امپراطوری، مذهب و غربی سازی انقلابی از بالا در روسیه و ایران

Conceptions of identity among mass and elite play a crucial role in the modernisation process emerging from geo-political and cultural encounters with the ‘West.’ These conceptions and debates over identity play a leading role in the conceptualisation of ‘modernity’ defined as the course for future political, economic, and cultural change. This imaging of identity and thereby modernity constituted an evaluation, however haphazard, of possible paths to change from which to choose. This choice in turn broadly determines which existing cultural and religious traditions/frameworks are to be abandoned or preserved. This article focuses on what I call ‘revolutionary westernisation from above’ a unique form of modernisation utilised by the Romanov and Pahlavi monarchies. This policy of revolutionary westernisation from above deemed essential by the Romanov and Pahlavi dynasties given geo-political and domestic conditions, created a fissure in society and blocked political development. It also says much about these countries’ relationship with the West, the varied conceptions of their respective identities, and ultimately the dynamics of the revolutionary ideologies that came to power after the demise of the Romanov and Pahlavi monarchies.