Yussef E'tesami (also known as, E'tesam-al-Molk, Mirza Yusuf E'tesami Ashtiani; 1874–1938),
was an Iranian journalist, politician, publisher, translator, and writer. He was a member of the second
Majles (from 1909 to 1912).
His daughter was poet
Parvin E'tesami
Parvin E'tesami (1907 – April 5, 1941) also known as Rakhshandeh Etesami ( fa, رخشنده اعتصامی), and Parvin Etesami ( fa, پروین اعتصامی), was an Iranian 20th-century Persian poet.
Life
Parvin E'tesami was born in 1907 i ...
.
Biography
Yussef E'tesami was born in 1874. His father, Mīrzā Ebrāhīm Khan Mostawfī Eʿteṣām-al-Molk was from
Ashtian
Ashtian ( fa, آشتيان, also Romanized as Āshtīān and Ashtīyan) is a city and capital of Ashtian County, Markazi Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 8,324, in 2,597 families.
Ashtian lies in a fertile agricultural dis ...
and the head of finance of the Iranian province of
Azerbaijan.
He was the elder brother of the architect and painter
Abolhassan E'tesami, and the father of the poet
Parvin E'tesami
Parvin E'tesami (1907 – April 5, 1941) also known as Rakhshandeh Etesami ( fa, رخشنده اعتصامی), and Parvin Etesami ( fa, پروین اعتصامی), was an Iranian 20th-century Persian poet.
Life
Parvin E'tesami was born in 1907 i ...
.
In the 1890s, Yussef E'tesami established the first typographical printing house in
Tabriz. He was a member of the Iranian Parliament or
Majles in 1909–12, and founded the ''Bahar'' journal in 1910. At various junctures, he served in the Ministry of Education and headed the Royal and Majles Libraries.
The
''Bahar'' journal was a sixty-four-page monthly published in two periods; from April 1910– October 1911 and from April 1921–December 1922.
As noted in the first issue, the purpose of ''Bahar'' was “to provide a … forum for various significant topics of scientific, literary, ethical, historical, and artistic interest to people of understanding, and to acquaint the public with valuable information.” Most of the journal's material was written or translated by Yussef E'tesami, and a large part devoted to Western culture. To
Edward Granville Browne (1928, 489) ''Bahar'' appeared "very modern and European in tone;" and in ''
Encyclopaedia Iranica'', Heshmat Moayyad points out its "liberal and humanistic" orientation.
In addition to his contributions to ''Bahar'', Yussef E'tesami's produced about forty volumes of translations, in particular some Persian translations of
Qasim Amin
Qasim Amin (, arz, قاسم أمين; 1 December 1863, in AlexandriaPolitical and diplomatic history of the Arab world, 1900-1967, Menahem Mansoor – April 22, 1908 in Cairo) was an Egyptian jurist, Islamic Modernist and one of the founders ...
's ''Tahrir al-Mara'',
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
's ''Les Misérables'', vol. 1, and
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...
's ''Kabale und Liebe''. He is the author also of a commentary in Arabic of Abolqassem
al-Zamakhshari
Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari (; 1074 –1143) was a medieval Muslim scholar of Iranian descent. He travelled to Makkah and settled there for five years and has been known since then as Jar Allah ‘God's Neighbor’. He was a Mu't ...
's ''Atwaq ad-Dahab'', a three-volume catalog of manuscripts in the Majles Library.
He died on 2 January 1938 in Tehran.
References
Sources
* Browne, Edward G. 1928. ''A literary history of Persia'', vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Dehkhoda, Ali-Akbar. 1977. Biographical note. In ''Poems of Parvin Etessami'', ed. Abolfath Etessami, p. 342. Tehran: Abolfath Etessami.
* E'tesami, Abolhassan. 1958. Biographical note. ''Tehran University News Bulletin'' 374, pp. 34–7.
{{DEFAULTSORT:E'tesami, Yussef
Iranian journalists
Iranian publishers (people)
Iranian translators
1874 births
1938 deaths
People from Tabriz
Iranian Esperantists
Members of the 2nd Iranian Majlis
Deputies of Tabriz for National Consultative Assembly
Deputies of Tehran for National Consultative Assembly
Members of the 3rd Iranian Majlis
People of Qajar Iran
Iranian magazine founders