Applies formal analysis to several of the early modernist poems Nīmā Yūshīj wrote in Persian in the 1920s and 1930s. I purposefully highlight how Nīmā incorporates not only premodern Arabic prosody, but also premodern Arabic literary devices – especially muʿāraḍah or “contrafaction”– into his modernist Persian poetry. Ultimately, I argue that he uses contrafaction to sublate the past into the present in a way that contrasts sharply with the Pahlavi dynasty’s use of the Iranian past (or rather, a very specific version of that past) to fabricate a new, modern, national myth. For instance, the Pahlavis built mausoleums for premodern Persian literary exemplars like Hafiz, Attar, Omar Khayyam, and the author of the Iranian national epic, Ferdowsi, highlighting their essential Persianness in opposition to the rich history of Islam and Arabic in the region. I read poems like 1926’s “The Swan” and 1938’s “The Phoenix” to show how Nīmā develops the planetary modernist theme of death and rebirth (perhaps best known as the thematic engine of Eliot’s The Waste Land) to his own ends. I argue that by treating poetry as a craft we can better understand how Arab and Iranian modernists resisted nationalist mythmaking by deploying the past differently.

Chapter 1 focuses on framing research with strong grounding in theory and previous scholarship. This chapter introduces the book’s methodology and sources, as well as providing an overview of the book’s chapters and main arguments. This work claims two central arguments: first, the modern nation-state of Iran was established in 1979 with the revolution that instilled an indigenous and independent nationalism and eradicated all vestiges of foreign power, including the shah; second, the national identity created by the people during the decades preceding the revolution was the most resonant and inclusive because it infused the Shiite symbols ignored by the Pahlavi dynasty, and overused by the Islamic Republic, into populist elements of Iranian society. Despite the political turmoil of the Islamic Republic, that fusion and plurality endure. While the various chapters explore their own specific themes, these ideas run as threads throughout the work to tie the pieces together.

Chapter 6 outlines the conclusions of this investigation and highlights the lasting impacts of modern nationalist discourse on Iran. In addition, the concluding chapter looks at the most recent examples of resistance, through the agency of Iranian citizens. It also looks at contemporary politics inside Iran, and political events related to US–Iran relations with events as recent as the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. In the case of modern Iran, the state and community have been imagined and contested, legitimized and challenged, through the interaction of the state and the people within the global context of colonialism and modernity. By appreciating the complexity of this interaction, we can hope to ascertain a better understanding of national identity in modern Iran. Thus, the book moves beyond the essentialist representation of bipolar Iranian identity, emphasizing Islam versus pre-Islamic civilization, and the more recent proclivity in scholarship to reject both identities as inauthentic.

Chapter 2 provides historical background of Pahlavi monarchy and its nation-state project. To be a modern nation-state required a cohesive national identity and complimenting narrative. The significance of that account was not lost on the shah, who tried to formulate an uninterrupted history of Iranian dominion. Chapter 2 relies heavily on a close reading of the words of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to shed light on the shah’s rationale for upholding this narrative. The shah understood that Iran could not forge its independence and image as a modern nation-state without freedom from foreign control. According to the shah, it was his father who "created" the modern Iranian state and saved Iran from the ineptness of its previous dynasty. This chapter also challenges the shah’s account and explores how his subjects saw him as foreign and as a symbol of Iran’s capitulation to external powers. The shah’s failed nationalism left space for his opposition to produce an alternative narrative that captured the imagination of the masses of Iranian people. Chapter 2 lays the foundation for the sections that follow by presenting not only the newly constructed image of Iranian nationalism, but also why it was needed in order to advance the cause of independence.

This chapter provides an introduction, chapter outline and theoretical/conceptual framework for the book. Through this introductory chapter the reader will be introduced to the scope and significance, and the two main elements of the book with relevance to the Iranian Kurdish movement: firstly, the formation and politicisation of Kurdish national sentiment, and the reasons for the emergence and continuation of the Kurdish question in Iran; and secondly, the crossborder dimension of the interactions between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish political parties, and the impact of this interaction on the capability and direction of the Iranian Kurdish movement. In addition, this chapter reflects on the early twentieth-century nation-state policy in Iran, and its impact on the emergence of the national liberation movement of the Kurds in Iranian and reasons for the intensification and continuation of the Kurdish question.

This chapter provides an introduction, chapter outline and theoretical/conceptual framework for the book. Through this introductory chapter the reader will be introduced to the scope and significance, and the two main elements of the book with relevance to the Iranian Kurdish movement: firstly, the formation and politicisation of Kurdish national sentiment, and the reasons for the emergence and continuation of the Kurdish question in Iran; and secondly, the crossborder dimension of the interactions between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish political parties, and the impact of this interaction on the capability and direction of the Iranian Kurdish movement. In addition, this chapter reflects on the early twentieth-century nation-state policy in Iran, and its impact on the emergence of the national liberation movement of the Kurds in Iranian and reasons for the intensification and continuation of the Kurdish question.

This chapter explores the media image of the royal family and the monarchy’s crises of legitimacy by focusing on the Shah’s third wife, Queen Farah Pahlavi, who played out many of the internal contradictions embodied by the modern woman of the Pahlavi state’s modernized patriarchy. Her public representations, both in the national and foreign media, crafted her image as a mediator between traditionalism and modernity, Iranianess and globalization. Different sets of representations presented Farah Pahlavi as a young capable woman who managed both family and public voluntary obligations, while personifying a modern "middle-class" Iranian woman and mother, alongside her promotion as an international celebrity. Appraising the propagation of the former Iranian queen, the Shah and the royal Pahlavi family by crosschecking both the local and international press, sheds additional light on the fading image of the Iranian monarchy, and on the complex nature of cultural contact and exchange between Iran and the West.