Iranian studies in Europe and the USA in the 20th century are typified by increased attention to socioeconomic and contemporary problems. Highly significant works on the ancient history and culture of Iran and the ancient Iranian languages were written by E. Herzfeld (Germany), J. Cameron, R. Kent, W. Henning, A. Pope, R. Frye, and R. Ettinghausen (USA), E. Denison Ross, H. Bailey, and I. Gershevitch (Great Britain), E. Benveniste, G. Lazard, A. Godard, and R. Ghirshman (France), H. S. Nyberg (Sweden), and G. Morgenstierne (Norway). Studies and publications of sources on medieval Iran have been prepared by the French scholar H. Massé, the Belgian scholar H. Courbin, the British scholars L. Lockhart and A. Arberry, the German scholars H. Ritter, B. Spuler, and W. Hinz (West Germany), the Danish scholars A. Christensen and J. P. Asmussen, and the American scholar N. Keddie; socioeconomic questions have been treated by the British scholars A. K. Lambton and L. Elwell-Sutton. The British scholar C. Storey has compiled the most complete bibliography of historical and literary works in Persian. In Iran itself, the sources of the discipline go back to the chronicles and tazkirehs (biobibliographical anthologies) compiled until the 19th century. Since the early 20th century Iranian historiographers and philologists have employed contemporary methods of critical research (since M. Qazvini). Specialists on the ancient period (I. Pur-e Davud, H. Pirniya, S. Kiya, A. Sami) and on cultural and literary history (A. Taqi-zadeh, S. Nafisi, Badi al-Zaman Foruzanfar, Parviz Natel Khanlari, A. Zarrenkub, M. Minovi, R. Homayun-Farrokh), using the historicophilological method of research, have published historical texts and have studied textology and political history. Bibliographies have been published in Iran on the discipline (I. Afshar, E. Yar-Shater, S. Shafa), as well as catalogs (M. Danesh-Pa-zhuh, T. Tafazzoli) and various dictionaries (particularly the encyclopedic dictionaries compiled by A. Dekhhoda and M. Moin). Modern history is studied in the works of A. Kasravi, A. Eqbal, and F. Adamiyat; contemporary history is treated in works by Ali Azeri, Mohammad Taqi Bahar, and H. Makki. An anticolonialist tendency is noticeable in many of these works. T. Erani, P. Shada, and I. Eskandari, among others, introduced Marxist historiography. In 1968, Iran sponsored a congress on its art and archaeology; in 1970 the First National Congress on Iranian Studies was held.
Iranology or Iranian Studies: What Does it Mean?
