What Will History Call These 47 Years? S. Rouzbeh

On 23 September, I wrote an article for Gooya News entitled ‘How Many Metres of Wall for 47 Years?’. The question in that article was this: if one day we wanted to build a museum for the victims of these years, placing only each victim’s photograph in a small frame on the wall, how much space would we need? But the main issue was not the length of the wall; the bigger question was what Iranian society would do with the memory and the account of this period.

After its publication and circulation on social media, the article was viewed several hundred thousand times and prompted many reactions and comments. For me, the reactions themselves mattered more than the number of views: they showed just how alive, sensitive and painful the subject of the victims, the recording of their names and images, and the preservation of the memory of these years still is for people.

Among these responses, one reader raised another question:

‘What will they call this era in the future?’

A question that initially seemed simple occupied my thoughts for days and led me to carry out further research on the subject. It was this question that convinced me to continue the discussion in my previous article from a different angle.

How does history name things?

We speak of the Qajar period, the Pahlavi period or the Constitutional Era. So perhaps the simplest answer is: ‘the Islamic Republic period’.

The same expression is now used in historiography and academic sources. For example, the Encyclopaedia Iranica uses the phrase ‘Islamic Republic Period’ in its periodisation of Iranian history, placing it after the ‘Qajar and Pahlavi periods’.

From the perspective of political historiography, then, perhaps the answer is clear: the period that began in 1357 and is called ‘the Islamic Republic period’.

But are these three words enough to describe what Iran and Iranians have experienced over these 47 years?

The name of a historical period is not always simply the name of the government in power at the time. Sometimes later generations identify a period by its political system; sometimes by war and revolution, sometimes by a social transformation, and sometimes by an experience that remains in people’s collective memory. For this reason, there can be a significant distance between ‘the official name of a period’ and ‘the name of that period in people’s memory’.

The official name, legal documents and the memory of a nation

These 47 years have not been a uniform period; they have encompassed revolution, war, changes of generation, economic crises, migration and repeated periods of protest and repression. Alongside these upheavals are cases that have become an important part of Iran’s human rights record.

Amnesty International has written about the 1367 massacre of political prisoners that thousands of political prisoners were forcibly disappeared in secret and extrajudicially executed, and has assessed the concealment of their fate and burial places as a crime against humanity.

The same organisation has documented the identities of 321 men, women and children who, it says, were killed by security forces during the protests of Aban 1398.

The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission has also stated, with regard to the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests, that many gross human rights violations—including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution and enforced disappearance—in the cases it examined amounted to crimes against humanity, as part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians.

In 2025, Amnesty International also recorded at least 2,159 executions in Iran—the highest figure the organisation has recorded for Iran since 1981.

These are not merely figures and statistics. They are documents, names, photographs, testimonies and case files that will probably form part of the raw material for future historical judgements about this era.

From what perspective should we name it?

This is where the answer becomes difficult.

If the criterion is the formal structure of power, “the Islamic Republic period” or “the era of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist” could describe the political structure.

If the criterion is the relationship between religion and political power, terms such as “the age of religious government” may be used. Critics of the Islamic Republic have also used terms such as “religious despotism”—a term that is no longer merely a historical label, but also carries a political judgement.

If we look through the lens of victims’ experiences or the political memory of opponents, expressions such as “the era of repression”, “the dark years” or even “the age of the pursuit of justice” may take shape.

Each of these names brings something into focus and leaves something else in the shade. “The Islamic Republic” describes the structure of government; “the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist” the centre of political power; “religious government” the relationship between religion and the state; “the era of repression” the experience of victims; and “the age of the pursuit of justice” the struggle for truth and accountability.

So the question is not simply, “Which name is more beautiful or more forceful?” The question is: which feature of these 47 years will become the defining characteristic of this period in the memory of future generations?

Who names an era?

The experience of countries that have emerged from periods of repression and dictatorship points to something else: historical memory is not made by historians alone.

In Argentina, after the end of the military dictatorship, the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons gathered testimony and documents, and published its famous report, “Nunca Más”—“Never Again”—in 1984. The report later became one of the documentary foundations for the trials of military commanders, and the phrase “Never Again” itself came to occupy an important place in Argentina’s culture of memory and the pursuit of justice.

Places such as ESMA, once a centre for detention, torture and disappearance, later became sites of memory: the very place once used to conceal the truth became a place for recording and recounting it.

In Chile, too, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights defines its mission as documenting and presenting the systematic human rights violations committed by the Chilean state between 1973 and 1990, preserving records and passing this memory on to future generations.

Therefore, the name of an era is not determined only in history books or government directives. Courts, truth commissions, archives, museums, victims’ families, writers and journalists, and even people’s everyday language all play a part in shaping historical memory. For example, “the Renaissance” or “the Holocaust Museum”—in any case, it is clear that an Iranian name must be chosen, but what name would be suitable for this era?

Generations do not necessarily remember a period in the same way, either. Someone who witnessed the 1979 Revolution, someone who experienced the war, someone whose family member was imprisoned in the 1980s, someone who took part in the protests of 2009 or November 2019, a family that emigrated, and a young person who measures their life against the social and political restrictions of recent decades may all speak of the same historical period, yet see it through entirely different lenses.

Perhaps the final name of this era, too, will emerge from the encounter between these different memories.

What shall we write on the inscription at that museum?

My previous article began with a simple image: a wall on which photographs of the victims of these years are to be displayed.

That article asked: for 47 years, how many metres of wall will we need?

But the readers’ responses, and the question that arose afterwards, led me to another question—perhaps an even more difficult one:

If that museum is ever built, what name will we write on its entrance plaque, above that wall, for this era?

I do not want to give the reader the answer in advance. Perhaps “the Islamic Republic era” is the name that will remain in history books. Perhaps the people’s memory will give it another name. Or perhaps, as with many historical periods, several names will endure side by side: one for the political structure and another for the experience of the people who lived through it.

This time, I want to put to the readers of this article the same question one of my readers asked me:

If you were to introduce these 47 years of Iran’s history to future generations under one name or description, encompassing everything that has happened to the country and its society during these years, what would you call this era?

Would you name it from the perspective of the structure and nature of power? From the perspective of human rights and the pursuit of justice? From the perspective of everyday life, migration, repression, war and lost opportunities? From the perspective of resistance and standing firm? Or from an angle not mentioned in this article?

What would you call this era? And, more importantly, why?

Readers’ answers and arguments can themselves become part of the continuation of this research—not as a scientific survey of Iranian society as a whole, but as a collection of accounts and judgements that show how some Iranians today remember these 47 years and how they wish to pass them on to the next generation.

S. Rouzbeh