The Politics of Calendars
State Appropriations of the Contested Iranian Past
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4314627 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ehsan Kashfi (0000-0002-1989-4708, University of Alberta, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 861 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-12 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel12100861 |
| OpenAlex | W3206310514 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 21 |
This paper seeks to investigate how commemorative practices, rituals, and holidays are invented, deployed, and recast for political and ideological purposes, to reinforce and sustain a particular narrative of national identity. It argues that the choice of particular moments of a country's past to be commemorated in calendars as national holidays and the way in which the collective past is preserved and remembered both reflect and articulate a country's vision of its present essence, of who its people are. Recognizing the link between the collective memory and national identity, the Iranian states before and after the 1979 revolution made a special effort to articulate their narrative of the past by commemorating a particular set of holidays and rituals. Viewing the calendar as a political artifact, this paper compares changes in the Iranian national calendars in the Pahlavi era (1925-1979) and the Islamic Republic (1979-2018). It examines the inclusion of new religious holidays and the removal of national days associated with the monarchy as well as the assignment of new meanings and celebratory practices to the old ones as the signifiers of a political maneuver to articulate a new shared public memory and narrative of identity since the 1979 revolution. It then examines two nationwide celebrations before and after the 1979 revolution, representing two state-sponsored, competing narratives of Iranian identity: firstly, the 2500-year celebration of the Persian Empire in 1953, and, secondly, the Ashura commemoration, a religious gathering dedicated to the remembrance of Shia Imams. These commemorations provided the state a unique political opportunity to present its own appraisal of the past and, in turn, national identity
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Collective memory · Ideology · Islam · Literature · Media studies · Monarchy · Narrative · National identity · Political science · Politics · Politics of memory · Sociology · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Religion and Society Interactions
Iran Facing Others
Minorities in Iran
Nations and Nationalism since 1780
The Shah’s Imperial Celebrations of 1971
Making History in Iran
The Invention of Tradition
The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran
A History of Modern Iran
Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics
Fallen Soldiers
On Collective Memory
Between Darius and Khomeini
Persian nationalism and the campaign for language purification
A Return to Which Self
Religion and Ritual
Between Memory and History
The Social Context of Commemoration
Political Ritual and Social Integration
| Citations per year | 1.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |