Perceptions of Iran by Ali M. Ansari;

Author:Ali M. Ansari;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

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Iran and the Aryan myth*

David Motadel

Few terms in modern history have developed a similar vigour and significance as the word ‘Aryan’. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the term became a strong political concept which had a notable impact on the construction of ethnic and national identities in both the European and the non-European world. This chapter presents an account of the origins, evolution and politicisation of the term ‘Aryan’ in modern Europe, concluding with a brief sketch of its significance in the non-European world, specifically in Iran, since the late nineteenth century. The purpose of the article is to rethink the often underestimated role that Iran played in the history of myths about the ‘Aryan’, both in European debates and in Iranian nationalist discourse.1

The history of the term ‘Aryan’ can be seen as a series of conceptualisations and re-conceptualisations. This chapter endeavours to draw attention to the actual change and variation in the meaning of the expression over time,2 exploring the rediscovery of the ancient term by European scholars of the late eighteenth century, its introduction into historical literature and linguistics in the early nineteenth century, and the subsequent conceptualising of ‘Aryans’ as an Indo-European people (I); the re-conceptualising of ‘Aryans’ as an Indo-European race (II); the evolution and abstraction of the term ‘Aryan’ within European race theories, and its politicisation and popularisation in the late nineteenth century (III); and the political instrumentalisation, particularly discourses about the ‘Aryan’ in Nazi Germany (IV).

I conclude with an examination of the reception of European ideas about the ‘Aryan’ in the non-European world, specifically its reception by Iranian nationalists (V). The century-long terminological evolution of the term did result in a diversification of meaning. The following narrative should therefore not be read as a history of a linear development, or even of teleological progress, but as an accumulation of competing, though linked, meanings.

I. Origins

Two thousand five hundred years before the term ‘Aryan’ became popular among racists and nationalists across Europe and Asia, the Persian king Darius I (522–486 bc) introduced himself in the rock inscription of Naqsh-i Rustam as follows:

I (am) Darius the great king, king of kings, king of countries possessing all kinds of people, king of this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenid, a Persian, the son of a Persian, an Aryan, of Aryan lineage.3

The term ‘Aryan’, as used by Darius, was a self-designation that described belonging to a people, and conveyed an ethnical connotation. ‘Aryan’ and related expressions like ‘Arya’ also appeared in other ancient Persian and Indian inscriptions and texts, most importantly in the Zoroastrian Avesta and in Vedic texts.4

The modern history of the term ‘Aryan’ begins with two very different ‘discoveries’ during the Age of Enlightment. The first was the rediscovery of the ancient term ‘Aryan’ by European scholars. In the eighteenth century, when European explorers developed a rising interest in Iran and ancient Persia, they soon found out that the ancient Persians had identified themselves as ‘Aryans’. In 1768, before the inscription of Naqsh-i

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