Iranian culture is an important component of the state-political and ideological doctrine of modern Iran. Ideas about the importance of culture in the domestic life of the country and its use as an essential integrating factor in the international arena are heard in the speeches of leading political and religious figures of Iran, as well as in the research of modern Iranian scientists.

Keywords: globalization, IRI, Iranian culture, Muslim leadership, language policy, Persian language, English borrowings.

During the thirty-five years that have passed since the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the attitude of the country's power structures to their culture and its role in public life has changed, and the cultural factor has been quite actively used and is currently being used by them for political and ideological purposes. It can be said that appealing to it has become a certain element of political fashion. The historical period of 35 years in the development of Iran already allows us to draw some conclusions and generalizations about the directions and trends in the development of Iranian culture.

The period in the history of Iran, which covers approximately the first decade after the Islamic revolution, is closely associated with the name of Imam Khomeini. The establishment of the theocratic regime in Iran led to the Islamization of Iranian society, and it affected not only the sphere of politics, economy, and social relations, but also, perhaps first of all, ideology and culture. Islamic ideologists were faced with the primary task of forming and embedding in the public consciousness the concept of "modern Iranian culture", while eliminating the ideas of the recent and distant past and revising the historical and cultural tradition of Iranian society, i.e. creating a new culture based on the traditions of Islam.

At this time, there is a clear tendency to narrow the scope of national history, which is divided into the pre-Islamic era, which is commonly called "Jahelia", i.e. "ignorance", and the Islamic period. The pre-Islamic period was excluded from the context of Iran's history and modernity (Klyashtorina, 1990). It was in this vein that Imam Khomeini, immediately after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, set the nation the task of changing and updating the existing culture in the country within the framework of the cultural revolution initiated by his Decree in 1980. The Imam has repeatedly stressed that " solving the problems of Iranian culture is one of the first tasks, since, in his opinion, social disenfranchisement It is based on its cultural backwardness, and culture is the foundation of the nation." "The overall cultural situation in the country depends on how healthy and independent (independent of the West - M. K.) it will be to resolve a number of political, economic and other issues" [Keyhan, 19.04.1979].

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According to the Decree, the main goal of the cultural revolution was to revise everything created in the field of culture before 1979 in accordance with the principles of Islam. Its main slogan was the creation of a new, distinctive Iranian culture, imbued with the spirit of Islam and based on Muslim traditions, while completely denying the cultural heritage of Iran, including that created under the old Shah's regime. It should be emphasized that during this period, Imam Khomeini understood the original Iranian culture, or farxange xishin, as a culture that rejects not only its own pre-Islamic Iranian values, but also the cultural heritage of the West, its influence on the development of Iranian culture [Kameneva, 1982; Keyhan, 19.04.1979].

Although the Iranian cultural revolution is a complex and controversial phenomenon with both positive and negative features, it was widely supported in Iranian society - by religious and political figures, representatives of the Iranian intelligentsia, and ordinary Iranians [Keyhan, 23.04.1980; 04.05.1980; 08.05.1980; Ettelaat, 04.05.1980]. Stimulated by the ideas of Imam Khomeini and his Decree on the Cultural Revolution, the discussion on the future of Iranian culture focused on the following important issues: how and in what sphere of public life cultural transformations should begin; within what framework they should be implemented; in what relationship they should be with the processes taking place in the educational system [Ettelaat, 20.05.1980]. At the same time, it should be mentioned that a part of the Iranian intelligentsia that did not accept the ideas of the cultural revolution made up the Iranian cultural emigration to such countries of the world as Germany, Canada and the USA.

In general, the cultural policy of the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran during this period was characterized by an appeal to Muslim traditions, which was consistent with the ideas of pan-Islamism supported by the authorities, that is, the unification of countries with the traditional spread of Islam under the flag of "Muslim solidarity", where the religious moment dominates the national one. This was reflected, in particular, in the fact that the former emblem of Iran - the lion and the sun - was replaced by the Islamic crescent, mainly Arabic terminology was used in the speeches of religious leaders, and much more. The Arabization of Iran has also affected the cultural and linguistic sphere. Arabic took second place after Persian, which was recognized as the official, state language of Iran in the new constitution of the country adopted in 1979. At the same time, they began to assign him, to a large extent artificially, an increasingly significant role in the public life of the country [Kameneva, 1983, pp. 143-144]. Leading religious and political figures in Iran have repeatedly emphasized in the pages of periodicals that Arabic is the language of Islam and the Koran, and that a person who does not speak it at least to some extent will not be able to understand the meaning of the Muslim religion [Keyhan, 26.11.1981]. There was an active process of Arabization of the Persian language, not only through the revival of archaisms, but also through the creation of neologisms. At the same time, the situation with Western European languages was completely different - their status was not fixed in the constitution, the role of these languages in the public life of the country was severely limited, which was the result of anti-Western sentiments in the cultural policy of the Iranian leadership.

Mehdi Sanaei, a well-known Iranian scholar and politician, writes in his book "Relations between Iran and Central Asian States: trends and Prospects" (Tehran, 2011) that "such a significant event as the Islamic Revolution, in addition to introducing changes in politics and the economy, also significantly adjusted the sphere of culture. Therefore, we can talk about a pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary culture, the main achievements of which were the exaltation of its Islamic component and the downplaying of the role of ancient, national, and Iranian traditions. Thus, the cultural policy of Iran (at this time - MK) is nothing but the policy of the Islamic Revolution, and in this sense, Islamic culture permeates

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the whole society" [Sanai, 2011, p. 255]. The author repeatedly notes the importance of the international aspect of the cultural policy of Iran, which, in my opinion, began to gain strength during this period and is directed primarily towards the states of the Muslim world and the Iranian diaspora abroad, for which Iranian culture is actually native [Sanai, 2011, p. 257]. The expansion and deepening of the international aspect of cultural policy will allow, in the opinion of the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the future, the country with the world's oldest civilization and Islam as the state religion will claim a leading position in the region consisting mainly of Muslim states.

Since the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the beginning of the creative stage in the history of Iran, there have been changes in the approach and interpretation of the concept of "Iranian culture". Changes in economic policy and the expansion of foreign policy orientations contributed to the emergence of a renewed view of Iranian culture, which is based on a combination of Islamic and native Iranian traditions and civilizational values, which, of course, contributes to strengthening Iran's position in the Islamic world, cultivating its cultural and historical exclusivity within the Muslim civilization at the international level.

In this context, it is interesting to note the famous American Iranist Richard Fry, who, referring to the problem of the New Persian Renaissance in his book "The Heritage of Iran", wrote that " New Persian has become, along with Arabic, the language of Islam, and Islam itself has far outgrown its Arabic basis, turning into a multi-ethnic and multilingual culture and religion. Iran has played a leading role in this metamorphosis. We can assume that Islam had to change even before its adoption by the Persians, but the Iranian civilization played the same role in the development of Muslim culture as the Greek civilization in the formation of Christianity and its culture "(Fry, 1972, p. 344).

Returning to modern Iran, it should be noted that after the death of Imam Khomeini and the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the rigid, ideologized course of the country's leadership has been weakened, and the Islamic concept of cultural development of Iran has an Iranian element. This is also met by repeated statements in the press, through which the idea that the inhabitants of Iran are both Iranians and Muslims runs like a red thread. While the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, a state organization established in 1984 on the initiative of Imam Khomeini, became the center of all cultural decisions, a special Organization for cultural issues and Islamic Relations (Sazemane farhang-o ertebatat eslami) was created in 1995 to promote the existing doctrine of cultural development of Iran outside its borders. functioning IOD under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Relations. Structurally, the organization consists of a number of departments that oversee scientific research and deal with educational issues, publish and promote all aspects of its activities, organize IRI weeks abroad, various exhibitions and scientific conferences on cultural issues, numerous events to promote the Persian language and literature, and work towards expanding the dialogue between Islam and the Islamic World. other world religions, including Orthodoxy.

Of great importance for the promotion of Iranian culture are the cultural representations operating under the auspices of this organization in many countries of the world at the embassies of Iran, the number of which has now grown to hundreds.

An important role in the process of cultural reorientation was assigned to the Persian language, which, along with Arabic, began to be considered as the language of Islam and Muslim civilization, as a tool for their spread to various regions of the world. Publications on this topic began to appear in the Iranian press immediately after the IP-

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The Ladies ' Revolution [Ettelaat, 27.08.1982]. The program document of the Center for the Dissemination of the Persian Language, which operates under the auspices of the Organization for Culture and Islamic Relations, notes that the Persian language and Persian literature are the key to understanding Iranian culture and Islamic civilization and contribute to expanding the international dimension of Iran's cultural policy. They become objects of cultural export, not only to the countries of the Muslim world, but also beyond its borders. As of 2012, the Persian language is taught in 160 universities around the world and 200 courses are taught in 55 countries around the world.

It seems that the cultural and linguistic policy of the Islamic leadership of Iran, aimed at introducing Arabic into everyday life - a language alien to the absolute majority of the country's population and therefore unable to acquire broad public functions, like Persian, was largely ideologized and doomed to failure from the very beginning, which, apparently, the propagandists themselves understood this idea. The press has repeatedly said that Persian is the national language of Iranians, it is a key feature of the Iranian nation and an element of Iranian culture. In this regard, the shift of emphasis in cultural and linguistic policy from Arabic to Persian seems quite justified. This is reflected in the lexical system of the Persian language. The process of its replenishment with Arabisms is currently suspended, and only borrowings from Arabic that were included in the vocabulary of the Persian language earlier are functioning.

According to the aforementioned Mehdi Sanaei, " Iran should pay sufficient attention to both Islamic and Iranian culture in line with its foreign policy aimed at strengthening integration processes and reducing the level of disintegration trends, since both of them have deep roots in the region, and Iran has the right to play a civilizational role in it. To become the number one power in the region, a country should pay equal attention to both directions of its cultural policy" [Sanai, 2011, p. 89].

Approaches to the term "Iranian culture" and the ways of its development in general are undergoing changes due to the modernization and development of Iranian society, in the depths of which new cultural doctrines are being formed, which include, along with the growing interest in the cultural heritage and history of Iran, an interest in the culture and history of other civilizations. It was not by chance that at that time, namely in 2001, the then President of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, formulated a program of cultural dialogue with the Western world, that is, the very world that after the Islamic Revolution was perceived exclusively as a hostile world, unable to bring a positive impetus to the development of Iranian culture. The significance of the concept of dialogue of civilizations is that, on the one hand, it calls for effective communication within the Muslim world, including between Shiites and Sunnis, and on the other, it invites cultural dialogue with the West. It also confirms the idea that countries with a long and continuous cultural tradition are capable of developing in new conditions, including in the context of globalization. This theory can also be considered as a response to the trends of globalization of the cultural space and the imposition of common cultural standards.

At the same time, the concept of a dialogue of civilizations presented by Mohammad Khatami could symbolize a certain softening of the anti-Western sentiments of the Iranian leadership. In general, such cultural policies have been able to contribute to the successful advancement of Iran on the path to becoming a major regional power, a regional leader. According to M. Sanai, "In order to become the number one regional power, Iran must use cultural, historical, civilizational, racial, linguistic and religious factors" [Sanai, 2011, p.89].

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's entry into the first presidential term (2005) can be attributed both to the preservation of existing trends in the development of culture in Iranian society, and to the emergence of new aspects of its development. It should be noted that in 2005-2009, Ahmadinejad generally focused on restoring Islamic values after the Islamic Revolution. The approach to the interpretation of the concept of "Iranian culture" at that time was characterized primarily by the preservation of trends characteristic of the previous stage and a departure from the theory of dialogue of civilizations, which was losing its position in the Iranian public and political consciousness. In the future, this position was reflected in the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan of the country adopted in 2011, where the problems of Iranian culture are put in the first place in importance and the prospects for its development are considered in the first section entitled "Iranian-Islamic culture". It is noted that the acceleration of the pace of cultural development of the Islamic Republic of Iran should go in such areas as:: 1) creation of programs for the development of culture (art, science, education, religion); 2) planning ways to implement the products of cultural activities (for example, publishing); 3) construction of cultural facilities and institutions dealing with cultural issues.

Emphasizing the importance of developing the modern Persian language in Iran, this plan obliges the Government to promote the programs developed by the Academy of Persian Language and Literature. language standards, promote the removal of the Latin alphabet from signs in public places, company names, and packages of non-exported goods. It is planned to develop a "National project for the development of cultural relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the international level", which will certainly contribute to the further development of the international aspect of the country's cultural policy. The sixth Five-year plan also contains other important provisions, such as those related to the cultural heritage of Imam Khomeini, the socio-cultural sphere, media activities, and many others [www.majlis.ir/].

Ideas of unity of "Iranian-Islamic culture" are often found in the statements of leading figures of Iran and in the Iranian media. Thus, the country's spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei, during a visit to Shiraz and Takhte Jamshid (the name of the ancient capital of Iran.-MK), said that the latter is the pride of Iranians, a symbol of their pre-Islamic greatness, represents the very original Iranian values, which, however, according to Khamenei, are just as important as Iranian-Islamic values [Etemade Meli, 08.05.2008].

Since 2009, i.e. since the beginning of Ahmadinejad's second presidential term, there has been a turn in the country's interpretation of the concept of "Iranian culture" to the Iranian factor itself, which is free from religious overtones and is designated in Persian by the term iraniyat. Many media outlets in this regard talk about the beginning of a new stage in the activities of the president and his team. This increased focus on Iranian values can be seen as a reflection of the growing nationalist tendencies in Iranian society. Indirect evidence of this trend can be considered the initiative of Iran to organize the ceremony of celebrating Nowruz on a regional scale and the repeated appeals to the problem of cultural heritage-mirase farhangi-in the new five-year plan. The same trend is evident in the high appreciation of Persian classical literature, such as the works of Firdowsi: The millennial anniversary of the creation of the great poem "Shahnameh" was widely celebrated in Iran in 2011. [Ettelaat, 16.05.2011], - as well as the work of Saadi, named on his memorial day by President Ahmadinejad as a key figure in the development and exaltation of Persian literature and art [www.president.ir].

This position of the president causes active criticism from the clergy, who, for their part, are taking active steps to Islamize education, which primarily affects the humanities. It requires separate education of boys and girls in higher education, and a reduction in the percentage of women in the general population.

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It also has a significant impact on the development of Iranian culture in general.

Thus, if after the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Iranian culture was understood as the Muslim culture of Iran with a pronounced anti-Western orientation, then later (the end of the 80s of the XX century-2009) it was replaced by a combination of elements of the Islamic culture of Iran and traditional originally Iranian civilizational values, while maintaining an anti-Western orientation, which at the same time cultural dialogue with the West. Finally, the period in the history of Iran, which coincides with the second term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2009-2013), is characterized, on the one hand, by the preservation of the previous trends of cultural development with the planned attempts to strengthen the Iranian factor itself, on the other - by the desire of the clergy to conduct a new Islamic cultural revolution, to put obstacles in the way of penetration of Western civilization and public thought in Iran.

On August 4, 2013, a new president, Hassan Rouhani, came to power in Iran. He formed a new government of Iran, approved by the Majlis of the Islamic Council, which includes two of the most important figures for the future development of Iranian culture-Minister of Culture and Islamic Relations Ali Jannati and Minister of Education Mohammad Ali Najafi. It is their activities under the leadership of the new president and under the leadership of Rahbar1 that will demonstrate in the near future whether the previous vector in the development of Iranian culture will be preserved or whether it is waiting for cardinal reforms.

list of literature

Kameneva M. S. Khomsini on the modern cultural development of Iran // Modern Islam: Problems of Politics and Ideology, Moscow, 1982.
Kameneva M. S. Natsional'nye traditsii i yazykovaya politika v Irane (20-e - nachalo 80-kh godov XX veka) [National traditions and Language policy in Iran (20s-early 80s of the XX century)]. Religious traditions and Modernity, Moscow, 1983.
Keyhan. 19.04.1979; 23.04.1980; 04.05.1980; 08.05.1980; 26.11.1981.

Klyashtorina V. B. Iran of the 1960s and 1980s. From cultural pluralism to the Islamization of Spiritual values, Moscow, 1990.
Sanai M. Relations between Iran and the Central Asian states: Trends and prospects. Tehran, 2011 (in Persian).

Fry R. Heritage of Iran. / Translated from English, Moscow, 1972.

Etemade melli. 08.05.2008.

Ettelaat. 04.05.1980; 20.05.1980; 27.08.1982; 16.05.2011.

Ahmadinejad's speech at the ceremony dedicated to Saadi www.prcsidcnt.ir.21.04.2012.

www.majlis.ir/.

www.prcsidcnt.ir/.

Rahbar 1 (Persian. )- the supreme leader of Iran, or in other words, the faqih (Persian. - higher state educational institution-

A donation position in the Islamic Republic of Iran established in accordance with the "Allayate-faqih" doctrine (Persians). ).

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