A 19th century travelogue chronicles a world on the cusp of modernity
In 1815, Mirza Saleh Shirazi and fellow Iranian students were chosen to study the world
* This episode was originally published on March 9, 2020.
We're used to reading and hearing about Western travellers who write about their far-flung adventures in "exotic" locales. But Mirza Saleh Shirazi turns that lens around. He was a 19th century Iranian diplomat and statesman who also started the first newspaper in Iran.
Shirazi was part of a small group of Iranian men who were sent on a kind of odyssey by the Qajar prince, Abbas Mirza. In 1815, Shirazi and his crew travelled first throughout Iran, then through Russia, and then onto England.
This type of travel was not unprecedented. Persian-speaking travellers had been visiting societies all over the world, documenting their experiences and then sharing their travelogues publicly once they returned home.
Shirazi's travelogue came at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, an intense time of social and political change that was forcing Iranians to ask how they needed to think about their own place in a new world.
One park is Hyde Park; another is St. James' Park; another is Green Park; and another is Regent's Park. In each of them, the people of London come there at one o'clock in the afternoon to spend time strolling round and conversing. Men and women, who might be family or friends, lock hands as they stroll. Those who have their own carriages go there in their carriages; other people ride horses. They stay there, ambling around, till it gets dark. But it is the custom there that no one at all speaks loudly. If a blind person went there, he would imagine that none of them could speak or that speaking had been banned there!
— Mirza Saleh Shirazi, London
"One of the key things is that by the 18th century, you have the emergence of modern nation states. So you have nation states emerging as new political realities, and so travellers like Mirza Saleh are creating a new conception of Iran, a bordered conception that was different from the earlier conception of Iran, where there were no borders. People moved back and forth as long as they could speak Persian, whether they were in Calcutta or Tehran or Tabriz," said Mohamad Tavakoli, a professor of history and historical studies at the University of Toronto.
In the 18th century, Iran was facing a variety of political pressures: the British, the Russians, the French — all were pressing in and forcing the ruling monarchy to contend with questions of what it meant to be a modern nation. The travellers sought out not only new knowledge but also engaged in — and shaped — a conversation about what it meant to proclaim a particular identity within a specific geographical space: what did it mean to be Iranian in the modern sense?
Shirazi's travelogue is partly filled with pages detailing mundane daily routines. But every now and again, there are flashes of excitement, confusion, and open wonderment when he encounters something he'd never experienced before.
The pomp and propriety of Regency-era London strikes him, by turns, as endearing or bewildering, arrogant or nonsensical. He writes with an open admiration for the people he befriends, but is also often confused by their apparent lack of care or interest. Through these interactions and critiques, he not only builds a picture of English society — or at least one segment of it — he also creates an understanding of his own views and expectations as an Iranian of a certain class.
I wake up at seven in the morning, and remain at the house of Mr. Belfour till ten o'clock, studying French with him. Then, after taking lunch, I set again to my studies and read more French books until two o'clock. Then, after changing into English clothes, I go to the house of the master printer. Until four-thirty, I remain in his printing workshop. Then I go to an inn to eat supper and return home. There I read about the history of Rome, or Greece, or Russia, or Turkey, or Iran, or else read stories in English, and finally write down some pages of translation from French into English.
— Mirza Saleh Shirazi, London
Shirazi's travelogue, along with those of his predecessors and peers, played a key role in creating space for a new kind of public discourse. Persian as a written language was a complicated and heavily technical language used in the royal courts or in the madrassa system.
While there was in fact a robust public discourse, it relied heavily on oral traditions. Simplified Persian writing for mass communication was not the norm. However, Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, points out the travelogues were written for the purpose of mass consumption.
"They are not writing for the clerical class. There is an emerging readership, what would later become the public space or public sphere," he told IDEAS.
This "emerging readership" is the same group of people who go on to become the audience for Shirazi's newspaper — kaghaz-e-akhbar.
Dabashi says these travelogues are key to understanding a particular time in history that helped shape the modern world.
"They are mapping in their writings a transitional period precisely from the time that these nations did not exist. And these borders were entirely porous. Their world is changing. They are in a position to rewrite the world, to reclaim the world, to remap the world," he said.
"All of these nations, the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Qajar Empire, all of them — we see through these travellers and their accounts, a moment where the old is dying. But the new has not been born yet. This is the significance of this body of literature."
The city of Bath is in a region called Somersetshire and lies 109 miles from London. It is famous for the fact that, from ancient times to the present day, hot waters flow there that are beneficial for treating illness. Any sick person who goes there gets better. For this reason, people come there from every part of England, and stay there especially during summertime. They have built six hammams around the hot waters, and in those hammams the hot water flows directly out of the ground. Men and women go together to the same hammam. But so that it is not unseemly, the women wear dresses that cover their entire bodies. Bath also has a large and splendid theater. Parallel to it, there are two large halls where the people of the town go to dance and host parties. The entire city is built from the same white stone. When it is brought from the mountain, the stone is still soft so that it can be carved like wood into any shape one desires. All of the streets and houses are built symmetrically and the walkways are also carpeted with stone.
— Mirza Saleh Shirazi, Bath, England
Except from Saint Petersburg, I have never seen so fine a city.
Guests in this episode:
Mohamad Tavakoli is a professor of history and historical studies at the University of Toronto.
Hamid Dabashi is a professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University.
Excerpts from Mirza Saleh Shirazi's travelogue from What Six Muslims Learned from Jane Austen's England by Nile Green, a professor of history at UCLA.
Readings by Samira Mohyeddin.
This episode was produced by Naheed Mustafa.
