The Khajars are still trying to legitimate themselves, but you have increasing generations. There is a total certainty in the nationalist imaginary about the link between what we call Iran today and this 2500 years of imperial history. You'll sometimes even get these kind of very prideful claims about how Iran has never been colonized from Iranian nationalists. So it's absolutely, it's absolutely true that the Khajars can't use it to stay in power forever,. But it's still I think a successful discursive move and effective political program under Rezausha.
Featuring Eskandar Sadeghi and Golnar Nikpour on the history of modern Iran, from 1906 through the present. This episode is the first in a four-part series, covering the period from 1906 until 1941, from the Constitutional Revolution that imposed constitutional limits on the Qajar dynasty through the 1921 coup that brought to power Reza Khan—who then in 1925 deposed the Qajars and became Reza Shah, the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. We end just before the 1941 occupation of Iran by longtime imperial powers, Britain and the Soviet Union, which forced Reza Shah out and replaced him with his son, Muhammad Reza Shah—which is where we will pick up in episode two.
RIP Mike Davis. Listen to his Dig interviews here: thedigradio.com/tag/mike-davis
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