the
Babi/Baha’i Communities
8 New Perspectives on Youli Ioannesyan
Safavid Iran
Edited by Colin P. Mitchell 18 Culture and Cultural Politics
Under Reza Shah
9 Islamic Tolerance Bianca Devos and Christoph
Alyssa Gabbay Werner
Culture and Cultural Politics
Under Reza Shah
The Pahlavi State, New Bourgeoisie and
the Creation of a Modern Society in Iran
Edited by
Bianca Devos and Christoph Werner
RO Routledge
U
TLED Taylor & Francis Group
G
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
Firstpublished2014
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©2014BiancaDevosandChristophWerner
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LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
CultureandculturalpoliticsunderRezaShah:thePahlavistate,new
bourgeoisieandthecreationofamodernsocietyinIran/editedbyBianca
DevosandChristophWerner.
pagescm.–(Iranianstudies)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Politicsandculture–Iran–History–20thcentury.2.Iran–Cultural
policy–History–20thcentury.3.Iran–Politicsandgovernment–1925-
1979.4.Iran–Intellectuallife–20thcentury.5.Iran–Socialconditions–
20thcentury.6.Socialchange–Iran–History–20thcentury.I.Devos,
Bianca,author,editorofcompilation.II.Werner,Christoph,1967-author,
editorofcompilation.
DS317.C852013
955.05’2–dc23
2013005107
ISBN:978-0-415-82419-4(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-79842-3(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of figures vii
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
BIANCADEVOSANDCHRISTOPHWERNER
PARTI
Intellectuals and technocrats: Key figures in Iran’s
cultural modernization 17
1 Modernization in literary history: Malek al-Sho‘ara
Bahar’s Stylistics 19
ROXANEHAAG-HIGUCHI
2 Policy or puzzle? The foundation of the University of
Tehran between ideal conception and pragmatic
realization 37
CHRISTLCATANZARO
3 Mir Mehdi Varzandeh and the introduction of modern
physical education in Iran 55
H.E.CHEHABI
4 Modernization of Iranian music during the reign of
Reza Shah 73
KEIVANAGHAMOHSENI
5 The king’s white walls: Modernism and bourgeois
architecture 95
TALINNGRIGOR
vi Contents
PARTII
The Shah: State politics and authoritarian modernization 119
6 Archaeology and the Iranian National Museum: Qajar and early
Pahlavi cultural policies 121
NADERNASIRI-MOGHADDAM
7 Depicting power: Reza Shah’s rule, cabinet politics and the
commemorative stamp set of 1935 149
ROMANSIEBERTZ
8 Press censorship in the Reza Shah era, 1925–41 181
KARIMSOLEIMANI
PARTIII
Life under Reza Shah: New bourgeois culture and other
forms of practiced modernity 199
9 Drama and operetta at the Red Lion and Sun:
Theatre in Tabriz 1927–41 201
CHRISTOPHWERNER
10 “Newly hatched chickens”: Bozorg ‘Alavi on the young
literary scene of the 1930s 233
ROJADEHDARIAN
11 Giving birth to a new generation: Midwifery in the public
health system of the Reza Shah era 249
ELHAMMALEKZADEH
12 Engineering a modern society? Adoptions of new technologies
in early Pahlavi Iran 266
BIANCADEVOS
13 Religious aspects in communication processes in early
Pahlavi Iran 288
KATJAFÖLLMER
Index 319
Figures
3.1 Mir Mehdi Varzandeh, around 1970. Source: Private collection,
courtesyof Nushin Turan Varzandeh. 56
5.1 Reza Shah’s cabinet members and other high-ranking officials
during a horserace event in Gorgan, 1928. The central figure
with the camera is court minister ‘Abd al-Hoseyn Teymurtash;
onhisright,financeministerFiruzMirzaNosratal-Dowleh;and
on his left, justice minister ‘Ali Akbar Davar. Source: Libraryof
Prince Firouz Mirza Firouz, by the permission of Shahrokh
Firouz. 96
5.2 Map of major historical sites of pilgrimage for Twelver Imami
Shi‘ism in Iran, overlaid by the modern sites of secular/civil
pilgrimage constructed between 1934 and 1979 by the SNH. As
anintegral partofIran’smodernizationproject, thestateand the
SNH intended first to utilize and then to shift the network and
rituals of the Shi‘a pilgrimage to a different set of secular
national destinations. Source: Talinn Grigor, 2009. 103
5.3 André Godard, main and southern façade of the Archaeological
Museum of Iran (Muzeh-ye Iran Bastan), Tehran 1936–39.
Source: Private collection, photo by Farokh Khadem; courtesy
of Cyrus Samii. 104
5.4 AmjadiyehPublicPool,Tehran 1940s.Source:Privatecollection,
photo by Farokh Khadem; courtesyof Cyrus Samii. 108
5.5 General viewof Reza Shah’s mausoleum by architects Mohsen
Forughi, Keyqobad Zafar, and ‘Ali Sadeq, Rey 1947–51. In the
background is visible the Shah ‘Abd al-‘Azim Shrine, 9th–20th
centuries. Source: Ali Khadem Collection, courtesyof Farrokh
Khadem and Cyrus Samii. 109
5.6 Local tourist posing on the steps of Hafeziyeh’s southern
courtyard, Shiraz 1954. This kind of practice by an unveiled
woman, much less by a Christian Iranian, would not have been
tolerated before the 1938 spatial metamorphosis of the Mosalla
cemetery into Hafez’s tomb garden, nor would she have visited
the site. Here she practices tourism and citizenry in the context
viii List of figures
of a secularized space, not a religious pilgrimage.
Source: Courtesy of Seda Hovnanian. 110
7.1 1882 definitive set, 5000 Dinar, portrait of Naser al-Din Shah.
Source: Author’s collection. 151
7.2 1914 coronation set, 1 Toman, ruins of Persepolis.
Source: Author’s collection. 151
7.3 1933 definitive set, 1 Rial, Reza Shah with kolah-e Pahlavi.
Source: Author’s collection. 156
7.4 1935 commemoration set, 5 Dinar, allegoryof education.
Source: Author’s collection. 158
7.5 1935 commemoration set, 15 Dinar, allegoryof justice.
Source: Author’s collection. 158
7.6 1935 commemoration set, 10 Dinar, ruins of Persepolis.
Source: Author’s collection. 159
7.7 1935 commemoration set, 75 Dinar, cement factory in Rey.
Source: Author’s collection. 161
7.8 1935 commemoration set, 30 Dinar, Tehran airfield.
Source: Author’s collection. 161
7.9 1935 commemoration set, 1.50 Rial, post and customs office in
Tehran. Source: Author’s collection. 162
7.10 1935 commemoration set, 1 Rial, railway bridge in Ahvaz.
Source: Author’s collection. 163
7.11 1935 commemoration set, 90 Dinar, gunboat Palang.
Source: Author’s collection. 164
7.12 1935 commemoration set, 45 Dinar, sanatorium in Sakhtsar.
Source: Author’s collection. 168
7.13 1964 stamp in celebration of the opening of the Shahnaz barrage
dam (Hamadan). Source: Author’s collection. 170
7.14 1963 stamp in celebration of the Tehran Hilton.
Source: Author’s collection. 171
Contributors
Keivan Aghamohseni is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology and an active
musician. He was admitted to Sureh University of Fine Arts Tehran
in 2001 where he majored in Iranian Music (B.A. 2006). In the fourth All-
Iran Students Music Festival, held in 2002, he was selected as the special
winner in the traditional Iranian music (radif) section, playing qanun. In
the same year, he became a member of the Iranian Music Protection and
Research Center. From 2006 to 2009 he studied ethnomusicology at the
University of Theatre and Music in Hannover (Germany) and received
his M.A. with a thesis entitled “Political and Nationalist Implications of
Iranian Music at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century”. Since 2009 he
has been enrolled in the Ph.D. program of this university. He recently
published “Berlin Phonogram Archive” in Mahoor Quarterly, 38 (2008)
and “The Oral Teaching System of Music in Iranian Music”, Online
Publications Section of the Universityof Göttingen (2008). He is currently
supervising the project “Digitalization of Persian 78 rpm Shellac Records”
at the Music Museum of Iran.
Christl Catanzaro is Lecturer for Persian language and contemporary Iranian
history at the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, LMU
University of Munich (since 1998). She studied Iranian history, Ottoman
history, the history of Eastern and South-eastern Europe, and Italian
philologyatuniversitiesinMunich,Bamberg,Teheran,andNaples(Ph.D.,
UniversityofBamberg1999).Hermainresearchinterestsareconcentratedin
thenineteenth,twentieth,andtwenty-firstcenturiesandcoverthehistoriesof
modern institutions, education, the Near Eastern press, and institutions
and media (especially film and internet) in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Recently, she has also been working on Ottoman–Venetian relations.
H. E. Chehabi is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston
University (Licence, Université de Caen; Diplôme, Institut d’Etudes
Politiques de Paris; M.A., Ph.D., Yale University). He specializes in Middle
Easternpoliticsandculturalhistory,andinternationallaw.ProfessorChehabi
has taught at Harvard, Oxford, and UCLA, and has held Alexander von
Humboldt and Woodrow Wilson fellowships. He has published two books,