The Reflection of Nationalism in Dramatic Literature of First Pahlavi

Searching about Nationalism in dramatic literature of Iran, cause us to consider two special eras in the one hundred and fifty year old dramatic history of Iran: First Pahlavi and the time of war between Iran and Iraq which has allocated a lot of artistic works under the name of Defa’e Moghadas to itself. But the main aspect of this research is introducing and surveying Sho’bie Movement – the first Iranian Nationalism movement – as the historical prelude of nationalism in First Pahlavi era in which has been represented the effects of the first movement. Sho’bie was formed against the Arabic cultural invasion. When Sassanian army had been broken down by Arabs who had been newly Muslims, they lost their independence, their kingdom and also government. But Arab Muslims started to dominate Iran by establishing a tyrannical government in Iran. Iranians who were disgusted with this new religion, Islam -which was supposed to bring them equity and brotherhood but it didn’t- were forced to fight against it. So Sho’bie Movement was born to stop Arabs destroying their history, culture and customs. There were three different wings in this movement; political wing, literary wing and cultural- scientific one. While Sho’bie is the first organized nationalist movement in this country and also effective in the dramatic literature of First Pahlavi, it is so significant for this research. Also both of them have many things in common. At the last years of Qajar dynasty, there were a lot of domestic riots in different parts of Iran. Also, Russian forces were in north of Iran and British ones in south. Constitutions who wanted to set up a limited monarchy couldn’t succeed after sixteen years struggling. Finally Reza Shah became the king of Iran by a coup. The conditions of society motivated intellectuals to be interested in nationalism. The government also supported these kinds of nationalist thoughts and activities, because they could have benefited by them. Reza Shah was also interested in founding a modern nationalist society and his points of view were somehow similar to the opinions of Earnest Gleaner- a theoretician of modern nationalism. Returning to brilliant historical time of Iran and encouraging national emotions of nation was two most important things that Reza Shah used them to reach his desire. Writers who were motivated and supported by the government, started to write plays in which nationalism were represented as well as the brilliant history of Acheamenian and Sassanidae Emperorship. In a comparison with Sho’bie movement, it seems that nationalism in dramatic literature of First pahlavi has mostly followed the patterns of literary and cultural- scientific wings of Sho’bie movement. Obviously there are some differences between these two movements because there is a long distance - more than one thousand years - between them but there are many considerable similarities between the patterns of thought and campaign in Sho’bie and the patterns of thought and campaign in First Pahlavi era which are detectable and have been represented in this research as the main purpose.