The process of “modernization” in Iran: people cannot eat with their hands, etc. This is only an excerpt, btw. The list goes on.
—
Houchang Chehabi, “The Westernization of Iranian Culinary Culture,” Iranian Studies 36, no. 1 (2003) 50.
This Day in History: Operation Ajax
On August 19, 1953, the US and Great Britain orchestrated a coup d’etat, removing the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh from power.
Their plot, known as “Operation Ajax,” was the cheapest coup undertaken by the American government. The total cost ended up somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars.
You know, Ajam Media Collective? Them!
In Persia, to give a red tulip was to declare your love. The black center of the red tulip was said to represent the lover’s heart, burned to a coal by love’s passion. To give a yellow tulip was to declare your love hopelessly and utterly.
The origin of the word Tulip goes back to Persian, too, to the word دلبند dulband (turban). Crazy, right?
In Persian, though, tulips are called لاله lâleh. They’re also called lâleh in Turkey, where they were first cultivated for commercial purposes during the Ottoman Empire.
‘Yes,’ he replied wisely, ‘yourself.’”
Henri Matisse. The Algerian Woman. 1909. Oil on canvas. Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
The depiction of the Middle East has, since Edward Said’s Orientalism, often been approached in binary terms and in the framework of “power/knowledge” in the tradition of Friedrich Nietzche and Michel Foucault.
There is, however, an argument to be made for the Middle East as an influence on European modernity, not just the other way around. When one moves away from politics and economics to culture, power/knowledge becomes more ambiguous. People have multiple identities, and appropriate from various sources, and are changed by their influences. Goethe was clearly deeply changed by his encounter with the Persian poet Hafez, something that Said’s approach kept him from seeing.
French painter Henri Matisse, who came to prominence as a post-expressionist and then leader of a school called Fauvism (which rejected Picasso’s cubism), was deeply influenced by Japanese painting, as well as by his experiences in North Africa. Some of his famed striving for serenity probably has at least implicit roots in the Sufism and Buddhism of his influences. European Modernism is often treated as a European phenomenon, but it was global, and Africa and Asia played big roles in it.
Antoine Sevruguin’s photo of a Kurdish girl during the Qajar era.
![Antoin Sevruguin (1830s-1933) was an noted photographer during the Qajar era. Sevruguin to an Armenian-Georgian family in Tehran. His command of various languages gained him access to diverse groups of people, which served him well in his photography.
Nasir al-Din Shah really had a thing for photography (remember, he was the first shah to own a camera!), so he invited Sevruguin to document important court events.
[Note: This is important because I really like his photography. So I will be posting some of his works. I just wanted you to know who he is before I did so.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6xgh28hKy1r84v2no1_250.jpg)
Antoin Sevruguin (1830s-1933) was an noted photographer during the Qajar era. Sevruguin to an Armenian-Georgian family in Tehran. His command of various languages gained him access to diverse groups of people, which served him well in his photography.
Nasir al-Din Shah really had a thing for photography (remember, he was the first shah to own a camera!), so he invited Sevruguin to document important court events.
[Note: This is important because I really like his photography. So I will be posting some of his works. I just wanted you to know who he is before I did so.]
“Qajar Era Women’s Fashion”
More than just a gallery of sexy unibrows and huge mustaches, I present to you a roundup of the Qajar Shahs.
In order of rule:
Mohammad Shah Qajar (r. 1794-1797)
Fat’h ‘Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797-1834)
Mohammad Shah Qajar (r. 1834-1848)
Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848-1896)
Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1896-1907)
Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1907-1909)
Ahmad Shah Qajar (r. 1909-1925)
Ahmad Shah was slacking on the facial hair—I blame him for the downfall of the dynasty.
