Iran and Democracy
Selections from the collection
This collection is dedicated to the history of democracy and pro-democracy movements in Iran. Historical truth and collective memory are the first victims of totalitarian regimes. With no memory, people grow morally and intellectually dependent on their rulers. No wonder, therefore that freedom of the press was the first target of the nascent Islamic Republic. The History collection aims at archiving different documents that bear witness to the failures and successes of pro-democracy movements in Iran since the mid-19th century. By making these documents available to the young generation in particular, the library wishes to evoke forgotten figures and moments of pro-democracy struggle in the midst of revolutionary torment. This endeavor is a small contribution to the efforts of a generation to restore Iran's collective memory badly damaged by fifty years of dictatorship and twenty-five years of a violent totalitarian regime.