Araz News: When the Turkic Qajar Dynasty in Iran fell to the reign of the Pahlavids in 1925, the new rulers immediately began a policy of de-Turkifying Iran. Their revisionist anti-Turk policies aimed at separating Iran’s long Turkic heritage in favor of a homogenous Persian identity.

The Pahlavis not only banned the Azerbaijani-Turkic language, but also began changing the historically Turkic names of various geographic locations in favor of Farsi-language names. Many monuments to bygone eras where Turks ruled Iran were destroyed, particularly those in Tabriz, the unofficial capital of South Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani identity fared no better after the Islamic Revolution as the enforced Persian nationalist was replaced by an Islamic nationalist one. In neither government have Azerbaijanis and other ethnic minorities in Iran been afforded the free practice of their language and culture.

The following video attempts to describe some of Reza Shah’s anti-Turk reforms.