Investigation of the Relationship between the Iranian Nationalism and Safavid Discourses

Abstract

Iranian nationalism is considered as a discourse which aims to preserve the signification of Iranian identity and to stabilize it in its conceptual atmosphere through blending the structure of various significants. On the other hand, Safavid government with the significant of religion developed an authoritative and united government in Iran in 907 After Hijrah. The existence of common significants between these two discourses raises this question concerning the kind of relationship between Iranian nationalism discourse and Safavid discourse as well as the common significants in these two discourses. Since, other and otherness are of significant position in the formation of discourse, the present article takes advantage of discourse analysis of Laclau and Mouffe and concludes that there are common significants in these two discourses which look the same as each other while their discourse analysis clarifies that the semiotics of these two discourses have been developed in two different conceptual atmospheres and the main reason of apparent commonality of significants is due to priority of politics and the achievement of hegemony in both discourses which leads to the exclusion of any element regarding the increase of authority from the domain of discourse and its inclusion in their own discourse framework

Keywords

• discourse analysis
• iranian nationalism
• history of iran
• safavid
• iranian identity