Crowning the “Sun of the Aryans”

Mohammad Reza Shah's Coronation and Monarchical Spectacle in Pahlavi Iran

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8968655
AutoresRobert Steele (0000-0003-4248-6785, University of California, Los Angeles, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen53
Número2
Páginas175-193
Fecha de publicación2021-03-22
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s002074382000121x
OpenAlexW3136184602
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas14

Coronations are commonly held at the beginning of a monarch's reign, symbolizing accession to the throne and the continuation of the dynasty. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's coronation ceremony of 1967, however, was held twenty-six years into his rule and was designed to draw attention to the renewed glory of Iranian monarchy and the successes of the Pahlavi shahs. This coronation ceremony and related events offer important insights into the Pahlavi ideologues’ conceptualization of monarchy and the strategies they employed to inculcate their ideology in a domestic and global audience. The shah and the monarchy were presented as revolutionary and reformist, and simultaneously as the ultimate defenders of tradition; as religious by nature, but also as proponents of the separation of church and state. This paper seeks to understand, using a range of underutilized primary source material, how the regime delivered these apparently contradictory notions, and what it sought to gain from holding the event in the way that it did

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Ceremony · Coronation · Ideology · Monarchy · Political science · Politics · Throne · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Religion and Society Interactions · Turkey's Politics and Society