This research project examines aspects of late Pahlavi (c. 1941-1979) cultural and intellectual history, focusing especially on nationalism, monarchical ideology and cultural politics. Culture is a vital means through which to explore late Pahlavi state and society, because there were so many competing narratives of Iranian identity expressed, including the official ideology of the regime, which was itself complex and had various (often competing) strands. Furthermore, artists and writers often circumvented the Pahlavi regime’s rigid control of political activity by engaging with its cultural policy through cultural production.
A major part of the project explores the contribution of the intellectual statesman Shojaeddin Shafa both to the Pahlavi state building project, and also to ideas and narratives of Iran’s past in general during the twentieth century. Shafa is the ideal case study to explore this because his intellectual journey provides opportunities to investigate many components of Iran’s intellectual landscape. For example, in his voluminous translations of European works into Persian, we can explore the reception of European thought into Iran in the interwar and post-war period. Through his political party and newspaper established during this period, we can see how Ancient Persia was evoked to inspire Iranians in an era when foreign governments consistently undermined Iran’s sovereignty. Through Shafa’s work at the Imperial Court of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from 1957 until the revolution, where he served as the shah’s primary speechwriter, ghost-writer of his books, and head of all the cultural initiatives at the court, we can explore the influence of Shafa on Pahlavi cultural policy in the final two decades before the revolution of 1979. During this period, Shafa became, in the words of the American scholar of Iran, Richard Frye, a ‘cultural tsar’ at the Imperial Court.