TEHRAN -- Iran is planning to establish a Foundation of Turkish Language and Literature in Tabriz, according to Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, president of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature.
Haddad-Adel announced the plan during the national event “Shahriar, the Poet of the People of Iran,” held in Tabriz by the Art Bureau of East Azerbaijan. Referring to the historical role of Azerbaijan and Tabriz in Iran’s cultural development, he described Muhammad-Hussein Shahriar as a contemporary inheritor of that tradition.
The proposed foundation comes amid renewed attention to the place of Azerbaijani Turkish within Iran’s linguistic and literary landscape. Haddad-Adel said support for Turkish language and literature is necessary and that the Academy of Persian Language and Literature and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution are taking steps toward establishing the new institution.
Shahriar occupies an unusual place in that history. Born Seyyed Muhammad-Hussein Behjat Tabrizi, he became one of Iran’s most prominent modern poets, writing in both Persian and Azerbaijani Turkish. His Heydar Babaye Salam, composed in Azerbaijani Turkish, remains his best-known work in that language.
Haddad-Adel has previously rejected the idea that recognition of Persian as Iran’s official language should imply disregard for the country’s other languages. In an interview with the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), he described mother and local languages as part of Iran’s linguistic wealth and said they should continue to exist.
At the time, however, he distinguished between an academy and a research or cultural foundation. He pointed to the Foundation of Azerbaijani Culture and Arts and the Shahriar Research Foundation as existing institutions capable of conducting research, publishing and literary work in Turkish. He also said that establishing an academy would fall within the authority of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.
The new proposal appears to follow that distinction: the institution announced in Tabriz is being described as a foundation, not an Academy of Turkish Language and Literature.
Details about its structure, leadership, funding and timetable have not yet been publicly announced. For now, the proposal places Tabriz — Shahriar’s city and one of the historic centers of Azerbaijani Turkish culture in Iran — at the center of a new institutional effort devoted to Turkish language and literature.