THE MODERNIZATION MOVEMENT IN IRAN IN THE PERIOD OF SHAH RIZA AND THE PRINTS OF TURKISH REVOLUTION ON THIS MOVEMENT

Abstract

Turkey’s and Iran’s endavours for modernization and building a nation state display a similar outlook to each other. Iran, under the rule of Shah Rıza Pehlevi, adopted Republic of Turkey, under the rule of Atatürk, as a significant model in this endavour and tried to follow it. However, in this period Turkey, different from Iran, had an accumulataion of modernization past, more than one hundred years. This difference between the two countries not only affected the speed and sustainability of the modernization movement, but also affected the processes and results of building nation state. In this article it is aimed to put forward the steps taken by Rıza Pehlevi to make Iran a modern nation state in the early years of the 20th century, and the prints of the revolutions realized in Turkey the leadership of Atatürk on those steps. Within this context, Iran’s and Turkey’s modernization pasts are examined at first. Then it’s tried to analyze the process of building a nation state in Iran from 1920 to 1940 and the similiraties and differences of this process from Turkey’s. And lastly it dealt with what Shah Rıza, who took Atatürk as a role model, could and couldn’t do in his country.