Persianization

[1][2] The term has also been applied to the transmission of aspects of Persian culture, including language, to the non-Persian peoples in the regions surrounding the Iranian plateau (also known as Persia), such as Anatolia and the Indian subcontinent.

[10] On the eve of World War I, Pan-Turkist propaganda focused on the Turkic-speaking lands of Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

[10] They viewed that assuring the territorial integrity of the country was the first step in building a society based on law and modern state.

In particular, within this policy the Azerbaijani language was banned for use on the premises of schools, in theatrical performances, religious ceremonies and in the publication of books.

In the quest of imposing national homogeneity on the country where half of the population consisted of ethnic minorities, the Pahlavi regime issued in quick succession bans on the use of Azeri on the premises of schools, in theatrical performances, religious ceremonies, and, finally, in the publication of books.

While cultivating cordial relations with Kemalist Turkey, Reza Shah carried on a forceful de-Turkification campaign in Iran.

At the height of their power around 1700, they controlled most of the Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan and spread Persian culture throughout, just as their predecessors the Turkic Ghaznavids and the Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate had done.

In general, from its earliest days, Persian culture and language was spread in South Asia by various Persianised Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties.

In the early history of Afghanistan as an independent country, many Pashtuns moved into urbanized areas and adopted Dari as their language.

However, what is often neglected is that Iranian nationalism has its roots in the political upheavals of the nineteenth century and the disintegration immediately following the Constitutional revolution of 1905–9.

Consequently, over time there emerged among the country's intelligentsia a political xenophobia which contributed to the formation of Iranian defensive nationalism.

Although the province remained under quasi-occupation by Ottoman troops for months, attempting to win endorsement for pan-Turkism ended in failure.

The most important political development affecting the Middle East at the beginning of the twentieth century was the collapse of the Ottoman and the Russian empires.

The idea of a greater homeland for all Turks was propagated by pan-Turkism, which was adopted almost at once as a main ideological pillar by the Committee of Union and Progress and somewhat later by other political caucuses in what remained of the Ottoman Empire.

On the eve of World War I, pan-Turkist propaganda focused chiefly on the Turkic-speaking peoples of the southern Caucasus, in Iranian Azerbaijan and Turkistan in Central Asia, with the ultimate purpose of persuading them all to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and to join the new pan-Turkic homeland.

If in Europe 'romantic nationalism responded to the damage likely to be caused by modernism by providing a new and larger sense of belonging, an all-encompassing totality, which brought about new social ties, identity and meaning, and a new sense of history from one's origin on to an illustrious future',(42) in Iran after the Constitutional movement romantic nationalism was adopted by the Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the irredentist policies threatening the country's territorial integrity.

In their view, assuring territorial integrity was a necessary first step on the road to establishing the rule of law in society and a competent modern state which would safeguard collective as well as individual rights.

The failure of the Democrats in the arena of Iranian politics after the Constitutional movement and the start of modern state-building paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group's cultural nationalism.

Whereas the adoption of integrationist policies preserved Iran's geographic integrity and provided the majority of Iranians with a secure and firm national identity, the blatant ignoring of other demands of the Constitutional movement, such as the call for formation of society based on law and order, left the country still searching for a political identity.