European visitors of the 14th centuries and later were the first ones who correctly identified the ruined palaces of the Persian Achaemenids based on the writings of the ancient Hellenes and Romans. Cuneiform writings were copied and chunks of still remaining stone monuments were chipped off and hauled back to Europe.
In 1498, Giovanni Nanni da Viterbo, known as Annius of Viterbo, wrote Antiquitatum variarum volumina XVII cum commentariis (Antiquities) in Rome, producing a simplified forged history of ancient Persia, where Bible and ancient history were aligned. While the nature of his dubious invention was commonly known, it became highly influential because it fitted well with the Biblical history; it was not true, but it could have been...
Kyropaideia was rediscovered by the Italians of the 15th century who ignored the fact that Kuru was a Persian King. In the cunning hands of Machiavelli, Kuru became Cyrus, one of the princes in il Principe who had formed a state, using wars to keep soldiers and subjects happy and looting to be generous like Caesar and Alexander. Within a century, Cyrus the Great emerged as the ideal prince: a model for contemporary rulers.
Jean Chardin, also known as Sir John Chardin, a French jeweler and traveler who lived in Persia between 1673 and 1677, during the Safavian Dynasty, wrote about his experience. His full writing has never been fully translated into English due to lack of interest, but there are indications that he knew about the Achaemenids when he wrote:
"Persia in ancient times was more fertile and populous... the government of those ancient people was more just and adequate. The rights to their lands and goods were inviolable, sure and secured. But at present the government is despotic and absolutely arbitrary."
Reading the tea leaves
American Revolution and the loss of the colonial America, French revolution and the political realities of the 18th century Europe created a new interest in the history of ancient Hellenes to explain the decline of the imperialistic colonialism and predict the future based on past history. Histories and Kyropaideia were translated again to English and French. At first, Kuru and the Persians received a favorable treatment, where ancient Athenians became an example of political disorder and civil lawlessness. In one hand Kuru was a wise king; in the other was the failed Athenian democracy; the good kings of Europe would prevail over the waves of misguided revolutionaries. William Mitford, a British historian of mid 18th century, who wrote History of Greece in 10 volumes, produced a more balanced view of the Persian Empire, convinced that a written account by the Persians had existed at one time. He regarded Histories as a source which selected history rather than writing it according to objective parameters: stories chosen by Herodotus were not to be taken as true stories that reported actual historical events.
Good, Bad & the Ugly... really... But the Great Kuru and the Persian Achaemenids were 'Asians' at a time when secular colonization of Asia had replaced the failed religious crusades of the Middle Ages and a successful 'European' alternative had to be found.
So, the favorable tide quickly turned by the poison pen of John Gillies, the royal historiographer of Scotland in late 18th century, who found in ruthless aggression of Philip of Macedon the characteristics that was needed for an 18th century European monarch. In his History of Greece, translated into French and German, he wrote Persians were weak people without a culture of their own, incapable of holding political and military power... Persian army was like cattle... Zoroasters religion was the extravagant doctrine of two principles... with innumerable absurd ceremonies... the Persians had been continuously degenerating from the virtues which characterize a poor and warlike nation...
Well...
Imagine all this insight just from reading Herodotos and Xenophon in English!
Once the Macedonian Philip and Alexander were seen as the 'right' kind of kings for the Europe of the 18th century, then all their enemies became the 'wrong' kind of rulers: Persia and all of Asia were the kind of kingdoms that deserved to be destroyed in the hands of Alexander. The 'Oriental' Asia was everything that 'Occidental' Europe was not: rich, mystical, sensual and weak, where 'Classical' Europe was intellectual, strong, virtuous, and warlike. Colonization and plunder of the rest of the world was now sanctified by ancient history.
Before the Playboy mansion...
Soon, Persia became just another 'Oriental Monarchy', part of a mysterious intriguing East, with perfumed sensuous secluded harems filled with half-naked women for the pleasure of Muslim rulers, and the Persian Achaemenids became even more 'Oriental' than the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
In 1867, George Rawlinson, brother of Sir Henry Rawlinson, wrote in Fifth Oriental Monarchy about ancient Persia:
"The Persians seem, certainly, to have been quick and lively, keen-witted, capable of repartee, ingenious, and, for Orientals, farsighted... [but] we cannot justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual excellence... A want of seriousness, a want of reality, and, again, a want of depth, characterizes the poetry of Iran, whose bards do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest and highest in our nature..."
Well, it seems Persians were not farsighted enough to be British! One wonders what kind of a chord Ferdowsî, 'the Persian bard', roused in the noble British, when he wrote centuries earlier:
"Well said the mobad that to die with honor, is far better than to live under victorious foe."
But in all fairness, it is impossible to translate Persian poetry into English language while preserving its complexity, fullness and beauty.
The strategic location of Persia dictated a more pragmatic British policy. In 1892, Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy to India, wrote in Persia and the Persian Question:
"If Persia had no other claim to respect, at least a continuous national history for 2,500 is a distinction which a few countries can exhibit."
While such books are now scholarly obsolete, they influenced the next generations of British and American historians, who in turn summarized the entire history of the ancient Persians to a few pages between the History of Babylon and the History of Rome.
@ Crossroads... again... Use and abuse of the term Aryan in 19th and 20th centuries cast new shadows on the image of the Persians.
In 1907, without the knowledge of the Persian government, the British and the Russians signed the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, effectively ignoring the national sovereignty of Persia and partitioning her into two spheres of influence, in what later became known as The Great Game: a British zone in the south, a Russian zone in the north, and a narrow buffer zone in between.
In 1908 oil was discovered by the British in the old territory of Elamites around Susa, modern Khuzestân and the interest of the world in Iran took an entirely new dimension. With the help of the British government, Reza Savad-Koohi, an Iranian officer, overthrew the Qajar Dynasty in 1925 and became king as Reza Shah Pahlavi. Later Reza Shah rebuked the British attempt to control Persia, causing British hostilities.
In 1935, change of 'Persia' to 'Iran' by the Pahlavi Dynasty broke the western association of the modern country with her rich history.
In 1941, Iran was invaded by the British and the Russians and Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favor of his firstborn son. Iran became the Persian Corridor during the World War II, which marked the first large-scale American involvement in Iran.
In 1951, Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq nationalized the British-owned oil industry by securing the vote required from the Iranian parliament. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued. The young Shah removed Mossadegh from power in 1952, but was forced to reinstate him due to overwhelming popular and parliamentry support.
In 1953, Mosaddeq forced the Shah into a brief exile but a military coup with the active support of the intelligence services of the British and the United States returned the Shah to power and forced Mosaddeq into exile.
In 1954, the Iranian government was forced to enter into an agreement with an international consortium of western companies: British (40% of shares), American (40%), French (6%), and Dutch (14%) companies to run the Iranian oil facilities for the next 25 years. In return, the international consortium agreed to a fifty-fifty split of profits with Iran.
In 1971, Cyrus Cylinder became the official symbol of the 2,500 Years Celebration of Iranian Monarchy, when during royal pomp, the last shah of the Pahlavi Dynasty linked his rule directly to the Great Kuru and the imperial Achaemenids.
After the fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the new theocratic regime considered the entire pre-Islamic history of Iran 'pagan' and removed its footprint from educational schoolbooks. Only fear of public outrage saved ancient sites such as Pârsâ [Persepolis] and Pârsâkâta [Pasargadae], material evidence of Iran's long and splendid history, from destruction.
...
Coming full circle, while Judaism has preserved the memory of the Great Kuru and the Christian historians have invented forgeries to re-write ancient Persian history within the Biblical framework, time has come for the Iranians to write their own account of the ancient Persian Achaemenids.
What good is God without freedom and what good is democracy without the Wise Lord?