نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 گرایش اندیشه های سیاسی، گروه علوم سیاسی، دانشکده علوم انسانی، دانشگاه تربیت مدرس، تهران، ایران
2 علوم سیاسی، دانشکده علوم انسانی، تربیت مدرس، تهران، ایران
چکیده
کلیدواژهها
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
This article investigates the genealogy of the concepts of liberty and despotism in modern Iran, focusing on their earliest narrative and conceptual formulations through the symbolic dyad of the “Iranian Voltaire” and the “Iranian Napoleon” as represented in Persian travelogues from the early Qajar period. Employing a composite theoretical framework that integrates Reinhart Koselleck’s conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte), Quentin Skinner’s theory of speech acts, and Michel Foucault’s genealogy of discourse, the study demonstrates how key political concepts—such as parliament, republic, liberty, nation, and absolute monarchy—were formed within structures of semantic rupture and asynchronous temporalities unique to Iran’s encounter with modernity. Through a comparative reading of three seminal travelogues—Tohfat al-‘Alam, Masir-e Talebi, and the travel diary of Mirza Saleh Shirazi—the paper shows how “liberty” was primarily conceived via the British model of constitutional monarchy and contrasted with the “French tumult,” while “Napoleon” emerged as a prototype of the strong, rational, and patriotic ruler. This symbolic dichotomy reappears in later political treatises, most notably in the writings of Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzadeh (as a proponent of parliamentarism) and Hussein bin Mahmoud al-Mousavi (as a defender of absolutism). The article argues that both positions, albeit antagonistic, were unknowingly shaped by a shared conceptual structure originally stabilized in the travelogues. The article thus offers, on the one hand, a genealogical analysis of the discursive formation of competing visions of constitutionalism and monarchism in modern Iran, and on the other, a critical reflection on the limitations of Iranian constitutionalist thought and its conceptual indebtedness to a travelogue-based political imaginary. Ultimately, the study aims to recover the latent conceptual discontinuities underlying the persistent crisis of liberty in Iranian political modernity.
کلیدواژهها [English]
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