"A light among Iran's darkness" Empress Farah Pahlavi
Last Sunday (October 14), Farah Diba Pahlavi, former Empress of Iran & widow of its last Shah celebrated her 80th birthday. Photos were published from a private, family celebration, together with her living children and grandchildren, in a relatively happy atmosphere. But the same time with a deep inner pain in her heart, a nostalgia for the "glorious" past (vanished four decides ago), and for her beloved Iran, she dedicated her life for and spent a lot of time to open it up to modernization, with a fundamentalist revolution & a lifelong exile in response. Let's find out more about the life & work of this Empress!!
Farah Diba was born in October 1938 into a wealthy, upper-class Iranian family. Her father, an officer of Azerbaijani origin, died when she was just nine, and her mother (a native Iranian from a Caspian coast) took full custody in her education, amid financial problems within the family. The young Farah was sent to the Italian school in Tehran, before enrolling to the French Jeanne D’Arc School. Then she studied architecture in Paris, under state Sponsorship, where in 1959 she met her future husband, the wealthy & powerful Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 21 years senior & twice divorced, who soon 'asked for her hand'. The young & beautiful 21-year-old accepted it from love and (the same time) duty sence. Their engagement was announced on December 1 the same year, while on December 20 they married, with the wedding taking a worldwide press attention.
As the new wife of the Shah, Farah became Queen-consort of Iran. In this deeply concervative & slowly progressive society, her original role was clear - to produce a male heir to the throne (which the Shah's previous two Queens failed to do). In this task she was successful. In 1960, 10 months after their wedding, their first son, Crown Prince Reza, was born. He was followed by Princess Farahnaz (* 1963), Prince Ali Reza (1966-2011) & Princess Leila (1970-2001). Privately their family was raising according to a western approach, but publicly the supreme place was to be always upon the Shah from each aspect. Mohammad Reza, who was shorter than his wife, so he wore elevator shoes during their joint public appearances, while in official family photos they posed either on stairways (with him staying upper), or with Farah sitting on a chair. Through the 1960s the Shah launched a series of reforms (so-called the White Revolution) leading Iran towards a rapid westernization. To reassure his leading role & connect himself with that progress, Shah Mohammad Reza decided to proclaim himself Emperor of Iran, receiving the ancient title of Shāhanshāh (or "King of Kings") in a lavish Coronation ceremony on 27 October 1967 in Tehran. He crowned his wife as Shahbanou (/"King's Lady"), the first to receive such a title in more than two thousand years. The celebrations of Persian Empire's 2,500 years, that followed in 1971, reafirmed the monarch's ancient heritage and provided (Shia) Iranians a non-Islamic indentity.
While the first years of Farah's consortship were limited behind the palace walls, following her promotion to Empress things begun to change. She herself described her coronation as representing "the crowning of every woman in my country—a milestone marking just how far we had come in the struggle for equal rights". Her husband designated her a regent over their son, in case the Shah would die before the Crown Prince comes to age (at 21), something very pioneer for a Muslim country such as Iran. She also was the first woman to publicly donate blood in an Islamic state. Farah became quickly involved in charitable work and development programs for many fields, including gender equality (and women rights), health, eduction, sport, culture, sciences and arts. Especially in the chapter of Arts, Her Imperial Majesty contributed the revival of artistic treasures throughout the long Persian history, as also the exhibition of modern and contemporary artworks from inside and abroad in Iran. Her Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (inn. 1977) hosted a large collection of Iran's modern and contemporary artists, and western masterpieces of modern art from around the world (including works of Van Gogh, Picasso, Bacon, de Kooning, Rothko, Dalí, & Warhol...), most of which are still safely exhibited there. She also was a patron of the annual Shiraz Arts Festival, combining traditional Iranian arts (eg: weaving, singing, & poetry recital) with western expressions (like theatre). As a former architecture student she appreciated both local and western building styles, so her royal palace in Niavaran (build 1968), designed by Mohsen Foroughi, was a mixed complex of traditional Iranian & modern western architectural design. She was keen about each form of creativity, and had a collection of 22,000 books in her library (most of them about art). Empress Farah worked towards those causes a lot, spending about 12 hours in her office each weekday (though soon she got many advisers in all topics, who made her work easier). Additionally she used to visit charities & people she supported and see their progress in everyday life. Always insisting in a development of moral principles, against corruption and inequality, promoting more liberal views to go forward - and even without hesitation of being involved in politics and go against her husband's advisors, and powerful members of Royal family - Farah represented 'a drop of light' in the 'far & deep dark tunnel' Iran was trying to get out from.
However, as a faithful wife and Queen, she still supported her husband, campaigned (through her contribution) for his popularity and never actually influenced or seriously disagreed with his opinions. They represented an authocratic system, maybe pro-western (and politically supported by the US), but the same time an absolute, oppressive, and brutal to the opponents regime. Their bid towards modernization and secularization, but with the lack of functional stability, caused strong reactions and demonstrations by Iranian islamists, who gained the support by leftists and students' movements, leading to the non-violent Islaming revolution of 1979, and the establishment of a theocratic fundamentalist republic, where human rights and gender equality are violated like in the past. Of course the Shah, understanding that he and his family were in danger, and having experienced overthrows first hand - his father came and left the throne through deposition -, left the country the last moment (with revolutionaries abolishing the monarchy just few weeks later). Empress Farah still claims that Iranian people were ungrateful towards her husband and "failed to appreciate all He had done for them", while also blaming the western powers, who "failed to support him", the media for not being impartial, politicians, who failed in their duty, and so on... Of course this events were very dramatic for her (and remain so), while a more tragic part of her life was yet to follow...
Mohammad Reza was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (a serious form of blood cancer) in 1974. Though he kept it secret for many years even from his wife, his health began to deteriorate rapidly following the revolution and deposition. The former imperial family resettled many timed during their first year in exile, searching for a permanent safe place, where they were not in danger to be arrested and extradited back to Iran. They travelled from Egypt and Mocorro to Panama and USA, but no government could offer them a guaranteed asylum. In early 1980, and as the Shah's health worsened, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (and his wife Jehan) agreed to grant them an ensured asylum. They traveled to Egypt that March, where they were treated as personal friends of the President. The former Shah died on July 27 at the age of 60 and received a full-state funeral, being buried at the Al-Rifa'i Mosque (the burial place of his relatives and the former Egyptian royal family). After the Shah's death, the Dowager former Empress and her family were allowed to stay at a luxurious palace, and lived there until Sadat's assassination, in October 1981. Then Empress Farah moved to USA, and settled in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Her two youngest children died of an alleged suicide in 2001 & 2011, with depression, nostalgia for their birth country and loneliness being the most likely causes.
Following the death of her younger daughter (2001), Farah resettled to Maryland (near Washington, D.C.). She is very close to her elder son, former Crown Prince Reza (and pretender to the defunct throne of Iran), his wife Jasmine and their three daughters (the younger of whom is named after her). She also has another granddaughter, through her second, late son, Prince Ali Reza, born after his death in 2011. The former Empress now divides her time between Washington & Paris, making every year a pilgrimage at her husband's mausoleum in Cairo, on his death anniversary. She is still very active in promoting Iranian culture and arts, supports charities, visits museums and exhibitions, attends ocassional royal events (like weddings), and has written her memoirs and authobiographies.
Farah Pahlavi still believes that monarchy in Iran should be restored. Her son, the former Crown Prince is head of the Iranian Imperial dynasty in exile, as well as the founder of the National Council of Iran for Free Elections, an exiled opposition group, campaigning for the overthrow of the current Iranian government and then to claim Reza's headship of state in Iran (either as a monarch, or as President) through democratic, desperate elections. He is becoming widely popular among some young Iranians, who opose the current government's totalitarian rule and protest against it. Empress Farah and the former imperial family do support these protests, in a bid to restore their trust among the people and light up a higher support towards their restoration. In a recent statement, at the end of last year, she quoted: “I am convinced that the people of Iran, like the mythical Phoenix, will rise again from the ashes and overcome the current challenges facing them. I am certain that light shall prevail over darkness”. She has been too a beacon of hope among Iranian darkest times.
Short video about her involvement in arts:
& more, additional links:
https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/the-royal-women/empress-farah-pahlavi-widow-shah/
https://robbreport.com/muse/discoveries/empress-farah-pahlavis-new-iran-modern-book-by-assouline-2823190/
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/books/the-last-empress.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farah_Pahlavi
http://royalcentral.co.uk/international/empress-farah-pahlavi-i-am-certain-that-light-shall-prevail-over-darkness-94379
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahbanu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Museum_of_Contemporary_Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_and_causes_of_the_Iranian_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Persia#Pahlavi_Empire_(1925%E2%80%931979)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Council_of_Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_n-8zOxegs&t=25s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylEeJu7QL18
Last Sunday (October 14), Farah Diba Pahlavi, former Empress of Iran & widow of its last Shah celebrated her 80th birthday. Photos were published from a private, family celebration, together with her living children and grandchildren, in a relatively happy atmosphere. But the same time with a deep inner pain in her heart, a nostalgia for the "glorious" past (vanished four decides ago), and for her beloved Iran, she dedicated her life for and spent a lot of time to open it up to modernization, with a fundamentalist revolution & a lifelong exile in response. Let's find out more about the life & work of this Empress!!
Farah Diba was born in October 1938 into a wealthy, upper-class Iranian family. Her father, an officer of Azerbaijani origin, died when she was just nine, and her mother (a native Iranian from a Caspian coast) took full custody in her education, amid financial problems within the family. The young Farah was sent to the Italian school in Tehran, before enrolling to the French Jeanne D’Arc School. Then she studied architecture in Paris, under state Sponsorship, where in 1959 she met her future husband, the wealthy & powerful Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 21 years senior & twice divorced, who soon 'asked for her hand'. The young & beautiful 21-year-old accepted it from love and (the same time) duty sence. Their engagement was announced on December 1 the same year, while on December 20 they married, with the wedding taking a worldwide press attention.
As the new wife of the Shah, Farah became Queen-consort of Iran. In this deeply concervative & slowly progressive society, her original role was clear - to produce a male heir to the throne (which the Shah's previous two Queens failed to do). In this task she was successful. In 1960, 10 months after their wedding, their first son, Crown Prince Reza, was born. He was followed by Princess Farahnaz (* 1963), Prince Ali Reza (1966-2011) & Princess Leila (1970-2001). Privately their family was raising according to a western approach, but publicly the supreme place was to be always upon the Shah from each aspect. Mohammad Reza, who was shorter than his wife, so he wore elevator shoes during their joint public appearances, while in official family photos they posed either on stairways (with him staying upper), or with Farah sitting on a chair. Through the 1960s the Shah launched a series of reforms (so-called the White Revolution) leading Iran towards a rapid westernization. To reassure his leading role & connect himself with that progress, Shah Mohammad Reza decided to proclaim himself Emperor of Iran, receiving the ancient title of Shāhanshāh (or "King of Kings") in a lavish Coronation ceremony on 27 October 1967 in Tehran. He crowned his wife as Shahbanou (/"King's Lady"), the first to receive such a title in more than two thousand years. The celebrations of Persian Empire's 2,500 years, that followed in 1971, reafirmed the monarch's ancient heritage and provided (Shia) Iranians a non-Islamic indentity.
While the first years of Farah's consortship were limited behind the palace walls, following her promotion to Empress things begun to change. She herself described her coronation as representing "the crowning of every woman in my country—a milestone marking just how far we had come in the struggle for equal rights". Her husband designated her a regent over their son, in case the Shah would die before the Crown Prince comes to age (at 21), something very pioneer for a Muslim country such as Iran. She also was the first woman to publicly donate blood in an Islamic state. Farah became quickly involved in charitable work and development programs for many fields, including gender equality (and women rights), health, eduction, sport, culture, sciences and arts. Especially in the chapter of Arts, Her Imperial Majesty contributed the revival of artistic treasures throughout the long Persian history, as also the exhibition of modern and contemporary artworks from inside and abroad in Iran. Her Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (inn. 1977) hosted a large collection of Iran's modern and contemporary artists, and western masterpieces of modern art from around the world (including works of Van Gogh, Picasso, Bacon, de Kooning, Rothko, Dalí, & Warhol...), most of which are still safely exhibited there. She also was a patron of the annual Shiraz Arts Festival, combining traditional Iranian arts (eg: weaving, singing, & poetry recital) with western expressions (like theatre). As a former architecture student she appreciated both local and western building styles, so her royal palace in Niavaran (build 1968), designed by Mohsen Foroughi, was a mixed complex of traditional Iranian & modern western architectural design. She was keen about each form of creativity, and had a collection of 22,000 books in her library (most of them about art). Empress Farah worked towards those causes a lot, spending about 12 hours in her office each weekday (though soon she got many advisers in all topics, who made her work easier). Additionally she used to visit charities & people she supported and see their progress in everyday life. Always insisting in a development of moral principles, against corruption and inequality, promoting more liberal views to go forward - and even without hesitation of being involved in politics and go against her husband's advisors, and powerful members of Royal family - Farah represented 'a drop of light' in the 'far & deep dark tunnel' Iran was trying to get out from.
However, as a faithful wife and Queen, she still supported her husband, campaigned (through her contribution) for his popularity and never actually influenced or seriously disagreed with his opinions. They represented an authocratic system, maybe pro-western (and politically supported by the US), but the same time an absolute, oppressive, and brutal to the opponents regime. Their bid towards modernization and secularization, but with the lack of functional stability, caused strong reactions and demonstrations by Iranian islamists, who gained the support by leftists and students' movements, leading to the non-violent Islaming revolution of 1979, and the establishment of a theocratic fundamentalist republic, where human rights and gender equality are violated like in the past. Of course the Shah, understanding that he and his family were in danger, and having experienced overthrows first hand - his father came and left the throne through deposition -, left the country the last moment (with revolutionaries abolishing the monarchy just few weeks later). Empress Farah still claims that Iranian people were ungrateful towards her husband and "failed to appreciate all He had done for them", while also blaming the western powers, who "failed to support him", the media for not being impartial, politicians, who failed in their duty, and so on... Of course this events were very dramatic for her (and remain so), while a more tragic part of her life was yet to follow...
Mohammad Reza was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (a serious form of blood cancer) in 1974. Though he kept it secret for many years even from his wife, his health began to deteriorate rapidly following the revolution and deposition. The former imperial family resettled many timed during their first year in exile, searching for a permanent safe place, where they were not in danger to be arrested and extradited back to Iran. They travelled from Egypt and Mocorro to Panama and USA, but no government could offer them a guaranteed asylum. In early 1980, and as the Shah's health worsened, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (and his wife Jehan) agreed to grant them an ensured asylum. They traveled to Egypt that March, where they were treated as personal friends of the President. The former Shah died on July 27 at the age of 60 and received a full-state funeral, being buried at the Al-Rifa'i Mosque (the burial place of his relatives and the former Egyptian royal family). After the Shah's death, the Dowager former Empress and her family were allowed to stay at a luxurious palace, and lived there until Sadat's assassination, in October 1981. Then Empress Farah moved to USA, and settled in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Her two youngest children died of an alleged suicide in 2001 & 2011, with depression, nostalgia for their birth country and loneliness being the most likely causes.
Following the death of her younger daughter (2001), Farah resettled to Maryland (near Washington, D.C.). She is very close to her elder son, former Crown Prince Reza (and pretender to the defunct throne of Iran), his wife Jasmine and their three daughters (the younger of whom is named after her). She also has another granddaughter, through her second, late son, Prince Ali Reza, born after his death in 2011. The former Empress now divides her time between Washington & Paris, making every year a pilgrimage at her husband's mausoleum in Cairo, on his death anniversary. She is still very active in promoting Iranian culture and arts, supports charities, visits museums and exhibitions, attends ocassional royal events (like weddings), and has written her memoirs and authobiographies.
Farah Pahlavi still believes that monarchy in Iran should be restored. Her son, the former Crown Prince is head of the Iranian Imperial dynasty in exile, as well as the founder of the National Council of Iran for Free Elections, an exiled opposition group, campaigning for the overthrow of the current Iranian government and then to claim Reza's headship of state in Iran (either as a monarch, or as President) through democratic, desperate elections. He is becoming widely popular among some young Iranians, who opose the current government's totalitarian rule and protest against it. Empress Farah and the former imperial family do support these protests, in a bid to restore their trust among the people and light up a higher support towards their restoration. In a recent statement, at the end of last year, she quoted: “I am convinced that the people of Iran, like the mythical Phoenix, will rise again from the ashes and overcome the current challenges facing them. I am certain that light shall prevail over darkness”. She has been too a beacon of hope among Iranian darkest times.
Short video about her involvement in arts:
https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/the-royal-women/empress-farah-pahlavi-widow-shah/
https://robbreport.com/muse/discoveries/empress-farah-pahlavis-new-iran-modern-book-by-assouline-2823190/
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/books/the-last-empress.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farah_Pahlavi
http://royalcentral.co.uk/international/empress-farah-pahlavi-i-am-certain-that-light-shall-prevail-over-darkness-94379
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahbanu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Museum_of_Contemporary_Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_and_causes_of_the_Iranian_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Persia#Pahlavi_Empire_(1925%E2%80%931979)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Council_of_Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_n-8zOxegs&t=25s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylEeJu7QL18
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