Mehrdad Bahar (, pronunciation: Mehrdād Bahār) (1929, in

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

– 13 November 1994, in Tehran) was a prominent Iranist,

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

mythologist Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

and Persian historian.

Early life

Mehrdad Bahar was the youngest son of Persian poet

Mohammad Taghi Bahar Mohammad-Taqi Bahar (; also romanised as Mohammad-Taqī Bahār; 10 December 1886 in Mashhad – 22 April 1951 in Tehran), widely known as Malek osh-Sho'arā () and Malek osh-Sho'arā Bahār ("poet laureate," literally: ''the king of poets''), w ...

. He graduated from

Tehran University The University of Tehran (UT) or Tehran University (, ) is a public collegiate university in Iran, and the oldest and most prominent Iranian university located in Tehran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as ...

with a Ph.D. in

Persian literature Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day ...

and ancient

Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...

. He received an MA degree in ancient and medieval Persian history from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

where he studied with Professor

Mary Boyce Nora Elisabeth Mary Boyce (2 August 1920 – 4 April 2006) was a British scholar of Iranian languages and an authority on Zoroastrianism. She was Professor of Iranian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the Un ...

at the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

. He began his career as a linguist with focus on

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

. Later in his career he became interested in Persian mythology. He developed theories on ancient roots in Persian culture.

Works

His works on

Persian mythology Iranian mythology, or Persian mythology in western term (), is the body of the myths originally told by ancient Persians and other Iranian peoples and a genre of ancient Persian folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the worl ...

are mainly focused on major non-

Aryan ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''), Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood ...

Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...

influences, most of all

Mesopotamian Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary o ...

mythologies. Bahar's most notable work is his translation of the well-known

text, '' Bondahesh(n)''. His other prominent work, ''A Research on Persian Mythology'' (two volumes) consists of a collection/compilation of

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...

texts and a systematic analysis of their roots. The second volume, however, was incomplete when Bahar died in 1994. His colleague, Katayun Mazdapour, completed the editing task the following year.

Bibliography

Among his books are: * ''Bondahesh'' ("بندهش") * ''Iranian Mythology'' ("استوره‌شناسی ایران") * ''A Research on Persian Mythology'' ("پژوهشی در استوره‌شناسی ایران") * ''Treaties on Persian Culture'' ("جستاری چند در فرهنگ ایران") * ''Notes on Shahnameh'' ("سخنی چند درباره شاهنامه") * ''Persepolis'' about

Persepolis Persepolis (; ; ) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (). It is situated in the plains of Marvdasht, encircled by the southern Zagros mountains, Fars province of Iran. It is one of the key Iranian cultural heritage sites and ...

with photographer N. Kasraian

External links

Mehrdad Bahar: Distinguished Iranologist and Persian mythologist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bahar, Mehrdad Iranian Iranologists 20th-century Iranian historians Linguists from Iran 1929 births 1994 deaths 20th-century Iranian linguists Zoroastrian studies scholars Faculty of Letters and Humanities of the University of Tehran alumni 20th-century Iranian translators

Early life

Works

Bibliography

See also

External links