survey on how Europeans became acquainted with Iranian culture and the Persian language from a historical perspective

Throughout history, nations have gotten to know each other's cultures and languages in various ways. This cross-cultural familiarization sometimes took place through war and imposing the dominant nation's language and culture on the defeated nation, and sometimes through commercial or religious interactions. In today's world, where political diplomacy is a strategic tool for creating various interactions between nations, the role of cultural diplomacy in creating and facilitating these relations is very important. Undoubtedly, one of the important ways to create cultural relations, strong cultural diplomacy, is to recognize these cultural-historical interactions. The present study wants to investigate the historical roots of the familiarity of Iran and Europe in order to understand how and in what ways the Europeans got to know the Iranian culture.With this aim, the foundations of cultural familiarity between Iranians and Europeans were examined historically in three periods: the first period, from 550 AD until the arrival of Islam in Iran. The second period, from the 7th century to the beginning of the 17th century, and the third period, from the 17th century to the present day. The purpose of this article is to investigate the reasons and methods of this acquaintance in the mentioned courses. These three historical periods are definitely different from each other in terms of duration, the amount of cultural exchanges and the type of statements exchanged.Therefore,first,the reasons and ways of creating interactions in each period were investigated, and then the results of this cultural familiarity were presented from a historical perspective. The research method in this article is the historical method based on sources, documents and books.Introduction           How the West got to know Iranian culture is an important issue. Many articles and books have been written in this field. The large number of these researches show that throughout history, cultural, political and even military and economic interactions and confrontations between the West and Iran have been important for researchers and historians. Preliminary investigations showed that the history of these relationships reaches more than five hundred years after the birth of Christ.The first cultural interactions between Iran and the West were religious interactions, and the prevalence of Mithraism and Manichaeism in Europe confirms this claim. In addition, studies have shown that these interactions have always expanded in different periods. Therefore, in this research, it has been tried to categorize these cultural and linguistic interactions in terms of time first, and then examine the types of cultural propositions exchanged in each period in order to determine what causes and factors made Europeans familiar with Iranian culture and Is it Persian? And which cultural propositions have been more or less durable in long-term interactions between them?Material & Methods Considering the long-term history of cultural interactions between Iran and Europe, this research aims to answer the main question: when did the acquaintance of Europeans with Iranian culture and Persian language begin? How was the beginning of this familiarity formed in different historical periods? From which point of view and based on which cultural propositions can the different historical periods of cultural relations between Iran and Europe be divided? The working method in conducting this research is descriptive and analytical based on the course of historical events related to the research questions.Discussion of Results & Conclusions     Studies have shown that the process of confrontation between Iran and the West can be divided into three historical periods.The first period between 550 years BC until the Arab Muslim attack on Iran, when all kinds of cultural interactions and statements exchanged in the 550-year period had a religious or philosophical aspect, and Europeans' familiarity with Persian culture and language in this period was mainly through the teachings of The religion of Mithraism or Manichaeism is sometimes weakened and sometimes improved.This research showed that the second phase of this cultural acquaintance, which lasted for about a thousand years from the 7th to the 17th century AD, was mainly based on scientific relations, and one of the primary reasons was the Muslim conquests in Europe. Conquest of lands between Iran and Europe helped spread Iranian and Islamic culture and sciences in Europe.The Crusades also helped settle Christians in Muslim lands and later accelerated the process of translation and this movement became a means to transfer and expand the knowledge, philosophy and culture of the East, especially Iranians.Studies show that the third and last period of this process, which is the main stage of familiarization of Europeans with Persian culture and language, began in the 17th century. Economic and political motivations played an important role in this field. Of course, other reasons such as Iran's access to India, European scientists' interest in synchronizing old geographical sciences with new information and sciences, as well as Iran's reputation as an ancient country added other reasons to the set of previous reasons. Therefore, there is no doubt that economic and political motives have played an important role in the relations between Iran and Europe. In addition, the East India Company played an important role in introducing Europeans to Iranian culture and language, because from the very beginning, company managers realized that their representatives would have difficulty in performing their duties without learning Eastern languages. They considered the reason for their lack of success to be unfamiliar with the habits and beliefs of the people of the East, especially Persian-speaking Iranians and Indians. Therefore, the brokers encouraged themselves to learn Persian language and literature from the very beginning. These reasons show that there have always been cultural interactions between Iran and Europe.