Reza Shah's Legacy in Pahlavi History Textbooks: A Semiotic Approach to the Representation of Power and Identity

Karimi, Amir

doi:10.22034/chs.2025.552084.1135

Reza Shah's Legacy in Pahlavi History Textbooks: A Semiotic Approach to the Representation of Power and Identity

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Amir Karimi

PhD Student, History Department, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, Tabriz University, Tabriz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22034/chs.2025.552084.1135

Abstract

using a qualitative and critical semiotic approach, this research analyzes the visual representations of Reza Shah in Pahlavi history textbooks at all levels of education and attempts to reveal the ideological mechanisms through which political power and nationalist identity are transmitted to students. The issue addressed in the present study is that textbook images are not simply reflections of historical events and figures, but are ideological texts that reproduce the hegemonic messages of the state in secondary semantic layers. This research seeks to answer the question of how the images of Pahlavi history textbooks, by representing modernity, Reza Shah's authority, and patterns of order and obedience, act as an ideological device to consolidate the official discourse of the Pahlavi state in the minds of students. The theoretical framework of the research is based on Roland Barthes' concepts of first- and second-order signification and Louis Althusser's theory of "ideological apparatuses of the state. Accordingly, the images are analyzed at three levels: ‘reconstructional heritage’ (renovation and modernization), ‘personal heritage’ (personal image and authority), and ‘behavioral heritage’ (social order and rituals). The main sources of the research are the collection of Pahlavi history textbooks collected through the Ayatollah Boroujerdi Digital Library and other document databases. The findings show that the images of Reza Shah in these texts, by eliminating social and political contradictions, present a heroic and architect-like image of him and serve to consolidate the Pahlavi nationalist and state-oriented discourse. By filling the gap in studies on the history of education, the present study contributes to a deeper understanding of the link between image, ideology, and nation-building in contemporary Iran.

Keywords

Reza Shah

history textbooks

semiotics

Pahlavi ideology

history education

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