Tale of Kings in the Land of the Soviets: The Ferdowsi Millennium of 1934

In 1934, the millennium of the Persian epic poet Ferdowsi was celebrated not only in Iran but across the Soviet Union, including Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, and Persianate regions such as Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan. At the time, Ferdowsi was officially regarded as a Persian/Iranian poet, a designation that persisted until the early 1940s.

Driven by the efforts of Soviet scholar Hovsep Orbeli and by the improvement of Soviet–Iranian relations, the Jubilee became an unprecedented state-sponsored cultural event that brought together Soviet leaders, scholars, and the broader public. Held shortly after the First Writers’ Congress, it marked a turning point in Soviet engagement with the pre-Bolshevik literary heritage of non-Slavic peoples. Despite Ferdowsi’s foreign status, the Jubilee established a model for later celebrations of national literary figures in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Notably, members of the Tajik intelligentsia used the occasion to advance claims to Ferdowsi’s legacy, contributing to the later reclassification of the poet as a Tajik national figure and to the consolidation of Tajik national identity within the Soviet framework.

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Host or Publisher Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies