Historians of Iran Profile picture
Jan 22, 2020 29 tweets 20 min read Read on X
There comes a moment for every rookie researcher when, having come across new & unexpected evidence in the archives, promptly falls out of his/her chair. That moment for me came early in the work, with the story of "Freedom," of Azadi.
1/SM
#Day2
#Ruptures
#ChattingWithChatterjee Image
@Swarthy_Bastard Through the metaphor of birds the 1979 Farsi primer presents the importance of freedom & independence in a simple & accessible way for 1st Graders. If captured, birds, like humans, "do everything possible to be free again. They like freedom. Humans also like to live free."
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@Swarthy_Bastard The story of freedom, however, takes a wild turn in 1982, as Iran's former revolutionaries realized that they must now deal with matters of state and governability. Freedom, it turns out, had limits.
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@Swarthy_Bastard This is when I knew I had a worthy project, a story of politics to tell: "The freedom of humans is different from the freedom of birds. We cannot live however we please. We are not free to do whatever we want. We make laws so as to know how much freedom we have."
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@Swarthy_Bastard Over in the 2nd Grade classroom, the kids were dealing with something similar...Sure, the textbooks had changed between '78 and '79, a quick cut-and-paste revision, reflecting the new political realities in Iran.
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@Swarthy_Bastard By the very next year, the experts and planners were having second thoughts. A sleeve here, a loose headscarf there...
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#BadHijabISuppose Image
@Swarthy_Bastard The revisions came in '82. Oh boy, did they ever.
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@Swarthy_Bastard “Welcome to Second Grade," a lesson that had featured a modestly veiled teacher happily leading from the front of her class, transformed into the austere (and vaguely terrifying) “In the Name of God the Forgiving and Kind, Welcome to Second Grade."
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#AnotherBrickInTheWall Image
@Swarthy_Bastard “In the Name of God” appears not only in the title, but also prominently in the center of the black chalkboard. The perspective is from the back of the classroom looking forward. The composition directs all eyes, teacher, student, & reader alike, to this focal pt, to God.
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@Swarthy_Bastard Later, she will be replaced by a male teacher. Both versions feature the same text: "When everybody was in their seats, the teacher said: 'Dear children, look carefully at the blackboard and tell me what is written upon it.'"

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@Swarthy_Bastard "The children…together & with a loud voice answered: 'In the name of God.'

The teacher said: 'Yes…All of you know that we start all endeavors in the name of God and from Him we ask for guidance and his help.'"
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@Swarthy_Bastard By the 2000s, the lesson becomes “Our School.” Neither title nor text makes any direct invocation of God, who appears only in the background on the chalkboard. Students sit around shared tables, not nimkats, their attention focused on the teacher, each other, & their work.
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@Swarthy_Bastard Author's note: It's now 1:30 am, the impeachment proceedings are still on, and there's a class to be taught in less than 8 hours. With your indulgence, I'll finish this thread later this morning. For now, I leave you with our beloved Nilufar. --SM Image
@Swarthy_Bastard *taps mic* "Hello? Is this thing still on? Can you hear me?"

Back to work, a last example of uncertainty in Iranian textbooks following the 1979 Revolution begins at the beginning, with the 1st lesson of the 1st Grade in the 1st year of the new regime.
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@Swarthy_Bastard In the 1979 1st Grade Farsi primer the Shah is dropped, the clothes are changed, the genders segregated, all to be expected. What's interesting is what's missing.
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@Swarthy_Bastard No mention of God, no illustration of Khomeini. 🤔
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@Swarthy_Bastard The oversight is quickly rectified the following year, w/ the 1980 edition. Sorta. به نام خدا, "in the name of God," appears in place, above the chalkboard. The boys, replaced by girls, properly veiled. The map of Iran remains (absent in the pre-rev edition!). But Khomeini?
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@Swarthy_Bastard Also, what's up with that dog?
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@Swarthy_Bastard Took a few years, but the 1987 authors were like, "Let me fix that for ya." The puppy is removed.*

#KeepingItKosher #NajisNotFair

*Full disclosure: I love dogs.
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@Swarthy_Bastard But it's in 1988 that things really come together. The founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, finally appears in the lesson, taking place of honor at the top and the front of the classroom.
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@Swarthy_Bastard The next year, 1989, the year of Khomeini's death, the imam is joined by a friend.
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#MaxWeber #BottlingTheMagic #NeverQuiteTheSameTheNextTimeAround Image
@Swarthy_Bastard By the time I was doing my fieldwork, 2006-2009, the first lesson of the First Grade had changed dramatically.
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@Swarthy_Bastard What does it all mean? What's the "So what?" (Full disclosure, here comes the Professor part of the thread. Proceed with caution.)
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@Swarthy_Bastard One takeaway is that history matters, but not in the way that we usually think. Ruptures occur *within and across* openly ideological curricula, *because of* not in spite of the "unhidden curricula." Texts geared towards political purpose tend to become, well, politicized!
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@Swarthy_Bastard Only by patiently excavating content *over time* can these ruptures be adequately mapped and understood (also, it's super interesting!).
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@Swarthy_Bastard Paraphrasing Sam Kaplan, schools in Iran aim to induce consent to a dominant political order, but that consensus is never fully realized. Rather, the push for consensus generates a gamut of contradictory and equivocal ideas among political elites and the public alike.
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@Swarthy_Bastard Dramatic change occurs post-'79, no doubt. That’s the sexy story! The better story, the more compelling claim, I think, are the numerous ruptures that occur *within* the current era, under the authority and governance of the Islamic Republic...
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@Swarthy_Bastard (Nearly done) The second takeaway is that the spiritual or "inner" domain described by #Chatterjee is a starting pt for further research, not a final destination. The imagined continuity of our "authentic selves" & the "immemorial nation" is but another realm for politics...27/SM Image
@Swarthy_Bastard This perspective will inform our thread later today as we turn to the presence, prevalence, and persistence of Iraniyat or "Iranianess" in the curricula of the Pahlavi *and* IRI states.

See you soon!
28/Fin
#HistoryOfIran

Signing off, @Swarthy_Bastard Image

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More from @HistorianofIran

Mar 8, 2022
Khodadad Rezakhani @sasanianshah here:

In honour of the International Women’s Day, let’s talk about one very famous women of ancient Iran, Queen Shirin. She’s perhaps the most famous queen consort of the Sasanian period & a main character in many later historical accounts.
In popular imagination, she is mostly associated with the dual romances of “Khosrow & Shirin” and “Shirin & Farhad”… yeeees, this legendary woman has TWO medieval romances written about her! Take that Guinevere!

But she was MUCH more than that…
Syriac sources call Shirin an Aramaean, either an Aramaic speaker or from the area of Beth Aramaye (Asorestan/Cent Iraq). Sebeos says she was from Khuzistan, which works, as cities like Beth Lapat had large Aramaic speaking populations. She might have been from Porath/Furat.
Read 30 tweets
Jan 21, 2021
As promised, tonight I'll talk about religious storytelling or Pardeh Dari with a focus on Pardeh paintings. This is Golnar Touski, tweeting from Historians of Iran./1 @GolnarNemat
While reenactment and recitation of Shi’a tragedies were established by Safavid rulers (1501-1736) the practice gained popularity in Qajar Persia where Tekieyeh (تکیه) was a place of congregation for religious ceremonies. Here's a painting of one by Kamal al-Molk./2 @GolnarNemat
The stories were taken from existing Safavid literature of martyrology such as Rowzat-Al-Shohada or Toufan al-Boka. In Qajar Persia these were reproduced as lithographed books. In fact, emergence of printing was partly responsible for Pardeh./3 @GolnarNemat
Read 15 tweets
Jan 20, 2021
If you ever watched a Morshed (storyteller) performing from scenes of battles,heroes,infernal serpents and paradise birds, you know the absolute joy of Naqali,the art of storytelling. This is Morshed Mirza Ali whose family have been storytellers for generations. 1/17 @GolnarNemat Image
These days brilliant women storytellers are part of this traditionally male-exclusive profession. This is Sara Abbaspour; one of Morshed women today. The staff stick is a crucial part of performing, used to dramatize and to point to the painted scenes. 2/17 @GolnarNemat Image
In 19th century Persia forms of storytelling ranged from literature and oral anecdotes to themes of romance, chivalry and history of Shi'a Islam. Today we know Naqali mainly as reciting the epic of Shahnameh (Book of Kings) by 10-11th c. poet, Ferdowsi. 3/17 @GolnarNemat Rostam and Sohrab, from the...
Read 17 tweets
Jan 11, 2021
Thank you all for your support this week. It's been a blast! If you missed anything, here's a "thread of threads" of everything I talked about this week.

Please follow me at @IranChinaGuy for more posts like this! Also please check out my other project, @iranstudiesUS
1/ How far back can ties between ancient China and early Iranian societies in Central Asia be traced?

2/ On Sassanian-Tang relations, especially after the Muslim conquest of Persia.

Read 16 tweets
Jan 11, 2021
1/ In 1965, a leftist Iranian student movement in Europe declared its support for Mao Zedong's theories. The Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party (Sāzmān-e Enghelābi-ye Ḥezb-e Tūdeh) would become a major faction of the student opposition.

#IranChina by @IranChinaGuy ImageImageImage
2/ The ROTPI claimed “Comrade Mao has evolved Marxism, [and] we must solve issues from the point of view of Mao Zedong Thought." They began circulating translations of the works of Mao Zedong and other militant texts among Iranian students abroad. In pamphlets and periodicals... Image
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Read 20 tweets
Jan 9, 2021
1/ Persian was an important admin. and religious language during the Yuan and Ming, but declined under the Qing (1644-1912).

On the rise (and fall) of Persian language use in China and the decline of traditional Sino-Iranian ties by the 20th century.

#iranchina by @IranChinaGuy
2/ During the Yuan, China and Persia were linked by Mongol rule, and Persian was one of the official administrative languages. A few Persians held important status as members of the semuren (色目人), an administrative class made up of non-Mongol, non-Chinese subjects.
3/ For example, Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari, a Persian Muslim from Bukhara, was appointed by Kublai as governor of Yunnan in 1274, a fact mentioned by Marco Polo. Chinese sources record him as Sàidiǎnchì Zhānsīdīng (赛典赤·赡思丁).

(Img: Tomb in modern Yunnan)
Read 17 tweets

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