Iran is not just a religious state but a culture with a deep sense of historical pride, says historian Lukáš Rybár
Recent developments in the Middle East have once again turned attention towards Iran. Yet the country, often viewed through a narrowly religious lens, has been shaped by millennia of history, deep trauma caused by great-power interference, and a distinct identity that sets it sharply apart from the Arab world. We spoke to Associate Professor Lukáš Rybár of the Department of General History at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University Bratislava, a specialist in the history of the Middle East, about Iran’s past and present.
For centuries, Europeans spoke of Persia, whereas today the country is known as Iran. What prompted this change in 1935?
The name Persia is an exonym – a label used from outside, which Europe adopted from the ancient Greek term Persis. In the country itself, the term Erān, meaning the land of the Aryans, was used. In 1935, Shah Reza Pahlavi officially asked the international community to stop using the name Persia. He wanted to emphasise national identity and show that Iran was not some exotic land, but a modern, self-assured state proudly rooted in its own history and identity.
Many people in Central Europe tend to place Iranians and Arabs in the same category. Why is that wrong?
It is a fundamental misunderstanding. If you call an Iranian an Arab in Tehran, they will most likely be deeply offended. Arabs are of Semitic origin, while Iranians have Indo-Iranian roots. Although they adopted Islam after the Arab expansion in the 7th century, Iranians, unlike the peoples of Egypt or Mesopotamia, preserved the Persian language and maintained their state structures. They are immensely proud that their cultural strength outlasted the fall of empires. That pride still clearly sets them apart from their Arab neighbours, such as Iraq or Saudi Arabia.
You mentioned that Iran retained its distinct character even after adopting Islam. It also differs from most of the Muslim world because in Iran, Shiite Islam predominates. What is the main difference between Shiites and Sunnis, who form the global majority?
That is another key pillar of Iranian identity. The split between Sunnis and Shiites emerged shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad and at its core was a dispute over who should lead the Muslim community. Sunnis believed the leader should be chosen from among the Prophet’s closest followers on the basis of ability, while Shiites held that leadership could belong only to a blood relative of the Prophet. In Iran, Shiism became crucial in the 16th century under the Safavid dynasty, when it was declared the state religion. This was no accident. The Safavid rulers wanted to draw a clear line separating Iran and the Sunni Ottoman Empire. Over time, Shiism gave Iranians a strong sense of distinctiveness and became inseparable from their statehood, something that remains evident to this day.
You have visited Iran several times. What has your personal experience been?
Iranian hospitality is legendary and, to us, sometimes almost hard to believe. As an academic, I found doors open everywhere. People I had known only briefly would often invite me to their homes for dinner. For them, this is not just a polite formula. It was in family settings that I saw the greatest paradox: outwardly, a strict Islamic republic; behind closed doors, often educated and critically minded people with the same hopes and aspirations as we have. That contradiction never appears in television news coverage.
This strong sense of identity and exceptionalism came into conflict with the ambitions of major powers in the 20th century. Looking at modern history, when did the tall barrier between Iran and the West that we see today begin to take shape?
The relationship between Iran and “the West” evolved over a long period, marked by both brighter and darker moments. The overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh was a turning point above all in relation to the United States, rather than to the West as a whole. That was the moment when the US became the decisive outside power shaping developments in Iran. Later, the overthrow of Mossadegh came to be seen by many Iranians as a kind of “Munich diktat” - a moment when decisions about their country were made without them. It confirmed their belief that the US was not truly interested in promoting democracy, but above all in controlling resources. That historical trauma remains very much alive and continues to shape Iranian foreign policy today.
Paradoxically, that overthrow of democracy in 1953 helped pave the way for the Islamic Revolution a quarter of a century later. Yet when we watch archive footage of Tehran in the 1960s and 1970s, it looks strikingly modern and Western. Was the regime really as nice as those nostalgic images suggest?
This image of a “golden age” is highly selective, and such archive footage is now often used as a propaganda tool. It creates the impression that pre-1979 Iran was a flawless paradise, which is an appealing but distorted vision for younger generations. The reality was far more complex. Modernisation under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi may have looked pro-Western on the surface, but its benefits were largely limited to a narrow urban and political elite. Much of the country faced social injustice, high inflation and repression at the hands of the SAVAK secret police. It was precisely this accumulated tension that brought together almost everyone in opposition to the regime in 1979, from reformists to communists, alongside the Shiite clergy. In the end, the clerics led by Khomeini simply took control of that broad resistance and used it to their advantage.
Nearly half a century has passed since the 1979 revolution, and Iran’s relations with the world have gone through various phases, from total isolation to a brief period of de-escalation after the 2015 nuclear deal. Today, however, we are witnessing open and direct conflict involving Iran, Israel and the United States. Where do you think this is heading?
We are now at a point where years of mounting tension have led to the present situation. What began as indirect pressure has become direct confrontation between states. On one side stands Iran’s ruling theocratic establishment and the Revolutionary Guards; on the other, the Republican-led United States and Israel’s nationalist conservative government. Paradoxically, external pressure and sanctions partly suit the Iranian regime, which uses them to mobilise domestic support and cast itself as the defender of the nation against an outside enemy. At the same time, developments across the Middle East, and above all the most recent events in Palestine, have accelerated this escalation and pushed the region into a dangerous phase unlike anything we have seen before in such a direct form. One can only hope that current diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict will succeed. As things stand, however, no analyst can predict the eventual outcome.
You were in Tehran in 2020, when General Soleimani was killed. How did you experience that moment?
At the time, some international and Slovak media expected the conflict to spiral out of control. Friends and family in Slovakia called in alarm, urging me to leave immediately. But the Iranians themselves were completely calm. They told me: “Nothing will happen, you’ll see. People will go into the streets, and in a few days everything will settle down again.” They were right. Iranians are used to crises. It showed me the enormous gap between how such threats are perceived from the outside and how they are lived by the society there.
Do you think there is any real chance of internal change in Iran in the foreseeable future, or are the structures of the state too strong to be seriously undermined?
There is deep dissatisfaction in society, especially among young people. But the system is also highly interconnected in structural and power terms. History teaches us that change tends to come from within, when a state begins to collapse under the weight of its own corruption and economic ineffectiveness. Military intervention from outside rarely brings stability; more often, it rallies the country around the existing leadership. Iran is far too complex a culture for simple solutions imposed by external actors.
Eva Kopecká