Representation of Villagers and Rural Emigrant's Political Participation in the Stories of Second Pahlavi Era (1340-1357/1962-1979)

The role of villagers in political activities is one of the most discussed subjects before and after the revolution. There are controversies over the role played by them. Some studies show the significant and noteworthy presence of villagers, whereas some others speak of their inactivity and conservativeness. However, the third group considers a role just for rural emigrants. The aim of this study is to identify the affairs of urban and rural discourses considering political participation of villagers and rural emigrants before 1357/1979 Revolution. In order to study the villagers’ point of view, stories have been chosen as the source of this research. The main issue of this study is how the political participation of villagers and rural emigrants is represented in the storiesof the second Pahlavi eraandhow different rural and urbanite authorsare in their representations. It is hypothesized that the works of urban authors can be classified into three groups, such as the above-mentioned studies. Nonetheless, based on the viewpoint of authors with rural background, most of the villagers and rural emigrants did not pay attention to political affairs and the reason was not their conservativeness. Analyzing34 related stories, this article tries to explicate the viewpoint of rural authors in linkage to villagers as well as the rural emigrants for the first time.