محمدعلی فروغی، رضاشاه و رویای ایران مدرن

0:00 Let's go to the year 1313 , when 70 influential Iranian and foreign cultural figures gathered in Tehran for the thousandth anniversary of the birth of one of the most famous and important figures in the history and culture of Iran in 1313, i.e. 1934 , 90 years ago and we have the story of this photo . The 1000th anniversary of Ferdowsi's birth

0:56 is a very big event. If we know what kind of country Iran is in 1313, what kind of place it is and where it is in the world at the beginning of the 20th century, we will understand that the gathering of all these important people here is really a big event in 1313, that is, the Mehrabad airport has not yet been built . There is a lot of new territory , the narrative of Iran is taking shape

1:42 as we know it and read it today, and this year 2013, there is still no national railway, no radio, the map of Tehran is still more like this until these streets, this is what you see in the photos and videos of this time, go to the street, probably the most vehicles you see are in the street , there is no piped water in Tehran, water from aqueducts and reservoirs, etc. Sewage is still coming from the streets, most of the houses don't have bathrooms, the streets are dark at night, you are such an Iranian, these 70 people gathered for a literary congress , and after almost a century, the congress is still considered one of the great cultural events of Iran.

2:29 We want to talk about this. Who are these people? Who collected them here? What did they come for? What is the story really? There is also a story in which there is both pride and joy, sadness and regret , and very interesting lessons. Now, at the end, I will tell you the lessons that I learned myself, the points that were interesting to me, and in addition to all this, it introduces us to an important part of the history of Iran and its people, in fact, to two important parts, Iran after the constitution and the period of Reza Shah, and perhaps a little with the cultural Iran that Ferdowsi was one of the peaks of a thousand years ago. He was and still is, and probably one of the most expressive voices in the narration of his continuation

3:15 and this position of Ferdowsi, which I am saying, it is clear that the elites of Iran knew very well even after the constitution, or maybe now you can look at it in this way and say that they were the ones who praised Ferdowsi for having this position and that is why they turned the commemoration of Ferdowsi into such a celebration , or vice versa . Who is Ferdowsi ? In the world between the first and second world wars, when the constitutional movement was not yet thirty years old, the second world war had not started yet, and the face of Iran is changing little by little, the constitutional movement

4:00 was a very important movement or a political revolution in Iran in the late 19th century , although apparently it did not really change the royal family , nor even the king himself , but it showed that an important thing has changed in a part of Iranian society . We made a video about the constitution, others are also making videos, making podcasts, whatever we say, we need to know more about it than these words, but the ones who are constitutional, the ones who are active in the constitutional movement, they are looking for many things in their demands for justice and basic demands such as the rule of law and more general demands such as for example limiting the power of the king and

4:49 bringing order to finance, and this was for more specific things such as the army . In fact, the national railway had not been used so much and there were so many issues and problems. The constitutionalists had a lot of demands. When we want to examine the constitutional record, we must look at what we were looking for and be careful. Everything that we were looking for was not political, that means what happened in those years and decades after the constitution. At the very beginning, the political demands of the constitution, perhaps in the first years after the constitution , at least it seemed that they were fulfilled to a certain extent, a parliament was formed, and representatives came and

5:34 went, discussed important issues, gave opinions, and so on. To get a system in Iran, these fruitless debates in the constitutional assemblies were disappointing for him, because he saw that a common idea, a practical compromise would not come out of these contradictory opinions and so on. There were so many discussions on ideas and so on . It was not clear whether some of these representatives' opinions were really practical or they were simply chanting. Perhaps they did not have a very good understanding of the situation

6:20 . Well, that situation remained stable, which means that the problems that were the root of many constitutional demands were not solved, the constitution could not come to solve these problems quickly, the problem of the lack of central power was added to it, the government became weaker than it was, and the situation reached a point where many of the great supporters of the constitution were satisfied that we are ready to give up on these political hopes of the constitution . The railway did not enter the army and the university, and these did not enter. Perhaps in Reza Khani's government, which has nothing to do with constitutional political aspirations,

7:07 it became closer to them , and that is what happened . In fact, it was left aside, many things were fulfilled, including one thing that was very important for Iran's elites at that time, something different from the railways and the army, but not unrelated to them, a valuable and much-needed phenomenon in their eyes, in the new world,

7:53 strengthening the national spirit of Iranians, the national spirit of the Iranian nation. The elite among the thinkers of the constitutional period, before the constitution, these ideas were alive. Even the idea of ​​going back to the history of ancient Iran and bridging the gap to that period

8:40 had begun to think about it and write books . The writings of western historians and these, let's tell the story of the ancient governments of Iran, let's tell the ancient empires of Iran, its administrative order was this, their relationship with Greece was this, this was with Rome, this was what Iran was doing for centuries between Shamat and Anatolia on this side and India and China on the other side ? What was Zoroastrianism? What was kish mani? What was the role of the Persian language? This book brought this much more clearly and prominently, why am I saying these words? In order to show that this need was felt

9:27 , that this national spirit should be built, it should be strengthened , and then as a result of starting to design a series of programs for this purpose, who started to design programs for this purpose? Cultural elites and important people in the government , which overlapped a lot at that time , that is, the cultural elites were important people in the government at that time . This is not a lasting phenomenon. It is not something that we can say, at least in the contemporary period . Having studied the lessons of the Mullahs

10:14 Some of them have gone to school, some of them have gone abroad, and all of them came and were able to carry out this project, and the head of power was with them, not only to support them , but he himself came behind the story and invested in this story , what about the story? On the story of the narrative of Iran, the growth of Iran's national identity, why this story ? Why did he do this? Let's go back and look at Iran 1313 to understand why this need was understood by the cultural and political elites, the government, the king and everyone, and everyone is busy fulfilling it.

10:59 This is also sometimes to see that things do not happen without connection. At that time, it was not only in Iran that this kind of thinking existed a century ago, from the beginning of the 19th century and the French revolution, and especially later, after 1848 years of revolutions, we made the full video here. Once upon a time, nationalism was one of the ideas that was gaining momentum and was making a loud noise, especially in Europe. Now , the result took until after the First World War , when, for example,

11:44 the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be seen exactly on the maps. They were crushed on the map of Europe, and there were a dozen small and medium-sized countries. The fragmentation of countries was created, for example, their common feature is that they have the same language , or their religion, or their race , or whatever they were able to do as their national unifying factor

12:29 . We didn't have Italian and Italian-speaking people until that country of Italy, then it will be correct to say , well, here everyone speaks Italian, even those who speak another language should no longer speak Sicily and Naples . Just like Hungary, just like Serbia, just like the German Empire , just like some Jews thought that now that everyone is becoming a country, we who don't have land, why don't we create a country?

13:17 Let's go after the idea of ​​creating a country for what they call the landless Jewish nation , which is a project that continues. In some places, these projects continue to this day. Also, America attacked Afghanistan and Iraq at the beginning of the 21st century and said that we want to build a nation. Nation-building is our project. They are analyzing Iraq and Syria today. They say that in 2024 and 2025, because the nation is not properly defined, they have a series of problems. The story was a new story for many of these countries at that time , but it was not a new story for Iran. Iran did not have this issue. Iran was not a new nation. It was an old nation

14:03 that had survived from the beginning with the diversity of language and religion. It had been built. Some people say that Iran is not a nation state . It is a nation civilization, for example, instead of a nation state or a nation state like China. Maybe it means that Iran did not have that problem , but it does not mean that it was unnecessary to take care of this national identity. He needed to define it, he also needed to strengthen it , and this concern of building and strengthening national identity became more and more serious in Iran during the constitutional years and after, and along with it, the need

14:49 to get to know our history better, to shape our own historical narrative , what is the story of our history? How to define it? In order to see what kind of nation we are, we have to go and know our history. What was the general view of Iran's history until then? What would they read if they wanted to go to him? There were a series of sources that were consulted, such as Tabari's history , which was written in Arabic in the 10th century, or its corrected and completed translation, Balami's history, the history of the apostles and kings of Iran, and these were other books, of course, there was a book written by

15:34 an outsider, he had mentioned the names of the kings of ancient Iran. It seems that for the history before Islam in all these past centuries, they went to God Names , and the most prominent and famous is Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, a book that belonged to him a thousand years ago. In fact, it is a poem , a long poem, for example , 50,000 lines. Some

16:19 of the content is interesting, some of it is a story, especially the story of the war, and this is interesting. They make the Shahnameh bloody, imitate it , and this and some history, some legend and this, but looking at it for a long time is that, well , the history of Iran is this. But many people see this as history, we now have a division, which, of course, is not clear, and there is an overlap , but at that time, it seemed that there was no such thing, but now in Iran in the first 20th century , among the elites and intellectuals of the constitutional era,

17:09 we have people who want to narrate the history of Iran, or in fact, in a more general view, we have people who think that the level of national consciousness should rise, and the government should also raise this, such as People who think like this, now we will talk more about him in the rest of the video. Foroughie Foroughi, a prominent Iranian writer, politician, and intellectual. One of his ideas is that we should revive the popular taste and cultivate it. It means that if this is the state of the country, part of it is that the country's public, the public's level is very low. Therefore, one of the things that should be done is that that level should be raised. Foroughi wrote, he is giving a speech about What is a museum?

17:55 What is an academy? I mean, it is very clear that he is explaining something very important and fundamental in simple language , and it is necessary for him to explain, probably and I said that this is in harmony with many other places in the world and in harmony with the cultural events that are happening in Iran itself . At the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, in many places, the approach can be seen to rebuild the historical and cultural character of the nations. By referring to history, let's go and see our past. In Italy, for the first time after ancient Rome,

18:41 there is now a king sitting on top, who has to adjust his power with the Pope. They go back to the great poet of the middle centuries , who was both Italian and Catholic, who wrote about spirituality and politics . Dante's 600th anniversary is being celebrated in Germany, in the Weimar Republic with similar goals, Goethe's 100th death anniversary is being celebrated in the Stalinist Soviet Union, Pushkin is being praised as a poet of the people, and what does this mean? That is, it is not an isolated story to say, let's say something in Iran, for example, let's bring Ferdowsi from 1000 years ago,

19:29 let's expand the lens, it will become clear that many nations are establishing their historical narratives in the same way, they are building their national identity in the same way . Is it, or in the lands where the data of the colonial period are spent, we see this more prominently again In the ideological battle between liberal democracy and communism and fascism, these narratives are also going to help them. It is no coincidence that in Mussolini's Italy, the glory of ancient Rome is very prominent. In Hitler's Germany, they go for racial and Aryan stories, or even

20:18 in Atatürk's Turkey, they highlight pre-Ottoman history so that they can strengthen their secular nationalism. America, which was not even 150 years old at that time, has no history at all. In it, Roosevelt goes to the very, very recent historical heritage of America in the American Revolution , and from there they try to derive a historical narrative both for the depression period and later in the World War II period, because in this way they can connect themselves and say that we are the continuation of a story. The Nazis said that this Third Reich is the Third Reich, what does the Third Kingdom mean? That is, the First Kingdom, the Holy Roman Empire , the Second Kingdom, the German Empire , now the Third Reich , so we are also legitimate. Mussolini presented

21:07 himself as the modern Caesar Augustus. If he reached out to Ethiopia and Albania, it was to reclaim what they knew as theirs in the Roman Empire, that fascist salute and their architecture and all that propaganda and they were all on the same basis . Atatürk's Turkey, taking the story forward from before the Ottomans, before the Ottomans, for Turkey, it means that we have to go back, but they say that Turkey was born there in a certain battle where the Seljuks defeated Byzantium, and all these narratives, all these assimilations, all these legitimizations, there is a mixture of historical right and wrong, like the story of the origin of all

21:54 nations . What we have said, how many of them we have not said, these have different relationships with reality, some are closer to reality, some are less with reality, the more they are based on the reality of the past, the more compatible they are with the new world, the chances of their durability are likely to be higher, but all this is to say that in that period there are many nations that are forming their own historical narratives, Iran is not the only one, this is also done in Iran, and one of its foundations is, of course, Persian literature and emphasis on We hear and read a lot about Farsi

22:41 from the elites of that period , who really think that raising the status of Farsi is equal to diminishing and devaluing the other languages ​​spoken in Iran. No matter who can do this? A powerful central government that has the tools of repression, the tools of the education system, and the media, can later carry out such a project with its power. I say this without judgment. I mean, I try not to get into the good and bad at all, but define

23:27 it in a way so that we can see how this project went together . On this side, a Gilki is beating himself, on the other side, a Balochi is beating himself, and one is also something else, it is not the case that it is the government, only the force of the government is behind it, not the elites of the society, they are following the same, from Bahar and Kasravi to later, Hedayat and Minoy , and a whole lot of people in between can be caught in this field, and he lined up very important names

24:12 that are compatible and sympathetic with these projects in various degrees and in harmony and in sync with this highlighting of the Persian new look. It was the history of ancient Iran to form a new narrative of the history of Iran , which yes, our roots are in that ancient nation, this kingdom's legitimacy is based on the same legitimacy as the Sassanids and Achaemenids, and at the same time, archaeological findings are also helping this narrative, and at the same time, the story of the Zoroastrian past is becoming more prominent. There are also very influential foreigners in these projects. There

24:58 was a German archaeologist named Emil Herzfeld. His name is very prominent in the knowledge of the history of Iran and the history of the Middle East region in the ancient period . There is also competition with that German , and now you will hear the name of Godard and this again. A generation before this, Edward Brown is an Englishman , and Brown is also a street in Tehran. Now we know his name. Of course, his work is more on Persian literature,

25:48 but his work is also very large. He gathered it together and formalized it, and later in the space where the works of Brown and other orientalists from that side, and now the writers and scientists of Iran and India, etc., were done in this space, a ground was created for us to find a new look at Persian history and literature . Also

26:33 , for example, a series of Iranian intellectuals are generally in exile in Germany during the First World War and after the First World War during the Weimar Republic in Berlin, known as the Berlin Circle, under the influence of the German atmosphere. At that time, they were very much in the spirit of cultural nationalism. Their name is Kaveh, Kaveh is the hero of the uprising against Dahakah. He is a prominent character in the Shahnameh.

27:18 They are writing during the war, during the period when Iran is under occupation, they have strong anti-colonial sentiments, they are anti-Russian, anti-British, and after the war, when the world has changed and Germany has been defeated , they are writing these things, but here they are focusing on the culture of ancient Iranian history, the roots of Iranian identity , reminding of the glory and greatness of Iran before Islam and Islam. Yes, Cyrus and Darius the Achaemenid shaped this great nation and it is time for us to do something like that, that is, to take inspiration from the Achaemenians from the

28:07 history before Christ in order to give a solidity to the system today . We heard the beginning of the modern age, the story of the Safavids, we saw the Qajars, until now at the beginning of the 20th century and the beginning of Pahlavi Iran, they are looking and looking at the Achaemenids, and now they are saying that yes , Reza Shah is doing what Cyrus and Darius did , that the formation of this great nation is the same now, and now is the same as

28:52 the many excavations that archaeologists started at that time in the sites Different people in Iran and this will serve a lot in the service of this work and later on will help a lot in the development and construction of this project, and around Reza Shah during those years there were intellectuals and people who could have these ideas and have the vision to cultivate these ideas. The government's support in these projects is really a movement, such as creating a historical narrative, and this

29:40 is not something that a government can do with the work of an employee, build a place, pay some people, for example, let them sit down and write a project, define the narrative, what to create. This is where success comes from organic cooperation with intellectuals and from a good relationship between the government and the elites. We know that it will decrease little by little, that we have few people like this. When there is such a relationship, it is not stable even in that period, that is, the same people that we are now mentioning their names are with Reza Shah in this period, with Reza Shah's government, they will be gone

30:25 very soon . They don't talk, they can't be heard, but it's not like that at first, in the first half of Reza Shah's government, when many important projects were started, their ideas were developed, and in fact, these projects were the product of an agreement at the level of the government and the elite, whether for the construction of the railway , for the establishment of Tehran University , or for Radio Vala, there was nothing invented by Reza Shah that, for example, no one knew that the country wanted a railway. In the negotiations of the parliaments after the constitution, it is talked about many times, but it can't , it can't, no one does it until Reza Shah comes,

31:11 it won't be implemented until then, the railway is now famous, let's skip these things that are known, the National Antiquities Association, this is something that will be done then, the Museum of Ancient Iran, creating a new education system instead of the home school system, the organization of ideas. Ancient, the Association of National Artifacts means that there is an awareness that we should preserve these national monuments that exist here. We should preserve both the tangible national monuments and the intangible national monuments . For example, we should teach the children to collect their stories from their grandmothers. Let us have them and tell them that there is a culture of folk tales, for example, in the corners of Iran.

31:58 This is a plan. Someone should think about these things . Because they didn't think about these things before, there was no plan for it, there was no institution for it, this institution exists, this is the product of that agreement, then they go to Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh to define identity based on the Persian language, they go to Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh, which becomes the focal point of this story. Let's

32:44 talk about Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh before that, let's do some publicity work, then make a noise, make Ferdowsi's name stand out like this, let's raise the name of Iran along with it, which is good for Ferdowsi, good for the Persian language, good for this brand that wants to be rebuilt and strengthened in the name of the Iranian nation, it's also very good and we need to know the name of Iran, the name of Iran is not that it's a new name . It is not, but Iran is known as Persia in foreign media or in many correspondences, and we see that a decision is made that no, let's make it uniform,

33:30 let's convey this message that because now Persia has become a little bit weak and all these things, it has been harmonized in the minds of the readers of foreign newspapers, for example , and there is such an understanding of it in Europe , they say no, let's say Iran and Let's say that from now on everyone will say Iran this name, let's all use the same name for this country. This is the name of this country. They will start working from 1305. Well, we want to get Ferdowsi's Millennium Congress. First, let's build a tomb for him. Then the first step is to find where his grave is. They will send one of the Zoroastrian elders to see where Ferdowsi's grave is

34:15 . Show it, then show it's ruined, and finally go away and look around and say that no, this is Ferdowsi's grave in a garden that belonged to him. This is the property of now when Reza Shah is still Rezakhane Reza Khan Sardar Sepehe. However, Bahar is gathering a reputation and fame for himself. Bahar, Mohammad Taghi Bahar writes that you, who have a lot of credit, are collecting credit and these things are very right for you to come and stand behind this work. In fact, the cost of this restoration of Ferdowsi's grave is already out of your pocket.

35:02 If Reza Shah wants to become Reza Shah, the work will start. How to build the tomb? Three maps are proposed, and finally the map of Mr. Andre Godard is selected. Godard is an architect who has built other famous works, including the University of Tehran, the National Library , the Museum of Ancient Iran, the tomb of Hafez Memar, he was an archaeologist specializing in the history of France and the history of the Middle East, of course , and the history of Iran. The only woman who is in this photo, Mrs. Yeda Godar, his wife, who was also from Iran,

35:48 was in Iran for a long time, later during the Second World War, the French National Resistance Radio was making a program from Tehran, and these are the reasons why Godar's name came up . that every source, but different sources say so differently, one doesn't know, they say somewhere in the middle of Timurtash's work that I don't understand at all what it has to do with Timurtash, he came and told him that we are going to make a pyramid like the tomb of Cyrus . For example, let's do this in a different way. Lerzadeh said to give me the final design. I gave the final design. For example

36:34 , because I wanted to implement it, Taherzadeh says no, I gave it a design, but I gave it in a way that Lerzadeh could implement it. In the end , they will build it, as if it sits after the opening , then they repair it. We read it like this in different places and I don't know what is true, you probably heard one of them too, if you know anything about it, you probably heard one of these narrations more strongly than the others, but none of these came to me from an unreliable source or for example from a person who says we don't know who we didn't say, but one thing seems so clear that there is no certainty about it, something that should be so clear didn't happen centuries ago.

37:19 In summary, this is the first part of the work , but let's build Ferdowsi's mausoleum, the main part of the work is the congress . At the Dar al-Funun hall in the Dar al-Funun school, it is one of the few halls, perhaps the only hall where such a program can be held in Tehran at that time. Speakers come, domestic and foreign guests speak about topics related to Ferdowsi, the Persian language, the Shahnameh, and so on.

38:06 At the inauguration ceremony , Foroughi, who was the prime minister at that time, Chancellor Foroughi said that yes, I welcome you on behalf of the Shah, and now Reza Shah is the Shah, and now we are in the Pahlavi government, which is being held . He draws a little of these compliments and then says that the king himself will come to Ferdowsi's tomb later on when you left, and he will see you there. Who else will speak on the first day ? Education does not mean religion and all that. Education means education, higher education, and education. All of these things probably came together. At that time, the Ministry of Education

38:54 has two speeches. Mr. Hekmat has one opening day, where he speaks in French, and one closing day, when he speaks in English. His speech is a little more political, and yes , we want to bring the hearts of the nations closer together, and from these diplomatic compliments, this is a series of speeches summaries. The relatively formal people who do Foroughi and Hekmat and these things, then they choose a board of directors, they put a politician again, the chairman is Mohtsham al-Sultaneh, who we once saw laughing with Hitler. And a small plan is for the ambassadors to present a gift and a certificate from the University of Berlin to Iran, and

39:41 from Mussolini a copy of the Italian translation of Ferdowsi's poets to Reza Shah, and someone from the University of Michigan has come from that side as if he is saying that I am not sure. He wrote somewhere that the University of Michigan will give scholarships to two Iranians on this occasion. The next year two Iranian students got scholarships here, we also got their names, but we didn't know whether they were on scholarships or not because the university couldn't confirm it, but we saw in the local newspaper that this gentleman who came here,

40:27 Mr. Aghaoglu, who came from the University of Michigan, had participated in this congress . He came here and the Congress of Orientalists in Tehran had a three-month trip, and wherever he went, he also came here, and it was agreed that an encyclopedia of Islamic arts would be made under the supervision of our university , and this gentleman would also be the head of this story, which is, for example, the achievement of the University of Michigan . It seems to give both to the libraries of Iran

41:12 that I have two questions, one is how did the University of Michigan print the Shahnameh at that time? And two, where are the copies he gave now? In short, they have these programs, and there are congratulations, gifts, speeches, and a summary of some of the speeches in this link. I suggest you take a look. If you find it interesting, for example, something interesting to me is a speech that reports on new excavations at that time in Asia Minor, which shows that the areas there have connections with Iran, for example , or for example, a poet came from Iraq and wrote a poem in Arabic about Ferdowsi, or an Egyptian scholar who came to Farsi. He gives a speech about Ferdowsi,

41:59 or someone comes, he talks about excavations, the new findings of that time, about the Sogdians , or he talks about Bahar , and the very interesting thing he says is that the Shahnameh was not famous in Ghazni at that time. During Ferdowsi's time, the Shahnameh was not viewed very well until much later, from the 12th century onwards, when the Shahnameh became important and found a place, and they called it the Qur'an. Ajma and what is Bahar talking about? Of course, when I say these things, Bahar is saying these things. The fact that he is in the congress at all is interesting because Bahar was one of the promoters of the idea of ​​celebrating Ferdowsi. He had encouraged Reza Shah and what he had done and what he had done.

42:47 But when the congress was held, Bahar was one of Reza Shah's enemies. He was no longer in politics. After Reza Shah's reign, he was mostly involved in literary and educational activities, and these are the things he has been in prison for a while and then in exile. After the congress, he wants to be held. Foroughi says to Reza Shah, sir, every poet and literary man who comes here will definitely come here, he will find spring, we can't let this congress be without spring . To participate in the congress from exile, let spring come to Tehran except for spring, Abbas Iqbal Ashtiani talks about Ferdowsi's influence in India, Saeed Nafisi talks about the poetic weight of the Shahnameh, he says

43:35 that some of the old Iranian weights are coins . Can Ferdowsi Mausoleum be opened? Eight years have passed since the beginning of Reza Shah's reign. Seven years remain until his removal and exile. That means we are right in the middle of Reza Shah's reign, when Ferdowsi's Mausoleum will be opened by the Congress and the commemoration program. This was a specialized program, but let's remember that the whole project was supposed to be wider and the people said that

44:21 in this project, the construction of the Mausoleum ran out of money, and money ran out, and six years passed and the budget ran out and the work was not finished. What should we do? don't we Saying that let's go and sell lottery tickets for Ferdowsi Lottery so that the money can be matched, and on the pretext of lottery and lottery, let's bring the people in the middle, let's talk about the issue, to awaken the sense of patriotism, Foroughi will go and give a speech in Dar al-Mulemmin, give a detailed speech about Ferdowsi and Ferdowsi's status, and this will encourage people, for example, to buy lottery tickets or have a party, for example, a garden party. Ferdowsi will have a concert and they will probably say that Abul Hasan Khan Saba played there and Reza Qali Zoli performed there and they

45:06 should collect some money there , or she wrote somewhere that Mrs. Qamar says I went in her memoirs, I think she says that I went to Khorasan there, Major General Amanullah Jahanbani saw me and said, "You came all the way here, it's good that you give a concert in honor of Ferdowsi, because after all Ferdowsi has the right to all of us, and this and there, we should go and collect some money." Let's sell lottery tickets for this story, for example , and Qamar goes to give a concert. It's probably the first time that the people of Mashhad will see a few Iranian Muslim women go on stage without hijab and sing. This will become a story . Money will be collected here too , and more importantly than money, there will probably be enthusiasm for this program and this congress.

45:53 We said in the congress, well, there are different people. It's a shame that there are so many important people. It 's a shame to talk about them too briefly, for example, after the congress, you can follow what the result was, because just as it created such enthusiasm before , it also played a role in increasing attention to the Shahnameh, to Ferdowsi and literature. Much later, research works and these about Ferdowsi were published in the following years, that is, much more than before and in comparison. Later years, in the Congress itself, they said that yes, the academic community can do a great service to Persian speakers by publishing a reliable version of the Shahnameh,

46:40 which was later done under the supervision of Minavi , Iqbal, Hayim, and Nafisi, and this work was done . For example, the images of the ancient kings were inspired by them, and from the reliefs of the Achaemenid and Sassanid era, and several books and collections of articles in Paris, in Tehran, in Berlin, and in New York, and the articles themselves were compiled into a book, 33 articles that were presented in the congress, in addition to a few other articles that had been written before , either by Taghizadeh and Qazvini , or by German Noldeke

47:25 . He had gone, but this was also published, the income other than this spiritual heritage, other things remained for Iran from this congress. In the same trip that Reza Shah went to Mashhad, he opened the Shah Reza Hospital in Mashhad. The person behind Reza Shahe, the vice-president of Astan Qudseh , whose story we are now telling,

48:12 the Forughie family , was executed a year after this photo, and his execution became one of the reasons why Reza Shah's relationship with Foroughi is also messed up. Those who have windows facing the street should be repainted, painted with oil, sprinkled with water, the roads should be cleaned, the broken glass should be repaired. Reza Shah, for example, in Mashhad, don't pass on Mule Street and so on. It 's really interesting, but think about it , for example, the city has a situation that its officials don't want

48:57 . Tehran Ferdowsi Street is named after that time, one of the most important south-northern streets of Tehran. Ferdowsi statue is given as a gift by the Persians of India on the occasion of the Hazara celebration . Of course , it will not be installed at that time . This is the picture. They installed a statue of a poet in the middle of the city at that time. I don't know how much history it has, but it really seems like it was an important move to create the national spirit

49:43 or, as they say, the cultivation of popular taste . Abdul Hossein Noushin writes a play based on the stories of the Shahnameh , Bijan, Manijeh, Rostam, Tehmina, Zal, and Rudabeh, and with the help of Foroughi, with the help of Minoy , played by Loretta, his wife, we can see this in the same book . In the wave of events after the congress, let's see Noushin again. We talked about him once in this video . Mr. Nosrat Karimi said something interesting about him. He said that because of political issues, Noushin has become such that even professionals don't know him much

50:31 and he has n't been appreciated . He is training our interest and perseverance , he knew that he wanted to use our existence, and now I know that this person definitely had a special relationship with the Shahnameh , which Nosrat Karimi said that in the art school , the art school, the high school of the art of declamation, he taught us how to drink with the poets of the Shahnameh, and we learned the art of expression by reading the Shahnameh correctly . His crowd gets into trouble

51:17 because they say why are you working in Ferdowsi Theater? Ferdowsi was a ruler and he was in the service of the Sultan, and such words do not fit with the ideals of the people that Noushin does not give him a special place , or again, we know the bitter years of the end of his life . Ferdowsi is right, we said Noushin's name, let's talk about the names of some of the more famous people present at the congress

52:03 . They are very famous and important names, and there are many of them, but let's say a few of them that we haven't missed. It's empty. Well, there are many foreign orientalists and Iranologists. There are also political guests. The most important of them are 40 of the forty Iranian thinkers. If you look at them , some of them are really among the top cultural figures of Iran in the last hundred years. From Bahar, Kasravi, Forozanfar, Taghizadeh, Dehkhoda, Purdavoud, Minoy, etc. to Hekmat, Foroughi, etc., who were there in a political capacity, but their place in the cultural history of Iran is not inferior to their political position. We know Foroughi politically.

52:50 He is a person who is in the same frame with Reza Shah when he came, when he left , and when Mohammad Reza Shah was replaced by Reza Shah . And there has been reform and all that, which means that neither the intellectual tradition of the left is compatible with it, it has empathy, nor can the power apparatus itself get along with it in the long run. Foroughi didn't get along with it either.

53:35 Reza Shah's first work was with him , so was Mohammad Reza Shah 's first work , that is, he was the one who convinced the occupying forces that the Pahlavi kingdom should be preserved. He also wrote the oath of the new king, but this should not make us think that he was with the government all these years or that Foroughi was even safe all these years. Like almost all the other men, he had a disagreement with Reza Shah and became angry. Foroughi, who was Reza Shah's first prime minister, had become an ambassador to Turkey. Perhaps the architect of Reza Shah's relationship with Turkey and Atatürk was Reza Shah's prime minister for two years in the two eventful years of 1313-1312. But what two years were those two years? Timurtash and Sardar Asad, and

54:22 that Asadi was the deputy governor of Astan Quds, and this was in the same two years that Dashti and Zainul Abdin Rahnama, who are members of the parliament, were supporters of Reza Shah in those two years when their parliamentary immunity was taken away and they were imprisoned , and the person who was the head of Reza Shah's office had written his travelogues, had written his speeches . Reza Shah tells them and they go away in a way, and finally these stories take the skirt of Foroughi himself, because of the event of Goharshad Mosque, Foroughi is also removed from the scene, he goes to stay

55:09 at home , and of course, he works in cultural work, research, writing, translation, lectures, and teaching, and it will be a very fruitful period for him. The museum and this is in all of these, Ferdowsi Congress has a key role in the Millennium of Ibn Sina and the tomb of Ibn Sina, Saadi, Nader, Khayyam and the repair of the Attar tomb and all of these . What is going on

55:55 in their house and what is going to happen and he enters into negotiations with the allies and becomes the prime minister again? Reza Shah becomes the first prime minister and Pahlavi becomes the last prime minister. This is a very important period. Now we have to talk about this period once again. Now I just want to say that this Foroughi Foroughi whose name we hear here is such a person . He has prevented the disintegration of Iran, he is a man who has political understanding, he has tact, in any case , he was able to save the country from collapse, save it from disintegration , and he will not be alive after this long. Foroughi is no older than 65 when he dies, and this politician, who seems to

56:41 have the Shahnameh as more than a literary and historical text, is a person who is very important in organizing this Ferdowsi Foroughi Congress. Nationality can be explained with it , that is, for him, for example, a side hobby, and this was not Foroughi. He went to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I. He was the head of Iran's delegation there. In his memoirs he wrote about the Shahnameh, he also talks about a copy of the Shahnameh being found in such and such a place. He is also working on correcting the Shahnameh on a daily basis,

57:28 which means that he keeps his mind busy with this text. I explained this because when, for example, I say that Foroughi was there as a political figure, let's not think that it was a congress and now whoever was the prime minister went and spoke. Foroughi is also random because he is the prime minister. He was there, no, it's not really random , or even that Mr. Hekmat that I mentioned, Ali Asghar Hekmat, who I say as the Minister of Education, was there. He is not a lightweight either. He was a man who studied Iran, studied France, studied Sorbonne, later became a minister, a minister who is responsible for building one of the most important Iranian institutions , Tehran University. At that time, he will go and become the president of Tehran University.

58:13 He is also a virtuous and scholarly person . People, the importance of Foroughi and Hikmat and this is not related to their positions, it is not to say, for example, because he was the Minister of Education, it is important because he was the Prime Minister, it is more important than that their role in Institutions that are established in education, how active are you in writing, how active are you in translation, the list of things you look at in writing and translating, this is Shakespeare's wisdom in translation. Translated by Tolstoy, translated the history of ancient Iran and the Parthians, wrote a 10-volume commentary, I don't know, Kashf al-Asrar and Kait al-Abrar, translated the mystical commentary of the Qur'an, the Persian version. After a thousand and one nights,

59:00 we are talking about a man who was a minister, that is, he held a political position, he was a minister, a lawyer, and an ambassador for many years, and this tells us that Ayar What was the minister once upon a time in this country , or Foroughi, whom we know as a politician , was a minister, he was the prime minister, this is Foroughi, who wrote the book "Sir Hikmat in Europe " With this book, this person has introduced western philosophy to Iranians and Persian readers for years. Anyone who wants to understand the history of western philosophy should read this. Foroughi, the person who translated Ibn Sina from Arabic, played a big role in adding Ibn Sina to the Iranian Persian system. He translated many important books . He introduced Iranians to liberalism

59:47 for the Persian language itself, what Foroughi did. Mr. Dariush Ashouri said that the dynamic in the Persian Academy at that time was to the extent He owed a lot to Foroughi's extensive knowledge, literary taste , and hard work, and his colleagues at the Farhangistan Academy, who created this at that time, did a very important job . Soft edge , but it's really a shame not to mention that when these Persian Academy were built and working, the method of this option was also on the table by well-meaning people. To change the Persian alphabet, Foroughi was completely against this idea, he did not go in his direction , for the words Arabic, English, French , etc. Editing and popularizing Farsi,

1:00:33 if you don't know, like me, why they call it Qalemorghi or Qalemorghi airport, it's not because it's called there. It used to be Qalamorghi, then it had an airport, and they used to say Qalemorghi airport, as if before this beautiful word airport, airplane, etc. were correct, they used to call the airport in general. Look at Qalamorghi airport, see Qalamorghi too, see what mercy God has given us, and in Persian, Imam Khomeini's Qalamorghi castle is definitely the reason for the problem. He used to do much more. This academy makes words. This academy codifies Persian grammar under the supervision of Foroughi . Kormal Kormal did not progress. Foroughi is characteristic of Assyria. He used to say that he was a scout, he worked based on a theory,

1:01:18 that is, he was a conscious person who knew what he wanted and why he wanted to do it . He had masterful literary knowledge , and every time I think of him, he is a very inspiring and influential person for me , and every time I think of him, I see that How interesting, in order to be lasting and very effective, you don't have to be creative, be innovative, bring a new theory, because Foroughi was none of these things, but very He used to read and understand things And he would convey it to Farsi, so that until decades later, the Western philosophy and the foundations of liberalism would continue to be known by his works , and let's remember that we are not talking about a

1:02:08 man whose whole life was writing books . He was drawing and introducing, according to Mr. Abbas Amanat, do you know why he says that BluePrint's roadmap has the Iranian identity and brings it out, Foroughi? Because when he looks at his work, he sees that this man is highlighting Saadi, Hafez, Ferdowsi and Ibn Sina, and on the other hand, he is introducing Iranians to Western philosophy, with a position that sits between the conservative Shia jurisprudence and the westernism of Reza Shahi's government . There is not a bit of Foroughi , or at least now it can be said that these are all really

1:02:54 at the level of high-level politicians and literary people. I want to say two words about Taghizadeh. He is considered to be one of the common men of Qajar and first Pahlavi . To the memorabilia he left for Iran, for Iranian culture, for the Persian language, from his writings about Iran and Arabia before Islam, from Kish Mani, Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh, and that he has a presentation about it in the Congress , and of course Taghizadeh, like Foroughi Foroughi, is also

1:03:40 rejected for a period of wisdom . Pese will not come back, he will stay there as long as Reza Shah is in power, he will return to politics after Reza Shah's removal . There are points that were interesting for me, my own inference and it was interesting for me. I would also like to hear your opinion about it. One of them is that these names that we mentioned here and others that we didn't mention

1:04:25 like Kasravi, like Jamalzadeh, like Dehkhoda , they are really great people , or even maybe some of them are not here at all, but they are great people of that period. They are a group of Iranian writers and researchers. I think the most correct name for them is the constitutional generation These outstanding people and their cooperation and companionship with the government, even if temporary, in my opinion, have created a rare period in the history of contemporary Iran, that an Iranian politician who, if you think that he represents Iran in the negotiations after the First World War,

1:05:10 also negotiates with the victors of the Second World War, is a politician for Iran who is familiar with Western philosophy and is familiar with Saadi and Ferdowsi. This is probably our luck. He could have done this, he probably couldn't have been found much better than this, I don't care if we are satisfied with the result or not, but this gives me a little something to be a little more humble

1:05:56 . become And why and how are they not repeated? Repeating nothing at all, why don't they have a happy ending? Foroughi, with all the stories we told about him and many, many other valuable stories that we should have told and didn't tell, ended his life for the cost of his treatment. They say that he had left his family's precious things for sale. Taghizadeh had left his books for sale. Dehkhoda used to live in such poverty that one would be ashamed

1:06:44 to read his letters. I didn't get into them. I don't have anything to do with it now. I'm looking at it . Do I know enough about their correct work? I myself know that I do not know people whose caliber was such that when the field of political work was closed or dangerous, many of them went to their second home, culture or their first home, culture, literature, and research , and what they did. So many divans of poets were corrected, copied, and published, and so many encyclopedias, so many dictionaries, and so many... works that are still the cultural capital of the Persian language that we still have the dictionary of Dehkhoda. We

1:07:31 still read Diwan Hafez and Saadi, Sahih Qazvini, Ghani, Foroughi and others. This belongs to that time. This is the work of that time. This shows the high quality of the politicians of that time. And just like I said, the great fortune of Iran at that time was a companionship and sympathy between them and the government. In my opinion, this sympathy and cooperation is rare and interesting to note. Another point is like everything else. The other one we looked at here in Biplas is the story of strengthening the national spirit that happened during Reza Shah's time. This is not something that happened. It is not an unprecedented, rootless and unprecedented event. It is nothing. Nothing happens all at once.

1:08:17 In my opinion, we should put this on Biplas t-shirts that nothing happens at once . We saw the same people , many of whom have been active in their demands since the constitutional period . We have seen the first steps in these ways and works that were put forward in the constitutional period and the following years, and of course we have seen that we have already said that if it was not for the political power and political will of Reza Shahi's government, especially the atmosphere of the first years of Reza Shahi, it is not unlikely that this would fail like many other constitutional hopes , but this did not happen and I see this as many other things continuously . A backpack of subversive ideas

1:09:03 has come from behind the mountains, he has arranged the pieces and moved the workers forward in such a way that, for example, there is no man . I see that he was a piece on the chess board like all the other pieces . And he could have taken the government budget behind its implementation, he could not have realized its importance, like many other things that were not done, but he realized its importance and he did it. Now

1:09:50 we have a video about the later and its consequences and where this project ended up. We will talk about this soon. The last thing I would like to say about this video is that they say that after Louis Napoleon's coup, Napoleon's nephew in the middle of the 19th century, Karl Marx wrote that history happens twice. It happens the first time it's serious, the second time it's like a farce, they're playing it from scratch, once a tragedy, once a comedy, as they say about this Ferdowsi congress, I think it's very serious the first time, a thousand times the next time similar things happen, it's really not even funny, the first time in Iran, the situation is that of

1:10:36 a country that has no money and no facilities. Holding a congress that we sat after a hundred years, we think it is necessary to talk about it, and we really need to talk about it and appreciate their work, but this is not the last congress that will be held in Iran, and the conditions will change, especially after the country reaches a certain amount. All congresses and small and big celebrations are held with goals more or less similar to the goals that can be compared to this one. In fact, 40 hours after they hold the 2500-year celebrations, the heads of the countries state the costs of such and such guests and dinners and preparations, which until half a century later are still debated about the costs and benefits, and

1:11:22 this is just one of them. Until then, dozens of congresses, conferences, and seminars were held, especially these years of good oil sales, both before the revolution and after the revolution, with colorful guests, small and large, Iranian and foreign, and this is not much news at all. You don't understand how much it cost. Ferdowsi Congress, let's place something, highlight a cultural movement, a historical figure , use the method of a narrative, but

1:12:08 I say that in terms of execution and the results they get, compared to that, it really looks like jokes, which are both very tasteless and very expensive, and it seems that it comes from a misunderstanding . And it is possible to create any narrative and implement it, and the government is worthy and obliged to implement something like this. I think that the one who sees it like this really thinks that this nationalist discourse of the Pahlavi era was created and implemented by Reza Shah's government, and we now know how short-sighted this is

1:12:55 because he thinks that the government He thinks that Reza Shah has spent money and wasted money, so if the government wants to and spends money, he can implement any narrative, no, he is not aware of the connection that I said he has been thinking about for decades, not of the cooperation and companionship between the elites and the government in those years , and not of the fact that if he was successful in his government, maybe it was because he actually cultivated the desire expressed by the society and the elites of the society, to be with him. He used to do it , and in his performance, he brings strength behind him. I think this was a very enlightening point for me. I hope that this video

1:13:41 has as much interesting and new things for you as it did for me and made you curious to know about new people and new events that you saw.