Stamps and propaganda under the rule of Reza Shah
After the turmoil created by the events of World War I and its aftermath, a completely new situation in Iranian politics was finally created in late 1299/early 1921 with the coup d’etat of Sayyed Ziya al-Din Tabataba’i and Reza Khan against the weak pro-British government of Vosuq al-Dowleh, which led, for the first time after at least a decade, to the emergence of a functioning central government.42 Reza Khan quickly elbowed himself to absolute power by pursuing a ruthless policy that was first and foremost directed against the traditional elites, and culminated in the deposition of the Qajars and his own coronation in 1304/1925.43
To pursue this aim, Reza Shah chose his supporters from the ranks of the constitutional movement, who, faced with the failure of the revolution and following the destitution of state and society during the Great War, had become advocates of a strong government, which they regarded as the precondition for the reconstruction of Iran. Some of the veterans of the movement, such as ‘Abd al-Hoseyn Sheybani (1256—1310/1877—1931),44 political associate of the prominent constitutionalist Sayyed Hasan Taqizadeh (1257-1348/ 1878-1969),45 and Qasem Sur-e Esrafil (1259-1319/1880-1940), during the revolution editor of the influential satirical periodical of the same name,46 actively served the new regime as minister of post and telegraph. Later, another prominent figure who found employment in the Ministry of Post and Telegraph was Mohammad Hejazi (1319q-1352/1901-74),47 who, apart from being editor in chief of a periodical related to modern communication,48 had been responsible in his function as director of the national board of propaganda (Sazman-e Parvaresh-e Afkar) for the publishing and design of Iran-e Emruz, a professionally made and lavishly propaganda periodical in the period before World War II.49
In the period after the coup d’etat, the modernizers had already made extensive efforts within and outside Iran to propagate their views to a broader public by the media. Newspaper cartoons, still the most important visual medium in Iran, published images of factories, railway bridges or airships as symbols of progress and modernity, and as a reminder of Western political and technical superiority.50 The second focus of visual propaganda was the state Reza Shah had built. In cartoons and newspaper illustrations the new Shah was portrayed as the protector and saviour of the nation, or (in contrast to the Qajars) as an active end energetic ruler, lending a hand in the construction of a modern, industrialized nation.51
In spite of its impact on Iranian politics, both the change of government and the new political iconography initially had little influence upon the design and subjects of Iranian postage stamps. Only shortly after the coup d’etat of 1300/1921 Moshir Mo‘azzam, the newly installed director of the Iranian mail, ordered the issue of stamps with a bilingual surcharge giving the date of the event (12 Jomada al-okhra 1336/21 Feb. 1921) printed on existing stocks of the 1293/1914 coronation series.52 Several years later, however, in 1302/1924, a new set of stamps was issued that displayed the portrait of Ahmad Shah, who, at that time, still was the legitimate ruler of Iran.53 After Reza Khan had been proclaimed as the new Shah of Iran, the postal administration at first had to content itself to surcharge stamps of the 1924 set,54 or even remaining stamps from the Constitutional period,55 with the bilingual inscription “Saltanat-e Pahlavi/Regne de Pahlavi”.56
Some months after Reza Shah’s coronation, however, the first stamps with the new monarch’s portrait were issued.57 Apart from the replacement of the portrait, the design of these stamps did not give any indication of a new political ideology, but was almost identical with that of stamps with the portrait of Naser al-Din Shah that had been issued some forty years earlier. The relevance which Reza Shah attributed to postage stamps as an instrument of propaganda could, on the other hand, be seen from the fact that some denominations of the first set issued in 1305/1926 had to be re-issued with a revised design, because his portrait had been hard to identify due to heavy shading on the first print.58 Other sets of postage stamps that were issued during the following years employed the same pattern, with a portrait of Reza Shah in uniform within an ornamental frame.59 A notable exception was a set issued in 1308/1929, of which the highest denomination displayed the official coronation photo of Reza Shah seated on the throne and wearing a coronation robe.60
156 Roman Siebertz
A new iconographic element was introduced to the symbolism of stamps in 1312/1933, when a set was printed that showed Reza Shah wearing a Pahlavi hat.61 An insignificant detail at first glance, this portrait could also be interpreted as a first hint of modernization politics on postage stamps. When Reza Shah donned the headgear that had been made obligatory for all male Iranians some years earlier,62 this reflected the present social and political reality. By having himself portrayed with a garment that had been intended to provide a uniform piece of clothing in place of the various regional or tribal headdresses, and to support the creation of a sense of common identity among Iranians, the Shah also appeared as the man who had turned Iran from a torn country into a centralized modern national state (Figure 7.3).
To sum up, those stamp emissions, with their emphasis on the ruler’s personality, did visualize Reza Shah’s conception of the new Iran he had created: “He conflated his own persona with the monarchy; the monarchy with the state, and the state with the nation.”63
Aside from these rather conventional stamp designs, a first attempt to create a design with a more elaborate message was seen in a set of airmail stamps issued in 1309/1930, which showed next to the Shah’s portrait an illustration of a hovering eagle, together with a depiction of Mount Damavand (an emblem of the country’s cultural heritage due to its role in Iranian mythology)64 in the background and in the fore a telegraph line as an emblem of modern technology.65 For the first time since the coronation series of 1294/1915, elements of Achaemenid architecture as a symbol of cultural and political identity were incorporated into the graphic design. Even though they were not very innovative from an artistic point of view, these stamps, with the symbolic reference to Reza Shah’s rule with its purported conjunction of cultural tradition and technical progress, formed a first step towards the selfrepresentation of the Pahlavi state that was to dominate the iconography of Iranian stamps for the decades to come.
Figure 7.3 1933 definitive set, 1 Rial, Reza Shah with kolah-e Pahlavi. Source: Author’s collection.
The role that was assigned to these stamps - to signify to the outside world Iran’s aspiration to be regarded and treated as a self-conscious and rejuvenated sovereign nation - could be seen from the fact that at an international postal congress in Cairo in 1313/1934, the Iranian delegate was instructed by the ministry to hand out samples of stamps to the other delegates.66 In 1316/1937 another delegation was sent to an international postal exhibition in the United States to represent Pahlavi Iran in shape of her stamp emissions.67 Obviously, postage stamps were considered as an effective instrument for influencing public opinion in favour of Reza Shah’s rule within Iran and abroad.
