In December 1972, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi issued a farmān (imperial decree) establishing a world-class library in Tehran. It was to be called the Ketābkhāneh-ye Melli-ye Pahlavi, the Pahlavi National Library, and was to be constructed in north Tehran, in the new Shahestān Pahlavi city center. Like many similar nationalist projects in Iran, the Pahlavi National Library was envisioned on a grand scale and at the implementation stage the plans had to be reduced to realistic dimensions. Despite this, Swiss librarian Jean-Pierre Clavel, who served as president of the Committee for Implementation of the Pahlavi National Library Project, described the library as “without doubt one of the most ambitious of the second half of the 20th century, definitely with regards to the architectural project.”Footnote 1 Using papers from the archives of the shah’s cultural counsellor at the imperial court, Shojāʿeddin Shafā, who was involved with the Pahlavi National Library from its inception until its ultimate demise with the revolution, as well as memoirs from those involved and reports published in the 1970s, this paper will provide a comprehensive study of the project. It was one of a number of projects initiated during the 1960s which would play an important role in the development of scholarship and education in Iran, including also the Komiteh-ye Taʾlif-e Tārikh-e Irān (Committee for Compiling the History of Iran), Shurā-ye Farhangi-ye Saltanati (Imperial Cultural Council) and Jashnhā-ye 2500 Sāleh-ye Shāhanshāhi (the 2,500th anniversary celebrations, held in 1971). There was an element of self-indulgence in the way the Pahlavi court planned and promoted these programs, in the sense that they all had to be the most ambitious and the best, and the promotion of ideology was sometimes a motivating factor. However, beyond the pomp and ceremony of the imperial court there was a genuine attempt to develop education and culture, and establish Iran as a base for Iranian scholarship internationally.
Much scholarly work has been done on the cultural policies of the early Pahlavi period, most notably in the context of state building and the formation and dissemination of the Pahlavi national ideology.Footnote 2 Cultural policy in the formative years of Pahlavi rule focused on creating a singular state ideology that stressed the distinctiveness of Iranian culture and civilization. Efforts were made by organizations such as the Farhangestān to investigate strategies through which the Persian language could be altered in order to contribute to the “Iranization” of culture and educational infrastructure.Footnote 3 Afshin Marashi showed in his Nationalizing Iran, for instance, how the educational policies of the early Pahlavi period reflected “the state’s desire to reconcile the dual interests of modernity and nationalism.”Footnote 4 This nationalizing of culture and history continued into the later Pahlavi period; several members of the Farhangestān in 1935 even became members of the Imperial Cultural Council nearly thirty years later and comparisons can easily be drawn between Reza Shah’s Ferdowsi millennial celebration in 1934 and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s 2,500th anniversary celebrations of 1971.
In his recent work on the intellectual construction of Iranian modernity, Afshin Matin-Asgari writes that from the 1960s the shah’s regime instituted a “comprehensive cultural policy agenda” and argues that the implementation of this cultural policy agenda fell primarily under the remit of the Ministry of Culture and Arts.Footnote 5 This paper will show that the imperial court, too, was deeply involved in the development of cultural policy in Pahlavi Iran. In an interview, Richard Frye, who served as head of the Asia Institute in Shiraz, said that as far as cultural policy was concerned, the court and the government followed separate paths. Mehrdād Pahlbod, the minister of culture and arts and brother-in-law to the shah, concentrated his ministry’s work on music, film and fine arts, leaving “anything to do with universities, anything to do with learned societies, with professors or the like” to Shafā at the court.Footnote 6 Despite his clear importance to the promotion of the Pahlavi state ideology and the formation of cultural policy, Shafā and the court are absent in many analyses of the cultural politics of the late Pahlavi period. This paper aims to fill that gap in our understanding of cultural policy, particularly those aspects relating to scholarship and education.
The Pahlavi National Library Project and the other cultural initiatives directed by the imperial court detailed in this paper also offer some clues as to how the court functioned in relation to the shah. The fact that the library was named Pahlavi, after its patron, and would be situated in the Shahestān Pahlavi, was meant to emphasize that although the library was an expression of Iran’s recent achievements as a nation, those achievements were due to and reliant on the leadership of the shah. This was not evidence of the dictatorial nature of the shah himself, for, as this paper will show, apart from signing royal decrees and attending formal ceremonies, the shah was only minimally involved in these projects. The shah surrounded himself with trusted ministers to whom he was content to assign responsibilities. While the shah adopted a very proactive approach to foreign policy matters, in cultural policy he was less involved and did not generally interfere with the work of his subordinates at the imperial court. This paper will, therefore, contribute to a deeper understanding of how individuals within the imperial court, in this case Shafā, were able to drive projects forward.Footnote 7
At the beginning of the 1970s, in a message expressed most explicitly at the 2,500th anniversary celebrations, the shah’s Iran was said to have broken free from the imperialism that had overshadowed its recent history, and had emerged as an independent and strong world power.Footnote 8 Iran’s impressive economic development throughout the 1960s and 1970s was a sign that the shah’s policies were achieving success, but the shah sought to improve Iran’s standing in the world and consolidate power not only through economic growth, but also through culture and academia. By making Iran the nodal point of Iranian studies around the world, by ensuring that international conferences were held in Iran, that Iranian scholars participated in major scholarly events, by arranging publications and organizing exhibitions at museums around the world, the shah’s regime was indicating to a domestic and global audience that Iran was now a major power that no longer needed to rely on foreign expertise to lead the research on its own history.
The Pahlavi National Library Project contributed to the modernization efforts of the Pahlavis, but it also sought to promote a progressive view of Iran around the world. Shafā wrote that the intention was to create a “model library; firstly for Iran, secondly for the developing world, and thirdly for the whole world.”Footnote 9 In 1974 the shah said, “Still, I have higher aspirations. I have to bring the country to the status of the most powerful countries in the world, to be the first in the Middle East. There is no reason not to be, we have the means, power and raw materials. What have others done that we cannot?”Footnote 10 The construction of a world-class national library symbolized Iran’s progress for the entire world to see. The shah is still often described as a megalomaniac, who, especially after the 2,500th anniversary celebrations, would become obsessed with perpetuating the idea of the glory of Iranian kingship above all else. The plan for the Shahestān Pahlavi has even been compared to Hitler’s plans for Berlin.Footnote 11 In the shah’s speeches, he often presented himself as an enlightened monarch, akin to Cyrus the Great, who in the narrative promoted by the Pahlavi ideologues, built an empire based on “principles of liberty and tolerance; freedom of individuals and nations to practice any religion, freedom of expression and freedom of national habits and customs.”Footnote 12 His regime dedicated itself to dragging Iran into the twentieth century and to the center of the world stage, and recognized that besides a strong economy and powerful military, a modern nation needs a literate population, thriving universities, empowered women—and libraries.
Shojāʿeddin Shafā and the Imperial Court
Shojāʿeddin Shafā was a major force behind the drive to establish Iran’s reputation internationally as culturally progressive, and he played a key role in the cultural programs initiated by the imperial court throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Shafā was also a widely respected scholar in his own right, having translated a number of Italian and French works into Persian, the first being the poems of Lamartine, of which he produced a translation at the age of eighteen.Footnote 13 In recognition of his translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy he was presented with a gold medal by the city of Florence in 1971, as an expression of appreciation for his “great contribution of thought and doctrine” to the “universality of the work and image of Dante.”Footnote 14 Shafā was also a nationalist. During the 1940s, while Iran was under foreign occupation, he set up a political party called Mihan Parastān (Patriots), the stated goal of which was to “defend Iranian nationalism and its cultural and historical values in the face of the psychological effects of Soviet, British and German propaganda.”Footnote 15 Shafā held positions in the cabinets of Mohammad Mosaddeq and Hoseyn ʿAlā before his appointment to the imperial court in 1957 at the request of ʿAlā, who had recently become court minister.Footnote 16
Shafā was instrumental in a number of cultural initiatives relevant to this study, the first being the Shurā-ye Farhangi-ye Saltanati, the Imperial Cultural Council. The council was an executive body that sought to evaluate projects undertaken by the imperial court, and to direct cultural operations concerning Iranian studies worldwide.Footnote 17 It was established by imperial decree on 5 December 1962, and consisted of thirteen members: Ebrāhim Purdāvud, Sayed Hasan Taqizādeh, Mohammad Hejāzi, ʿAli-Asghar Hekmat, Parviz Nātel Khānlari, ʿAli-Akbar Siyāsi, Fakhredin Shādmān, Sādeq Rezāzādeh Shafaq, ʿIsā Sadiq, Hoseyn ʿAlā, Badiʿozzamān Foruzānfar, Saʿid Nafisi and Shafā.Footnote 18 One of the initial tasks of the council was to make contact with cultural institutions around the world, and during the first year of its existence a list was compiled of institutes engaged in studies on Iranian civilization and culture. For many of the organizations based in South America, Asia and Africa in particular, this was the first time they had had contact with an Iranian cultural organization.Footnote 19 With the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Iranian embassies abroad, the council was kept au courant with all events, initiatives and publications related to Iranian studies internationally.Footnote 20 The Iranian ambassador in Vienna, for instance, wrote to Shafā to announce his intention to investigate the cultural organizations in Austria that had artefacts or books relating to Iranian civilization.Footnote 21
In all, the council contacted cultural centers in sixty-two countries in its efforts to assure “wide collaboration on a global scale” and to maintain “close relations with hundreds of different scientific centers and universities which carry out research in different fields related to language, literature and Iranian civilization.”Footnote 22 This was seen as an important task because these international scientists “often did not feel like they were contributing to a collective oeuvre,” and as such the council sought to be the “point of contact between the Iranologists, who in this way are kept up to date with the work of their colleagues.”Footnote 23 Shafā served as secretary general of the Council and in this capacity he liaised with cultural organizations worldwide to gather support for the Council’s work, and they responded enthusiastically. The foreign secretary of the Royal Society in London, for example, responded that they were looking forward to “co-operating” with the Council as a “sister academy.”Footnote 24 This was the first state-sponsored program that sought to take a leading role in the development of Iranian studies both in Iran and in other countries. It ultimately contributed to the imperial court’s objective to promote Iran internationally as progressive and committed to intellectual development.
Contributing to the strategy of the Imperial Cultural Council in establishing Iran as an international base for Iranian studies, the Pahlavi Library was established on 17 October 1965.Footnote 25 It was to be “the core of all research studies” into Iranology internationally,Footnote 26 and its ultimate goal was to gather all literature on Iran in one place to provide “the vastest source of documentation on the Iranian culture and civilization, for the benefit of those who study such matters all around the world as well as in Iran itself.”Footnote 27 It was a precursor to the Pahlavi National Library, but it primarily served as a research center and documentation unit rather than a national library. The Imperial Cultural Council served as the board of trustees and its duties included approving plans for work on the library, selecting management and members of the advisory board and seeking financial backers.Footnote 28 One of the tasks of the managing director of the library was to contact the cultural organizations identified by the Imperial Cultural Council.Footnote 29 The purpose of these communications was not only to investigate which manuscripts, books, documents and other materials the library needed to obtain, but to ensure close collaboration. In a three-page letter sent to international institutions outlining the aims of the library, Shafā, in his role as managing director, wrote,
To start a close collaboration (knowing your interest in this subject as well as your being a worthy friend of Iranian Culture) I would highly appreciate it if you would be kind enough to send me your ideas, suggestions and remarks on this subject so that we would be able to accomplish the task given to us by His Imperial Majesty the Shah’s good will and generosity.Footnote 30
From this early stage, Shafā was keen to show that the library was an international project and that Iran was willing to work with its international colleagues to ensure its success. Scholars and librarians from all over the world responded enthusiastically, offering advice and cooperation.
The Pahlavi Library relied on a number of financial donors, including the imperial court, the National Iranian Oil Company, the central bank and the Pahlavi Foundation, while the Plan Organization agreed to look into the construction of the library itself.Footnote 31 The library was granted an area of 3,000 square meters, located in Imperial Park on Pahlavi Street, on which to construct the library building.Footnote 32 While plans for the construction of the library progressed, a temporary base was chosen, with twenty-eight rooms and a large garden.Footnote 33 The library was to be divided into the following sections: manuscripts, with originals or photocopies of all valuable Iranian manuscripts throughout the world; historical documents, which would be a collection of all documents relating to Iran currently held in archives; books, which would collect copies of every book written about Iran in all languages; reviews and publications, consisting of all articles published on Iranian culture and civilization over the past two centuries; and the center for scientific research under the direction of the imperial court.Footnote 34 The Pahlavi Library attempted to establish a fluid exchange of knowledge, and scholars around the world were encouraged to seek support from it. Professor Felix Tauer of the Charles University in Prague, for example, offered the Pahlavi Library copies of his and other Czech books in exchange for periodicals published in Iran which were inaccessible in his country.Footnote 35 The main function of the Pahlavi Library was, therefore, to serve as the central hub for Iranian studies internationally.
As well as seeking to build its collection and develop strong relations with other cultural institutions, the library also arranged publications and financially supported academic conferences. Two months after the creation of the Pahlavi Library, a committee of Iranian and foreign scholars and officials was formed, called the Komiteh-ye Taʾlif-e Tārikh-e Irān, the Committee for Compiling the History of Iran. The purpose of the committee was to compile a complete history of Iran, “based on all the documents that the ‘Pahlavi Library’ would reunite.”Footnote 36 The focus was not merely on providing scholarship, but also on educating the Iranian youth on the history of their country. Members of the committee included headmasters, regional secretaries of schools, provincial educational representatives (namāyandeh-ye āmuzesh va parvaresh)Footnote 37 and the deputy director of publications of the Sepāh-e Dānesh (Literacy Corps)Footnote 38 in addition to scholars from universities across Iran.Footnote 39 As Marashi observes, in the formative years of the Pahlavi state educators were tasked with constructing an official history and a special committee was established to oversee the production of books, called the Anjoman-e Maʿāref (Commission on Education).Footnote 40 In the late Pahlavi period, too, organizations such as the Committee for Compiling the History of Iran, although dedicated to, in the shah’s words, “compiling a comprehensive history … in all fairness, far from arbitrariness and partiality,”Footnote 41 were tasked with producing works that complemented official narratives.
The 2,500th Anniversary Celebrations
As the 1960s progressed, culture became an increasingly significant tool through which the shah expressed his international ambitions. The clearest example of this was the 2,500th anniversary celebrations, which were first proposed by Shafā in 1958, and which were inextricably linked to the aforementioned cultural organizations embedded in the imperial court. The celebrations were originally due to take place in 1961 and, although they were repeatedly delayed throughout the 1960s, the organizing council for the celebrations (Shurā-ye Markazi-ye Jashnhā-ye Shāhanshāhi-ye Irān), established in 1958, worked to prepare publications and arrange cultural events around the world. As plans for the celebrations accelerated in 1970, a special subcommittee was established, headed by Shafā, the purpose of which was to coordinate events organized internationally in conjunction with the celebrations.Footnote 42 The Imperial Cultural Council also worked towards encouraging foreign participation.Footnote 43
ʿAbdolrezā Ansāri, one of the organizers of the celebrations, declared that the purpose of the event was to stimulate the “reawakening of the history, civilization, and culture of Iran and creating awareness among the peoples of the world.”Footnote 44 To achieve this aim, a special subcommittee was established, called the Komisiyon-e Motāleʿāt-e Tārikhi-ye Jashnhā-ye Shāhanshāhi-ye Irān (Historical Committee of the Imperial Celebrations).Footnote 45 Like the Committee for Compiling the History of Iran, its members included educators, scholars and government ministers. One of the primary ways in which the Historical Committee for the Imperial Celebrations achieved its goal of educating the Iranian population, as well as furthering understanding and scholarship on Iran internationally, was through publications. These included titles such as Adiyān-e Irān-e Bāstān (Religions of ancient Iran), Musiqi dar Doreh-ye Sāsāni (Music in the Sasanian period) and Chegonegi Tarbiyat-e Javānān dar Doreh-ye Hakhemaneshiyān (How to educate young people in the Achaemenid period).Footnote 46 Another focus of the organizing committee for the celebrations was to encourage foreign scholars and organizations to arrange events to coincide with the festivities in 1971. According to official figures, outside of Iran there were 143 exhibitions, 326 congresses, seminars and other academic proceedings, 131 books published on various aspects of Iranian civilization and culture and 37 artistic events held, including poetry readings and ballet, theatre and classical music performances.Footnote 47 Among these in Britain, for example, were a congress on Mithraic studies, held at the University of Manchester and sponsored by the imperial court, a lecture on Cyrus the Great by Max Mallowan in London and the Royal Persia exhibition at the British Museum.Footnote 48 Scholarship was used by the shah’s regime to promote an aspect of the state ideology, or Pahlavism, which argued that Iran had a historical responsibility to take a leadership role in the region, as it had done in the past.Footnote 49 Books, conferences, public seminars and exhibitions were tools through which to legitimize the historicity of such claims.
In October 1971, while the world’s elites gathered at Persepolis for the anniversary celebrations, a group of scholars took part in the Second International Congress of Iranian Studies, held at the Pahlavi University in Shiraz. The First Congress had been held five years earlier in 1966, with 200 scholars from 32 countries taking part.Footnote 50 Its purpose had been to gather the “most outstanding Iranologues” of the world to “exchange views, researches, experiences, ideas and suggestions.”Footnote 51 This had been designated as a priority by the Imperial Cultural Council two years earlier.Footnote 52 In all, ninety-four papers were presented at the conference in Persian, French, English, German, Russian, Italian, Arabic and Turkish, which were then published by the Pahlavi Library in a 3,000-page volume.Footnote 53 At the closing of the congress an international committee had been established by the Pahlavi Library, called the International Union of Iranologists (Etehādi-ye Jahāni-ye Irānshenāsān), which would direct future congresses.Footnote 54 At the meeting a resolution (qatʿnāmeh) was passed declaring the Pahlavi Library to be the official international center for Iranian studies.Footnote 55
Scholars from thirty-eight countries attended the Second Congress in 1971 and, as in the First, Iran was the most represented, with no fewer than seventy participants, including Iraj Afshār, ʿIsā Sadiq, Abdolhossein Zarrinkub and Sādeq Kiā.Footnote 56 Though the anniversary celebrations were a highly controversial subject in the European and American press, few scholars turned down their invitations and in general those who did wrote to Shafā to explain their absence.Footnote 57 Some even traveled at considerable personal cost. In his report of the event, Edinburgh scholar Laurence Elwell-Sutton made special reference to Gustave von Grunebaum, who, although suffering from the illness that would shortly take his life, “was conveyed from one event to another in a wheel-chair.”Footnote 58 The level of foreign participation in the celebrations suggests that Iran was succeeding in establishing itself as the official center of Iranian studies worldwide.
Educational Development
Educational development formed an important part of the Pahlavi regime’s modernization efforts and the Pahlavi National Library was intended to make an important contribution to this. “Not the least of the functions of the library will be,” reported the New York Times in 1976, “to join in the battle against illiteracy.”Footnote 59 Persian nationalists had, since the middle of the nineteenth century, lamented Iran’s decrepit state in contrast to the advanced Europeans with whom they were in increasingly close contact. Shafā was familiar with, and perhaps even inspired by, these early Persian nationalists, as is clear from his later writings, most notably Pas Az 1400 Sāl.Footnote 60 Such a contrast between the developed West and the regressive Iran is reflected in the shah’s speeches, many of which were written by Shafā:
we can see to what depths of ignorance the corruption and unprincipled behaviour of Iranian governments, linked with the sinister influences of reaction, foreign interests, and other destructive factors, had brought our society. Meanwhile, the developed countries of the world were laying the foundations of their progress on an increasing degree of public education and were constantly establishing new schools and universities.Footnote 61
Education was the barometer that could be used to measure the shah’s success in elevating Iran’s international status. Educational development, particularly the issue of literacy, received particular attention, not least because it would allow the shah to take a leadership role internationally.
From the 1950s the Pahlavi regime sought to develop educational infrastructure, which saw some success. Enrolments in primary schools increased from 650,355 in 1951 to 1,436,169 in 1960, and secondary school enrolments increased from 83,507 to 295,869.Footnote 62 Despite this, by 1960 only 17 percent of villages, primarily those located close to major towns and cities, had schools.Footnote 63 One of the main problems facing the country was the rate of illiteracy, which by 1966 still stood at around 80 percent.Footnote 64 One of the reasons for the poor state of educational development through the 1950s was the lack of systematic planning. The Third Plan (1962‒68) was the first plan to tackle comprehensively the issue of educational development and sought to provide free compulsory education for 60 percent of Iran’s children.Footnote 65 In an effort to improve access to educational facilities, the Literacy Corps was established in January 1963 as part of the White Revolution. Under this scheme army conscripts would be sent to villages with few or no existing educational facilities in order to teach basic reading, writing and mathematics. According to official figures, by 1968 the literacy corps had a permanent presence in 6,476 towns and villages across the country.Footnote 66
From 8 until 19 September 1965 Iran hosted a congress in Tehran as part of a UNESCO-sponsored campaign to eradicate illiteracy worldwide, which was said by UNESCO to be “decisive and of world importance.”Footnote 67 Speaking at the congress the shah urged member states to join in “a general mobilization of available human and material resources for the purpose of waging a final battle against the spectre of ignorance.”Footnote 68 Shafā subsequently traveled around Europe in order to promote the efforts of the Literacy Corps in tackling the problem of illiteracy in IranFootnote 69 and in October 1967 the World Campaign against Illiteracy was established, chaired by the shah, with Shafā serving as general secretary.Footnote 70 The purpose of the organization was to provide coordination between the Literacy Corps, other educational institutions in Iran and international organizations such as UNESCO. The narrative promoted by such schemes was that not only was Iran achieving success in its own country, but also that it could serve as a model for the rest of the developing world. Having achieved significant economic growth throughout the 1960s, Iran was indicating that not only could it compete with the larger economies and militaries in the world, but it could also establish itself as a leader in education and literacy. Thus when the shah spoke at international events, he could present himself as an enlightened monarch, one who was driven by a desire not just to benefit Iran, but the whole of mankind.
Even though the increase in literacy levels was relatively small through the 1960s and 1970s, the shah would present his Literacy Corps as a huge success that could be replicated elsewhere in the Third World. By organizing congresses, providing financial support and presenting himself as a champion of literacy around the world, his Iran became symbolically, if not factually, a successfully modernizing state, more akin to the West than to the Third World states he pledged to support. The original Pahlavi Library was essentially an Iranian studies center, with little focus on literacy development. The Pahlavi National Library, on the other hand, pledged to be “one of the best equipped and modern national libraries of the world today, and more especially, a progressive library of the future.”Footnote 71 In an address to a group of consultants in 1975, Shafā linked the library to educational reform and in particular Iran’s literacy programs. “As nothing is more precious to a nation than the well-being of its people,” he wrote, “the library’s main objective will be to help Iranian citizens to live a more informed and fulfilling life.”Footnote 72 The construction of such a library would arguably have been beyond Iran’s capabilities in the 1960s, but a number of projects spearheaded by Shafā at the imperial court had provided a base upon which it was possible to undertake such a program. Moreover, during this period Iran’s economy and international standing had developed in such a way that Iran was now in a position to build cultural and educational structures to rival the best in the world. The Pahlavi National Library was to stand as a symbol of the Iranian renaissance that had taken place under the shah.
Tarāhi-ye Ketābkhāneh-ye Melli-ye Pahlavi (The Pahlavi National Library Project)
The Pahlavi National Library was announced in December 1972 by imperial decree, with Shafā handed responsibility for its implementation.Footnote 73 It was to be an expanded and modernized version of the present National Library and would “play a vital role in the realization of Iran’s new social, educational, scientific, technical and economic goals, while preserving its rich national and cultural heritage.”Footnote 74 It was to serve as a “mother library,” helping to develop libraries around the country, “nurturing them spiritually and materially,” and in this context would ultimately seek to encourage the “younger generation to read and learn.”Footnote 75 It was one of the most ambitious projects of the late Pahlavi period and although there could be said to be a degree of self-aggrandizement in these Pahlavi building projects, this was the culmination of a decade of groundwork by serious librarians, architects and scholars. Shafā had enlisted the support of the leading librarians in the world to ensure that the project would meet the standards required of a first-class library.
Herman Liebaers, president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, was asked by Shafā to help him with the planning of the library. He agreed to this request on the condition that it “should not be an expensive window dressing, but a real library.”Footnote 76 The first group of consultants met in Tehran in August 1973 in order to prepare the first report on the nature and breadth of the project. It consisted of chairman Liebaers, Ralph E. Ellsworth from the United States, Gerhard Liebers from Germany, Jean-Pierre Seguin from France, Colin St. John Wilson from the United Kingdom and five Iranian experts from the Plan Organization.Footnote 77 The committee outlined the four basic objectives of the proposed library as follows:
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1. To develop in Iran a center for study and research in Iranology;
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2. To develop the modern infrastructure, commonly called a national library, to support such a center;
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3. To develop a national library capable of fulfilling all functions common to other national libraries;
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4. To give the Pahlavi National Library an international base, in keeping with the geopolitical position of Iran in the Middle East and in the world.Footnote 78
At the 1973 conference of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) in Rome, twenty of the eighty experts in attendance were invited by Shafā to stay an extra day to examine the proposed Pahlavi National Library.Footnote 79 Two European experts, architect François Lombard and Swiss librarian Jean-Pierre Clavel, were hired to set the course of the work for the construction of the library as well as the establishment of the collections and the preparation of the staff.Footnote 80 By 1975 Lombard and Clavel had set the parameters of the project and decided that a building of roughly 40,000 square meters could meet Iran’s needs in the short to medium term.Footnote 81
At around the same time, in March 1975, Dr. Nasser Sharify prepared a proposal to complete the entire planning of the Pahlavi National Library, which he presented at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Paris. He was awarded the contract and had one year to devise a comprehensive plan.Footnote 82 Sharify was Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Pratt Institute, New York, and had previously held positions at the Library of Congress, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and in Iran as director general of the National Library and deputy director of the Library of Parliament.Footnote 83 His plan was chosen in large part for its ambition: he wanted to create a library that would play a role in Iran’s social, educational, cultural and economic development.Footnote 84 He employed sixty experts from around the world to produce feasibility reports on the project. They traveled to Iran together and visited 204 libraries, educational institutions and government offices, in order to understand more fully the task ahead.Footnote 85 “Leave behind all that you know and all that you have experienced in your home country,” Sharify told them, “for transplanting an idea that has flourished in the soil in one nation and in one culture does not necessarily give flowers in another soil, in another nation.”Footnote 86 In other words, the experts must immerse themselves in the Iranian culture, in order for them to produce a distinctly Iranian library.
The plan Sharify produced was set out in a report seventeen volumes long and was hugely ambitious. He saw the project as “designing a library as a city, as an information and service centre.” In this capacity it was supposed to “transform Tehran, and to act as a key foundation for the continued advancement of Iranian society.”Footnote 87 Sharify outlined three guiding principles for building the collections: firstly, the library should possess “all books and other materials which express and record the life and achievement of the Iranian people”; secondly, it should possess the significant core of the records of the societies of other countries, past and present; and thirdly, it should “acquire all materials which facilitate the effective functioning of the lives of the people of Iran.”Footnote 88 The first two points are relevant to most national libraries, but the third makes it relevant in a modern Iranian context as it relates “the institution directly to the life of Iran, as the country at once preserves its special heritage and takes its place among the industrial nations of the world.”Footnote 89 Another interesting feature of the Sharify report is that it included a specific section on provisions to create a music research library, so that when the doors of the library open, “music lovers as well as appreciators of literature will be among the first to enter.”Footnote 90
The report, however, according to Clavel, presented “enormous needs which were disproportional to Iranian reality, even that of the year 2000.”Footnote 91 The library proposed by Sharify would be the largest library in the world, with a floor area of 330,000 square meters and 5,000 employees.Footnote 92 Thus, at the end of 1975, Shafā led a committee in Belgium consisting of Clavel, Liebaers, Lombard, Abbas Mazaher, Zahra Shadman, Celia Zaher, Darioush Shafā, Bijan Safavi and Mahmoud Nobari,Footnote 93 in order to review Sharify’s report and “bring it back to manageable dimensions.”Footnote 94 The architectural program was reduced to 90,000 square meters, which according to Clavel was still overly ambitious “given the current situation of libraries in Iran.”Footnote 95 The five main components of the Pahlavi National Library were to be: the National Library; the International Studies Library; the National Center for Scientific Documentation; the National Center for Iranian Studies; and the Faculty of Library and Information Studies.Footnote 96 In addition to supporting research projects and providing a full range of library services, the library also sought to preserve the national cultural heritage of Iran.Footnote 97 International cooperation and collaboration remained fundamental to the progress of the project and can be observed at each stage of its development. Between December 1973 and May 1974, for instance, a group of experts visited some 125 libraries, specially chosen out of 500,000 worldwide, in order to understand how different libraries operated, as well as to develop partnerships.Footnote 98
Architecture Competition
In March 1976 a committee was set up to prepare the final library and architectural program.Footnote 99 It was decided that the design of the building would be chosen through an international competition, which was launched through an “intense publicity campaign.”Footnote 100 A program detailing the requirements of the design was published in English and Persian and interest was so great that a second edition of the program was printed in order to satisfy demand.Footnote 101 To ensure that participants’ entries incorporated traditional Iranian features, an additional booklet was printed, entitled Selected Principles of Traditional Iranian Architecture. The booklet featured explanations of traditional architecture in Iran, accompanied by photographs of typical architecture throughout the various epochs of Iranian history.Footnote 102 The Pahlavi National Library also established a special division entitled the Traditional Architecture of Iran Center, which compiled over 30,000 pictures and slides covering architectural monuments from all over Iran. An exhibition was arranged on the basis of these photographs in order that architects taking part in the competition could visit and take inspiration from it.Footnote 103 The organizers of the library were eager not to end up with an overly modern structure—Clavel specifically mentioned the Pompidou Centre in Paris as an example of what they wanted to avoid.Footnote 104 For this reason, cultural relevance was one of the main parameters that the entries were expected to adhere to.Footnote 105
The library was to be built in Shahestān Pahlavi in Abbās Ābād in the north of Tehran. This new part of the city had been conceived in 1969 and was, as written in the program,
envisioned as a new city center for Tehran providing a focal point for expanding government, business and cultural activities within a single, carefully planned area; an area offering the variety, convenience, amenity and ceremonial dignity befitting the capital of an important and growing country.Footnote 106
The modern development was said by an American planner to “symbolize Iran’s rapid progress toward becoming a leading industrial nation and world power … In its achievement, Shahestān Pahlavi can reflect the highest aspirations of Iranian culture.”Footnote 107 The main center of the Shahestān Pahlavi was to be the Shah and Nation Square, said to be “a vast and varied plaza,” bigger in size than Meydān-e Shāh in Isfahan and the Red Square in Moscow.Footnote 108 Around this important square were various cultural centers, including a Museum of Modern Art, a Handicraft Museum, the National Museum, the Theatre Center and the Pahlavi National Library.Footnote 109 This collection of cultural structures was purposely built on the most elevated northern part of the square so that it may serve as an “Acropolis devoted to Iran’s cultural pursuits.”Footnote 110 The Shahestān Pahlavi was a $3 billion development project and the building of a new state-of-the-art library was very much in keeping with the modernization of both Iran in general and Tehran in particular that occurred during this period. The Shahestān Pahlavi was supposed to “demonstrate to the world that Iran is rapidly moving towards HIM the Shahanshah Aryamehr’s proclaimed ‘Great Civilisation’.”Footnote 111 The plans for this new city center were abandoned following the revolution.
Any qualified and registered architect who could afford the $70 registration fee could submit a proposal to the competition, and architects from all over the world were encouraged to participate. There were significant cash rewards on offer for the best proposals. The prize money for the winner was set at $50,000, second and third prizes were $25,000 each, and $10,000 was awarded for the next ten projects.Footnote 112 The proposals were judged by a panel of experts which included Nader Ardalan, Lili Amir-Arjomand, Shirin Taʿavoni and Poori Soltani from Iran along with ten foreign librarians and architects. A group of architects from Tehran scrutinized each entry to ensure that it complied with the regulations of the competition, and of the 3,056 entries from 87 different countries, only 600 from 54 countries were accepted. Indeed, Clavel commented on the “relatively low” quality of the projects submitted, which he attributed to the fact that the time available for the competition was fairly short.Footnote 113 Despite the time constraint, in terms of numbers of participants the architectural competition was one of the most successful in recent history. In 1969, for example, the design competition for the Amsterdam Municipal Hall attracted 2,320 applicants from 59 countries and in 1971 the Pompidou Centre attracted 1,400 applications from 50 countries.Footnote 114
An exhibition was arranged in Tehran from 16 March until 16 April 1978, to coincide with the announcement of the winner, in which all of the entries for the competition were displayed. The winner of the top prize was the German firm von Gerkan, Marg and Partners, which was said by the jury to be a “Very distinguished structure … [which] clearly characterized the national library concepts, while composing spaces with rich varieties.”Footnote 115 Announcing the winner at an event at Niavaran Palace on 16 March 1978, the shah expressed his hope that more buildings in Shahestān Pahlavi would be designed through architectural competitions, while proudly declaring that the Pahlavi National Library would be among the world’s finest.Footnote 116 Following the announcement of the winner of the architectural competition Shafā was inundated with letters of support from all over the world. The British Library, for example, conveyed its “warmest congratulations” and looked forward to “increasingly close cooperation” with the new library.Footnote 117 The Koninklijke Bibliotheek in the Netherlands expressed its hope for collaboration “whenever an occasion offers itself.”Footnote 118 To accompany the competition and add further exposure to the Pahlavi National Library internationally, a publication detailing each of the entries was planned and permission was given by each participant for their projects to appear in the volume.Footnote 119
Committee for Implementation
While the architecture competition was in progress, a Committee for Implementation began studies for the preparation of the library. It consisted of Clavel as president, Frazer Poole from the United States, and Abbas Mazaher, Zahra Shadman, Ali Sinai and Poorti Soltani from Iran.Footnote 120 The purpose of the committee was to prepare the logistics for the library from top to bottom, including budgets, training of staff, acquisition of documents and development strategy. Additionally, the committee laid out the legislative framework for the Pahlavi National Library, which aimed at giving it the greatest possible autonomy within the Iranian administration.Footnote 121 The final report, which ran to more than 1,000 pages over three volumes, was completed by the spring of 1978 and covered the period from 1978 until 1988, on the understanding that the library was to be ready for opening in 1986.
In order to prepare the final report, the committee met four times, in October 1976 and March, July and October 1977, and some members participated in study trips to libraries around the world, such as the Library of Congress, the National Library of Canada and the British Library.Footnote 122 The committee also drew on the experience of several consultants from around the world. The final report set out the basic criteria for the Pahlavi National Library, which included:
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1. The projected size of the collection at the date of opening, and twenty-five years after opening;
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2. The proposed rate of growth of the collection;
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3. The size and nature of the building and the services and functions to be provided;
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4. The projected date of opening the Library to the public;
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5. The size of the operating staff required after the building is officially opened;
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6. The number of staff and the nature of the physical facilities required during the implementation period;
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7. The requirements for automation;
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8. The requirements for staff training.Footnote 123
The report went into considerable detail on each of these points to ensure that the library would be ready for opening on time in 1986. It began by repeating the aim of the Pahlavi National Library to “rank in size and facilities” with libraries such as the Library of Congress, the British Library, the Lenin Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale.Footnote 124 The report set the parameters that must be adhered to in order to fulfill this objective. Indeed, the report continues, “any significant reduction in the parameters established herein would reduce the PNL to a second rate status at which it could no longer compete with the other great national libraries of the world.”Footnote 125
The Center for Research in Iranology was stated in the report as being “a special and important division of the Pahlavi National Library.”Footnote 126 The idea was that the Center for Iranology would be the center for Iranian studies not just in Iran, but worldwide, comprising the largest and most comprehensive collection of documents in the world. As stated by Shafā, the principal goal was “to promote and support research in all fields of Iranology: history, art, archaeology, linguistics, literature, and social sciences.”Footnote 127 This section was essentially a continuation and expansion of the original Pahlavi Library, which was absorbed by the Pahlavi National Library. The research division itself was to be organized into seven sections with eighty-five permanent members of staff. From opening in 1986, researchers were also to be employed by the library and considerable funds were set aside to cover things such as conference attendance, to the account of 22,000 tomans per trip abroad (approximately $3,000).Footnote 128 These sums were worked into the final budget for the library.
Building the document collection of the Center for Research in Iranology required collaboration with academics and institutions engaged in the many fields of Iranian studies. As noted above, Shafā developed an extensive network of scholars through his work with the Imperial Cultural Council and the Pahlavi Library, and he was able to call upon them for consultation. On 5 September 1975, for example, a collection of 2,616 Iranian seals and cylinders as much as 5,000 years old was offered by a private collector to the Pahlavi Library for possible purchase. The seals and cylinders were handed for inspection to a group of academics, which included Roman Ghirshman, George Cameron, Richard Frye, Vladimir Lukonin and Giuseppe Tucci. They concluded that the collection was “interesting and precious … of exceptional importance” and “strongly recommend the purchase by the Pahlavi Library of this collection of historical and artistic relics, relating to Iranian history.”Footnote 129 Giuseppe Tucci stated that should the Pahlavi Library complete the purchase of the objects (for the sum of $600,000), then the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far-East (IsMEO) would be willing to “undertake the expert appraisal and research of the pieces.”Footnote 130
The implementation period was to last ten years, covering the time that it would take to construct the library and build the collection. During the implementation period an additional building of 2,895 square meters and with 188 staff was to be used in London for the purpose of storage of materials and training of staff.Footnote 131 The British Council was suggested as a partner for finding a suitable location for the London office.Footnote 132 The idea was that the London office would be responsible for purchasing and processing western European and English language materials, and the Tehran office would deal with Persian and Arabic materials.Footnote 133 In terms of physical items, growth was projected until the year 2000, indicating the duration and breadth of the project. On opening day in 1986 the total collection was forecast to amount to over one million items, with a growth per year thereafter of 262,200. Twenty-five years after opening, the estimated number of items was 7,600,000.Footnote 134 These estimates did not take into account gifts, which according to the report make up 30 percent of the collections of some libraries,Footnote 135 but even excluding those, the Pahlavi National Library could, the report suggests, “develop at the rate necessary to realize its objective of becoming one of the great national libraries of the world within a reasonable period of time.”Footnote 136
The Revolution
In the months following the successful architectural competition, the political situation in Iran deteriorated significantly and the Pahlavi National Library faced an uncertain future. Clavel wrote to Shafā on 2 October 1978 to seek clarification on his position and request outstanding payments. Clavel was seeking the remaining $44,876 of the $162,700 that he was owed for the completion of the final report. The letter explained that as early as June 1978, Shafā was experiencing financial difficulties and had asked Clavel for patience. Clavel writes,
You have undoubtedly heard from Miss Shadman that I have suffered a heart attack at the end of August and that my health is precarious. The carelessness of the accounting services of the PNL is a cause of constant worry which I beg you to put to rights. I have always scrupulously fulfilled the mandates which you have entrusted to me, and I am entitled to expect from your services that they fulfil their duties with the same exactitude.Footnote 137
The desperate tone of the letter reveals the anxiety felt by those who had a stake in the Pahlavi National Library. The architecture firm that won the competition was awarded the prize, but then heard nothing more about it.Footnote 138 On 21 October 1978 Shafā informed Clavel that the Pahlavi National Library Project had been suspended until the turmoil in Iran was resolved. Clavel’s response contains no more mention of money, but rather conveys his distress at the situation in Iran. “Not a day goes by that I do not think of you and your compatriots,” he wrote, “and I wish sincerely that calm may be re-established so that the construction work may be resumed.”Footnote 139 The final report’s publication was abandoned and Clavel could only offer Shafā his “sincere and loyal sentiments of friendship.”
While some libraries reopened once the early disorder of the revolution began to subside, the Pahlavi National Library Project was abandoned, and its chief instigator, Shafā, fled to France. According to one report, the extensive set of development plans were last seen “outside the Project’s office building in a large curbside trash heap.”Footnote 140 Other libraries suffered similar fates, as the same report, written in April 1979, details:
The National Medical Library in Vanak, Tehran, well organized and once well supported, has not yet recovered from its war experience, and some of its readers have fled. The MEDLARS Center, which served the entire Middle East for two years with a variety of on-line computer-based bibliographic services sits silent and empty, the telephone bill unpaid. The large building designed eventually to house this library is rusting away, with construction stopped, the contractor said to be bankrupt, and thousands of library volumes stored unused in an Amsterdam warehouse.Footnote 141
Some centers were burned down, such as the British Council’s provincial libraries in Ahvaz and Mashhad.Footnote 142 Such a turn of events had been unthinkable when Clavel wrote following the architectural competition in 1978 that, “We find ourselves at the dawn of the decisive phase of the project, the one which will mark the realization of what could have, until today, been a sort of dream from One Thousand and One Nights.”Footnote 143 The project had the personnel and resources to succeed, and had the revolution not occurred in 1979, then the dream would almost certainly have been realized.
Conclusion
Although the Pahlavi National Library Project ended with the revolution, its members were afterwards involved in other important library projects. The 1978 report by Clavel was such a well-researched and detailed document that it was used to guide the planning and implementation of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, completed in 2002.Footnote 144 Additionally, the National Library of Iran which opened in 2005 was completed under the guidance of some of the original members of the Pahlavi National Library Project. It was set up as an independent library, with a board of trustees whose chair is the president, therefore its setup is almost exactly as designed by the original planners of the Pahlavi National Library. In a letter to Clavel, one of the founders of the new National Library wrote, “You see that your efforts have not been lost. Everything we wanted to write about a ‘should-be’ national library we referred to the previous reports made by you, Mr Poole and other colleagues.”Footnote 145 The present National Library can, therefore, be said to be a continuation of the original project. It was even built on the same site that was designated for the Pahlavi National Library although attempts to have it built by the German architectural firm that won the contract in the 1970s failed.Footnote 146
The Pahlavi National Library Project was an extraordinary experiment in international collaboration. It brought together experts from different backgrounds and with different professional qualifications to create a world-class national library virtually from scratch. In his 1975 report Sharify wrote that, “Never before in the history of librarianship have so many distinguished leaders in the profession been brought together for so long a period in order to apply their collective knowledge, experience, talent and judgement to a single undertaking.”Footnote 147 When Shafā wrote to librarians and scholars around the world, informing them of the creation of the original Pahlavi Library in 1965, he received countless letters of support. Librarians in particular were excited at the prospect of someone setting up a world-class national library from scratch and shared with Shafā all of the mistakes and inefficiencies they would avoid if they were to be given such an opportunity. It was a sophisticated international project that intended to serve Iranian scholarship as well as advance the cause of literacy in Iran and was, in a sense, the culmination of a cultural movement that began when Shafā was appointed deputy minister of court in 1957. This movement can, therefore, be linked directly to the imperial court.
During the late Pahlavi period there was a concerted effort on behalf of the imperial court to elevate the reputation of Iranian scholars internationally. When Richard Frye, for example, spoke to the shah about the fourth volume of the Cambridge History of Iran, the shah was delighted that there were Iranian contributors, unlike in volume 5 (which was published before volume 4) and volume 1.Footnote 148 During the First International Congress of Iranology, the Pahlavi Library ensured that each panel was chaired by an Iranian scholar, and during the First and Second Congress Iran was the most represented country. The purpose was to make Iran the central hub of Iranian studies internationally, but also for Iranian scholars to take a leading role in research and publishing works on Iranian culture and civilization. The shah placed a great focus on Iran being an independent world power and taking a leading role on the international stage as a modern and intellectually progressive power. One of the ways in which this was expressed was through scholarship and the initiation of the types of cultural projects discussed in this paper. Cyrus Schayegh has argued that the focus on Iranian civilization (tammadon) and the great civilization (tammadon-e bozorg), instituted “the global projection of a vision of Iran as a civilizational-development beacon for the world.”Footnote 149 By pursuing a leadership role in combatting illiteracy, accentuating Iranian culture and civilization, and ultimately constructing a grand national library, Iran signaled that it had become a modern state that was ready to assume an important position on the international stage.
According to the official narrative promoted by the Pahlavi ideologues, Iran had been dragged from destitution into modernity by the two Pahlavi monarchs and was a truly emerging power. For example, to enforce this presentation during the anniversary celebrations, the organizers were careful to hide signs of poverty. ʿAbdolrezā Ansāri wrote to the Mayor of Tehran to ask him to remove a homeless camp from the view of a major highway on which foreign guests would be traveling.Footnote 150 In Fars province walls were built to hide slums, villages were whitewashed to look, according to one diplomat, “quaint instead of grubby”Footnote 151 and plans were made to construct 200 houses to accommodate the homeless in and around Shiraz.Footnote 152 The celebrations were a declaration of Iran’s emergence as a global power and it was important that the foreign guests saw only signs of progress. This offers us a glimpse into how the shah wanted his Iran to be seen by the rest of the world. His Iran was intellectually ambitious, his population could read and write, and his capital city could offer the world one of the principal research centers in Iranian studies. The Pahlavi National Library was not just to be a national library; it was to be a symbol of Iran’s progress, intellectual and physical, and was to serve as an expression of the shah’s ambition to elevate his country to the level of West.
The late Pahlavi period is generally considered to have been a golden age for Iranian studies, when archaeologists had access to Iran, the facilities were in place to undertake investigations and there was a genuine enthusiasm for Iran internationally. In his memoirs Shafā writes, in reference to the thirteen members of the Imperial Cultural Council, that “none of them are alive today, but their memory as servants of Iranian culture is still alive.”Footnote 153 There has been a tendency to overlook the role of the imperial court in directing and facilitating the cultural achievements of the late Pahlavi period, but its importance cannot be understated. From the foundation of the Imperial Cultural Council, to the Pahlavi Library, the Committee for Compiling the History of Iran, the cultural events associated with the 2,500th anniversary celebrations, and the intended construction of the Pahlavi National Library, there was an attempt to make Iran the nodal point of Iranian studies worldwide, to encourage, facilitate and coordinate studies on Iranian art, culture and civilization. The Pahlavi National Library also appealed to the shah’s internationalist agenda as it would serve as a “force for international understanding and peaceful cooperation.”Footnote 154 Moreover, it contributed to the modernization of educational infrastructure, “consummating a marriage between technology and culture, between wisdom and scientific discovery.”Footnote 155 In Pahlavi Iran the shah was the ultimate authority but, as this paper has shown, he relied heavily on the work and diligence of his advisors, in this case Shafā, who not only instigated the projects in question and played a leading role in their development, but also ensured that each contributed to the modernization efforts of the imperial court.
