Persia Reference

"Modern Warfare: Iran/Iraq 1980-1988" by Chris Sheridan

2012-03-05T14:03:00.001-08:00

A comprehensive commentary of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988, which covers the highlights of this bitter conflict from the Iraqi blitzkrieg on seven Iranian cities to "The Fountain of Blood," where nerve agents and mustard gas were used to murder thousands.

Iran / Iraq 1980-1988: The war began September 22, 1980 when Iraqi troops launched a full-scale invasion of Iran. Iraq expected that Iran was weak after the Iranian Revolution, so Iraq would face little resistance. The war lasted eight years and there were heavy losses on both sides, with 600,000 Iranians and 400,000 Iraqis killed. Iraq's ruthless dictator shocked the world by using cyanide gas against the civilian Kurds - all captured by ITN British News cameramen. But despite Iraq's initial successes, the Iranians rallied and, using their much larger population, were able by mid-1982 to push the invaders out. In June 1982, the Iranians went on the offensive, but Iraq, with a significant advantage in heavy weaponry, was able to prevent a decisive invasion breakthrough. However, Saddam Husein's ambitious plans for developing Iraq into a world power came to a halt. Many believe this war was the precursor of the next war, the invasion of Kuwait and "Desert Storm."

Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988: A Few Images

2012-03-05T13:51:00.000-08:00

Parisa; "O, Sage" (Ala Ey Pir-e Farzane)

2012-03-03T17:47:00.000-08:00

Parisa Vaezi

Fātemeh Vā'ezi (Persian: فاطمه واعظی‎) (born 15 March 1950 in Tonekabon, Iran), commonly known by her stage name Parīsā (Persian: پریسا‎), is a Persian Classical vocalist and musician.

A student of maestro Mahmoud Karimi, Parisa has published several albums and performed numerous concerts throughout the world, sometimes with Dastan ensemble. Her major debut in Tehran was a concert at the Iran-America Society arranged by Lloyd Miller, a disciple of Dr. Daryush Safvat. After that concert, Miller, through writing reviews and other articles in various Terhan newspapers and magazines, was able to influence the Ministry of Culture to allow Parisa to be transferred from there to Dr. Safvat's Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music where her skills as a purely traditional dastgah vocalist would enhance their excellent instrumental ensemble.

After she was established at the Center, Miller convinced the CBS Iran A & R person to produce tapes of Parisa with the Center's instrumental ensemble the most sought after being in Dastgah-e Mahur and Dastgah-e Nava. These became hit releases and Parisa was invited to perform Chahargah at the famous Shiraz Arts Festival and other major venues. Her best work was with the Center where now famous virtuosi such as Dr.Dariush Talai (Tar (lute), Setar), Hossein Alizadeh (Tar,Setar), Jalal Zolfonun (Setar)and Majid Kiani (Santour) were established. (From Wikipedia)

The following YouTube includes her "O, Sage," a golden classic which gave momentum to her popularity. "O, Sage" is performed in Nava, a challenging mode in Iranian traditional music.

Neil MacGregor: 2600 years of history in one object, the Cyrus Cylinder

2012-02-20T13:13:00.000-08:00

Art historian and museum director Robert Neil MacGregor

A clay cylinder covered in Akkadian cuneiform script, damaged and broken, the Cyrus Cylinder is a powerful symbol of religious tolerance and multi-culturalism. In this enthralling talk Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, traces 2600 years of Middle Eastern history through this single object. (From TED)

"Opera Avicenna" by Michiel Borstlap

2012-02-19T19:25:00.000-08:00


Michiel Borstlap

Aria 'Wandering Heart'

Aria "I'm Sharazad"

FINALE

Susan Scollay on Persian poetry

2012-02-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

Susan Scollay

Susan Scollay reveals the beauty of Persian poetry and its vibrant tales of human and divine love. The classic love stories found in Persian poetry have been reflected in western culture, with parallels in the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare and in the lyrics of rock stars today. (From State Library of Victoria)

Michel Foucault's "What Are the Iranians Dreaming About?"

2012-01-30T16:06:00.000-08:00

Michel Foucault

An excerpt from
Foucault and the Iranian Revolution
Gender and the Seductions of Islamism
Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson

What Are the Iranians Dreaming About?
Michel Foucault

"They will never let go of us of their own will. No more than they did in Vietnam." I wanted to respond that they are even less ready to let go of you than Vietnam because of oil, because of the Middle East. Today they seem ready, after Camp David, to concede Lebanon to Syrian domination and therefore to Soviet influence, but would the United States be ready to deprive itself of a position that, according to circumstance, would allow them to intervene from the East or to monitor the peace?

Will the Americans push the shah toward a new trial of strength, a second "Black Friday"? The recommencement of classes at the university, the recent strikes, the disturbances that are beginning once again, and next month's religious festivals, could create such an opportunity. The man with the iron hand is Moghadam, the current leader of the SAVAK.

This is the backup plan, which for the moment is neither the most desirable nor the most likely. It would be uncertain: While some generals could be counted on, it is not clear if the army could be. From a certain point of view, it would be useless, for there is no "communist threat": not from outside, since it has been agreed for the past twenty-five years that the USSR would not lay a hand on Iran; not from inside, because hatred for the Americans is equaled only by fear of the Soviets.

Whether advisers to the shah, American experts, regime technocrats, or groups from the political opposition (be they the National Front or more "socialist-oriented" men), during these last weeks everyone has agreed with more or less good grace to attempt an "accelerated internal liberalization," or to let it occur. At present, the Spanish model is the favorite of the political leadership. Is it adaptable to Iran? There are many technical problems. There are questions concerning the date: Now, or later, after another violent incident? There are questions concerning individual persons: With or without the shah? Maybe with the son, the wife? Is not former prime minister Amini, the old diplomat pegged to lead the operation, already worn out?

The King and the Saint

There are substantial differences between Iran and Spain, however. The failure of economic development in Iran prevented the laying of a basis for a liberal, modern, westernized regime. Instead, there arose an immense movement from below, which exploded this year, shaking up the political parties that were being slowly reconstituted. This movement has just thrown half a million men into the streets of Tehran, up against machine guns and tanks.

Not only did they shout, "Death to the Shah," but also "Islam, Islam, Khomeini, We Will Follow You," and even "Khomeini for King."

The situation in Iran can be understood as a great joust under traditional emblems, those of the king and the saint, the armed ruler and the destitute exile, the despot faced with the man who stands up bare-handed and is acclaimed by a people. This image has its own power, but it also speaks to a reality to which millions of dead have just subscribed.

The notion of a rapid liberalization without a rupture in the power structure presupposes that the movement from below is being integrated into the system, or that it is being neutralized. Here, one must first discern where and how far the movement intends to go. However, yesterday in Paris, where he had sought refuge, and in spite of many pressures, Ayatollah Khomeini "ruined it all."

He sent out an appeal to the students, but he was also addressing the Muslim community and the army, asking that they oppose in the name of the Quran and in the name of nationalism these compromises concerning elections, a constitution, and so forth.

Is a long-foreseen split taking place within the opposition to the shah? The "politicians" of the opposition try to be reassuring: "It is good," they say. "Khomeini, by raising the stakes, reinforces us in the face of the shah and the Americans. Anyway, his name is only a rallying cry, for he has no program. Do not forget that, since 1963, political parties have been muzzled. At the moment, we are rallying to Khomeini, but once the dictatorship is abolished, all this mist will dissipate. Authentic politics will take command, and we will soon forget the old preacher." But all the agitation this weekend around the hardly clandestine residence of the ayatollah in the suburbs of Paris, as well as the coming and going of "important" Iranians, all of this contradicted this somewhat hasty optimism. It all proved that people believed in the power of the mysterious current that flowed between an old man who had been exiled for fifteen years and his people, who invoke his name.

The nature of this current has intrigued me since I learned about it a few months ago, and I was a little weary, I must confess, of hearing so many clever experts repeating: "We know what they don't want, but they still do not know what they want."

"What do you want?" It is with this single question in mind that I walked the streets of Tehran and Qom in the days immediately following the disturbances. I was careful not to ask professional politicians this question. I chose instead to hold sometimes-lengthy conversations with religious leaders, students, intellectuals interested in the problems of Islam, and also with former guerilla fighters who had abandoned the armed struggle in 1976 and had decided to work in a totally different fashion, inside the traditional society.

"What do you want?" During my entire stay in Iran, I did not hear even once the word "revolution," but four out of five times, someone would answer, "An Islamic government." This was not a surprise. Ayatollah Khomeini had already given this as his pithy response to journalists and the response remained at that point.

What precisely does this mean in a country like Iran, which has a large Muslim majority but is neither Arab nor Sunni and which is therefore less susceptible than some to Pan-Islamism or Pan-Arabism?

Indeed, Shiite Islam exhibits a number of characteristics that are likely to give the desire for an "Islamic government" a particular coloration. Concerning its organization, there is an absence of hierarchy in the clergy, a certain independence of the religious leaders from one another, but a dependence (even a financial one) on those who listen to them, and an importance given to purely spiritual authority. The role, both echoing and guiding, that the clergy must play in order to sustain its influence-this is what the organization is all about. As for Shi'ite doctrine, there is the principle that truth was not completed and sealed by the last prophet. After Muhammad, another cycle of revelation begins, the unfinished cycle of the imams, who, through their words, their example, as well as their martyrdom, carry a light, always the same and always changing. It is this light that is capable of illuminating the law from the inside. The latter is made not only to be conserved, but also to release over time the spiritual meaning that it holds. Although invisible before his promised return, the Twelfth Imam is neither radically nor fatally absent. It is the people themselves who make him come back, insofar as the truth to which they awaken further enlightens them.

It is often said that for Shi'ism, all power is bad if it is not the power of the Imam. As we can see, things are much more complex. This is what Ayatollah Shariatmadari told me in the first few minutes of our meeting: "We are waiting for the return of the Imam, which does not mean that we are giving up on the possibility of a good government. This is also what you Christians are endeavoring to achieve, although you are waiting for Judgment Day." As if to lend a greater authenticity to his words, the ayatollah was surrounded by several members of the Committee on Human Rights in Iran when he received me.

One thing must be clear. By "Islamic government," nobody in Iran means a political regime in which the clerics would have a role of supervision or control. To me, the phrase "Islamic government" seemed to point to two orders of things.

"A utopia," some told me without any pejorative implication. "An ideal," most of them said to me. At any rate, it is something very old and also very far into the future, a notion of coming back to what Islam was at the time of the Prophet, but also of advancing toward a luminous and distant point where it would be possible to renew fidelity rather than maintain obedience. In pursuit of this ideal, the distrust of legalism seemed to me to be essential, along with a faith in the creativity of Islam.

A religious authority explained to me that it would require long work by civil and religious experts, scholars, and believers in order to shed light on all the problems to which the Quran never claimed to give a precise response. But one can find some general directions here: Islam values work; no one can be deprived of the fruits of his labor; what must belong to all (water, the subsoil) shall not be appropriated by anyone. With respect to liberties, they will be respected to the extent that their exercise will not harm others; minorities will be protected and free to live as they please on the condition that they do not injure the majority; between men and women there will not be inequality with respect to rights, but difference, since there is a natural difference. With respect to politics, decisions should be made by the majority, the leaders should be responsible to the people, and each person, as it is laid out in the Quran, should be able to stand up and hold accountable he who governs.

It is often said that the definitions of an Islamic government are imprecise. On the contrary, they seemed to me to have a familiar but, I must say, not too reassuring clarity. "These are basic formulas for democracy, whether bourgeois or revolutionary," I said. "Since the eighteenth century now, we have not ceased to repeat them, and you know where they have led." But I immediately received the following reply: "The Quran had enunciated them way before your philosophers, and if the Christian and industrialized West lost their meaning, Islam will know how to preserve their value and their efficacy."

When Iranians speak of Islamic government; when, under the threat of bullets, they transform it into a slogan of the streets; when they reject in its name, perhaps at the risk of a bloodbath, deals arranged by parties and politicians, they have other things on their minds than these formulas from everywhere and nowhere. They also have other things in their hearts. I believe that they are thinking about a reality that is very near to them, since they themselves are its active agents.

It is first and foremost about a movement that aims to give a permanent role in political life to the traditional structures of Islamic society. An Islamic government is what will allow the continuing activity of the thousands of political centers that have been spawned in mosques and religious communities in order to resist the shah's regime. I was given an example. Ten years ago, an earthquake hit Ferdows. The entire city had to be reconstructed, but since the plan that had been selected was not to the satisfaction of most of the peasants and the small artisans, they seceded. Under the guidance of a religious leader, they went on to found their city a little further away. They had collected funds in the entire region. They had collectively chosen places to settle, arranged a water supply, and organized cooperatives. They had called their city Islamiyeh. The earthquake had been an opportunity to use religious structures not only as centers of resistance, but also as sources for political creation. This is what one dreams about [songe] when one speaks of Islamic government.

The Invisible Present

But one dreams [songe] also of another movement, which is the inverse and the converse of the first. This is one that would allow the introduction of a spiritual dimension into political life, in order that it would not be, as always, the obstacle to spirituality, but rather its receptacle, its opportunity, and its ferment. This is where we encounter a shadow that haunts all political and religious life in Iran today: that of Ali Shariati, whose death two years ago gave him the position, so privileged in Shi'ism, of the invisible Present, of the ever-present Absent.

During his studies in Europe, Shariati, who came from a religious milieu, had been in contact with leaders of the Algerian Revolution, with various left-wing Christian movements, with an entire current of non-Marxist socialism. (He had attended Gurvitch's classes.) He knew the work of Fanon and Massignon. He came back to Mashhad, where he taught that the true meaning of Shi'ism should not be sought in a religion that had been institutionalized since the seventeenth century, but in the sermons of social justice and equality that had already been preached by the first imam. His "luck" was that persecution forced him to go to Tehran and to have to teach outside of the university, in a room prepared for him under the protection of a mosque. There, he addressed a public that was his, and that could soon be counted in the thousands: students, mullahs, intellectuals, modest people from the neighborhood of the bazaar, and people passing through from the provinces. Shariati died like a martyr, hunted and with his books banned. He gave himself up when his father was arrested instead of him. After a year in prison, shortly after having gone into exile, he died in a manner that very few accept as having stemmed from natural causes. The other day, at the big protest in Tehran, Shariati's name was the only one that was called out, besides that of Khomeini.

The Inventors of the State

I do not feel comfortable speaking of Islamic government as an "idea" or even as an "ideal." Rather, it impressed me as a form of "political will." It impressed me in its effort to politicize structures that are inseparably social and religious in response to current problems. It also impressed me in its attempt to open a spiritual dimension in politics.

In the short term, this political will raises two questions:

1. Is it sufficiently intense now, and is its determination clear enough to prevent an "Amini solution," which has in its favor (or against it, if one prefers) the fact that it is acceptable to the shah, that it is recommended by the foreign powers, that it aims at a Western-style parliamentary regime, and that it would undoubtedly privilege the Islamic religion?

2. Is this political will rooted deeply enough to become a permanent factor in the political life of Iran, or will it dissipate like a cloud when the sky of political reality will have finally cleared, and when we will be able to talk about programs, parties, a constitution, plans, and so forth?

Politicians might say that the answers to these two questions determine much of their tactics today.

With respect to this "political will," however, there are also two questions that concern me even more deeply.

One bears on Iran and its peculiar destiny. At the dawn of history, Persia invented the state and conferred its models on Islam. Its administrators staffed the caliphate. But from this same Islam, it derived a religion that gave to its people infinite resources to resist state power. In this will for an "Islamic government," should one see a reconciliation, a contradiction, or the threshold of something new?

The other question concerns this little corner of the earth whose land, both above and below the surface, has strategic importance at a global level. For the people who inhabit this land, what is the point of searching, even at the cost of their own lives, for this thing whose possibility we have forgotten since the Renaissance and the great crisis of Christianity, a political spirituality. I can already hear the French laughing, but I know that they are wrong.

First published in Le Nouvel Observateur, October 16-22, 1978.

Copyright notice: Excerpt from pages 203-9 of Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism by Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, published by the University of Chicago Press. ©2005 by the University of Chicago. All rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the University of Chicago Press.

Découverte du Monde: Ispahan (French)

2012-01-24T17:06:00.000-08:00

Isfahan (Persian: اصفهان Esfahān), historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609 and is Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad. The Isfahan metropolitan area had a population of 3,430,353 in the 2006 Census, the second most populous metropolitan area in Iran after Tehran.

The cities of Najafabad, Se-deh (Homayounshahr, renamed Khomeinishahr since 1981), Khan Isfahan, Shahin-shahr, Zarrinshahr, Mobarakeh, Falavarjan and Fouladshahr all constitute the metropolitan city of Isfahan.

Isfahan is located on the main north-south and east-west routes crossing Iran, and was once one of the largest cities in the world. It flourished from 1050 to 1722, particularly in the 16th century under the Safavid dynasty, when it became the capital of Persia for the second time in its history. Even today, the city retains much of its past glory. It is famous for its Islamic architecture, with many beautiful boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, mosques, and minarets. This led to the Persian proverb "'Esfahān nesf-e jahān ast" (Isfahan is half of the world).

The Naghsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan is one of the largest city squares in the world and an outstanding example of Iranian and Islamic architecture. It has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The city also has a wide variety of historic monuments. (From Wikipedia)

Poet Robert Bly on the Great Persian Poets Hafez and Rumi

2012-01-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

Robert Bly, American Poet

Robert Bly was born in western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Harold Brodky, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes. He graduated in 1950 and spent the next few years in New York living, as they say, hand to mouth.

Beginning in 1954, he took two years at the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number of major poets whose force was not present in the United States, among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving. During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and children.

In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau,The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.

His work Iron John: A Book About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work. Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many cultures.

Books of poetry from the 1990s include What Have I Ever Lost by Dying? Collected Prose Poems and Meditations on the Insatiable Soul, both published by Harper Collins. His second large prose book, The Sibling Society, published by Addison-Wesley in hardcover and Vintage in paperback, has been the subject of nation-wide discussion. His collection, Morning Poems (Harper Collins), named for William Stafford's practice of writing a poem each morning, revisits the western Minnesota farm country of Bly's boyhood with marvelous wit and warmth. In the 1990s he published The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine (Henry Holt) in collaboration with Marion Woodman. A new selected poems, Eating the Honey of Words, appeared in 1999 from Harper Flamingo. Recent translations include his versions of Ghalib, The Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib (with Sunil Dutta) from Ecco Press and Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door (HarperCollins) a collection of poems by Hafez (with Leonard Lewisohn). Bly has also edited the prestigious Best American Poetry 1999 (Scribners). In 2000 he won the McKnight Foundation's Distinguished Artist Award. A book of ghazals, The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, was published by HarperCollins, 2001, and his selected translations, The Winged Energy of Delight, appeared from HarperCollins in 2004. In 2005 HarperCollins published his second book of ghazals, My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy. In 2008, the Guthrie Theatre staged his translation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Recently, White Pine Press has published a new selection of his prose poems, Reaching Out to the World. Forthcoming in 2011 from W. W. Norton is a new collection of poems, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey. (From Robert Bly's official website)

Hooshmand Varaei: "Whistling Under Water"

2012-01-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

Whistling Under Water

The 2010 edition of the Videoex Experimental Film and Video Festival awarded Iran's Whistling under Water directed by Houshmand Varaei. The 15-minute film was granted the Special Mention of the Swiss festival, which was held from May 22 to 30, 2010 in Zurich. Whistling under Water also won the First Prize for Best Film and Second Prize for Best Director of the first Nowruz of Hamghadam Short Film Festival in Paris. A production of Iran Film School, Varaei's 2009 production was granted the Open St. Petersburg Film Festival Beginning's diploma 'in memory of Sergey Dobrotvorsky' for the fruitful search of sources of the impossible.Varaei has also directed the 30-minute film Kites Know No Chastity, which has been screened at Denmark's International Odense Film Festival and the Australia Experimental Film Festival.

LURISTAN BRONZE OBJECTS

2011-12-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

The label “Luristan bronzes” (see BRONZES OF LURISTAN) designates a series of decorated bronze objects in a specific local style dating from the Iron Age (ca. 1300/1250 to 700/650 BCE). These bronzes became known through large-scale illegal excavations starting in the late 1920s, but their cultural context and provenance remained uncertain for a long time and the label is often wrongfully used—usually for commercial reasons—for bronze objects from other regions or periods. The canonical Luristan bronzes belong to the geographical region of Luristan (present day provinces of Lorestān and Ilām), and include lost wax casts as well as sheet metal objects. Although few Luristan bronzes were found during controlled excavations, it is ascertained that the majority came from tombs, while one specific category (pins with decorated heads) have up to now only been found as ex-votos in a sanctuary. They mainly date to the Early Iron Age and are rare in Iron Age III (Overlaet, 2005, pp. 9-16).

The Luristan style is characterized by stylized human and animal forms, often combined to create fantastic creatures. Humans, birds, snakes, horses, bovid and feline species, and several species of goats are the main components. Vegetal elements are mostly used in a “tree of life” capacity, as border motifs or as filler motifs in between the principal iconography. The available evidence points to a chronological evolution from simple naturalistic themes to more complicated and fantastic creations.

There are several categories of objects that display the Luristan style. Horse gear includes horse-harness trappings and horse bits with decorative cheek pieces. Arms and equipment include spiked axe heads, adzes, daggers, swords, whetstone handles, and quiver plaques. Among the jewelry are rings, bracelets, pendants, and pins with cast or hammered sheet metal heads. An important series are the so-called “idols,” also labeled “finials” or “standards,” placed on tubular stands. Although Luristan bronzes are generally made of bronze, some are also bimetallic and consist of iron with cast-on bronze decorations (pins, bracelets, halberds, etc.). Exceptionally, there are a number of decorated iron artifacts that copy the cast bronze decorations. Since they belong to the same culture and display the same style, they should be included within the concept of Luristan bronzes (Moorey, 1991). (From Encyclopædia Iranica)

LURISTAN BRONZE OBJECTS

2011-12-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

"After Paradise": A Documentary about Contemporary Art in Iran by Fergus Meiklejohn (2006)

2011-12-21T15:15:00.000-08:00

Fergus Meiklejohn

Iran Susa Painted Pottery (4500-4200 BC)

2011-12-19T09:38:00.000-08:00

Susa

Susa (Persian: شوش Shush [ʃuʃ]; Greek: Σοῦσα [ˈsuːsa]; Syriac: ܫܘܫ Shush; Old Persian Çūšā-; Biblical Hebrew שׁוּשָׁן Shushān) was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about 250 km (160 mi) east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers.

The modern Iranian town of Shush is located at the site of ancient Susa. Shush is the administrative capital of the Shush County of Iran's Khuzestan province. It had a population 64,960 in 2005.

In urban history, Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of the region and the world, possibly founded about 4200 BCE. Archeologists have dated the first traces of an inhabited Neolithic village to c 7000 BCE. Evidence of a painted-pottery civilization has been dated to c 5000 BCE. Its name in Elamite was written variously Ŝuŝan, Ŝuŝun, etc. The origin of the word Susa is from the local city deity Inshushinak. (From Wikipedia)

Asghar Farhadi: "A Separation" (2011)

2011-12-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

A Separation (Persian: جدایی نادر از سیمین, translit. Jodái-e Náder az Simin) is a 2011 Iranian drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, starring Leila Hatami, Peyman Moaadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat and Sarina Farhadi. It focuses on an Iranian middle-class couple who separate, and the intrigues which follow when the husband hires a lower-class caretaker for his elderly father. The film received the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bears for Best Actress and Best Actor at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear.The film is the official Iranian candidate for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. (From Wikipedia)

Asghar Farhadi

Asghar Farhadi is a graduate of Theatre, with a BA in Dramatic Arts and MA in Stage Direction from Tehran University and Tarbiat Modarres University. Farhadi made short 8mm and 16mm films in Isfahan branch of Iranian Young Cinema Society before moving on to writing plays and screenplays for IRIB. He also directed such TV series as the popular A Tale of a City and co-wrote the screenplay of Ebrahim Hatamikia’s Low Heights. Dancing in the Dust was his feature film debut, which he followed with the critically acclaimed A Beautiful City.

His third film, Fireworks Wednesday won the Gold Hugo at the 2006 Chicago International Film Festival. His fourth film, About Elly won the Silver Bear for Best Director at 59th International Berlin Film Festival as well as Best Picture at Tribeca Film Festival. It is about a group of Iranians who take a trip to the Caspian Sea that turns tragic. Famous film theorist and film critic David Bordwell has called About Elly a masterpiece.

His latest film Nader and Simin, A Separation premiered on 9 February 2011 at the 29th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran and received rave reviews from Iran Society of Film Critics. It won Farhadi four awards including Best Director (for the third time after Fireworks Wednesday and About Elly). On 15 February it also played in competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival which finally earned him Golden Bear for best film becoming the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear. In June 2011, A Separation won the Sydney Film Prize in competition with Cannes Festival's winner The Tree of Life directed by Terrence Malick . (From Wikipedia)

"A Separation" could hardly be more concrete, or contemporary, or dramatic.

Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journa

Farhadi demonstrates a Hitchcockian flair for suspense, while his cast deliver faultless performances.

Lewis Porteous

Skinny

One of the year's best foreign films, A Separation goes beyond its particular Iranian tale of a marital dissolution, contesting along the way gender, cultural, and religious values and taboos.

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

A light yet powerful Islamic family drama that refuses to cave in to stereotypes.

Ron Wilkinson

Monsters and Critics

A solid Iranian Oscar-entry that puts women in the forefront in a battle of wills that happily posits more questions than answers.

Harvey S. Karten

Compuserve

It resonates deeply thanks to its universality, which it miraculously achieves without ever once selling out the social mores of its location. Profoundly affecting, wonderfully performed and endlessly surprising.

Simon Miraudo

Quickflix

A masterpiece of intimate, dramatic filmmaking.

Tom Clift

Cut Print Review

The iniquities of contemporary Iran are essayed in this absorbing, award-winning marital drama about the ways in which tiny events can have cataclysmic consequences.

Alistair Harkness

Scotsman

A stunning piece of work, beautifully telling a raw human story with expert writing, direction, photography, editing and acting.

Rich Cline

Shadows on the Wall

A Separation twists and turns, layering on crucial details and moral quandaries in each scene, never for a moment allowing us the luxury of identifying too easily with any single character.

Sukhdev Sandhu

Daily Telegraph

You won't see a more absorbing film all year.

David Edwards

Daily Mirror [UK] (From Rotten Tomatoes)

Karen Armstrong: Ancient Iran and Its Links With Us

2011-12-13T17:57:00.000-08:00

Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith. Armstrong first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, an international best seller that is now required reading in many theology courses. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance, in many, of compassion or "The Golden Rule". (From Wikipedia)

In her lecture here, Karen Armstrong talks about the teachings of Zoroaster and the impact of Persian Zoroastrianism on Abrahamic religions, Judeism, Christianity, and Islam.

"People of the Flame" by David Adams

2011-12-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

David Adams

Over the last 17 years, David Adams has developed his reputation both through his reporting and the numerous documentary films that he has written, directed and produced. He is best known for his investigative work, particularly Journeys to the Ends of the Earth, a 13 part documentary series made for the Discovery Network. His passion for anthropology, archeology, history and diverse cultures continues to take him to some of the world's most remote locations - including Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Siberia, Central Asia, Central Africa and the Pacific Rim in search of indigenous peoples and their disappearing cultures.

In addition to his adventures in documentary filmmaking, David is a widely published photojournalist with articles appearing in over fifty countries. David has also acted as a war correspondent in Afghanistan and Georgia and has had a long-term association with The Sydney Morning Herald, as well as other popular Australian periodicals and television networks including the ABC. After a secondary education at The Kings School in Sydney, Australia, David gained a grounding in marketing, promotion and advertising. His varied and unique experience continues to take David into new realms and he is currently developing his first feature film. (From DAVID ADAMS FILMS)

In People of the Flame, David Adams travels the Iranian wilderness in search of the Zoroastrians, an ancient people who have tended a holy flame for the last 1500 years.

Elaine Sciolino Talks about "Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Faces of Iran"

2011-12-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

Elaine Sciolino

No American reporter has more experience covering Iran or more access to the private corners of Iranian society than Elaine Sciolino. As a correspondent for Newsweek and The New York Times, she has reported on the key events of the past two decades. She was aboard the airplane that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran in 1979; she was there for the Iranian revolution, the hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq war, the rise of President Mohammad Khatami, and the riots of the summer of 1999.

Persian Mirrors takes us into the public and private spaces of Iran—the bazaars, beauty salons, aerobics studios, courtrooms, universities, mosques, and the presidential palace—to capture the vitality of a society so often misunderstood by Americans. She demystifies a country of endless complexity, where, on the streets, women swathe themselves in black and behind high walls, they adorn themselves with makeup and jewelry; where the laws of Islam are the law of the land, and yet the government advertises as tourist attractions the ruins of the pre-Islamic imperial capital at Persepolis and the synagogue where Queen Esther is said to be buried; and where even the most austere clerics recite sensual romantic poetry, insisting that it refers to divine, and not earthly, love. Iran is also a place with a dark side, where unpredictable repression is carried out, officially and unofficially, by forces intent on maintaining power and influence.

Sciolino deftly uses her travels throughout Iran and her encounters with its people to portray the country as an exciting, daring laboratory where experiments with two highly volatile chemicals – Islam and democracy – are being conducted. The election of the reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami as President in 1997 exposed these contradictions by opening the door not only to greater popular participation in Iran’s Islamic government, but also to fierce political infighting, conducted as much with subtlety and indirection as with repression and fear.

Like the mirror mosaics found in Iran’s royal palaces and religious shrines, there is more to the whole of the country than the fragments revealed to outsiders. Persian Mirrors captures this elusive Iran. Sciolino paints in astonishing detail and rich color the surprising inner life of this country, where a great battle is raging not for control over territory but for the soul of the nation. (From Elaine Sciolino's website)

"First Case, Second Case (1979)" by Abbas Kiarostami

2011-12-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

Abbas Kiarostami

Open case: Kiarostami's film reemerges after 30 years
by MEHRZAD BAKHTIAR (Tehran Bureau)

In the magnificent haste and enthusiasm of Iranians to share insight about the questionable presidential election in June, a number of significant cultural artifacts, either forgotten or previously unheard of, have been brought to light. One such gem is Abbas Kiarostami's Ghazieh Shekle Aval Shekle Dovom or First Case, Second Case.

Kiarostami is a canonized filmmaker both inside and outside of Iran, yet this highly important work managed to remain under the radar of even most cinema enthusiasts until just a few months ago when it appeared online. Free and widely available, it affords us the opportunity to examine Kiarostami's astute social observations through the lens of recent history.

The 47-minute documentary begins by depicting a scenario: a teacher drawing a diagram on the chalkboard with his back to the class is interrupted several times by the sound of a pen banging rhythmically against a desk. Each time he turns around, the noise stops, only to resume again. Finally, unable to pick out the culprit, the teacher tells the seven boys sitting in the corner of the room to leave the class. The students are given an ultimatum, which becomes the basis of the film: either (case one) they inform the teacher who was causing the disturbance, or (case two), they will all be suspended for a week. Kiarostami then goes on to interview the fathers of the students, as well as ministers, religious leaders, writers, filmmakers and directors of educational institutions about their opinions as to the proper course of action.

The initial appeal of the film lies in the presentation of this very dilemma. Rather than take a moral stance on the issue, Kiarostami depicts each case with a sense of removed neutrality. We are encouraged to weigh two deadlocked positions against each other; each has its advantages and disadvantages, and there is no nuanced third way out. Those viewers who are unable to reduce their vales into a cut-and-dry answer will likely agree with writer and filmmaker, Noureddin Zarrinkelk, that "a clear answer is really very difficult to come up with."

After this first response, the film cuts to a head-on shot of a working projector, invoking in the viewer the feeling that the film of the students in the class is being projected onto their person, that he or she is in fact one of the children faced with this moral decision.

As the film continues, however, we see that few of the interviewees are as torn or impartial as Zarrinkelk. Having been shot in 1979-80 and released in 1980, only a year after the Islamic revolution, most answers are impassioned and highly politicized. The question is not merely one of a student disrupting a class and a teacher doling out whatever punishment he deems fit. Whether or not the analogy is explicitly made, most of the people interviewed see the scenario as a greater issue of solidarity versus selling out, of standing one's ground against an abuse of power, versus giving into, and hence supporting that power.

In addition to still-popular celebrities like Iranian actor Ezzatolah Entezami and filmmaker Masoud Kimiai, First Case, Second Case includes a cast of important political figures: Ebrahim Yazdi, for example, was an active member of the National Resistance Movement as well as the Freedom Movement of Iran. He became Foreign Minister after the revolution, only to step down in less than a year in opposition to the hostage crisis. Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, then director of the Islamic Republic's Radio and Television Network, would replace Yazdi, only to be executed in less than a year for allegedly plotting to assassinate Khomeini. Other figures include Kamal Kharazi, who would become Minister of Foreign Affairs during the Khatami administration, and Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, the notorious Revolutionary Court magistrate who sentenced a great number of former government officials to execution.

The obvious, retrospective irony, of course -- the element that makes this film even more compelling now than when it was made -- is the sight of so many important figures supporting a revolution that would come to embody a totalitarian government, itself completely intolerant of the very same rebellion and resistance they promote in their films.

Whether or not Kiarostami could foresee what this film would come to mean is ultimately irrelevant. Either way, he was able to put his finger on an issue that beautifully captured the fervent dynamics of a historical moment. What resulted was a film from which, thirty years later, every Iranian can still learn. (From Tehran Bureau)

Henry Corbin; Shiisme et Ismaélisme (French)

2011-12-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

Henry Corbin

Henry Corbin (14 April 1903 - 7 October 1978) was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

Corbin was born in Paris in April 1903. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work. Although he was Protestant by birth, he was educated in the Catholic tradition and at the age of 19 received a certificate in Scholastic philosophy from the Catholic Institute of Paris. Three years later he took his "licence de philosophie" under the great Thomist Étienne Gilson. In 1928 he encountered the formidable Louis Massignon, director of Islamic studies at the Sorbonne, and it was he who introduced Corbin to the writings of Suhrawardi, the 12th century Persian mystic and philosopher whose work was to profoundly affect the course of Corbin’s life. The stage was then set for a personal drama that has deep significance for understanding those cultures whose roots lie in both ancient Greece and in the prophetic religions of the Near East reaching all the way back to Zoroaster. Years later Corbin said “through my meeting with Suhrawardi, my spiritual destiny for the passage through this world was sealed. Platonism, expressed in terms of the Zoroastrian angelology of ancient Persia, illuminated the path that I was seeking.”

Corbin is responsible for redirecting the study of Islamic philosophy as a whole. In his Histoire de la philosophie islamique (1964), he disproved the common view that philosophy among the Muslims came to an end after Ibn Rushd, demonstrating rather that a lively philosophical activity persisted in the eastern Muslim world – especially Iran – and continues to our own day. (From Wikipedia)

Ghormeh Sabzi

2011-12-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

Ghormeh Sabzi

Ghormeh sabzi is a Persian herb stew. It is a popular dish and an important element of Persian cuisine, often said to be the Iranian "national dish". In Azerbaijan, the stew is called Səbzi qovurma.

The main ingredients are a mixture of sauteed herbs, consisting mainly of parsley, leek, and a smaller amount of fenugreek leaves--where this is usually the dry herb of the mix. The herb mixture has many variations; spinach and coriander are added in some regions, but do not form part of the original recipe. This mixture is cooked with kidney beans or black eyed peas, red onions, chopped chives, pierced dehydrated limes, and turmeric seasoned lamb shank or neck or veal meat. Traditional Qormeh sabzi is almost always cooked with lamb and kidney beans, while in some northwestern regions of Iran, variations with black-eye beans exist. In recent times, some people replace beans with potatoes, which is also not part of the original recipe. Also, some prefer to leave out the fenugreek, while many consider it to be an essential ingredient. The dish is then served with polo (Persian rice) or over "tahdig" (bottom-of-the-pot), the crunchy al-dente section of the twice-cooked rice.

Sabzi means greenery, and also describes various green herbs. (From Wikipedia)

"Tranquility in the Presence of Others (1973)" by Nasser Taghvai

2011-12-04T19:45:00.000-08:00

Nasser Taghvai

Nāsser Taghvāí (also spelt Nāser Taghvāee, Persian: ناصر تقوایی , born 1941) is an Iranian film director and screenwriter.

Born in Abadan, Iran, he graduated from the Faculty of Literature in Tehran University. After early experiences as a storywriter, he began filming documentaries in 1967. He made his debut, Tranquility in the Presence of Others, in 1970 and gained the attention of Iranian critics. His concern for the ethnography and atmosphere of southern Iran is notable in his films.

Most of his works have been based on novels. Captain Khorshid is an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, which won the third prize at the 48th Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 1988.

In 1999 he directed a segment of the film Tales of Kish, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

"My Tehran for Sale" by Granaz Moussavi

2011-12-03T15:27:00.000-08:00

Granaz Moussavi

Granaz Moussavi (Persian : گراناز موسوی ), (born January 26, 1974 in Tehran) is an Iranian-Australian contemporary poet, film director and screen writer. She is primarily renowned for her avant-garde poetry in the 90's. Her award winning debut feature film My Tehran for Sale is an internationally acclaimed Australian-Iranian co-production. (From Wikipedia)

My Tehran for Sale (Persian :تهران من، حراج), is an internationally acclaimed 2009 Australian-Iranian feature film written and directed by avant-garde poet turned filmmaker Granaz Moussavi, produced by Cyanfilms and starring Marzieh Vafamehr, Amir Chegini and Asha Mehrabi.

Officially selected by Toronto, Rotterdam, Pusan and several other international film festivals, this debut art-house, explores the contemporary Tehran and its underground art scene focusing on the life of a young actress who has been banned from her theater work. Struggling to pursue her passion in art as well as her secret life-style in a socially oppressed environment, Marzieh gets involved in some subsequent and unexpected events leading her to a decision-making dilemma regarding her survival and identity.

Unlike already acclaimed Iranian exotic cinema which is mostly known in the West by its portrayal of rural life, nature landscapes, as well as socio-economically deprived children struggling for survival in the outskirts of Tehran, the writer/director of My Tehran for Sale attempts to depict the middle class people and the uncertainties in their every day urban life. My Tehran for Sale has a poetic language to address critical issues such as double life of young people, women oppression, HIV issue, secret abortions, underground art, massive immigration, crisis of identity, people smuggling and also asylum seeker detention centers.

My Tehran For Sale is the winner of Independent spirit Inside Film Awards 2009. It won the jury award for best feature Film at the TriMedia Film Festival in 2010. Apart from various festivals and universities the film was screened at Museum of Modern Art MoMA in New York as well as Cinémathèque Française in Paris.

The film has been an official selection to Toronto International Film Festival TIFF (Sep 2009), Vancouver International Film Festival (Sep-Oct 2009), Busan International Film Festival BIFF(formerly PIFF) (Oct 2009), International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg (Nov 2009), Museum of Modern Art MoMA (New York, Jan 2010), International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan 2010), International Film Festival Prague - Febiofest, 2010 Cinema Novo Film Festival Brugges 2010, CPH:PIX Copenhagen International Film Festival 2010, Guadalajara International Film Festival Mexico, Sydney Travelling Film Festival, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, Human Rights Arts and Film Festival HRAFF 2010, Focus on Asia Fukuoka International Film Festival 2010 , Global Lens USA 2010, Dialogue of Cultures Film Festival New York 2011 and SVAW Film Fesival Melbourne 2011, etc. (From Wikipedia)

Amir Naderi's "CUT" Press Conference

2011-11-30T19:28:00.000-08:00

Amir Naderi

Amir Naderi (Persian: امیر نادری, born 15 August, 1946 in Abadan) is a notable Iranian film director, screenwriter and one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Persian cinema. Naderi developed his knowledge of cinema by watching films at the theater where he worked as a boy, reading film criticism, and making relationships with leading film critics. He began his career with still photography for some notable Iranian features. In the 1970s, Naderi turned to directing, and made some of the most important features of the New Iranian Cinema. In 1971, his directorial debut, Goodbye Friend was released in Iran. Mr. Naderi first came into the international spotlight with films that are now known as cinema classics, The Runner (1985), and Water, Wind, Dust (1989). The Runner is considered by many critics to be one of the most influential films of the past quarter century. After a number of his films were banned by the Iranian government, Mr. Naderi left the country. Expatriating to New York, Mr. Naderi continued to produce new work. He was named a Rockefeller Film and Video fellow in 1997, and has served as an artist in residence and instructor at Columbia University, the University of Las Vegas, and New York's School of Visual Arts. His U.S. films have premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center/MOMA's New Films New Director's series, the Venice, Cannes, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. His last feature, Sound Barrier (2005) won the prestigious Roberto Rossellini Prize at the Rome Film Festival. Mr Naderi should come back in great shape in 2011 with CUT. Starring Hidetoshi Nishijima and Takako Tokiwa, CUT laments the collapse of Japanese cinema through the gripping tale of a young filmmaker giving it all to make his next movie.

Due to smaller distribution and advertising budgets, Mr. Naderi's films are not as well known as most Hollywood films. Despite that and the lack of recognizable actors in most of his films, his work tends to find distribution (mainly in Europe and Japan), and he has earned a great deal of critical acclaim. Mr. Naderi’s films and photography are also frequently the subject of retrospectives at major festivals and museums throughout the world. Lincoln Center in New York, the city that has been his home for the past 20 years, offered a complete retrospective of his work in 2001, as did the International Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy in 2006. The most recent retrospective of his work was screened at the Pusan International Film Festival, the largest in Asia. Mr. Naderi has served as a jury member of international film festivals for over a decade. (From Wikipedia)

Influential Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi’s internationally funded, Tokyo-set production is not your average slice-of-life tale. Fiercely unconventional, Cut stole Naderi away from his (semi-)native New York and planted him in the middle of a unique funding scheme. The aptly named Tokyo Story, a production outfit consisting of two bankers with a lot of bright ideas, found a way to dodge big-industry bucks, keeping Cut independent and one hundred per cent real. Besides, what big studio would dare make a film about the end of cinema?

Using stark black-and-white imagery and a raw, digital aesthetic, Cut tells the story of Shuji (Hidetoshi Nishijima), an unknown filmmaker who craves great cinema like a junkie dying for a fix. The only problem, he figures, is that great films are dead — unless he can find a way to make them himself. Shuji seeks solace on rooftops or in graveyards, where he preaches the gospel of the old film classics with the manic energy of a television evangelist to whoever will listen. The only thing that regularly quells his mania is the sound of his 16mm projector playing the works of Kurosawa, Ozu or Mizoguchi at the weekly screenings he hosts above his apartment. That is, until two thugs suddenly appear and drag him away.

Much like his leading man, Naderi received his cinematic education by devouring golden oldies and forming relationships with notable film critics who later prompted him to become part of the New Iranian Cinema and benefit from its increasing international reach. However, unlike Naderi, Shuji only ever manages to make a few forgettable films that almost no one sees. These films are financed exclusively by his obliging brother, who borrows money from the yakuza. When the gang demands their debt be cleared, Shuji puts his love for movies to the test, offering to work as a human punching bag. It’s a role that could easily cost him his life — or maybe, just maybe, earn him enough self-respect to make another movie. A great one. (From tiff.)

Navab, Tehran

2011-11-28T14:49:00.000-08:00

Hossein Edalatkhah: Iranian Homoerotic Art

2011-11-27T13:03:00.000-08:00

Hossein Edalatkhah was born in Iran in 1979. He lives in Turkey now and holds exhibitions all over the world. His works are represent his protest against undemocratic and discriminating societies and governments especially the current Iranian government. The artist states, "My body is my source to protest against the governmental propaganda. In my collection I decided to look back to my history so you can witness Safavieh, Qajar, Pahlavi, and Islamic Republic periods."

Shah of Iran Interviewed by David Frost in 1979

2011-11-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

"Talking With A Shadow" by Khosrow Sinai (2005)

2011-11-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

Talking With A Shadow is a movie about the renowned Iranian writer Sadegh Hedayat.

Sadegh Hedayat

Sadegh (also spelled as Sadeq) Hedayat (in Persian: صادق هدایت; February 17, 1903, Tehran — 4 April 1951, Paris, France) was Iran's foremost modern writer of prose fiction and short stories.

Hedayat was born into a Iranian aristocratic family in Tehran and was educated at Collège Saint-Louis (French catholic school) and Dar ol-Fonoon (1914–1916). In 1925, he was among a selected few students who travelled to Europe to continue their studies. There, he initially went on to study engineering in Belgium, after a year he gave this up to study architecture in France. While there, he gave up architecture to pursue dentistry. In this period he became acquainted with Therese, a Parisian with whom he had a love affair. In 1927 Hedayat attempted suicide by throwing himself into the river Marne, however he was rescued by a fishing boat. After four years in France and Belgium, he finally surrendered his scholarship and returned home in the summer of 1930 without receiving a degree. In Iran he held various jobs for short periods.

Hedayat subsequently devoted his whole life to studying Western literature and to learning and investigating Iranian history and folklore. The works of Rainer Maria Rilke, Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant intrigued him the most. During his short literary life span, Hedayat published a substantial number of short stories and novelettes, two historical dramas, a play, a travelogue, and a collection of satirical parodies and sketches. His writings also include numerous literary criticisms, studies in Persian folklore, and many translations from Middle Persian and French. He is credited with having brought Persian language and literature into the mainstream of international contemporary writing. There is no doubt that Hedayat was the most modern of all modern writers in Iran. Yet, for Hedayat, modernity was not just a question of scientific rationality or a pure imitation of European values.

In his later years, feeling the socio-political problems of the time, Hedayat started attacking the two major causes of Iran's decimation, the monarchy and the clergy, and through his stories he tried to impute the deafness and blindness of the nation to the abuses of these two major powers. Feeling alienated by everyone around him, especially by his peers, Hedayat's last published work, The Message of Kafka, bespeaks melancholy, desperation and a sense of doom experienced only by those subjected to discrimination and repression.

Hedayat travelled and stayed in India from 1937 until 1939. In Bombay he completed and published his most enduring work, The Blind Owl, whose writing he started as early as 1930 in Paris. The book was praised by many including Henry Miller and André Breton. It has been called "one of the most important literary works in the Persian language".

At the end of 1950, Hedayat left Iran for Paris. There, on 4 April 1951, he committed suicide by gassing himself in a small rented apartment on 37 Rue Championnet. He had plugged all the gaps in the windows and door with cotton and, so it wouldn’t burden anyone, he had placed the money (a hundred thousand francs) for his shroud and burial in his side wallet in plain view. He was buried at the division 85 of Père Lachaise cemetery. His funeral was attended by a number of intimate friends and close acquaintances, both Iranian and Frenchmen.(From Wikipedia)

Khosrow Sinai

Khosrow Sinai (Persian: خسرو سینایی , born 19 January 1941 in Sari, Iran) is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran.He is also known as an Iranian scholar and has been awarded the prestigious 'Knights Cross of the Order of Merit of the Polish Republic'. (From Wikipedia)

Sima Bina

2011-11-17T16:01:00.000-08:00

Sima Bina

A lifetime of dedicated work on Persian folk music has made Sima Bina a legendary characterin the history of Iranian music.

Her singing careerbegins at the age of 10 with a popular radio program for children. Her musicaltalent drives her into taking music more seriously. She studied and perfectedPersian classical music with some of the great masters, and when she attainedthe artistic maturity to decide on her musical path, she chose to devote herlife to reviving the folk music of her homeland.

The fascination for Iranian folk music and songs had been ignited by her father, her first music teacherand songwriter. But, ironically its development into a lifetime commitment coincidedwith a historical time when her musical activities were banned in her homeland. Sima, however, maintains that it was ablessing in disguise. She says, “Whenyou can’t perform, people are taken away from you. So your focus shifts moreseriously to what you search for in life.”

In more than thirtyyears, by traveling to some of the most remote places all over Iran, Sima Bina collectedan assortment of almost forgotten folk songs and melodies. By recomposing the folksongsand tunes for her performance, Sima has formed her own distinctive style in Iranianfolk music.

Since 1993 Sima Binahas accepted invitations to perform her music worldwide in prestigiousfestivals and organized concerts. The worldwide recognition her music receivestoday is the materialization of over forty years of her devotion to Iranianfolk music.

While pursuingIranian folksongs, Sima often came across a variety of ethnic lullabies whichshe added to her collected works. This collection finally led to her book, IranianLullabies in 2009. In this book, SimaBina not only shares her findings, her perception, the scores and visualexpression of the selected lullabies with mothers, she also presents fortyoriginal Iranian lullabies in four CDs in which her vocal is sometimes blended withthe singing of the mothers who had song the lullabies to her in different partsof Iran.

Sima continues topresent Iranian folksongs in World Music festivals and concerts, while furtherexploring hidden folksongs in the vast plateau of Iran. She is currently working on Balouch music andmaintains documenting her findings of Iranian folksongs and music. (Sima Bina's Official Website)

Shadi Ghadirian: "Like Everyday" (2000-2001)

2011-10-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

Shadi Ghadirian

Challenging the international preconceptions of women’s roles within an Islamic state, Tehran-based artist Shadi Ghadirian’s photographs draw from her own experiences as a modern woman living within the ancient codes of Shariah law. Her images describe a positive and holistic female identity, humorously taking issue with the traditional roles by which women – both in the Middle East and universally – have been defined.

Ghadirian uses an ordinary kitchen utensil as a readymade pun. Through her simple recontextualisation of a cleaver, she develops a fictional character of hilarious proportions as the old adage of ‘hatchet face’ comes to life as a one eyed shrew. Branded with the knife company’s label – Shogun – she’s not a woman to be reckoned with.

Through her staged photographs, Ghadirian’s everyday objects become elevated from anonymity to form a group of distinctive portraits. Humorously drawing upon the humanistic forms of each item, common goods resonate with suggestive narratives, ironically exaggerating misogynist typecasts. In this work a colander adeptly represents a woman who’s all mouth: a neighbourhood gossip conceived as a human sieve, endlessly broadcasting like a loud speaker.

A shrouded broom huddles with timid demureness, her form most associated with ‘doormat’; beneath her veil, however, the broom handle stands in for a sturdy backbone. With her countenance made up of a straw besom, her expression appears wizened and worn, indicating time honoured knowledge and the tenacity and temper of a charwoman.

Her Like Everyday Series was created from the plethora of domestic gifts she received after her wedding – items completely foreign to a young professional. Using these objects – such as irons and frying pans – as masks to cover the faces of her veiled sitters, Ghadirian’s photos ironically portray a one-dimensional interpretation of housewives, absurdly reducing their identities to cooks and cleaners.

The title of Ghadirian’s Like Everyday Series refers both to the materials she uses in her photos and the derogatory social perceptions that women regularly face. Her cast of crudely rendered women cleverly reinvents the sources of negative stereotyping as attributes of empowerment. A grater-faced wife, the dreaded prototype of mother-in-law jokes everywhere, radiates a steely and abrasive determination.

Replacing the expected monotone of the black chador with vibrantly patterned fabrics, each portrait suggests a vivacious individuality and character, belying the limitations of stereotype. Similarly, the mundane objects, when transformed into faces, become highly poised and charismatic caricatures, embodying individual personalities.(From Saatchi Gallery)

Iran and Britain - BBC, Oil, Coup, and Dictatorship

2011-10-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

Rory Bremner

Roderick "Rory" Bremner is a Scottish impressionist, playwright and comedian, noted for his work in political satire. He was also a permanent panelist for two seasons on the British comedy show Mock The Week. (From Wikipedia)

Stephen Kinzer Talks about Mosaddegh and 1953 Anglo-American Coup in Iran

2011-10-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

Stephen Kinzer

Stephen Kinzer is a United States author and newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on five continents. During the 1980s he covered revolution and social upheaval in Central America. In 1990, he was promoted to bureau chief of the Berlin bureau and covered the growth of Eastern and Central Europe as they emerged from Soviet rule. He was also New York Times bureau chief in Istanbul (Turkey) from 1996 to 2000. He currently teaches journalism and United States foreign policy at Northwestern University.

Kinzer has written several non-fiction books about Turkey, Central America, Iran, the US overthrow of foreign governments from the late 19th century to the present and, most recently, about Rwanda's recovery from genocide. He has spoken out widely against a potential U.S. attack on Iran, warning that it would destroy the pro-US sentiment that has become widespread among the Iranian populace under the repressive Islamic regime. He is a fierce opponent of US foreign policy toward Latin America.

Mohammad Mosaddegh

SIMORQ (Introduction) by Hamid Motebassem

2011-10-06T17:15:00.000-07:00

Hamid Motebassem

Hamid Motebassem was born in 1958 in Mashad, Iran. He was raised in a musical family, where his brother was a violinist and his first teacher was his father, Ali Motebassem who played the Tar.

Motebassem studied in the Tehran School of Art and the Conservatory of Persian Music. He was a member of the Chavosh Cultural Center where he taught music. One of the original members of Aref Ensemble, he founded Dastan Ensemble as well as Ensemble Chakavak upon immigration to Germany in 1986.

Hamid Motebassem is the founder of the Society of Tar and Setar and has since 1994 organized annual seminars dedicated to the two instruments. He has performed on numerous albums of contemporary Iranian composers. His own works include compositions for traditional instruments, the recordings Bamdad; The Scent of Norooz; The Song of the Sea; Saz-e No, Avaz-e No, Dastan Trio; Dastan Duet; Hanaie and Shurideh, which won the title“Musical Shock“ in the music journal, Le Monde and received the 2003 Best Music of the Year Award from the French Ministry of Culture. (From Motebassem's website)

Simurgh (Persian: سیمرغ), also spelled simorgh, simurg, simoorg or simourv, also known as Angha (Persian: عنقا), is the modern Persian name for a benevolent, mythical flying creature. The figure can be found in all periods of Greater Iranian art and literature, and is evident also in the historical places of medieval Azerbaijan, the Byzantine empire, and other regions that were within the sphere of Persian cultural influence. (The silk textile representation is probably a senmurv, (a dog-headed barking eagle), not a simurgh but another Persian mythological creature.

The name simurgh derives from Middle Persian Pahlavi sēnmurw (and earlier sēnmuruγ), also attested in Middle Persian Pāzand as sīna-mrū. The Middle Persian term derives in turn from Avestan mərəγō Saēnō "the bird Saēna", originally a raptor, likely an eagle, falcon or sparrowhawk, as can be deduced from the etymological cognate Sanskrit śyenaḥ "raptor, eagle, bird of prey" that also appears as a divine figure. Saēna is also a personal name which is root of the name. (From Wikipedia)

Sadegh Tirafkan

2011-10-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Sadegh Tirafkan

Sadegh Tirafkan (born July 3, 1965 in Karbala, Iraq to Iranian parents) is an Iranian contemporary artist who lives in Tehran, Iran.Tirafkan was six years of age when his family fled the country before the start of the Islamic revolution. His family returned to Tehran, where he grew up. As a young man, Tirafkan fought in the eight year long Iran - Iraq war in the 1980’s as a Basiji or conscripted soldier.

The artist's works are characterised by a strong emphasis on the intrinsic role of the male in traditional Iranian society. Tirafkan employs different media in his work: photography, video installation, and collage. He graduated from Tehran University with a degree in Photography in 1989 and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide.

Tirafkan's work includes "Manhood", which deals with the perception of masculinity in Persian culture. Other projects such as "Persepolis", "Ashoura", "Secret of Words" , "Iranian Man", "Whispers of the East", "The Loss of Our Identity", "Multitude" and "Devotion" deal with Iranian history, identity, sociopolitical, religious and gender issues.

His works are in the collections of several museums including the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, British Museum, Brooklyn Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (From Wikipedia)

"Iran and Britain" by Christopher de Bellaigue (BBC)

2011-09-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

Christopher de Bellaigue

Documentary in which writer and journalist Christopher de Bellaigue explores the fraught but often surprisingly intimate history of Britain's relations with Iran, and asks why Iranians think that if something goes wrong in Iran then Britain must have something to do with it.

De Bellaigue has lived in Tehran, speaks fluent Persian and knows well the phenomenon of 'Uncle Napoleonism', the notion that the cunning British are 'out to get you' that has been a common attitude in Iranian society for 100 years.

He looks at some key events in the relationship, notably Britain's role in the overthrow of several Iranian governments, its control of Iran's oil and the on-off support for Iran's democrats.

Meeting prominent Iranians, including Uncle Napoleon's inventor and others with direct knowledge of these events, he examines the foundations and justification for these Iranian suspicions and asks if they are still there after 30 years of isolation. (From BBC)

Arg-é Bam

2011-09-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

Arg-é Bam

The Arg-é Bam (ارگ بم in Persian, "Bam citadel") was the largest adobe building in the world, located in Bam, a city in the Kermān Province of southeastern Iran. It is listed by UNESCO as part of the World Heritage Site "Bam and its Cultural Landscape". This enormous citadel on the Silk Road was built before 500 BC and remained in use until 1850 AD. It is not known for certain why it was then abandoned.

The entire building was a large fortress in whose heart the citadel itself was located, but because of the impressive look of the citadel, which forms the highest point, the entire fortress is named the Bam Citadel.

Larger than nearby Arg-é Rayen, the area of Bam Citadel is approximately 180,000 square meters, and it is surrounded by gigantic walls 6-7 metres high and 1815 metres long. The citadel features two of the "stay-awake towers" for which Bam is famed - there are as many as 67 such towers scattered across the ancient city of Bam.

On December 26, 2003, the Citadel was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, along with much of the rest of Bam and its environs.

Heydar Babaya Salam

2011-09-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

Heydar Babaya Salam (Azerbaijani: Heydər Babaya Salam, Azeri: حيدر بابايه سلام) is the best known poetical work by Mohammad Hossein Shahriar (Shahriyar), a famous Iranian poet. Published in 1954, it is about Shahriyar's childhood and his memories of his village Khoshginab near Tabriz. Heydar Baba is the name of a mountain overlooking the village.

In Heydar Babaya Salam Sharyar shows a nostalgia for Azerbaijani-Iranian simple village life before modernisation. (From Wikipedia)

Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Behjat-Tabrizi

Heydar Babaya Salam's opening lines in English: (From shehriyar)

Hail to Haydar-Baba

1-
Haydar-Baba when it thunders,
Floods rush down
Girls stand back and watch,

I hail your glory and your people,
May you remember our names too.

2-
When your partridges take flight,
When the rabbits hop out of the bushes,
When your gardens have burst into blossoms,

May you remember our name too,
And make our depressed hearts happy.

3-
When Nowruz gales uproot garden shelters!
And Nowruz flowers and snow drops blossom!
When the clouds wring out their clothes!

Greetings to those who remember us,
Let our sighs turn into mountains.

4-
Haydar-Baba may the sun warm your back,
Make your smiles and your springs shed tears,
Your children collect a bunch of flowers,

Send it with the coming wind towards us,
Perhaps my sleeping fortune would awaken!

5-
Haydar-Baba may you be fortunate!
Be surrounded with springs and orchards!
May you live long after us!

The world is paved with events, deaths and losses!
This world has long been childless and an orphan!

6-
Haydar-Baba my way differed from yours,
Life passed, I could not come until late!
I could not learn what happened to your beautiful ones,

Did not know there were perilous paths,
Losses, separations and death.

7-
Haydar-Baba good sons are faithful,
Life passes,regrets are wasteful,
Disloyal sons won't live long,

Believe me we have never forgotten you,
Forgive us if we failed to see you.

8-
Haydar-Baba when Mirazhdar calls for pilgrimage,
And the village is filled with busy noise,
While Ashig Rustam played his saz,

Do you remember how with such enthusiasm we used to run?
Flapping like winged birds to fly?

9-
Ashig apples from Shangulava village,
Staying there as a guest now and then,
Throwing stones at the apple and quince trees,

All have stayed in my memory like sweet dreams!
Have left traces in my soul and whole being!

10-
Haydar-Baba the geese of Guri lake,
The musical melody of the wind at twisted highways,
The summer and autumn seasons of the village,

Are like moving pictures in front of my eyes!
I sit and watch them within myself!

Gholam-Reza Sabri-Tabrizi

Translated by Dr. Gholam-Reza Sabri-Tabrizi

University of Edinburgh and University of Baku

London, Febuary 29,2002.

"The Flamingos Return to Rezaieh" by Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

2011-09-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

The Flamingos Return to Rezaieh by Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

Wild Kingdom, sometimes known as Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, is an American television show that features wildlife and nature. It was originally produced from 1963 until 1988, and was revived in 2002. The show's second incarnation currently airs on Animal Planet in the U.S. This video is an episode of the show about Lake Urmia's Flamingos in Rezaieh (Oromieh or Urmia).

Lake Urmia (Azerbaijani: Urmu Gölü , Urmia Gölü ; Persian: دریاچه ارومیه Daryâcheh-ye Orumiyeh (or Oroumieh), ancient name: Lake Matiene) is a salt lake in northwestern Iran, near Iran's border with Turkey. The lake is between the Iranian provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, west of the southern portion of the similarly shaped Caspian Sea. It is the largest lake in the Middle East, and the third largest salt water lake on earth, with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²), 140 km (87 miles) length, 55 km (34 miles) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth. (From Wikipedia)

Maryam Hashemi

2011-09-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

Maryam Hashemi

Maryam Hashemi (Persian: مریم هاشمی) is an Iranian painter, based in London, UK since 2002. She grew up in Tehran and graduated in Graphic Design from Azad University in 2001. Her first solo exhibition was at the Haft Samar Gallery in Tehran in 2001 which was followed by a group exhibition of "Ten Iranian Female Painters" in Brussels. After finishing her studies she moved to London and since then she has been active as an international artist.

She is a figurative painter, currently working in the Magical Realist style but some of her works are closer to Surrealism, her subjects are mostly women and recently most of her works are in the form of self-portraits. She has been known for her works in watercolors and pencil, but her recent works are produced in acrylic on canvas. Apart from painting, she has also been active as a performer. Her performance art has included working within the experimental Pink Fish Ensemble which typically involves mixed media, such as live painting, body art and poetry, often integrated with music. (From Wikipedia)

"Government in Iran"-- An Interview with Ramin Jahanbegloo

2011-09-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

Ramin Jahanbegloo and the Dalai Lama

Ramin Jahanbegloo is a well-known Iranian-Canadian philosopher. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy, History and Political Science and later his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Sorbonne University. In 1993 he taught at the Academy of Philosophy in Tehran. He has been a researcher at the French Institute for Iranian Studies and a fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.

Ramin Jahanbegloo taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto from 1997-2001. He later served as the head of the Department of Contemporary Studies of the Cultural Research Centre in Tehran and, in 2006-07, was Rajni Kothari Professor of Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, India. In April 2006 Dr. Jahanbegloo was arrested in Tehran Airport charged with preparing a velvet revolution in Iran. He was placed in solitary confinement for four months and released on bail. He is presently a Professor of Political Science and a Research Fellow in the Centre for Ethics at University of Toronto and a board member of PEN Canada.

In October 2009 Jahanbegloo became the winner of the Peace Prize from the United Nations Association in Spain for his extensive academic works in promoting dialogue between cultures and his advocacy for non-violence. (From Jahanbegloo/s website)

Abdolkarim Soroush: "Shi'ism in Need of Reform"

2011-09-06T15:55:00.000-07:00

Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush

Abdolkarim Soroush (عبدالكريم سروش), born Hosein Haj Faraj Dabbagh (1945-; Persian: حسين حاج فرج دباغ), is an Iranian thinker, reformer, Rumi scholar and a former professor at the University of Tehran. He is arguably the most influential figure in religious intellectual movement in Iran. Professor Soroush is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD. He was also affiliated with other prestigious institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, the Leiden based International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. Soroush idea's, founded on Relativism prompted both supporters and critics to compare his role in reforming Islam to that of Martin Luther in reforming Christianity. (From Wikipedia).

Need to learn Farsi? Contact Persia Reference.

2011-09-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

Aydin Aghdashloo

2011-09-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

Aydin Aghdashloo is an Iranian painter, author, art critic, art historian and graphic designer.

Like any other professional painter, I started painting in my youth. Those were years of hardship and perseverance, years of ambitious hopes, which seemed far out of reach but which, having enriched my understanding, had already fulfilled their promise Anything more than that would have been beyond my just desserts.

I learned to paint on my own, but when I detected a trace of skill and expertise somewhere or in someone, I would humbly take leave to learn more: I studied oil painting with Tigran Basil, and watercolor and gouache with Biuk Ahmary – to whom, in recognition of this debt, I dedicated my exhibition years later.

Gradually, over the years, I learned the tricks and the fundamentals of gilding calligraphy, miniature and painting flowers-and-birds. Through mending old, damaged calligraphies that I would buy inexpensively, restoring them through hours of precise work to their days of intact glory, I became a gilder and a miniaturist.

In those youthful days, I would study the reproductions of European masters’ work in wonder, and try to paint as well as them. The further the quality of my work seemed from theirs, the greater became my desire to rank alongside them. And so I became a skillful copyist, and at the age of fourteen sold my first commissioned work : - a copy of a Velasquez canvas – for forty Tomans.

I was excited and busy, until one day, while I was working on my next commission – Delacroix’s portrait of Chopin – Darius Shayegan came by. Looking at my work, he declared it a futile exercise and said that a true work of art seeks a goal dictated by the artist’s own actions and experiences, and I came to. I owe my next revelation to Djalal Moghaddam, who was our teacher for only one day at Djamm high school in Gholhak and on that day clarified for me the difference between Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec’s works. on that day a door was opened for me, and I realized that grasping the meaning of painting required a key which I did not have in my hand, that I was nothing more than a draughtsman. So I began to look for the meaning of painting- which was probably hidden somewhere in the landscape, as in one of those puzzles in magazines. Gradually I became acquainted with the works of the great masters, and realizing that would not be enough, I began to read and read, to read any loose page that came my way; and, still not satisfied, I learned English to read more. But knowledge was a vast sea, obscured by the thick dark of the night, and I was an anxious enthusiast, abandoned in a corner, lost.

Aimlessness, however, was not a trait peculiar to me; fate had sentenced my generation to this. From the beginning, we learned the importance of learning and then, finally, that liberating moment was upon us: a magical gesture was made, to a locked door here, a key elsewhere. But the unlocking was not easy.

We were all more or less like Amiroo in Amir Naderi’s film and the kindness of a world which would take our hands in charity and mercy and help us to our feet was not bestowed upon us. But through perseverance, we learned to remain upright and, like Diogenes, request that others pass by and not stand there blocking the sun. A request that is still being made. Still, having recounted the tale of this generation elsewhere, I Will refrain from repeating it here.

I was nineteen years old when I enrolled in the College of fine Arts . The years in that college were wasted years in my life, and I am indebted to none of the instructors there. The only image left now is one of a herd fighting loudly and furiously for the better seats on a train which has stood still for years and rusted, the engine having departed with a loud roar long ago, leaving everyone behind. Realizing this, I threw myself off the train. I quit the college in 1964.

I spent the next ten years peeking into the corners of every style and genre. I acquired skills drawn from different sources: from surrealist paintings to Renaissance sketches, from head studies a La de Chirico, to phantasmal hands which emerged from darkness, expectant and impatient, from high fruitful trees whose mercurial shadows were trapped by crosshatched geometrical squares, to portraits of people, to the landscape of tiny rooftops that doffed my surroundings.

I had to tread this winding and often dead-ended road in order to arrive somewhere, in order that the pleasant paintings of the past masters – who I once loved so -could, at a critical juncturd, replace the real portraits and landscapes. And so it was that Botticelli’s Venus was bomout of the sea shell and stood upon our neighbor Mr. Noon’s rooftop in Noubahar street , Gholhak. With all of its glory and beauty and charm.

It was at this point that I chose European paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as models for my work, arid rather than being content with witnessing the annihilation of the values of my age, I painted the Memoirs of Annihilation, which recounted the story of the displacement of fundamental values, values which were deprived of the opportunity for fruition in our time and could not sustain themselves and last; and I pointed to an epoch that knew no limits of ruthlessness and destruction, and in whose putrid air any angel would wither in a blink aid turn to ash. Like the scene in Fellini’s Roma of the discovery of ancient frescoes, in which, upon exposure to the 1970s’ polluted air -which has penetrated through steel – drill holes into a sacred temple that had Lain in secret for centuries – the paintings discolor and dissolve.

The period of Memoirs of Annihilation began in 1974 and continued on. injuring and disfiguring Renaissance paintings, culminating in The Years of Fire and Snow in 1977, with a gesture toward the final days of carelessness and merriment for some boastful, pompous creatures, unaware of the cold winter behind their backs. Or perhaps their wish to preserve the passing merriment of that moment made them desire to remain unaware.

The paintings of this period were done no relatively large, seventy-by-one-hundred centimeter canvases in gouache, and as a result of making these tens of very precise paintings I could now use gouache with skill, and it became my favorite medium. And so has it remained.

In the mid-seventies I learned that using the masters’ works as models and destroying and refiguring them was also a customary technique in the West, when in 1978 Lipman and Marshall ’s “Art About Art” was published and legitimated this practice as a school.

The following years were taken up with hard work, searching for and finding newer and more intimate models: in the burnished, marble profile of the noble and glorious Persian, shattered under the invading Greek’s pickaxe or the tribal leader’s ann; in the eight-hundred-year-old illustrated turquoise bowl / broken into pieces in the aft as a dust storm joined and intertwined the horizon with the sky; in the bejeweled kings and entertainers of the Qajar dynasty, covered from head to toe by stamps of cancellation.

And when the war began, I paid my humble due, with a half-burnt miniature by Reza Abbasi suspended in the air as pillars of the conflagration’s black smoke extended the darkness in the background. and the world itself told the tale of my memoirs of annihilation.

One had to be blind, or would have had to shut one’s door to the world and crawl into a hole, not to notice death’s incursion, and the young men who took it for nothing, who welcomed it without fear. Just like that miniature, flying in thick smoke, which is not dead even if it is crumpled. And I discovered many killed ones around me who were not dead, who do not die, who, for me, do not die.

And from this point on, all that was left was the tale of the disfigurement of youth and freshness, and there it was, the victorious Death, roaming; and I, unable to paint the faces of all the dead, was forced to fall back on metaphor, replacing the dead with miniatures and calligraphies and gildings, so that in acts of lamentation, seeking justice. I could become the narrator of the injuries conquering the land.

It was here that the crumpled miniatures, of which I made many, found their source, and ill were to point to a period of my work in which all my technical skills and my fundamental sensations came together to fruition, this would be it. In these works the technique and treatment of the seventeenth-century Isfahan School style were to be applied to the complex structure of a wrinkled and crumpled piece of paper, a process which called for a dual craftsmanship: on the one hand the pen would have to move strongly and freely, as if moving upon smooth paper; and on the other hand, the shades, curves, texture and color of the crumpled paper had to communicate a tangible and concrete reality. The harmony and coordination of these two distinct styles was, in fact, the meeting point of Eastern and Western arts and world views, the meeting point of two structures seeking and portraying the world, one on the plane of imagination and the other in an objective dimension.

The crumpled miniatures also spoke of my crumpling and that of my generation, and formalized a deep bitterness, a bitterness which was the outcome of a misunderstanding between my generation and a newly arrived, younger generation which, rather than learning and choosing with patience, had become used to quickly crumpling and throwing away.

Later, when I realized that ferocity had replaced bitterness and that true annihilation had replaced memoirs of annihilation in my miniatures – which by now I was cutting up with knives and burning to the half – I abandoned the project.

The watercolors of the next few years also became excuses for regret, whether in the Malek Garden Memos or in the Insignificant Landscapes series, which still represent for me the abandonment of vulnerable values in theft exposure to the passage of time. They are also a gesture to old age and death, a gesture close to home, to my mother, Ms. Nahid Nakhjavan, who refused to accept and acknowledge death and who based the peacefulness of her remaining days on supposed and imagined fancies to come, fancies which we knew were not to come, and sickness was to come, and frailness and death.

In the Malek Garden Memos, too, there were buildings and empty rooms and pools and stairways and tiles and fences, decaying and dying away, and I was so helpless in blocking the onset of death and history, having been forced merely to record and inscribe the final moments. Being faithful in this act of recording and inscription, I expected of myself a precise and skillful execution, so that not a single detail would be left out or forgotten. And so it was that I made much use of the dry-brush technique, with a subtle nod to Andrew’ Wyeth. But here I used the dry brush only in order to neutralize the watery charm and sweetness of common watercolor techniques, and to let a dry and serious weave emerge from the paper’s coarseness.

I used the Insignificant Landscape series to exhibit the affection and pity I felt for remote places and forgotten objects: for the brown sea and littered shores and rocks and water-hoses and for any ready-at-hand, insignificant object which, if observed closely, seems to carry a humbly obscured and deep meaning within itself. Without complaint or presumption.

And then came the Self-Portraits of the painter, which were images of decayed doors, long remained shut, a sign of my self-willed absence in those years. When I speak of a sign, I realize that all of my work signifies a particular meaning, and that I am constantly balancing myself on a tightrope between literary meaning and pure painting. And that if I err or fall, I will either crash down into the precipice of a soiled symbolism – which is often the tool and strategy of any marginalizde or excluded claimant – or into the infinite abyss of an escapist formalism which blinds the open heart and vision of one, like me, who always tried to be the visual conscience of his age and to become the to one hundred paintings done before 1974, I have managed to find only three. Of the works done after 1978, also, there are not very many which remain, since they are scattered mostly around the U.S.A. , Germany and England ; most of these were made between 1979 and 1981, when I was working in absolute despair and poverty. As I added beside the signature on one of these, it “was painted in a state of sheer sorrow.”

Of my miniatures I own almost none. An enthusiast used to buy these by tens and sell them again in far-away places, and so be it. I consider the Hamd Sura, which I wrote and gilded based on Mir-Emad’s calligraphy, to be one of my highest achievements in this field – an achievement which, with my eyes having become weaker, my patience more fragile and my hands more trembling, I could not even hope to repeat.

The assemblage of these reproductions here in this book would not have been possible were it not for the encouragement, enthusiasm and patience of my wife, and the cooperation of the collectors, as well as of my students, to whom I extend my thanks, as I do to Ms. Manijeh Miremadi, who merits a separate expression of gratitude.

Rereading this foreword, I notice how, along the lines of my other writings these years, sorrow still dominates its joy. And as I remember the Fellini’s “Intervista”, I once saw, I become embarrassed of my worthless sorrows and my cheap regrets, and humbly bow my head in front of him who, with such shimmering joy, sums up his fruitful life and accepts, with such glorious calm, that which has been his fate.

But my infinite remorse must be due to not reaching the vast and unbounded landscape I searched for, perhaps my futile goals and hopes, which aspired to a place too far away, carried my view away from the small, pleasant sights, so close to hand and delightful – away to a distance I still look for and cannot find.

Whether I have found anything or not, there was such a tremendous joy at the heart of this thirty-year-long search. And since I have lived with joy, I have no regrets.

Aydin Aghdashloo
November 1993 (from Aghdashloo's official website)

"Tehran is the Capital of Iran" by Kamran Shirdel 1966 - 1980

2011-09-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

Kamran Shirdel

Kamran Shirdel (born 1939 in Tehran) is a renowned Iranian documentarist. He studied architecture and urbanism at the University of Rome and film direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Rome, graduating in 1964. He worked as an assistant director with John Huston on The Bible before making his diploma film, Gli Specchi (The Mirrors), in Rome. He returned to Iran and started his career in 1965. He is also the managing director of Filmgrafic Co. Kamran Shirdel was appointed as IL CAVALIERE Della Republica Italiana and received the Medals of LA STELLA DELLA SOLIDARIETA' ITALIANA in a ceremony held in Farmanieh Palace in Tehran on May 2010. (From Wikipedia)

Tehran Is the Capital of Iran (1966-79) documents life in a deprived district in the south of Tehran. The images of destitution in Tehran's poor areas is accompanied by a variety of spoken accounts: the official viewpoint on the district's living conditions, what the inhabitants have to say, and occasional extracts read out of school manuals. The key element in Shirdel's film is the counterpoint effect he creates with image and sound. His impressively powerful portrayal of social unease helps reinforce the impact of his astonishing documentary images and social themes.

"Cyrus Cylinder" by Spenta Productions

2011-09-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

Cyrus Cylinder

A declaration of good kingship

This clay cylinder is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with an account by Cyrus, king of Persia (559-530 BC) of his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC and capture of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king.

Cyrus claims to have achieved this with the aid of Marduk, the god of Babylon. He then describes measures of relief he brought to the inhabitants of the city, and tells how he returned a number of images of gods, which Nabonidus had collected in Babylon, to their proper temples throughout Mesopotamia and western Iran. At the same time he arranged for the restoration of these temples, and organized the return to their homelands of a number of people who had been held in Babylonia by the Babylonian kings. Although the Jews are not mentioned in this document, their return to Palestine following their deportation by Nebuchadnezzar II, was part of this policy.

This cylinder has sometimes been described as the 'first charter of human rights', but it in fact reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, from as early as the third millennium BC, kings began their reigns with declarations of reforms. (From the British Museum)

Text of Cyrus Cylinder

Translation of the text on the Cyrus Cylinder by Irving Finkel

[When ... Mar]duk, king of the whole of heaven and earth, the ....... who, in his ..., lays waste his .......
[........................................................................]broad ? in intelligence, ...... who inspects} (?) the wor]ld quarters (regions)
[..............................................................…] his [first]born (=Belshazzar), a low person was put in charge of his country,
but [..................................................................................] he set [a (…) counter]feit over them.
He ma[de] a counterfeit of Esagil, [and .....….......]... for Ur and the rest of the cult-cities.
Rites inappropriate to them, [impure] fo[od- offerings ….......................................................] disrespectful […] were daily gabbled, and, as an insult,
he brought the daily offerings to a halt; he inter[fered with the rites and] instituted […....] within the sanctuaries. In his mind, reverential fear of Marduk, king of the gods, came to an end.
He did yet more evil to his city every day; … his [people ................…], he brought ruin on them all by a yoke without relief.
Enlil-of-the-gods became extremely angry at their complaints, and […] their territory. The gods who lived within them left their shrines,
angry that he had made (them) enter into Shuanna (Babylon). Ex[alted Marduk, Enlil-of-the-Go]ds, relented. He changed his mind about all the settlements whose sanctuaries were in ruins,
and the population of the land of Sumer and Akkad who had become like corpses, and took pity on them. He inspected and checked all the countries,
seeking for the upright king of his choice. He took the hand of Cyrus, king of the city of Anshan, and called him by his name, proclaiming him aloud for the kingship over all of everything.
He made the land of Guti and all the Median troops prostrate themselves at his feet, while he shepherded in justice and righteousness the black-headed people
whom he had put under his care. Marduk, the great lord, who nurtures his people, saw with pleasure his fine deeds and true heart,
and ordered that he should go to Babylon He had him take the road to Tintir (Babylon), and, like a friend and companion, he walked at his side.
His vast troops whose number, like the water in a river, could not be counted, were marching fully-armed at his side.
He had him enter without fighting or battle right into Shuanna; he saved his city Babylon from hardship. He handed over to him Nabonidus, the king who did not fear him.
All the people of Tintir, of all Sumer and Akkad, nobles and governors, bowed down before him and kissed his feet, rejoicing over his kingship and their faces shone.
The lord through whose help all were rescued from death and who saved them all from distress and hardship, they blessed him sweetly and praised his name.
-------------------------------------------------
I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world,
son of Cambyses, the great king, king of the city of Anshan, grandson of Cyrus, the great king, ki[ng of the ci]ty of Anshan, descendant of Teispes, the great king, king of the city of Anshan,
the perpetual seed of kingship, whose reign Bel (Marduk)and Nabu love, and with whose kingship, to their joy, they concern themselves. When I went as harbinger of peace i[nt]o Babylon
I founded my sovereign residence within the palace amid celebration and rejoicing. Marduk, the great lord, bestowed on me as my destiny the great magnanimity of one who loves Babylon, and I every day sought him out in awe.
My vast troops were marching peaceably in Babylon, and the whole of [Sumer] and Akkad had nothing to fear.
I sought the safety of the city of Babylon and all its sanctuaries. As for the population of Babylon […, w]ho as if without div[ine intention] had endured a yoke not decreed for them,
I soothed their weariness; I freed them from their bonds(?). Marduk, the great lord, rejoiced at [my good] deeds,
and he pronounced a sweet blessing over me, Cyrus, the king who fears him, and over Cambyses, the son [my] issue, [and over] my all my troops,
that we might live happily in his presence, in well-being. At his exalted command, all kings who sit on thrones,
from every quarter, from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, those who inhabit [remote distric]ts (and) the kings of the land of Amurru who live in tents, all of them,
brought their weighty tribute into Shuanna, and kissed my feet. From [Shuanna] I sent back to their places to the city of Ashur and Susa,
Akkad, the land of Eshnunna, the city of Zamban, the city of Meturnu, Der, as far as the border of the land of Guti - the sanctuaries across the river Tigris - whose shrines had earlier become dilapidated,
the gods who lived therein, and made permanent sanctuaries for them. I collected together all of their people and returned them to their settlements,
and the gods of the land of Sumer and Akkad which Nabonidus – to the fury of the lord of the gods – had brought into Shuanna, at the command of Marduk, the great lord,
I returned them unharmed to their cells, in the sanctuaries that make them happy. May all the gods that I returned to their sanctuaries,
every day before Bel and Nabu, ask for a long life for me, and mention my good deeds, and say to Marduk, my lord, this: “Cyrus, the king who fears you, and Cambyses his son,
may they be the provisioners of our shrines until distant (?) days, and the population of Babylon call blessings on my kingship. I have enabled all the lands to live in peace.
Every day I increased by [… ge]ese, two ducks and ten pigeons the [former offerings] of geese, ducks and pigeons.
I strove to strengthen the defences of the wall Imgur-Enlil, the great wall of Babylon,
and [I completed] the quay of baked brick on the bank of the moat which an earlier king had bu[ilt but not com]pleted its work.
[I …… which did not surround the city] outside, which no earlier king had built, his workforce, the levee [from his land, in/int]o Shuanna.
[… .......................................................................with bitum]en and baked brick I built anew, and [completed] its [work].
[…...........................................................] great [doors of cedarwood] with bronze cladding,
[and I installed] all their doors, threshold slabs and door fittings with copper parts. [….......................] I saw within it an inscription of Ashurbanipal, a king who preceded me;
[…..................................................................] his … Marduk, the great lord, creator (?) of [ ... ]
[….................................................] my [… I presented] as a gift.....................] your pleasure forever. (From the British Museum)

Hormuzd Rassam

The Assyro-British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam discovered the Cyrus Cylinder in March 1879 during a lengthy programme of excavations in Mesopotamia carried out for the British Museum.

Cyrus Kar, Founder of Spenta Productions

Ghajar Women

2011-09-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

"Persepolis Recreated" by Farzin Rezaian

2011-08-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

Persepolis or Takht-e Jamshid

Persepolis (Pārsa, Takht-e Jamshid or Chehel Minar) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550-330 BCE). Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid (Throne of Jamshid). The earliest remains of Persepolis date from around 515 BCE. To the ancient Persians, the city was known as Pārsa, which means "The City of Persians". Persepolis is a transliteration of the Greek Πέρσης πόλις (Persēs polis: "Persian city"). UNESCO declared the citadel of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979. (

From Wikipedia)

Lake Urmia

2011-08-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

Lake Urmia (Persian: دریاچه ارومیه Daryâcheh-ye Orumiyeh (or Oroumieh); Azerbaijani: ارومیه گولو , ارومیه گولی , or ; ancient name: Lake Matiene) is a salt lake in northwestern Iran, near Iran's border with Turkey. The lake is between the Iranian provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, west of the southern portion of the similarly shaped Caspian Sea. It is the largest lake in the Middle East, and the third largest salt water lake on earth, with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²), 140 km (87 miles) length, 55 km (34 miles) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth. (From Wikipedia)

Tehran City Theatre

2011-08-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Tehran City Theatre Built in the 1970's

Mohammad-Reza Shajarian & Mohammad-Reza Lotfi

2011-08-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Mohammad-Reza Shajarian

Mohammad-Reza Shajarian (Persian: محمد رضا شجريان) (born September 23, 1940 in Mashhad, Iran) is an internationally and critically acclaimed Persian traditional singer, composer and ostad (master) of Persian music.He has been called "Iran's greatest living master of traditional Persian music." Shajarian is also known for his skills in Persian calligraphy, and humanitarian activities.

Shajarian has collaborated with Parviz Meshkatian, Mohammad Reza Lotfi, Hossein Alizadeh, and Faramarz Payvar. He is recognised as a skilled singer in the challenging traditional Dastgah style. In 1999 UNESCO in France presented him with the Picasso Award and in 2006 with the UNESCO Mozart Medal.

Encouraged by his elder brother, he learned to play the tar and showed his talent by winning the first prize in Iran's Young Musicians Festival in 1964. The following year, he started his studies at the National Conservatory in Tehran under Habibollah Salehi and Master Ali Akbar Shahnazi. While at the conservatory, he also studied Western classical music and the violin, which led to his collaboration with various orchestras under the direction of Hossein Dehlavi. Some of his other eminent teachers were Abdollah Davami, from whom he learned the Radif, and Master Sa'id Hormozi, who taught him the setar. While attending the College of Fine Arts at Tehran University, Lotfi became the student of Master Nour-Ali Boroumand. He also worked at the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music, both as a soloist and a conductor. His other accomplishments were teaching at the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, researching folk music for National Radio and Television, and appearing at the Shiraz Arts Festival. After graduating in 1973, Lotfi joined the faculty of Fine Arts at Tehran University. He continued his collaboration with Radio and Television and co-founded the Shayda Ensemble. Between 1978 and 1980, Lotfi became the Head of the School of Music at Tehran University. He served as the director of the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music and the Chavosh Conservatory. In 1984 Lotfi was invited by Fondazione Cini to participate in a seminar and perform concerts in Italy where he resided for two years. He has been living in the United States since 1986 and has performed widely throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. A prolific musician, he has made numerous recordings both as a solo artist and with major Iranian musicians such as, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri, Hossein Alizadeh, and Parviz Meshkatian. Lotfi is one of the greatest contemporary masters of the tar and setar. He is among the major figures who, in the past twenty years, have revolutionized the Persian traditional (classical) music. His innovative approach of combining the classical with folk elements, both in terms of music and technique, has injected a new vitality into a very old tradition. His original creativity and the deep-rooted emotional quality of his playing have made him the father of a new aesthetics in Persian music. (From Wikipedia)

Mohammad-Reza Lotfi

Mohammad-Rezā Lotfi (Persian: محمد رضا لطفی , born 1947 in Gorgan, Iran) is a Persian classical musician renowned for his mastery of the tar and setar.

Encouraged by his elder brother, he learned to play the tar and showed his talent by winning the first prize in Iran's Young Musicians Festival in 1964. The following year, he started his studies at the National Conservatory in Tehran under Habibollah Salehi and Master Ali Akbar Shahnazi. While at the conservatory, he also studied western classical music and the violin which led to his collaboration with various orchestras under the direction of Hossein Dehlavi. Some of his other eminent teachers were Abdollah Davami, from whom he learned the Radif, and Master Sa'id Hormozi, who taught him the setar. While attending the College of Fine Arts at Tehran University, Lotfi became the student of Master Nour-Ali Boroumand. He also worked at the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music, both as a soloist and a conductor. His other accomplishments were teaching at the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, researching folk music for National Radio and Television, and appearing at the Shiraz Arts Festival. After graduating in 1973, Lotfi joined the faculty of Fine Arts at Tehran University. He continued his collaboration with Radio and Television and co-founded the Shayda Ensemble. Between 1978 and 1980, Lotfi became the Head of the School of Music at Tehran University. He served as the director of the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music and the Chavosh Conservatory. In 1984 Lotfi was invited by Fondazione Cini to participate in a seminar and perform concerts in Italy where he resided for two years. He has been living in the United States since 1986 and has performed widely throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. He finally returned to Iran a few years ago. A prolific musician, he has made numerous recordings both as a solo artist and with major Iranian musicians such as, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri, Hossein Alizadeh, and Parviz Meshkatian. Lotfi is one of the greatest contemporary masters of the tar and setar. He is among the major figures who, in the past twenty years, have revolutionized the Persian traditional (classical) music. His innovative approach of combining the classical with folk elements, both in terms of music and technique, has injected a new vitality into a very old tradition. His original creativity and the deep-rooted emotional quality of his playing have made him the father of a new aesthetics in Persian music. (From Wikipedia)

"Pink Heech" by Parviz Tanavoli

2011-08-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

Parviz Tanavoli with a HEECH in the background

Born in 1937 in Tehran, Iran, Parviz Tanavoli is one of Iran's most renowned and successful artists. Parvis studied at the Tehran School of Arts, the Academia di Belle Arti in Carrara and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Italy. Parviz was one of the founding members of Saqqakhaneh, an artistic movement which began in the early 1960's in Iran. He was the Head of the Sculpting Department at Tehran University until 1979; he was also part of the faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Hamline University in St Paul Minnesota. He has now retired from teaching, living and working between Vancouver and Tehran.

Parviz has exhibited in numerous museums and art galleries around the world and his works feature in numerous public and private collections, such as permanent collections of major museums including: the British Museum, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; New York University Art Collection; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Ludwig Forum, Aachen; Museum of Modern Art, Vienna; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran.

Heech

Composed of three Farsi characters, the single word heech literally translates to "nothing". This term haunts the modern man and reflects feelings of unworthiness, of frustration and of powerlessness that permeate so much of the writing of contemporary literature.

Parviz's use of the heech underscores the transforming power of his art. In the West, existentialist convention prods us to read "nothingness" as a synonym for despair; but the heech in Tanavoli's work is more synonymous with creativity itself: it is the void filled by the artist's imagination, the "nothing" that through his shaping hand becomes "something". Mysticism enhances Tanavoli's fascination with the heech, but, as he himself acknowledges, he was also drawn to its calligraphic shape because of its resemblance to the human body. If the word itself suggests melancholy, Tanavoli's heech sculptures are joyful works. They stand, sit or recline as sensuously eloquent reminders of the plastic nature of Persian calligraphy. (From Candlestar)

"Mashhad" a View by a Corrector of Persian Carpets

2011-08-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Imam Reza Shrine

Mashhad (Persian: مشهد Mashhad, Arabic: مشهد Mašhad‎, English: The Place of Martyrdom), is the second largest city in Iran and one of the holiest cities in the Shia Muslim world. It is also the only major Iranian city with an Arabic name. It is located 850 kilometres (530 mi) east of Tehran, at the center of the Razavi Khorasan Province close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Its population was 2,427,316 at the 2006 population census.

Now Mashhad is notably known as the resting place of the Imam Reza. A shrine was later built there to commemorate the Imam, which in turn gave rise to increasing demographic development.

Mashhad is also known as the city of Ferdowsi, the Iranian poet of Shahnameh, which is considered to be the national epic of Iran. (From Wikipedia)

Ferdowsi Tomb Mashhad

The Brick & the Mirror by Ebrahim Golestan (1965)

2011-08-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

Ebrahim Golestan

A pioneer in filmmaking and literature, Ebrahim Golestan has influenced generations of Iranians in various fields of art for more than half a century. Golestan published his first collection of short stories entitled, "Azar, the Last Month of autumn" in 1948.

Golestan began journalism as a writer, then editor, early in the 40’s, and photography as a freelancer with news organizations in 1951. Later he produced several landmark documentaries and feature films such as "A Fire" (1961), "Wave, Coral, Rock" (1959/1962), and "Marlik Hills" (1963). His first narrative film “The Mudbrick and the Mirror” (1963/4) is considered by many historians as the first of the social realism wave in Iranian cinema. At the same time, he continued to write and publish his work in fiction. “Hunting the Shadow” (1955), “The Brook, the Wall, and the Thirsty One” (1967), “Tide & Fog” (1969) and “Secrets of the Treasures at the Ghost Valley (Asarare Ganje Darehye Jenni)” (1971/3), “The Cock” (1974) are examples of his published works of fiction; and “The Words Spoken” (1995), a selection of his lectures, literary criticism and interviews, and some narrations for films.

Golestan has made valuable contributions as a translator of great works of literature such as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and several of Hemingway's stories.

Golestan’s feature film, “Secrets of the Treasures at the Ghost Valley”, was banned before and after the 1979 revolution. The film presents an insightful, thought provoking account of dynamics of various social strata of Iranian society at a historical juncture, best described by the director as “the twisted image of a twisted situation”. Tirgan 2011 is proud to present this influential and rarely seen masterpiece of Iranian cinema. (From Tirgan)

The Brick & the Mirror

"Bashu, the Little Stranger" by Bahram Bayzai

2011-08-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

Bashu, the Little Stranger

Bashu, the Little Stranger (Persian: باشو غریبه کوچک), is a 1986 Iranian drama film directed by Bahram Beizai. The film was produced in 1986, and was released in 1989. This multi-ethnic film was the first Iranian film to make use of the northern dialect of Persian, Gilaki, in a serious context rather than comic relief. (Susan Taslimi playing the main character is Gilaki herself).

The film is about a young boy from Khuzestan province, in the south of Iran, during the Iran–Iraq War. His parents are killed in a bombing raid on his home village and he escapes on a cargo truck to the north. Eventually he gets off and finds refuge on the farm of a Gilaki woman, Na'i, who has two young children of her own. Initially, Na'i tries to shoo Bashu away, but later takes pity on him and leaves food out for him. Although Na'i is initially ambivalent toward Bashu, and he is initially suspicious of her, they come to trust one another, and Bashu becomes a member of the family, even calling Na'i "mom". Being that Bashu speaks Arabic, while Na'i and her children speak Gilaki, they have trouble communicating with each other, although Bashu is able to speak and read Persian (for example in the scene where he picks up the school text book, reading a passage from it in an attempt to appease the children fighting). In a gesture of reciprocation and perhaps love, Bashu cares for Na'i when she falls ill, as she had done for him, crying for her and beating a drum in prayer.

Throughout the film, Na'i maintains correspondence with her husband, a war veteran looking for employment, who has been gone for quite some time. She tells him about Bashu, and implores him to return home in time to help with the harvest. Bashu becomes Na'i's helper on the farm, and even accompanies her to the bazaar to sell her goods. Throughout the film, Bashu sees visions of his dead family members, which cause him to wander off. Ultimately, however, he and Na'i are always reunited.

The other adults in the village harangue Na'i about taking Bashu in, often deriding his dark skin and different language, and making comments about washing the dark off of his skin. In addition to the village adults, the school age children taunt and beat Bashu, although the children prove ultimately to be more willing to accept Bashu than the adults. In one scene in which he is being taunted, Bashu picks up a school book and reads aloud a passage stating, "We are all the children of Iran." Before this point, the children had assumed Bashu to be either mute or stupid.

In the end, Na'i's husband returns home with no money and missing an arm, having been forced to take on dangerous work that is never identified. He and Na'i argue over her having kept Bashu against his wishes. Bashu comes to her defense, challenging the strange man to identify himself. Na'i's husband tells Bashu that he is his father, and upon this realization, they embrace as though they were always a part of the same family. The film ends with the entire family, including children, running into the farm field, making loud noises together to scare away a troublesome boar. (From Wikipedia)

Bahram Bayzai

Bahrām Beyzāi (also spelt Bahrām Beizai, Bahrām Beyzaie, Persian: بهرام بیضائی, born 26 December 1938 in Tehran) is an Iranian film director, theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, film editor, producer, and researcher.

Beyzai is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes other pioneering directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Sales, and Parviz Kimiavi. The filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialog, references to traditional Persian art and culture and allegorical story-telling often dealing with political and philosophical issues. (From Wikipedia)

"Rumi" Puppet Opera by Behrooz Gharibpour

2011-08-02T20:39:00.000-07:00

Behrooz Gharibpour (Director)

Behrouz Gharibpour (born 1950) is a renowned Iranian theatre director and pioneer of traditional Persian puppet theatre. He studied theatre at Tehran University and at Dramatic Arts Academy in Rome (Silvio Damico). He founded Tehran and Esfahan puppet theatre centres and changed the Tehran’s slaughterhouse into a great Cultural Centre in Tehran. He has experienced writing and directoring in fields such as theatre, puppet theatre, cinema, and T.V. Gharibpour is known for his research projects on Iranian puppetry during Qajar era.

Behzad Abdi (Composer)

Homayoun Shajarian (Singer)

Mohammad Motamedi (Singer)

William S. Burroughs and HASSAN SABBAH

2011-07-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hassan-i Sabbāh

Hassan-i Sabbāh (Persian: حسن صباح Hasan-e Sabbāh, 1050s-1124) was a Persian Nizārī Ismā'īlī missionary who converted a community in the late 11th century in the heart of the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran. The place was called Alamut and was attributed to an ancient king of Daylam. He founded a group whose members are sometimes referred to as the Hashshashin or Assassins.

William S. Burroughs

WSB: Hassan I Sabbah never made any attempt to extend power. He kept what he had-one or two fortresses. And he certainly was not a puritanical man.

Very little is actually known about Hassan I Sabbah. But it was a unique phenomenon.

In my books, then, Hassan I Sabbah seems to be a kind of model for a man who rebels against the control system and who sets up his own counterforce. (From An Interview with William S. Burroughs April 4, 1980, New York City by Jennie Skerl)

Xerxes by George Frideric Handel

2011-07-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

Xerxes I

Xerxes I of Persia (English: /ˈzɜrksiːz/), Persian: خشایارشا Ḫšayāršā, IPA: [xʃajaːrʃaː], Hebrew: אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, Modern Aẖashverosh Tiberian ʼĂḥašvērôš), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth Zoroastrian king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.

Handel's "Xerxes", Houston Grand Opera

Xerxes is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was first performed in London on 15 April 1738. The Italian libretto was adapted by an unknown hand from that by Silvio Stampiglia for an earlier opera of the same name by Giovanni Bononcini in 1694. Stampiglia's libretto was itself based on one by Nicolò Minato that was set by Francesco Cavalli in 1654. The opera is set in Persia in 480 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia.

The opening aria, "Ombra mai fù", sung by Xerxes to a tree (Platanus orientalis), is set to one of Handel's best-known melodies, and is often played in an orchestral arrangement, known as Handel's "largo" (despite being marked "larghetto" in the score). (From Wikipedia)

An Interview with Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

2011-07-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (Persian: محمود دولت‌آبادی) (born 1940 in Dowlatabad, Sabzevar) is an Iranian writer and actor. He is known as a realist writer of stories of rural life, in which he largely draws on his own experiences.

He was born in Dowlatabad, a village in the Sabzevar, north-western part of the Khorasan Province, Iran, and spent his youth helping his father with farming and tending the flocks, and reading tales of Persian folklore. He attended high school in Tehran but failed to attain a degree. He later joined the Anahita Drama Group. In 1975, he was arrested and spent a year in prison.

Dowlatabadi started writing in the 1960s and has published several novels, novellas, short story collections and plays for theatre. Hist first story, The Pite of Night, was published in 1962 in the Anahita Literary Magazine. Other significant works include his 1968 novel The Tale of Baba Sobhan, which was made into a motion picture by Masud Kimiai entitled "Khak" (Earth/dust; 1972) and his magnum opus, Kalidar, which he wrote between 1977 and 1984. (From Wikipedia)

The Man who Changed the World (BBC)

2011-07-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

Ayatollah Ruhollah Mostafavi Moosavi Khomeini

Militant Islam enjoyed its first modern triumph with the arrival in power of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979. In this series of three programmes, key figures tell the inside story.

Former US president Jimmy Carter talks on television for the first time about the episode that, more than any other, led American voters to eject him from the presidency. Iran's seizure of the US embassy in Tehran and the holding of its staff for 444 days took more and more of Carter's time and energy. His final days in office were dominated by desperate attempts to secure the release of the embassy hostages. Those who sat in the White House with him, planning how to rescue the hostages, how to negotiate their release and, finally, wondering whether anything could be rescued from the disaster, all tell their part in the story.

Other contributors include former vice president Walter Mondale, ex-deputy secretary of state Warren Christopher and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The other side of the story is told by top Iranians: Ayatollah Khomeini's close adviser, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri; his first foreign minister, Ebrahim Yazdi; his negotiator with the US, Sadeq Tabatabai; and the founder of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rafiqdoust. (From BBC)

LES ZOURHAEH by Charies Brabant (French)

2011-07-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

Varzesh-e-Bastani (ancient sport):

A rigorous and comprehensive physical exercise session of 60 to 90 minutes, consisting of different kinds of physical activities appropriate for the homogeneous age groups of 16 to 60-70 year old. These exercises were practiced under special customs and rituals established over hundreds of years. Each session of Varzesh-e-Bastani comprises: 1-Warming up, 2- main body of physical exercises, and 3-warming down.

Morshed:

Is an experienced Bastanikar who, at the same time, is a well-educated man who also has some talents in music. He is especially competent in providing the different rhythms that are needed for directing the various exercises of a Varzesh-e-Bastani practice session. He does this job by chanting the epic poems and coupletsand by playing the Zarb and Zang (see below) that he has at hand. Some times there are two Morsheds who in harmony with each other direct the practice session. (From Zoorkhaneh and Varzesh-E-Bastani By Ali Mohamad Amirtash)

Iran Illustrations by Olivier Kugler

2011-07-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

Olivier Kugler is the overall winner of V&A Illustration Awards 2011 for his depiction of a truck driver’s journey across Iran, featured in French quarterly reportage magazine XXI.

Rendered in Kugler's familiar sketchbook style, the 30-page illustrated journal tells the story of the illustrator's trip with Massih, a truck driver Kugler met in Tehran and accompanied for a four-day journey carrying bottled water down to a small island in the Persian Gulf.

Bushehri Music and Dance in Louvre Museum: A Performance by Shanbehzadeh Ensemble

2011-07-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

Persian Gulf Coast in Bushehr

Bushehr (Persian:بوشهر /Būšehr/), pop. 165,377 (in 2005), is a city on the southwestern coast of Iran, on the Persian Gulf. It is the chief seaport of the country and the administrative centre of Bushehr province. Its location is 28° 59' N, 50° 49' E, about 1,281 kilometres (796 mi) south of Tehran. The local climate is hot and humid. (From Wikipedia)

Shanbehzadeh Ensemble

Shanbehzadeh Ensemble (Persian: گروه شنبه زاده) is an Iranian folk band, formed in Bushehr in 1990. The band offers a rare aspect of the traditional music and dance of the Persian Gulf, more specially of the province of Bushehr, south of Iran and bordering Persian gulf.

The principal instruments of the ensemble are the neyanbān (bagpipe), neydjofti (flute), dammām (drum), zarbetempo (percussion), traditional flute, senj (cymbal) and boogh (a goat’s horn). The Ensemble has delighted audience in Iran, Europe and North-America. (From Wikipedia)

Tehran Today (1977) by Khosrow Sinai

2011-07-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

Khosrow Sinai

Khosrow Sinai (Persian: خسرو سینایی , born 19 January 1941 in Sari, Iran) is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran. He is also known as an Iranian scholar and has been awarded the prestigious 'Knights Cross of the Order of Merit of the Polish Republic'.

A picture of University of Tehran around the time Sinai's film was made

Forgotten Iran (1971) – a film by Claude Lelouch

2011-07-07T21:25:00.001-07:00

French Director Claude Lelouch

Claude Pinoteau and Claude Lelouch shot their documentary just after the Persepolis Celebrations in 1971. They decided to address the urban transformations and cultural emancipation that the country was subject to by the early seventies. (From Wikipedia)

Welcome to Tehran - a journey by Rageh Omaar

2011-07-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

Rageh Omaar

Welcome to Tehran (1 x 90 min) is an observational documentary that sets out to look at the region and its people not through politicians, officials and analysts but through the eyes of ordinary Iranians.

Omaar has visited Tehran - the region's capital - once before as a news reporter, filming the incendiary demonstrations and recording the uncompromising statements from officials since the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

But his experiences of being in the city never left him.

He says: "There is an energy and vitality to the place that is completely different from the usual images we in the West have of it. And that's why I wanted to return."

In making the film, Omaar tried to see Iran from the inside by visiting people's homes and travelling through a rich variety of neighbourhoods and districts of the city.

Omaar and Producer/Director Paul Sapin struggled for a year to get the right kind of access which gave them the freedom to fully explore these rarely filmed areas.

The film is told as a journey through Tehran but also as a very personal essay by Omaar as he digs deeper into this complex and fascinating society.

Omaar's journey takes him under the skin of the city and he meets with local people who share with him their personal stories and feelings about the current state of affairs in Iran.

There are stories of taxi drivers; wrestlers; business women; people working with drug addicts and the country's leading pop star and his manager - the Simon Cowell of Iran - who drove Omaar around Tehran in his Mercedes-Benz.

Paul Sapin says: "Iran has become a closed society to the West and it is a real challenge to produce a genuine documentary in this region due to problems with access for Western journalists, but wherever we went, we were met with warmth and hospitality.

"Iran is not the austere, humourless place we're led to believe and that was certainly Rageh's experience." (From BBC)

Timothy Winter: The life and works of al-Ghazali

2011-07-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Al-Ghazâlî

Al-Ghazâlî (c.1055–1111) was one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Sunni Islam. He was active at a time when Sunni theology had just passed through its consolidation and entered a period of intense challenges from Shiite Ismâ’îlite theology and the Arabic tradition of Aristotelian philosophy (falsafa). Al-Ghazâlî understood the importance of falsafa and developed a complex response that rejected and condemned some of its teachings, while it also allowed him to accept and apply others. Al-Ghazâlî's critique of twenty positions of falsafa in his Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahâfut al-falâsifa) is a significant landmark in the history of philosophy as it advances the nominalist critique of Aristotelian science developed later in 14th century Europe. On the Arabic and Muslim side al-Ghazâlî's acceptance of demonstration (apodeixis) led to a much more refined and precise discourse on epistemology and a flowering of Aristotelian logics and metaphysics. With al-Ghazâlî begins the successful introduction of Aristotelianism or rather Avicennism into Muslim theology. After a period of appropriation of the Greek sciences in the translation movement from Greek into Arabic and the writings of the falâsifa up to Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ, c.980–1037), philosophy and the Greek sciences were “naturalized” into the discourse of kalâm and Muslim theology (Sabra 1987). Al-Ghazâlî's approach to resolving apparent contradictions between reason and revelation was accepted by almost all later Muslim theologians and had, via the works of Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126–98) and Jewish authors a significant influence on Latin medieval thinking. (From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Timothy John "Tim" Winter (Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad)

Timothy John "Tim" Winter (born 1960), also known as Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, is a British Muslim researcher, writer, columnist and teacher. His profile and work have attracted media coverage both in the Muslim World and the West. Conversant in both traditional Islamic scholarship and Western thought and civilization, Winter has made contributions on many Islamic topics. (From Wikipedia)

Dariush Shayegan Talks about the Golden Age of Iranian Culture and How to Revive it (Global Dialogue Prize 2009's Speech)

2011-06-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Dariush Shayegan

Dariush Shayegan (born in 1935 in Tehran) (Persian: داریوش شایگان) is one of Iran's prominent thinkers, cultural theorists and comparative philosophers.

Shayegan studied at Sorbonne University in Paris. He was a Professor of Sanskrit and Indian religions at Tehran University.

He wrote a novel "Land of Mirage" in French which won the ADELF award presented by the Association of French Authors on December 26, 2004. According to the Persian daily Aftab, Shayegan is well known in France for his books in the field of philosophy and mysticism.

Shayegan, who studied with Henry Corbin in Paris, also did many pioneering works on Persian mysticism and mystic poetry. He was a founding director of the Iranian Center for the Studies of Civilizations. In 1977, Shayegan initiated an international symposium on the "dialogue between civilizations," a concept that has been selectively appropriated by the former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. In 2009 Shayegan was awarded the inaugural Global Dialogue Prize, an international award for "outstanding achievements in the advancement and application of intercultural value research", in recognition of his dialogical conception of cultural subjectivity.

GEES (TRESSES) by Mohsen Namjoo

2011-06-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

THE NON CONFORMIST…

Namjoo’s unconventional approach to the dogma of traditional music in formal institutions pushed him out of the mainstream where he found a vast audience with his debut album Toranj. He single handedly took on the mainstream on several fronts transforming the traditional persian style into a modern rendition that attracted younger generations while simultaneously blending with western traditions of Rock and Blues. Namjoo did not stop with his great success as a musician and began to take on the dogma of traditional music lyrically. First with unconventional renditions of classical and neo-classical persian poetry and gradually with his own sophisticated, yet youthful and approachable sense of word play. There are no other examples of the Namjoo phenomenon in the contemporary Persian music scene. Given the circumstances in Iran, it is only natural that an artist like him would be lucky to find himself outside of the country, far from the hands of repression.

Mohsen Namjoo continues to connect with the hearts and souls of music lovers throughout the world. Payam Entertainment is proud to present a series of new albums in the coming months and launch a North American tour of Namjoo in “A Minor”, a major live production with his ensemble band.

Hailed as “the Bob Dylan of Iran” by the New York Times, Mohsen Namjoo is a visionary artist who speaks for and touches the souls of today’s youth. Seamlessly blending the Classical with the Modern, the Eastern with the Western, the ancient with the current, Mohsen Namjoo is a musical maverick. A Non-conformist who not only takes on the centuries old traditions of Persian music, but also his own approach to composition, style and sound. Namjoo in “A Minor” showcases his mastery as a vocalist, composer and Setar player with a full ensemble band of talented artists to create a truly unparalleled musical experience for those who think “World Music Is Not Enough”! (From Mosen Namjoo's official website)

Mohsen Namjoo

About "Gees (Tresses)":

Squeezing the ancient tunes of traditional Iranian music out of a guitar, Mohsen Namjoo -- called by some the “Iranian Bob Dylan“, performs his one-man show in an underground concert. His music evokes a merry vibration thumping under the coat of solemnity the streets of Tehran are wrapped with. The piece that starts with a typical image in mystic Persian poetry -- the beloved’s flying black locks, with “beloved” connoting the Creator. The poetic cliché breaks into pieces when the register of the language is all of a sudden catapulted into a colloquial Farsi, of frequent chat-up lines and borrowed Western words like “blonde.” The burlesque ends with a sarcastic one-word finale lamentingly trilled in a traditional mode: “hairdryer.” The creaky frame of strict traditionalism caging the range of guitar strings and the naturalism of informal modern Farsi is symbolic of the worn wobbly social and political structures which continue to awkwardly contain the liveliness of a pragmatic people. (From "Drums of War Muffling Iranian Moderates" by Amir Azizmohammadi)

The Queen and I by Nahid Persson Sarvestani, 2008 (Swedish)

2011-06-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

Nahid Persson Sarvestani (born 1960 in Shiraz, Iran) is an award-winning Iranian-Swedish filmmaker and director.

Her most famous documentary films are Prostitution Behind the Veil, My Mother - A Persian Princess, The End of Exile, and The Last Days of Life.

In November 2008, Persson Sarvestani finished the production of The Queen and I, a 90-minute documentary in which the director's year-long, complex relationship with the Iranian former Empress Farah Pahlavi is examined. The film had its North American premiere at Sundance Film Festival in 2009.

Persson Sarvestani has received several awards for her films. The Last Days of Life received the Swedish Cancer Foundation's (Cancerfondens) Journalist Prize in 2002. The film Prostitution Behind The Veil received an International Emmy nomination, as well as the Golden Dragon at the Krakow Film Festival, Best International News Documentary at the TV-festival 2005 in Monte Carlo, as well as The Crystal Award (Kristallen) by SVT (Swedish State Television) and the Golden Scarab (Guldbaggen) by the Swedish Film Institute in 2005.

Persson Sarvestani also shares TCO's (Tjänstemännens Centralorganisation) 2005 Cultural Prize with the author Marjaneh Bakhtiari. (From Wikipedia)

Swedish-Iranian film director Nahid Persson Sarvestani

Farah Pahlavi (Farah Diba; Persian: فرح دیبا Faraḥ Dība) born 14 October 1938, Tehran, Farah is the former Queen and Empress of Iran. She is the widow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and only Empress (Shahbanu) of modern Iran. She was Queen consort of Iran from 1959 until 1967 and Empress consort from 1967 until exile in 1979. ((From Wikipedia)

Empress Farah Pahlavi