Part 1
Why Iran Is Living Its Own Shahnameh
Some stories are not written to be remembered—they return when history begins to repeat itself. Iran is no longer reading the Shahnameh. It is living it.
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Living Shahnameh
A series tracing how ancient Persian memory re-emerges in the present, where myth and reality converge, and a nation finds itself reliving the patterns of tyranny, resistance, and the enduring search for justice.
Essays in this series
Part 2
Living the Shahnameh: The Story of Siavash Today
Innocence is often imagined as protection. The story of Siavash in the Shahnameh asks a far more unsettling question: what happens when truth is visible, recognized, even proven, and still fails to save the innocent? Across centuries, the tragedy of Siavash endures not because history repeats itself exactly, but because the structures of fear, accusation, and powerless truth continue to return under new names. In moments when justice collapses before power, remembrance itself becomes a form of resistance.
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Living the Shahnameh: Bijan and Manijeh Today
After January 2026, Iran created its own Bijans and Manijehs. Young couples walked into the streets together and only one returned home. A thousand years after Ferdowsi wrote of love surviving darkness, Iran still carries the same story: power tries to separate people, and love refuses to let the dead disappear.
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