Thread: Amid #Soleimani's death, #Iran analysts are discussing the concept of nationalism especially within the context of sovereignty as a unifying force. Some historical context is needed to fully appreciate how nationalism & borders are interwoven w/ the Iranian identity. 1/13
Since the late 19th Century, territory has been a source of Iranian identity. As a cultural construct, land & exact boundaries are protected by both the state & Iranian intellectuals due to the fear of losing other sociopolitical & cultural products held within the borders. 2/13
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet is one of the historians of #Iran who has done a great job in contextualizing the centrality of land & frontiers in Iranian nationalism & how disturbances to such constructed notions helped shape the country’s national identity. amazon.com/Frontier-Ficti… 3/13
One of the early examples of an external threat to the integrity of #Iran's sovereignty was the first Russo-Persian war of 1804. The war between the Persian Empire & Imperial Russia began as a territorial dispute. 4/13 
#Iran's Fath Ali Shah Qajar, wanted to consolidate the northernmost part of his kingdom, which had been annexed by Tsar Paul I several years after the Russo-Persian War of 1796. The war ended in 1813 w/ the Treaty of Golestan which surrendered Georgia to Imperial Russia. 5/13
The treaty also handed over the Iranian territories of Dagestan, most of present day Azerbaijan, & minor parts of Armenia to the Russians. To this day, the treaty of Golestan is referred to as one of the most shameful & treacherous acts of the Qajar dynasty. 6/13
Both the Pahlavi Dynasty & the Islamic Republic refer to the incident as a dishonorable act never to be repeated again. Ultimately, the contraction of frontiers under the Qajar dynasty forced the nation to reconsider its political institutions. 7/13
It played an important part in the intellectual debates that led to revolutionary alternatives i.e. 1906 Constitutional Revolution. For Iranians, nationalism has acted as a field of discourse where complex power relations are played out between the state & the population. 8/13
These power plays manifest themselves in the establishment of national institutions such as the army & schools. These institutions are all working for the purposes of creating the notions of patriotism (vatan parasti) & nationalism. 9/13
As such, protecting the nation's borders becomes akin to protecting the Iranian identity. So, #Iran’s geography is not static lines on a map, but a product of a series of top-down & bottom-up sociopolitical events & structures. 10/13
Iran’s history as a geographic entity can be traced to antiquity, but, its emergence as a modern nation state has relied on many similar tactics used by other nations to build a cohesive identity. 11/13
.@Swarthy_Bastard's article is a great example of how nationalism manifests itself in Iranian politics today. washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca… 12/13
When the Iranian gov states that #Soleimani was the individual protecting the nation's borders, consciously or unconsciously, the population associates him not just as an IRGC member, but a soldier in charge of protecting #Iran's national identity in a much deeper sense. 13/13
