Iran-Tajikistan Cultural Relations: Reviving the Ancestral Alphabet and the Challenge of Political

This article tends to say that despite the importance of the cultural theories of international relations and the role of culture as basic variables of foreign policy, politics and the political factors have a more vital place in shaping the relations between states in global and regional levels, thus capable of intensifying and weakening the cultural relations and cooperation. After a review of the cultural and civilizational turn in international relations and foreign policy theories, and the theory of Iranian civilization’s basin and the concept of cultural Iran, the author argues that politics and political factors play more important role and somehow overshadow the cultural and civilizational ties. By concentrating on Iran-Tajikistan cultural cooperation, especially in reviving the ancestral alphabet (Persian) to replace the Russian (Cyrillic), the author explains how politics in general and political differences in particular, brought those enthusiastic and cherished efforts into a stalemate if not a deadlock.