The Persians have always been there: they descend from tribes that occupied Central Asia some 3,000 years ago – and were the seed of an empire. In its greatest expansion, its territory extended over an area now occupied by nations such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. The wars between Persians and Greeks are narrated by Herodotus in the work Storieswhich would later give rise to the comic (and the film) 300.
Today’s Iranians are descended from this lineage, but they are divided into several groups with many differences between them. The country was called Persia until the last century – the name Iran, which in the Parsi language means “land of the Aryans” (a reference to the ethnicity of its ancestors), was only officially adopted in 1935. In other words: the country has always been called Iran It was the Europeans who called it Persia.
(For Iranians, say, there is a region called Persia. But it corresponds to a province of the current territory, Fars, and not the complete extension).
«But weren’t Aryans the Nordics and Germans that Hitler considered pure?» No. This was one of the dictator’s many misinterpretations when implementing his doctrine. “Aryan” was long thought to be synonymous with “Indo-European” – the ethnic and linguistic stock that gave rise to modern European languages as well as Sanskrit in India.
Hitler’s idea, therefore, was to trace the origin of purity to the descendants of Indo-Europeans – classifying blacks, orientals, etc. as inferior. Today we know that the original Indo-European peoples, ancestors of the European population and of various Asian populations, did not use the word “Aryan” to designate themselves. The use of the term was restricted to the current territories of Iran and India.
Over three millennia, the Persian people have followed a path of conflict with almost all of their neighbors. Currently, the most explosive fight is not with the people of the region, but with “western civilization” and with the United States in particular. The root of the fight is, to a large extent, cultural.
For much of the 20th century, Iran’s rulers tried to modernize the country based on a capitalist market economy. More religious sectors did not see this process with good eyes: in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini led a coup that deposed the president and transformed Iran into an Islamic republic, with conservative laws based on Islam. Since then, Americans and the capitalist lifestyle have been the preferred enemy, both in speech and in action.
Persia reached 5 million km². Heir Iran kept a third of that. Follow the saga of three millennia of conquests and defeats of the Persians:
1. The history of the Persian people begins around 1000 BC, when a nomadic people called parse migrates from Central Asia to a region in the south of present-day Iran – now known as Fars and considered the birthplace of Persia.
2. In the 6th century BC, the Persian territory grows significantly. In 559 BC, King Cyrus II unifies two local kingdoms around the Persian kingdom. Conqueror, Cyrus II expands his domain through Asia Minor, Central Asia and part of Africa.
3. The Persian Empire reaches its maximum territorial extent during the reign of King Darius I (c. 549 BC – c. 485 BC). He advances towards Pakistan and then Europe, but is stopped by the Greeks and is unable to penetrate the continent.
4. In the 4th century BC, Persia falls under the rule of the empire of Alexander the Great. His most notable victory against the Persians came in 339 BC, when his troops defeated the army of King Darius III and seized power in the region.
5. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, Persia is divided among his generals. The division lasts almost 600 years, until 224, when the royal family of the Sassanids manages to dominate the entire region of Persia, parts of Asia and the Middle East.
6. The Sasanians are considered the last rulers of the “great Persian empire”. From the 7th century, its territory begins to decrease. The first defeat takes place in the year 627, when troops from the Byzantine Empire conquer lands in present-day Iraq.
7. The Sassanid dynasty falls for good with the Islamic invasion by the Arab peoples of the territory of Persia. Most of the territory was conquered by the Arabs between 643 and 650, leaving deep marks on religious customs.
8. The Arab conquest changes the life of Persia, influencing culture, society and economy. For almost 400 years, the environment becomes highly turbulent. Until, in the 11th century, a Turkish dynasty invades the Persian Empire and controls it between 1037 and 1219.
9. The Persian Empire continues to be subject to invasions from all sides, which are gradually eating up the immense territory conquered in antiquity. From the 12th century onwards, the greatest threat was groups coming from Mongolia and Azerbaijan.
10. The territorial loss begins to be contained in the year 1736, when the conqueror Nadir Shah assumes power. To guarantee a modicum of territorial integrity for the country, Shah “puts his house in order” by protecting nearby borders and withdrawing from remote areas.
11. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Persia lost land again – this time in the north of the country, in wars with Russia. At the beginning of the 20th century, the country falls under the influence of Great Britain and has the north of its territory occupied by the British, in 1919.
12. With a coup d’état, Shah Reza Pahlevi defeats the British occupation in 1925. In 1935, he changes the name of the country to Iran, but ends up deposed in 1941: USA and Great Britain force him to abdicate, fearing that he ally with the Nazis.
13. The Shah’s son, Mohammad, assumes power. With a modernizing and Westernizing government, he aroused the anger of the most conservative sectors and was deposed in 1979, in a religious coup led by Ayatollah Khomeini.
14. Iran’s last major territorial dispute took place in 1980, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded the country. The balance was a bloody nine-year war, 1.5 million dead – and no change in the borders of the two countries…