TEHRAN -- The book “Iranian Stamps” by Roman Siebertz has recently been published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Researcher Siebertz, an Iran expert at Bonn University, had written a Ph.D. thesis entitled “The Stamps of Iran as an Instrument of Iconographical Propaganda 1868-1979”.

He traveled to Iran twice to complete his thesis, which has now been turned into the book “Iranian Stamps”. Following are some excerpts from the book:

“The stamps of Iran, from the time they came into existence until the Islamic Revolution shall be regarded as a source of modern Iranian history that reflects the political and ideological processes of the past 130 years.”

“The stamps shall be investigated against the background of historical events and developments which are necessary for the understanding of these stamps’ motives. It shall also be demonstrated what we can learn about the social and political history of Iran from this kind of source. First of all, the appearance of stamps in Iran was a symptom for the efforts of modernization during the first half of Nasser ad-Din Shah of the Qajar’s rule.”

“One measure of the new was to install a symbolic presence of the monarch by representative buildings and public monuments in many different places. Soon this was extended to other instruments of communication, traditional and modern. At the same time, for instance, the image of the Shah also began to appear on coins, and little later the governmental newspapers started to publish the portraits of ministers and imperial palaces.”

“The postage stamp, that transported the Shah’s image and the symbols of governmental authority to every part of Iran, made every inhabitant of the country known with his monarch and at the same time with the state’s claim for authority. It was a symbol as well as an instrument of structural modernization.”

“Due to the confrontation with the negative aspects of modernization, Iranian intellectuals began to turn towards religion and cultural tradition, especially popular culture, which became the basis of a new political ideology.”

“In opposition to official ideology, the most important counter-design was the vision of an Islamic Republic, i.e. a harmonious society that was organized according to the principles of divine law and social justice. These two subjects would dominate the iconography of the stamps of Iran after 1979.”