Acquaintance of Iranian with Europe, started in the nineteenth century in various and dispersed ways by the big progress of West in Industrial, military and economic fields, they started to deliberate on reasons behind lag of themselves and reasons behind west’s progress. As a result, they found the reason on the sovereignty of the people and law. In this regard, the concept of «nation” — that was the fundamental concepts in the constitutional period — was seen in theory in their works. The base of these modernists idea, was to bring the concept of people, with a political and legal concept as «nation» into vogue. «Discourse of the nation», was formed on this basis. Constitutional poetry started to reflect different concepts of nation with the influence of this discourse and therefore it is essential to analyze this concept. So analyzing Malakolshoaray Bahar and Farrokhi Yazdi who were poets of constitutional period used this concept in their poet very often, we can analyze the constitutional poet from another point of view and make the social and political content of it more deeply clear for the audience. In this regard, this article tries to firstly show that there is no stable and fixed concept about “people” and to see what influence the way they think about this concept and its function in the society and politics. The research in this paper based on the comparison of the poem of the poet based on Statistical data and research to form a functional description.
Keywords: people, discourse analysis, Malak_ol_Shoaraye Bahar Farrokhi Yazdi, constitutional poetry.
The transformations which were took place in Iranian society in the late Qajar period and referred as constitutionalism, had a Great influence on the literature of that period, especially poetry. The poetry dramatically lost its traditional function and the started to express social and political concepts and themes. The dominant concepts were chosen according to political events and social changes of that period. Thus, in the poetry of this period a kind of discourse emerged that can be considered as the dominant discourse of that period; political-social discourse that covered concepts such as nation, homeland, freedom, parliamentary and etc. It seems that if the constitutional poem analyzes from this point of view, we can identify other aspects of it. This highlights the need for this research, because constitutional poetry has received little attention in this point of view, especially in Comparing Bahar and Farrokhi Yazdi’s poetry. These are some researches which paid a little attention to the social-political concepts in Bahar and Farrokhi’s poetry.
- Analysis of the concept of homeland and nation in Nasim-e_shomal and Malak_Ol_Shoarayebahar poet, A. and M. Soltanian, National Conference of Gilan in Constitutional Revolution, Gilan University, Esfand 1391
- The language and style in Bahar and Eshghie’s nationalist expression in poetry, Maryam Asadi Firoozabadi, Political science journal, eighth, No ¬ 4 (32)
- The sovereignty and society in poetry and thoughts of Farrokhi Yazdi. R. Hasanzadeh Scientific — Research periodical journal «studying Persian Language and Literature” summer 1388.
- Analysis and comparison of prominent themes of Farrokhi Yazdi and Aref Qazvini’s poetry, Yadu'llah Bahmani Motlagh and Ali Pourtarighi, Persian contemporary literature, Second issue, Autumn and Winter 1391, pp. 19–31
The term “Discourse” have been widely used in art and literature since 1960s. By the end of the 19th century, the term was used as a system to discuss specific issues and it concerned almost exclusively writing and was somewhat concerned with the style of expression. In modern linguistics after Ferdinand de Saussure, it used to express individual use of language or used as a actualization of language [3, p. 8].
The term discourse is a social phenomenon, category and topic. Statements and expressed views, propositions and theorems, words and expressions used and their meanings are all related to the fact that who said the content, when, where, how, by Who, for and against what or whom it has been said. In other words, time, place and the subject who used and the type and shape of it, all produce the content of discourse [7, p. 30].
Mirza Aga Khan described people and their role in the emergence of power by these words: «Iranian do not care republic of nation and do not believe that they have any influence and power. They do not Consider individuals effective in any changing which happen in the society.This wrong belief of having no significant role in the society was the source of lack of progress in Iran» [7, p. 171].
In his poem «Khetab be abnaye vatan» he addressed people and asked them to avoid ignorance and start to achieve their rights by first knowing them. The consequence of this awareness would be to seize their destiny and the quality of people’s life is not only related to the king but also all the people are responsible for it:
My smart nation you shouldn’t live in ignorance, if you know your own rights and be aware of everything you can lead every issues of the country yourself and you can determine your destiny[7, p. 146].
According to the study, it can be said that modern concepts in their poetry based on the concepts of nation, political and social rights, homeland and frequency of them and it is under the political — social discourse of course. Regarding to what is said above the general method used here is to compare the poetry of them which shows that farokhi and Bahar paid all their attention to the right and political — Social role of «nation» in their poem.
1.The discourse of nation in constitutional poetry:
By studying the poetry books of that period we find that the concept of «Nation» had been the central concept in the poetry of that period. poets like Malak-ol-Shoarayebahar, Nasim Shomal,Aref Qazvini, Adib-ol-Mamalik Farahani and Farrokhi Yazdi. Mentioned the concept of nation along with the concepts of freedom, law, equality, rights and each has its own point of view in using it¬ respectively. Depending on the social — Political condition of the poet’s time, the concept of «nation» had various meanings. However, the dominant concept of «nation”, was about nation’s right and sovereignty. We can present this poetry as an example:
Who is the nation? Drudge rustics, sulky nundinals, talented craftsman (Nasim-e- Shomal)
The owner of this property is always the nation, nation which gave people like Fereidon and Ghobad power. (Aref Qazvini) [6, p. 36].
2. The discourse of nation in Bahar’s Poetry:
The concept of nation in Bahar’s poetry has various aspects. With readings of his poetry we find that he gave a political role in the modern sense to “nation”, and in some other writings he changed his idea and start to praise and admire the king of the time. In other words, by studying the early to late poetry of Bahar we can see the transformation of the concept from traditional to the modern concept of nation, despite it, the contradiction between the sovereignty of the nation and the king's place is very clear in his writings which is justified with the social-political condition of that time of course. He was aware of the decisive role of nation in political-social equations. That is why this concept had a great importance in his poems along with other new constitutional concepts. Studying the first poems of him and his social and political maturity poems revealed evolution of the concept of nation. In early Bahar’s poetry, the concept of «nation» and similar notions with the traditional interpretation has been used to praise Mohammad Ali Shah and Muzaffar al-Din Shah. This shows that Bahar in his first experiences of writing poems was not familiar with modern concepts of nation and know nothing but just the general concept of «justice» and does not know enough about philosophy of Political assembly, freedom ¬ and legal entities (Sepanlou, 1369: 260). That is why he often gave the meaning of the peasant and inferior to the nation:
(The king is whole world, religious, light of the world, proud of everyone. We should believe in him and government and nation is strong with him.) [4, p. 65].
With the expansion and depth of constitutional process and using of some Constitutionalist intellectuals ideas, such as the establishment of justice House and Parliament, Bahar attended to constitutionalists along with the social — Political changes and started constitutional discourse with titles such as freedom, homeland and especially nation. The «nation» in the poetry of Bahar has different aspects. “Nation” has rights and is empower against the king and Absolutism. He has identity against strangers and of course sometimes criticized because of the¬ ignorance and unawareness of his past and future. So we can divide political discourse in his poetry to the political, critical and motivational discourse (right Axis).
Farrokhi Yazdi is known a constitutional poet because of the influence of¬ constitutional ¬ ideas in his poetry and writing social — political poetry¬. Although he was away from constitutional period comparing to Bahar, but the content of his poetry is nothing but reflection of constitutional implications. In Farrokhi Yazdi’s poetry, the concept of nation comes along with concepts like freedom, land, labor, revolution and blood. Farrokhi Yazdi know these concepts, along with justice[8, p. 421]. Justice based on socialism. So there were more poetry about indigent people than other social classes in the society. Due to the low volume of Farokhi poetry, 97 times of repeating the concept of nation in his poetry showed the key importance of this concept in his mind.
3. Political Discourse
In this discourse, the political part of the relationship between people and the government is emphasized. Because absolute despotism has been one of the most stable features and component of “basement of power” in the history of Iron. Despotism means the focus of power in the hands of selfish kings. The people’s plan of emphasizing sovereignty was the most important discourse of constitutionalism. Bahar was one of the poetries who asked Mohamad Ali Shah, not to resist against the nations power and stop disposing and oppressing on them. This poetry shows that Bahar knows constitution as a national sovereignty right.so he asked him not to not to injustice to this achievement.
(King do not destroy your personality by ill-treating nation and your tyranny to people which make the old tyranny storied to start again.) [4, p. 170].
Farrokhi Yazdi emphasized the poverty and poor part of society and he means workers and labors instead of different social groups and the wealth owners and powerful people. In this discourse the difference between Farokhi and Bahar” idea about “nation” is clear someway.
Bahar is not emphasizing any class of people in economical or any justice view and belief and the people are considered in a social field called which is a way of sectarian or political and ideological sorts. But in Farokhi’s poetry the focus is on the poor level and poverty of society as the “nation”. People considered miserable everywhere and they faced with government (kingdom law),and he has the power and opportunity to choose government and be with them.
(Governments should be in the authority of nations and nations should get the authority).[9, p. 89].
It has been saying that the most important aspect of the multiple aspects of the nation’s discourse is the political legitimacy discourse. That’s why an institution called congress is the most important symbol of this legitimacy and even the symbol of national power. Congress was the ultimate source of decision making about the law and contracts. He could recommend any suggestions for people’s welfare and modify the government’s condition as the representative of nation[1, p. 113]. The existence and importance of this institution and it’s effective works was not away from constitutional poetess’s eyes. This is why Farrokhi started reacting the congress as the symbol of national power.
(Nations should have congresses and people should choose the agents in the congresses themselves it shouldn’t be with obligatory.)[1, p. 242].
4. Critical Discourse
The period of constitution, political and social conditions changed. And naturally the idea of constitutional in the lyrics was changed in this condition. The lyrics which were in the field of critical discourse were mainly related to after establishing parliament end its events such as bombing of parliament up to victory of Tehran. The period in which Mohamad Ali Shah could stop constitution for a while with the help of strangers and domestic opponents of constitutional.
Bahar sometimes criticize people and complains about their ignorance like other poets and he believed that constitutional failure was caused by ignorance of people from their social-historical situation.
(The national movement and development and promotion of military beliefs stopped in Iran.) [5, p. 90].
In other poetry he criticized people very roughly and called them non-qualified people, unaware, obsequious and uncivil. This poem which has been composed at the end of the Ahmad Shah’s period is important in several ways. At first analyzing discourse shows that how was the social-political context base. Second for collective consciousness which people were unable to defend their rights and constitutional achievements and finally its indicator of historical and cultural context and structure of all segment of society from lower court up to constitutional and parties.
(Every king in this city looks for gold and money and people like music and musical instruments harp and tambourine and flute. Society is full of obsequious courtiers, dishonest people and thieves. All government people and ministers and parties are malicious. Constitutionalists are unknowledgeable and liberals are not devoted. There isn’t a good style of nationality and not a good civilization and there isn’t a good relationship between tribes.) [5, p. 270].
Farrokhi’s poetry like Bahar has a special place for national and critical discourse. In this discourse people do not know their rights and were unaware about their historical-identity achievements. Therefore tyranny captured them and they can’t achieve their purpose which was national sovereignty.
4.1 Criticize the despotism acceptance of people:
Despotism in Iran is a historical one and before the constitutional period the governmental system was based on individuality and kings absolute desires. Either the Gajar kings knew themselves governors by relying on the history that their fathers had got these lands by their own blood.by the expansion of new ideas about source of political power and government the above claiming gone under question. Either the constitutional poets tried to show that the whole power is caused by people [6, p. 36].
Either Bahar focused on the meaning of despotism in his poetries. The concept of the “despotism” has mentioned 25 times in Bahar;s poetry. In “Amana z mano to” poetry Bahar directed the attention to psychology of people for basing the despotism and considers it the background of ignorance, craft, and distraction of the country. He wrote the above poetry for criticizing the country’s miserable condition on 1288 in Khorasan. Paying attention to the history of writing poem shows that after three years of the adoption of the constitutional laws, legal and democratic structure in the country had not been formed yet. Cultural consistency doesn’t have stability and authoritarian nature still remained despite new titles such as equality, moderation.
(From the very first day we play a trick to each other because of the ignorance of us.we make fool of each other too).[5, p. 154].
Farrokhi Yazdi paid a big attention to the concept of “tyranny “in his poetry. He knows tyranny incompatible with freedom and national sovereignty. He also believed that getting used to dictatorship would lead to disability of getting rid of oppression. So if a society captured by tyranny, it doesn’t deserve comfort and welfare.
(The nation which is in the chain of oppression and do not want to get rid of it doesn’t deserve welfare.)[9, p. 117].
4.2 Criticizing the ignorance and lack of awareness of nations:
Because of the nature of reign and power in Iran people were ruled by dictator authoritarian and they knew their reign as Zall-Ol-Allah (God’s shadow).
Despotism sometimes associated with some juridical justification in a way that there wasn’t any criticism or question to ask. The most criticism in the poetry of this period was about nation. Criticizing of not being aware of their rights and accepting the sultan’s tyranny to themselves. In the other word realization of constitutional’s intellectual thoughts were in the sake of sovereignty in the consciousness of the nation.
Farrokhi Yazdi started to criticize the nation as other poet Bahar. In this critical discourse he dedicated his idea to the ignorance of nation.
(If people had sought their right of our insistence he rob a category The epicurean not.) [9, p. 117].
5. Prevocational discourse
The focus in this type of discourse is motivating and mobilizing the nation’s political and social passivity against the power (autocratic rule), foreign colonialism, eliminate the influence of foreign countries in controlling the country and also reviving historical power and glories of Iran. The different aspects of this discourse can know as evolutional and archaeological too.
5.1 Revolutionary discourse. If we study the poetry of Bahar we understand that words like revolution and other concepts like this have very little frequency. It is shown that the revolutionary discourse in Bahar’s poem is not very deep and strong because Bahar’s ideas were more reformer than revolutionary ideas.
He demands some fundamental changes in society, politics and culture in slow and continuous way.
In the other words to Bahar a revolutionary person is someone who is constitutional than who wants to change and overthrow the government[5, p. 312].
It is possible to see the revolutionary discourse in Bahar’s poem according to the poetry’s content and significant frequencies of concepts such as freedom, homeland, nation and etc in some few cases. But Bahar is not a revolutionary poet as Farrokhi Yazdi.This poem below is one of his poem which was about revolution that promote the revolutionary discourse for achieving the constitutional goals.
(There should be a revolution to bring a man from this nation who can change everything.) [5, p. 222].
Unlike Bahar the revolutionary discourse in Farrokhi’s poem has more depth than Bahar’s poem. If we imagine the nation’s discourse as a pyramid this kind of discourse would be the top point of this pyramid. Because of Farrokhi’s idea about justice mentality and also his liberal belief, he cannot stand the tyranny and prejudice. He knows the revolution as fundamental way for changing situation [8, p. 428]. In this kind of discourse we should pay attention to some points: first the autarchy of Reza Khan’s didn’t may any movement for candidates and also critic to anyone in the period of Farrokhi Yazdi’s life, especially in society,politics and even culture and other point is the significances of some concepts like revolution and blood which were repeated 40 and 126 times.
This widespread frequency of these significant concepts beside the revolutionary discourse showed that Farrokhi’s revolutionary theory is a way for fundamental evolutions of the society and achieving of nation to its goals.
(We ger this revolution with the blood of honest and devoted people so the worth of this revolution is their blood.) [9, p. 98].
Archaism discourse. Archaism is based on some glories of history of country. In the constitutional poems there are different considerations to the past glories like Islamo phobia, stranger phobia, Conflicting with real statues and redressing the national pride which needs to be hesitated[12, pp. 142–150].
Relying to the ancient ingredients and expressing Iran’s past glories in constitutional poet was for the encountering with strangers and persisting into the autarchy. This result is special for reminding the nation’s personality and retrieval of its own personality. So the poet express the country’s myths and archaism kings to reach to his main purpose. He knows his country the homeland of some myths like Dariush, Rostam, Arash, koroush and etc.
(Iran and dariush’s nationality is close to be destroyed by the enemies so you should began a national movement because Iran is yours. You defeated the enemy and get rid of this disaster with the help of God because Iran is yours).[12, pp. 271–273].
In noticing the myths and kings of Iran, Farrokhi concentrates to some people like Kaveh and he believed that although he was from bourgeois part of society but he stood against the symbol of autarchy,Zahhak.
(This country had martials like Gharun,Garshasb and Tahamtan, it had smart people like Jamas and Pashotan, it had majesties like Gashtas and it had wealth like Bahman’s wealth. It was never so lonesome and helpless. Iranians should show their patriotism and do not let the homeland to be lost.) [12, p. 199].
In studying Bahar and Farrokhi’s poetry the first important point is constitutional purpose’s concepts frequency. Concepts like freedom, law, right. The different discourses get meaningful with these purposes. Because of both poet’s political legitimacy they know the nation as determination infraction to the country’s destiny. The poets discuss the nation’s discourses in different ways like political and critical. It shows that the nation’s different discourses may happen by social and political qualification in the poet’s period and the constitutional incidents and progresses are deeply influence it. The nation’s discourses an Bahar and Farrokhi’s poems have some differences too. The similarities are because of the period in which two poets live in and also the political discourses too. But the differences are because of their different theory and standpoint.
The nation’s purpose in Bahar’s poem encompass the generic universalization and it’s not influenced by special ideological or even its nat related to any religious purposes. In some few cases it relates to nationalist aspects of nation but in Farrokhi’s poem it’s influenced by poet’s socialist view as Bahar’s poem it doesn’t relate any religious purposes. He sometimes use them to extend the social thoughts and sensation of his own audiences.
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