World War I and its aftermath in Iran
It is not unreasonable to assume that Mir Mehdi Khan’s return to Iran at a time when he was already in his mid thirties was occasioned by the outbreak of the Great War, for Belgium had been invaded by German troops in August 1914 and the Ottoman Empire was a belligerent as well. The country
Mir Mehdi found was going through very hard times. Not only were parts of it occupied by foreign powers, but the authority of the central government was weakening as well. Matters were made worse by the impact of the war, in the course of which, violating Iran’s expressed neutrality, Russian and Ottoman armies fought each other on Iranian territory; and the Young Turks, who had taken control of the Ottoman Empire, spread pan-Turkist propaganda in Varzandeh’s native Azerbaijan, while in the south the British raised an army to counter the activities of German agents.27 The manifold dislocations caused by the war and the political instability in Tehran brought about economic disruption, penury, and famine, weakening people to the point that when the international influenza pandemic of 1918-19 reached Iran, over a million people died, about 10 per cent of the population.28 When the war was over, a number of local political leaders began asserting themselves in some peripheral provinces, leading many to fear for the very survival of the country.29 No wonder, then, that the period following the end of the war witnessed the birth of a virulent nationalism which sought to rebuild the state and regenerate the nation.30 This nationalism was propagated in a number of journals, some published in Europe (mostly Germany), and others in Iran, in which modernist intellectuals analyzed the causes of Iran’s decline and proposed ways to reverse it. It was generally agreed that the physical fitness of the citizenry would have to play a major role in the revitalization of the nation. In June 1921, Kaveh, the influential paper published in Berlin,31 wrote:
In the opinion of those who have immersed themselves in the secrets of nations’ progress, [sport] is one of the main causes of national power, progress, independence, civilization, national survival, and especially chastity and seriousness of purpose, and is the origin of both individual and social virtues. Playing ball with the hands, but especially with the feet, horse riding, rowing, hunting, fencing, polo, and sledging ... have a huge importance in the lives of Europeans, and a direct connection with their progress. . Without a lot of physical exercises it is impossible for a people to catch up with the civilized nations. . There is a clear correlation between bodies made hard by exercise and such virtues as integrity, courage, manliness, honesty, innocence, liberality, and chivalrousness.32
The article then explains that what is meant is not traditional zurkhaneh exercises but such disciplines as horse riding, boating, and swimming.
Varzandeh’s message began to be heard. The great turning point came in 1925, when a parliament dominated by the supporters of Reza Khan Pahlavi legislated a number of reforms to modernize the state. The reform zeal culminated in the abolition of the Qajar dynasty, whose rule was equated with decline and degeneration, and the advent of Reza Shah’s modernizing autocracy.
