aDepartment of political Sciences, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran
bDepartment of Social Sciences, Literature and Humanities Faculty, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
cDepartment of Political Sciences, Social Science Faculty, Tarbiat-e Modarres University, Tehran, Iran
Online published on 27 March, 2014.
Coins, stamps and banknotes are considered to be texts for study of the creation and evolution of the symbols as well as the patterns of the national identity. Despite the widespread daily usage of these cultural instruments, there are few researches devoted to their role in reproduction of the political and cultural signs including the national identity. The present study aims to represent the elements of national identity of the Persian banknotes in first Pahlavi and Islamic Republic eras by using content analysis and Peirce semiotics. Our findings show that in the second Pahlavi era, national identity of Iran is represented by Īrānshahri, patriarchy and modernism, but in the Islamic Republic era, national identity is represented by the religious symbolism in its non-historical form. Further, the results also show that in both of these historical eras, there was an identity conflict going on, so that political regimes, in every period, tried to eliminate and ignore some of the national elements.
Īrānshahr, Islamic cosmopolitan, Patriarchy, religious symbolism, Associative relations
