فصلنامه مطالعات فرهنگی اجتماعی خراسان
سال پنجم شماره 3 (پیاپی 19، بهار 1390)

During the Quajar era, Iran underwent a lot of change regarding its political, economical, and social life due to the policies of the superpowers Russia and Britain and the impact of the Western World. The area of Ghayenat, too, as a faraway land in the south of Khorasan and in the neighborhood of Afganistan and close to the India of Britain was not and exception. For Britain whose principal worry during the 19th century (A. D.) was to prevent the influence development of Russia and (from the beginning of the 20th century A.D.) Germany toward India, it was not possible for Ghayenat area not to have crucial importance. Thus, Ghayenat, because of its especial geographical position, was a domain of rivalry of the two great colonial powers; i.e. Britain and Russia, during the whole period of Quajar. This coincided with the fact that the Iranian government of the period, too, for territorial integrity and the interests of the country and the General Treasury followed its policies in the area. These conditions, which were undoubtedly an unprecedented experience, affected the local changes. According to the findings of the present study Ghayenat faced the significant rivalry of the superpowers Russia and Britain during the final years of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. From political point of view, the everyday increasing of the influence of these powers was associated with the appointment and dismissal of Khozeimeh rulers, which - while decreasing the authority of the central government – was followed by the dependence of the rulers of the area on one of these two powers. Moreover, some of their measures, especially during the World-War I left a lot of destruction behind them in the area. The present study, while discussing the political condition during the period, surveys the effect of the foreign powers on the policy of the area.

The great Khorasan is a historical region, which in a vast part of its history is entirely located in the domain of Persia. It spans what is now most of Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, and the southern parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Besides, terms such as "Great Iran", "Great Khorasan", "Great Sistan" and "Great Balochistan" lead us to a historical era which includes all the nineteenth and a part of the twentieth centuries. From the view of periodic Geopolitical divisions, this era is called colonial Geopolitical era. The most significant Geopolitical rivalry which led to transformations in the "Great Persia" inherited from Naderi empire and its historical territory including "the great Khorasan" was the Geopolitical rivalry between the two colonial powers of the era, i.e. Russia and Britain, which was known as "the great game".Having a historical outlook and using a descriptive-analytic method, this paper analyses the effects of the great game Geopolitical rivalry on "the great Khorasan", as one of the historical territories of "the great Persia". "The great Khorasan", due to its geographical position, the weakness of Qujar government, and other historical and geographical factors received the most impacts from the geopolitical rivalry of the "great game". The most important of these impacts were the disintegration of the "great Khorasan", the superimposition of international borders on the province together with territorial and border differences, division of some peoples based on the marked and limited borders, the establishment of intermediate Afghanistan with a pack of international and geographic challenges, marking of the present day borders of central Asia countries which used to be within the Soviet Union internal structure, and trying to alienate the history and character of the disintegrated parts of "the great Khorasan".Many of these problems which have their roots in the rivalry of the "great game" are yet unsolved and face the countries that are the outcome of the great Khorasan's disintegration. Keywords: Great Khorasan, Great Game, Colonial Geopolitics era, Superimposed boundaries.

Most of scholars today believe that poverty is not due to deficiency in the sources but it is because of lack of knowledge and necessary awareness regarding how to use them, which are the most important factors to increase poverty. Thus, developing human sources through training and persuading villager women, as the main farming force to participate in productive activities has got a lot of importance. The present paper, which is on field findings, studies the difference of effectiveness of various trainings of villager women and their participation in the farming activities in Khoosf rural district, as one of the suburbs of Khoosf section of Birjand. The statistical population in this study was 41 inhabited villages except for the spots which were under the citizenship of Khoosf section. Sampling method was a randomized multi-stage one in the first stage of which sample villages and in the second stage sample population of families out of the selected villages were diagnosed using kookran formula. Finally out of 848 families in sample villages 134 families were queried. The results indicate that there is a significant difference between formal training and the extent of women's participation in farming and domestication of cattle. There was also a direct significant difference between formal training and participation in farming activities themselves. Moreover, there was a significant difference between informal training and women's participation in farming activities and domestication of cattle.

Having simple words and prefixing capacity of any language helps itself with a variety of word-formation.Persian of 4th-6th centuries(Hejri) used to have this capacity in action, but after the 6th century this feature of Persian vanished little by little and instead of using simple verbs compound verbs, which decrease the generative aspect of language a great deal, was used. Therefore, reviving simple and prefixal verbs is a task which must be attended to so that forming derivatives of verbs, and as a result increasing of the generative aspect of Persian, would become possible again. Beihaghi History is one of the valuable prose treasures of Persian which can be very useful in this important issue. Among the linguistic elements used in Beihaghi History "the verb" is the greatest and most flexible element at the service of Beihaghi's writing. The present paper shows to what extent "prefix" helps to having a variety of verbs and their meaning, as well as making simple verbs or derived ones; which can substitute phrasal verbs or compound verbs with a wide application.

Since the beginning of their creation, human beings have defended themselves against natural disasters and human catastrophes in different and various ways, but the form and pattern of defending buildings has changed and evolved depending on man's mental development. During various pre-historic eras, depending on natural and geographical conditions of different spots on the Earth, men have taken different defending strategies into consideration. Thus, defending strategies were very various during medieval Islamic centuries because building strongholds and building defending structures during Arshakuni and the Sassanide eras by means of mud-bricks, mud, stones, and chalk mixture in great numbers took place all over the political and cultural territories of Parthia and Sassanide, which were repeated in a way during this period. Ismailia, by building stone strongholds at the heights, were an important factor of resistance against self-centered power of Sultans in the territory of Seljuqs. By building these strongholds, Ismailia somehow manifested the architecture of Sassanide era and meanwhile granted a creative feature to their own architecture. They casted their extra power in the teeth of Seljuqs, crusaders, and their other enemies in the community of those days by building strongholds at the heights in different spots of the Islamic world especially in the east of Iran (Ghohestan), Almut Valley, Isfahan, and Syria (Jabal Bahra).The present research is a field one and where the strongholds themselves were not available relevant books and sources were used. Moreover, it interprets and explains defending structures of the strongholds along different eras. Then, with a special perspective, the structure and defending form of Ismailia strongholds in Ghohestan have been pointed to. Key

Rural-Urban social relationships including periodical traveling pattern and population flows have a major role population instability of rural settlements. since rural migrations is basically under the influence of decreasing of per capita and occupational opportunity this paper aims at determining not only the productive factors of population flows but also their effects on instability of rural settlements in socio-economic dimensions, specially in the form of rural depopulation. The research method employed is predicative-survey. The research population was 40 inhabited villages covering 274 families in the central district of Birjand. Statistical tests such as coefficient correlation, Pearson's distribution test, and regression complex variable test were used to examine the research indices and answer the queries concerning the research. The results obtained indicate that there is a direct correlation between population flows and depopulation on one hand and instability of rural settlements on the other, which is the result of social correlation between rural and urban centers.

The oriental letter is one of the valuable works in the history of Iranian art gallery. The context of this work has been composed by Ibne Hesam-e-Khoosfi, the poet of the ninth century (A.H.). The principal content of this work defines the position and value of Ali (God bless him) and explanation of his battles. Some of the contents of the oriental letter are derived from Iranian ancient myths. Various factors have been decisive in the improvement of this work, as a masterpiece of Iranian art gallery. Among these factors, save the policy of rulers, stylistic peculiarities and capabilities of the creator of a specific work is important. In the present paper, using an analytical method and defining influential factors in creating artistic figures, analysis of symbols and their concept have been taken into account. The analytical result of this paper reveals the close connection between art and religion and shows the interaction of art, religion, and politics in the 9th century. (16th century A.D.).