The Reflection of Ancient Iranian Historical Characters: Mazdak and Anushirvan in Mirza Fatali Akhondzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani's Writings during Qajar

Recognition of the ancient history of Iran from the 19th century and the development of some conceptions such as nationalism, nationalist and equalitarian thoughts among the modern intellectuals during the Qajar era led to a new revision of some of the ancient Iranian historical characters by some Qajar writers. In this research it has been tried to examine the revision which has been done on the ancient historical characters by some modern intellectual historians during Qajar and after the constitutional period. This research concentrated on the revision that had taken place over two characters during Sassanid, i.e. Mazdak and Anoshirvan by Akhondzadeh and Kermani who seemed to be influenced by Dasatiri Texts as well as revolutionary thoughts and some protest movements besides familiarity with the new political discourses. Although some studies have been done on the revision of the ancient history of Iran, the major emphasis of this research is on the reflection and different recreation of the above mentioned historical characters in the works of Mirza Fatali Akhondzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani as the two modernists in the pre-constitutional period. The present study used historical method and implemented library resources using an analytical- descriptive approach. The results revealed that Akhondzadeh and Kermani with a focus on the political issues of their time, such as the issue of republicanism and socialist ideas had examined the characters and the historical statuses of Mazdak and Anushirvan.