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On December 18, 1946, the newspaper Ettelaat reported: "Turkish books were burned. Signs were replaced, and the bazaar was inaugurated with a grand ceremony. Yesterday, the people of Tabriz and students at Ferdowsi High School expressed their heartfelt gratitude to Colonel Zangeneh and Hero Rezaei (from Urmia). The crowd burned Turkish books in front of the municipality." |
When Mirza Hassan Roshdieh founded the first modern schools in Iran—first in Tabriz, then in Mashhad—he faced fierce opposition from reactionaries who saw knowledge as a threat to their culture and traditions. His schools were considered “foreign imports,” and anything that carried the scent of modernity was met with hostility. Authorities repeatedly forced his schools to close and even threatened him personally. Among his many contributions, Roshdieh authored a Turkish-language book, Vatan Dili. Decades later, this legacy was co-opted by the Pahlavi regime to advance nationwide education alongside cultural homogenization.
Under the Pahlavis, the Shah, the nation, and the language became symbolic tools for enforcing a uniform, imposed order—one that left no room for diversity. The Democratic government in Azerbaijan directly challenged these elements. Its elected leadership undermined the Shah’s political hegemony. Its focus on the geography and identity of Azerbaijan clashed with the Pahlavis’ narrow conception of “Iranianness.” Most importantly, the official recognition of the Turkish language confronted the regime’s monolingual cultural policies. Among these conflicts, language was the most significant. In many ways, Tehran’s political dominance rested on linguistic dominance.
Official use of Turkish during the Democratic period allowed Azerbaijanis to engage fully with their indigenous culture. For this reason, the Pahlavi regime’s suppression did not end with the persecution or exile of Democratic leaders. In their eyes, any trace of Azerbaijani cultural assertion had to be erased. On December 17, under direct orders, all Turkish-language books in schools were collected and burned. Ironically, this reactionary act—destroying schools that had been Mirza Hassan Roshdieh’s legacy—was carried out by those who claimed to represent modernity and civilization, a modernity that prioritized the regression of Azerbaijan.