Persian Empire
Deep Dive 10 min read

Persian Legacy in Modern Iran: National Identity, Revolution, and Continuity

The Islamic Republic of Iran, founded in 1979 on the basis of an explicit anti-monarchical and anti-imperial ideology, has sometimes been portrayed as a break with the pre-Islamic Persian past. The historical evidence suggests otherwise. The new republic, like the Pahlavi monarchy it replaced, drew extensively on the symbolism, vocabulary, and institutional inheritance of the pre-Islamic Persian empires. Iran’s national identity, its official ceremonies, its monuments, its currency, its calendar, its language, and its conception of itself as a great power in the Middle East are all deeply Persian, and the Persian legacy in modern Iran is a question that intersects with the political and ideological struggles of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The English literature begins with Ervand Abrahamian’s Iran Between Two Revolutions (1982), Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi’s Refashioning Iran (2001), and the more recent work of Foad Ajami, Houchang Chehabi, and others. The Persian-language scholarship is vast, but the Persian-language introductions remain Abbas Eqbal Ashtiani’s Tarikh-e mofassal-e Iran and the contributions to the Cambridge History of Iran vols. VI–VII. Homa Katouzian’s The Persians: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran (2009) is the broad cultural survey, and Michael Axworthy’s Revolutionary Iran (2013) and The Sword of Persia (2006) are the most accessible political and military histories.

The modern historical background

The modern history of Iran begins with the decline of the Safavid Empire in the eighteenth century, the brief Naderid revival, the Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), and the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979) under Reza Shah and his son Mohammad Reza Shah. The Qajar period, in particular, was a time of growing European pressure, the loss of territory in the Caucasus and Central Asia to the Russian Empire, the constitutional movement of 1905–1911, and the increasing influence of European political and intellectual models. Yet the Qajar period was also a time of intense cultural and intellectual activity, in which the Persian literary, religious, and political traditions were vigorously debated and reformulated, and in which the figure of pre-Islamic Persia became a major element in the new national self-understanding.

The Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911 was one of the earliest constitutional movements in the non-Western world, and it was an event in which the Persian political tradition and the European Enlightenment model were fused in a distinctive Iranian synthesis. The leading ideologues of the Constitutional Revolution, including the cleric Mirza Muhammad-Husayn Na’ini (whose Tanbih al-Umma wa Tanzih al-Milla is a key text), the journalist Malek al-Motekallemin, the constitutionalist Muhammad ‘Ali Jamalzadeh, and the historian and jurist ‘Abdolhossein Nuri, framed the demand for constitutional government as a return to the Persian political tradition of limited monarchy and the rule of law.

The Iranian Constitution of 1906 was the first in the Islamic world — the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 and the Tunisian Constitution of 1861 are the earlier models usually cited, and the Iranian document was influenced by the Belgian, French, and Russian constitutions. The Iranian Constitution’s preamble, written by Nuri, contained long passages on the Persian political tradition and the Sasanian doctrine of the just king, and the constitution included provisions for the protection of religious minorities, the freedom of the press, and the establishment of a national assembly, the Majles, all of which were presented as a return to the Persian constitutional tradition. The “House of Justice,” the edalat-khaneh, has been read as an explicit revival of the Sasanian dadgar and the Sasanian tradition of the mobad (priest-judge), but the connection is more rhetorical than institutional; the edalat-khaneh was a constitutional innovation.

The Constitutional Revolution was ultimately defeated by the Russian intervention of 1911, in which the Russian Empire, with British support, forced the closure of the Majles and the suppression of the constitutional movement. Yet the ideas of the Constitutional Revolution remained influential, and the Majles was re-established in 1921, became a permanent institution under Reza Shah, and remains a central institution of the Islamic Republic. The 1979 constitution of the Islamic Republic, while explicitly anti-monarchical, included a Majles and drew on the constitutional tradition of 1906.

The Pahlavi era and the restoration of the Achaemenid past

The Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979) was an active restorer of pre-Islamic Persian heritage. Reza Shah, the founder of the dynasty, was a military officer from the Caspian province of Mazandaran who came to power in a 1921 coup and was crowned shah in 1925. Reza Shah consciously modelled his reign on the Achaemenid shahs, and he used the imagery of ancient Persia to construct a national narrative of imperial continuity. The official historiography of the Pahlavi period presented Reza Shah as the heir of Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, and the Sasanian shahs, and the dynasty’s name, “Pahlavi,” was taken from the Middle Persian language of the Sasanian period.

The most spectacular of the Pahlavi cultural events was the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian monarchy held at Persepolis in October 1971, an event attended by heads of state from across the world. The 2,500-year celebration, which commemorated the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great, was an explicit claim that the Iranian monarchy of the twentieth century was the legitimate heir of the Achaemenid empire. The event was controversial, in part because of the lavish expenditure in a country where many lived in poverty, but it was a major moment in the modern memory of Persia.

The Pahlavi regime also patronised the archaeology and conservation of pre-Islamic Persian sites. The archaeological excavations at Persepolis (continued from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago’s earlier work, with the major Persepolis volumes of Erich Schmidt and the Royal City of Susa volumes of the Louvre transforming the modern knowledge of pre-Islamic Persia), at Pasargadae, at Susa (with the French mission under Roland de Morgan and, later, Jean Perrot), and at Chogha Zanbil were major projects of the Pahlavi period. The “reconstruction of the Apadana” at Persepolis is misleading: the project was an anastylosis — the partial reassembly of fallen blocks — not a full reconstruction, and the Sasanian palace at Ctesiphon was not reconstructed. The National Museum of Iran, founded in 1937, became one of the great museums of the ancient world.

The Pahlavi reforms of the 1930s and 1960s, including the modernising reforms of Reza Shah and the White Revolution of Mohammad Reza Shah (1963), which included land reform, women’s suffrage, secularisation of the legal system, and the establishment of a literacy corps, were framed in terms of the Persian imperial tradition. The White Revolution was presented by Mohammad Reza Shah as a continuation of the reform programme of Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great. The Pahlavi regime also used the imagery of the Achaemenid kings in its official iconography, including the Lion and Sun emblem, the Derafsh Kaviani, the Simurgh, and the Faravahar, all of which were pre-Islamic Persian symbols that became official state symbols.

The Islamic Republic and the Persian inheritance

The Islamic Revolution of 1979, in which the Pahlavi regime was overthrown and replaced by an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was an explicit rejection of the secular, monarchical, and Westernising Pahlavi model. The official ideology of the new regime was explicitly Islamic and anti-monarchical, and the new republic adopted an anti-imperial, anti-Western, and anti-Zionist foreign policy. The Pahlavi symbols, including the Lion and Sun, the Pahlavi crown, and the imagery of the Achaemenid kings, were officially replaced by Islamic symbols.

Yet the new republic, in practice, retained much of the Pahlavi symbolic infrastructure. The national language is still Persian, the national calendar still begins with the Hijra but retains the solar year and the old Persian month names (Farvardin, Ordibehesht, Khordad, Tir, Mordad, Shahrivar, Mehr, Aban, Azar, Dey, Bahman, Esfand), and the official state ideology still claims Iran as a great civilisation with an ancient imperial history. Pre-Islamic sites such as Persepolis, Pasargadae, and Naqsh-e Rostam remain national monuments, and the memory of Cyrus the Great is honoured in official state discourse as the author of the first declaration of human rights. I find this continuity one of the more striking features of post-revolutionary Iran: the Islamic Republic has, on the cultural side, been a better custodian of pre-Islamic sites than the Pahlavi regime ever was, in part because the regime needs the pre-Islamic heritage for its own claim to civilisational depth.

The Islamic Republic has also maintained the institutional inheritance of the Pahlavi state. The Islamic Republic’s constitution of 1979, while explicitly Islamic in its basis, retains the institutional structure of a strong executive, a Majles (Islamic Consultative Assembly), an appointed Council of Guardians, and a Supreme Leader. The rahbar (leader) of the Islamic Republic, who is elected to renewable eight-year terms by the Assembly of Experts and holds supreme authority in the state, is, in significant part, a continuation of the monarchical tradition, and the title rahbar, like the title shah, is a Persian word. The revolutionary ideology of the Islamic Republic, while explicitly Shi’a, draws on the Persian concept of the farr (divine glory) and the Sasanian tradition of the farr-e izadi (divine glory from God), both of which were central to pre-Islamic Persian kingship.

The persistence of Persian cultural identity

The persistence of Persian cultural identity in the Islamic Republic is also evident in literature, art, and scholarship. The major Persian poets of the classical period, including Ferdowsi, Hafez, Saadi, Rumi, and Attar, are still central to the Iranian literary tradition, and their works are studied in Iranian schools, recited in Iranian public life, and translated into European and other languages. The Persian literary tradition, the Persian calendar, the Persian new year celebration of Nowruz, the Persian architectural and artistic heritage, the Persian cuisine, and the Persian forms of dress, music, and social life are all continuing elements of Iranian national identity.

The cultural policy of the Islamic Republic has also maintained, and in particular ways extended, the celebration of the pre-Islamic Persian heritage. The major sites of pre-Islamic Persia, including Persepolis, Pasargadae, Susa, Chogha Zanbil, Naqsh-e Rostam, and Naqsh-e Rajab, are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and they are visited by millions of Iranian and foreign tourists each year. The National Museum of Iran, the Reza Abbasi Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Carpet Museum of Iran, and dozens of other museums and cultural institutions in Iran preserve and display the pre-Islamic Persian heritage.

The persistence of Persian cultural identity is also visible in the diaspora. The Iranian diaspora, which numbers several million people in Europe, North America, Australia, and elsewhere, has been a major force in the preservation and dissemination of Persian culture, supporting Persian-language newspapers, magazines, websites, and broadcasting outlets, funding the publication of Persian literature in translation, and establishing a network of Persian cultural centres, schools, and community organisations. The diaspora has also been a major force in the academic study of Persian culture, supporting the establishment of chairs of Iranian studies at major universities, the publication of encyclopaedias and reference works, and the organisation of conferences and exhibitions on Persian art, literature, and history.

Iran as heir of Cyrus

The figure of Cyrus the Great has a particularly important place in the modern Iranian self-understanding. The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in 1879 at Babylon and housed in the British Museum since 1880, has been treated as a precursor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was invoked in the United Nations in 1971. In 2010, a replica of the Cyrus Cylinder was loaned to the National Museum of Iran, where it became a national icon. The figure of Cyrus the Great, the liberator of the Jews, the founder of the Persian Empire, the model of the just ruler, and the author of the first declaration of human rights, has become a central element in the modern Iranian national narrative, both in the Pahlavi period and in the Islamic Republic.

The reading of the Cyrus Cylinder as a “first declaration of human rights” is, I should note, a modern construction, popularised in Iran under the Pahlavis and picked up by the United Nations when a replica was displayed in 1971. Modern Assyriologists, including Irving Finkel, treat the cylinder as a piece of Babylonian royal propaganda in a long tradition. Finkel’s 2013 re-reading of the cuneiform is the most important recent philological work on the text. The point does not diminish the cylinder’s importance as a document of Achaemenid royal ideology, but it does mean that the human-rights reading is more about modern Iranian self-understanding than about what the Babylonians in 539 BCE thought they were witnessing.

For further reading

  • Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions (1982).
  • Tavakoli-Targhi, Mohamad. Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography (2001).
  • Chehabi, Houchang. His various articles on Pahlavi-era cultural politics.
  • Cronin, Stephanie, ed. The Making of Modern Iran (2003).
  • Ansari, Ali. Modern Iran Since 1921 (2003).
  • Katouzian, Homa. The Persians: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran (2009).
  • Axworthy, Michael. Revolutionary Iran (2013) and The Sword of Persia (2006).
  • Stausberg, Michael. Zoroastrianism (2022), for the religious side of the pre-Islamic heritage.
  • The Encyclopaedia Iranica entries on the Constitutional Revolution, Reza Shah, the White Revolution, and the Islamic Republic.