Iranian Mongolology and its relation to the Marxist and Western Mongolologies in Pahlavi historiography

Abstract

Iranian Mongolology together with Marxist and European; formed the trilateral formation of the Pahlavi era. Meanwhile, due to the distinction between different methodological and analytical findings, Iranian Mongolology represented a special type of Mongolian studies, as it was linked to the ideological discourse of the Pahlavi era and had several essential features: it did not rely on the foundations of a coherent methodology, was linked to the nationalist discourse, and overcame the Iranian tendencies and elitist approach in it. Iranian Mongolology, influenced by these features, is linked to a larger ideological discourse and has built its narrative about the history of the Mongol era around the macronarratives of Iranian cultural resurgence. Based on such a situation, the hypothesis of this study is: Iranian Mongolology narrated the history of Iran as a golden period by focusing on the theory of ”cultural resurgence and continuation of Iranian identity,” thus reinforcing the ideological discourse of the Pahlavi era. In this study, we attempt to use an analytical approach to measure the validity of this hypothesis.

Keywords

• iranian mongolology
• pahlavi era
• marxist mongolology
• western mongolology
• cultural discourse