Feminist Recommended Books. The secret of the Iranian Princess with a mustache is revealed, she turned out to be a man? Princess Zuhra

CHAPTER XI THE MOSCOW VOYAGE OF KAWAMA ES-SALTANE Discussion of the Azerbaijani crisis at the London session of the UN General Assembly, the publication in the press of alarming messages from Tabriz and Tehran, especially the long article by F. Price, published in the Manchester Guardian in January,

Photos of the Iranian princess, wife of Shah Nasser Qajar, continue to excite impressionable and naive Internet users. Hundreds, if not thousands, of articles have been devoted to her, discussing the tastes and preferences of the Shah, who lived almost two hundred years ago.

Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar

The Iranian Shah, who ruled the country for 47 years, was the most educated person in Iran, who knew several languages, loved geography, drawing, poetry, and the author of books about his travels. At the age of seventeen, he inherited the throne, but could only come into power with the help of weapons. He was an extraordinary person who managed to carry out reforms in the country that were small, from the point of view of our time, but significant for their time.

As a literate person, he understood that only an educated and developed Iran could exist on an equal footing with other countries in this world. He was a fan of European culture, but he realized that the religious fanaticism that raged in the country would not allow his dreams to come true.

Nevertheless, a lot was done during his lifetime. A telegraph appeared in Iran, schools began to open, the army was reformed, a French school was opened, the prototype of the future university, where they studied medicine, chemistry, and geography.

Nasser Qajar Theater

Nasser Qajar knew French perfectly, was familiar with French culture, in particular with the theater, but he was primarily the Shah of Iran, a Muslim. Therefore, his dream of a full-fledged theater could not come true. But he, together with Mirza Ali Akbar Khan Naggashbashi, creates a state theater, the troupe of which consisted of men. In the photographs of the actors, you can see the famous "Iranian princess Anis al Dolyah". Yes, this is a princess, but not a real one, but performed by a male actor.

The Iranian theater did not play performances from the life of the people. His satirical repertoire consisted entirely of plays describing court and social life. All the roles were played by men. This is not an isolated incident. Think of kabuki, where only men play. True, they played in masks, and it was hardly possible to see their fused eyebrows and mustaches. By the way, the residents of the Arab and Central Asian countries have always considered thick fused eyebrows as a sign of beauty, both for women and men.

Founder of the Iranian theater

The head of the first state theater was a well-known person in Iran, Mirza Ali Akbar Khan Naggashbashi, who is considered the founder of the Iranian theater. All roles were played by men, only after 1917 were women allowed to be actresses and participate in performances.

Old photos

Nasser ad-Din was fond of photography from his youth. He had his own laboratory, where he printed pictures with his own hand. He photographed himself, he had a French photographer who took pictures of him. At the end of the sixties of the XIX century, the Sevryugin brothers opened their studio in Tehran, one of them - Anton - became a court photographer.

The Shah filmed everything, Sevryugin helped him in this. Photos of wives, close associates, theater artists, his trips, ceremonial meetings, military actions, he kept in the palace safe. After the Iranian revolution, all of its archives were declassified, and the pictures fell into the hands of journalists. It is difficult to say now who is depicted in these photographs. You shouldn't rely on the Internet. The captions for the same photos on different sites differ dramatically. Their reliability is highly questionable.

An interesting commentary on an article about Nasser al-Din on a German website was sent by a resident of Iran. He writes that the khan did not like women, therefore, in order to be like men and thereby please the shah, they painted on mustache. It is difficult to say how true this is, but this partially explains the clearly male faces in women's clothing and the fact that an outside man (photographer) is taking pictures of the khan in a circle.

Who is the Iranian princess Anis

Anis al Dolyakh is, most likely, the name of the heroine of a play, which was played out with the same characters in various situations (incidents in life). Something like modern TV series. Each actor played one role over the years.

Shah Nasser Qajar had an official wife, Munir Al-Khan, who bore him children, including his heir Mozafereddin Shah. She was from a noble and influential family with considerable power. There is no doubt that the Shah had a harem. But who lived in his harem, it is impossible to say for sure now.

Photos of the shah's concubines

Photos of the Iranian princess al Dolah and the Shah's concubines posted on the Internet are most likely photographs of theater artists or excerpts from plays. Coming to any theater, we see the composition of the troupe in photographs in its foyer, where you can often see actors made up, that is, excerpts from their roles.

Let's not forget that the Shah was an adherent of everything European, but remained a Muslim dictator who did not tolerate any dissent. A deviation from the norms of the Koran (in this case, photographing women with open faces) would alienate thousands of his devoted subjects from him. His enemies, of whom he had plenty, would not fail to take advantage of this. Attempts were made on him more than once.

The Shah visited many European countries, including Russia. He was delighted with Russian ballet. He could not stage something like this in his country, so he creates a play about it, dressing up the Iranian princess Anis (photo below) and other supposedly women in ballet tutus. By the way, the Shah wrote books about his travels, which were published in Europe and Russia. Perhaps he also wrote plays for his theater.

What does the name Anis mean

Why the Iranian princess has such a strange name is not accidental, it was under Shah Nasser al-Din that two religious rebels who dared to recognize the Koran as obsolete were shot. This is the founder of a new religion called Babism, Baba Seyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi, as well as his ardent follower and assistant Mirza Muhammad Ali Zunuzi (Anis). There is a legend that during the execution carried out by a detachment of 750 Christians, Baba found himself in his cell in a strange way, and Anis was not touched by the bullets.

It is the name of Anis that the satirical Iranian princess bears. Each time it caused laughter and mockery. Having clothed his opponent in women's clothing, which in itself is a shame for a Muslim, the shah took revenge on those who went against the Koran. We do not know the names of other "inhabitants" of the shah's harem, maybe they also have a lot to tell. Of course, these are only assumptions about what really happened, we will never know.

Recently, incredible "beauty" has hit the internet. A photo of an Iranian princess named Anis al Dolyah has appeared on the Web. It is known that the fourth shah of Iran, Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar, photographed his wives with an open face, and thanks to this, information about the beauty of that time has reached our days.

Recently, many photos of Iranian princesses have swept across social networks, which are accompanied by an explanatory text that says that this is a symbol of the beauty of Iran in those years.
And many, probably, believed in the very specific tastes of the Iranian ruler Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar, because these princesses are attributed to his harem.
But did oriental beauties really look like that?

What is known about the biography of the princess
Anis al-Dolyah was the beloved wife of the fourth shah of Iran, Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar, who ruled from 1848 to 1896. Nasser had a huge harem of wives, whom he, contrary to the laws of Iran at that time, photographed with open faces. It was thanks to Nasser ad-Din's passion for photography and his easy attitude to strict rules that the modern world learned about the ideals of beauty in Western Asia in the 19th century.

Anis al-Dolyah was considered the most beautiful and sexiest woman of that era. An obese lady with fused eyebrows, a thick mustache and a tired look from under the brows had almost 150 fans. However, Anis belonged only to the Shah. Admirers of the unearthly beauty of al-Dolyah could only dream of it, it became known to comandir.com. Some men, by the way, could not come to terms with the evil fate and committed suicide because of the unrequited love that tormented their hearts.
In 19th century Iran, a woman was considered beautiful if she had abundant facial hair and was very thick. The girls from the harem were specially fed a lot and were practically not allowed to move so that they gained weight. Anis al-Dolyah met all the standards of attractiveness of the time.

An interesting fact. Once Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar, during a visit to St. Petersburg, attended a Russian ballet. The Shah was so impressed with the ballerinas that upon arrival home he ordered all his numerous wives to sew skirts resembling tutus. Since then, Nasser's spouses wore only short, fluffy skirts, which opened mouth-watering pleated legs around the clock to their husband's eyes.

What's the catch?
Why are these women so different from the concept of beauty of the time, which we could read about and even see in films?
In fact, these are not Iranian princesses, not the Shah's wives and ... not women at all! These photographs capture the actors of the first state theater created by Shah Nasruddin, who was a great admirer of European culture. This troupe played satirical plays only for courtiers and nobles. The organizer of this theater was Mirza Ali Akbar Khan Naggashbashi, who is considered one of the founders of modern Iranian theater.

The plays of that time were played only by men, since until 1917 Iranian women were prohibited from performing on stage. That's the whole secret of the "Iranian princesses": yes, this is the Shah's harem, but in a theatrical production.

"In social networks, a meme sometimes pops up - a corpulent woman of the Middle Eastern type with a noticeable mustache and in a hijab, and a comment: a Persian princess, because of her love for whom 13 young people committed suicide. And of course, in the comments, she was a jabber. But this is all a lie and nonsense. , and as always, no one is interested in a real living person, because this person is a woman, so I’ll tell you about her.

So, Princess Zahra Khanum Taj al Sultane from the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1785 to 1925. She was born in 1883 in Tehran. Father - Nasreddin Shah, mother Turan al Sultane. She grew up in a harem, rarely saw her parents. She was taught at home - reading and writing, prayer, embroidery, playing Persian musical instruments, and like a nod of modernity - the piano. She was engaged at nine years old. The groom was eleven. He was the son of an influential military leader, whose support Nasruddin Shah wanted to enlist.

Zahra Khanum Taj lived an interesting life and wrote voluminous memoirs. She achieved a divorce from her husband, not wanting to endure his betrayal, which is for that time and that society. was unheard of. She was the first at the Shah's court to open her face and began to wear European clothes. After the divorce, she was married twice more and the famous poet Aref Kazvini dedicated poetry to her. She kept the first literary salon in Tehran, where intellectuals looking towards the west gathered. She was one of the founders of the first feminist organization in Iran, the Women's Liberation League, around 1910.

Zahra Khanum Taj has never left Iran, except for a trip with her youngest daughter to Baghdad. She died in Tehran in 1936. Her memoir was published in 1996 under the title "Crown of Sorrow: Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to the Present 1884-1914"
From FB Rina Gonzalez Gallego

"Taj es-Saltane is a beauty, feminist, writer, who left memories of life at the court of her father and after his assassination.

Memories have come down to us in an incomplete copy, and this is the only evidence of this kind for the authorship of a woman from the royal family of Iran at that time.

Taj's early childhood memories are full of bitterness. She was brought up by nannies, governesses and mentors, was separated from her mother, whom she saw only twice a day. If her father was in Tehran, then once a day, usually around noon, she was brought to see him for a short time. In his memoirs, Taj mentions the need for close contact with the mother and the benefits of breastfeeding.

At the age of seven, the girl receives her primary education at the royal school, but in 1893 she was forced to leave school and study with private tutors, some of whom she mentions in detail in her book. The style and content of her memoirs betray her familiarity with Persian and European literature and history. She was also trained to play the piano and tar, painting and the art of embroidery.

When Taj was eight, negotiations began about her marriage. At the beginning of 1893, at the age of nine, Taj es-Saltana was betrothed to Amir Hussein Khan Shoja-al-Saltana, in December of the same year a wedding contract was signed. The groom was also still a child "probably about eleven or twelve years old." But the marriage was not consummated, the couple celebrated the wedding only in 1897, a year after the assassination of Nasser al-Din Shah, when Taj was thirteen years old.

All marriages of women from the royal family were made for reasons of profit, there was no talk of love. However, Taj was looking forward to getting married, hoping to gain the relative independence of the married woman. After the murder of her father, all the royal wives with children were transported to one of Sarvestan's residences, where Taj es-Saltana felt almost like a prisoner.

Taj advocates love marriage, criticizing contractual unions that do not take into account the welfare of the couple at all. In the early years of married life, she and her husband were teenagers who were still playing children's games, and the young wife was offended by her husband's neglect, which began almost immediately after the wedding night. Like most men from noble Qajar families, Hussein Khan had many lovers, both men and women; and Taj justifies his own flirting and romances with revenge for his spouse's neglect and infidelity. Aref Qazvini, an Iranian poet, composer and musician, is the most famous of the men mentioned in the memoir. He dedicated his famous poem "Ey Taj" to the beautiful daughter of the Shah. "

Taj gave birth to four children - two sons and two daughters, but one boy died in infancy.

Taj also mentions a dangerous abortion, undertaken after she learned of her husband's venereal disease. Ironically, the physical and emotional consequences of abortion were considered to be manifestations of hysteria - a diagnosis that gave her the freedom to leave her home: "Doctors ordered to go outside to unwind ... due to illness, I was provided with some mitigation of the usual domestic confinement."

She told about the interest of her contemporaries in Europe and wrote in her memoirs: "I really wanted to go to Europe." But, unlike her older sister Akhtar, she never managed to visit there. While writing her memoir in 1914, she attempted suicide three times.

The troubled first marriage eventually ended in divorce in December 1907. Taj does not discuss any subsequent marriages in his memoir, but, as mentioned, the manuscript is incomplete. Her free communication with men and her romantic (or even sexual) relationships with them created her reputation as a "free woman" (she was considered a prostitute).

In March 1908, Taj remarried, the marriage lasted only a few months, and divorce followed in July 1908. In later years, Taj es-Saltane became actively involved in constitutional and feminist activities. She was, along with several other women in the Iranian royal family, a member of the Women's Association during the 1905-1911 Constitutional Revolution in Persia. and fought for women's rights.

In 1909, she married for the third time, it is not known how this marriage ended, but in 1921 Taj describes herself as a single, unmarried woman.

Memories paint a deep, miserable life for us, and a series of letters the Taj wrote to various prime ministers in the early 1920s to restore her retirement is a testament to her financial difficulties.

In 1922, Taj accompanied one of her daughters to Baghdad, where her son-in-law, an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was appointed. She died in obscurity, probably in Tehran in 1936. "