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Crowning Anguish
Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to Modernity 1884-1914
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The life of Taj al-Saltana, daughter of the ruler of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah
Qajar, epitomized the predicaments of her changing era. Overcoming her limited
education within the harem walls, Taj chronicled a thirty-year span in the life
of a generation that witnessed a shift from traditional order to revolutionary
flux. It is as though she had chosen this moment to recall her personal
history--a tale filled with "wonder and anguish"--in order to record a cultural
and political leap, symbolic of her time, from the indulgent, sheltered, and
often petty world of her father's harem to the puzzling and exposed, yet
emotionally and intellectually challenging world of a new Iran.
Now almost one hundred years later Taj's memoirs are relevant and qualify her
not only as a feminist by her society's standards but also in comparison with
feminists of her generation in Europe and America. Beyond her fascination for
the material glamour of the West at the turn of the twentieth century--fashion,
architecture, furniture, the motorcar--she was also influenced by Western
culture's painting, music, history, literature and language. And yet throughout
this time she kept her bond with her own literary and cultural heritage and what
she calls her "Persianness."
Despite her troubled life of agony--an unloving and harsh mother; a benevolent
but self-indulgent father; an adolescent, bisexual husband; separation from her
children; financial difficulties; the stigma of leading a libertine lifestyle
and the infamy of removing her veil--Taj's is a genuine voice for women's social
grievances in late 20th-century Iran, and one that reveals a remarkable woman in
her own right. |
