Women also were targets of wartime propaganda.

The Islamic Republic encouraged women to follow

THE GRAPHICS OF REVOLUTION AND WAR
Islamic models of femininity and humility. One
archetype of Shi‘a female virtue is Fatimah, the
daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. Venerated
as a symbol of righteousness, patience, piety, and
as the mother of the foremost Shi‘a martyr, Imam
Husayn, Fatimah is exalted as a mother to all martyrs.
For these reasons, cemeteries created for Iranian
soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq War are named
in her honor.
Another woman exalted by the Islamic Republic
is Zaynab, the granddaughter of the Prophet
Muhammad and sister of Imam Husayn. She is
remembered as courageous and resilient due to her
legendary defiance of Yazid I after the massacre of
her family at the Battle of Karbala. As an active and
even combative female, her example inspired Iranian
women during the Revolution. During the war, too,
Fig. 8 Muhammad Taraqi Jah (born 1943), the Islamic Republic’s artistic programs broadcast the
These Are Our Heroes, 1980. Middle Eastern Posters image of Zaynab as a woman in support of Shi’a male
Collection, Box 3, Poster 66, Special Collections Research
Center, The University of Chicago Library
soldiers. Fig. 10 Habib Sadeqi (born 1957), A Funeral for Hearts, ca. 1980. Middle Eastern Posters Collection, Box 3, Poster
Warfront artist Nasser Palangi produced sketches 124, Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library
of Iranian women during the early Iraqi invasion of
the Iranian city of Khorramshahr. Titling one of his
drawings The Heirs of Zaynab, Palangi makes clear the
IRANIAN F or over one hundred years, posters have acted as effective tools to
disseminate various ideological messages during periods of revolution
Women and Children
As the fighting raged on, all of Iranian society was
connection between the seventh-century heroine and
the women of Khorramshahr, who fought in defense
A Graphic Reminder
The 1979 Iranian Revolution and the ensuing Iran-
NOTES
1. For these reasons, Hamid Dabashi and Peter Chelkowski refer to it as an
“Islamized,” rather than an “Islamic,” revolution in their Staging a Revolution:
The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York: New York
POSTER and war. Designed for mass distribution and aimed towards a large public
audience, they embed social, political, and religious concerns that frequently
urged to take part in the war effort. Posters played
a vital role in mobilizing and consoling the Iranian
of the Iranian city (fig. 9). The Battle of Karbala was
once again turned into a living paradigm through
Iraq War produced an enormous amount of visual
material, much of which still remains unexamined.
University Press, 1999), 22–28.

2. On this theme, see Christiane Gruber, “Media/ting Conflict: Iranian Posters from
ARTS are articulated through both text and image. Perhaps more so than at any
other moment in recent history, posters served as powerful modalities for
the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88),” in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration, Con-
people, including women and children. Iranian boys which female combatants likewise could emulate the Works produced during this period—which forever vergence, Proceedings of the 32nd Congress of the International Committee of the
mobilization and communication during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and
as young as twelve were recruited to join the Basij, heroes of Shi’ite sacred history. altered the balance of power, both regionally and
History of Art, ed. Jaynie Anderson (Melbourne: Melbourne University, 2009), 685. Elizabeth Rauh the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88).
volunteer paramilitary forces that fought alongside globally—provide a glimpse into these indelible This brochure was produced in conjunction with the special exhibition
The Graphics of Revolution and War: Iranian Poster Arts. The posters
the national army. The Basij are most remembered events and their impact on Iranians and recent in this exhibition have been generously lent by the Special Collections Visualizing a Revolution
for their human-wave assaults, in which young boys history. Visual materials were an important tool of Research Center of the University of Chicago Library. The exhibition
walked across the mine-ridden battlefields to clear dissemination for a largely illiterate audience, and is on view from October 15 through December 18, 2011.
Visit this University of Chicago Library website to learn more:
The 1979 Iranian Revolution was in many respects the culmination of
them for military maneuvering. Within this deadly today they stand as a collective graphic memory of www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/iranianposters repeated attempts throughout the twentieth century to install a democratic
act of independence, defiance, and salvific frenzy was those traumatic years. One such graphic reminder, government in Iran. However, the definitive overthrow of the monarchy
The exhibition is guest curated by Professor Chistiane Gruber,
the very real desire of young Iranians to protect their the highly evocative A Funeral for Hearts, survives University of Michigan, and her doctoral student Elizabeth Rauh. began in earnest in October 1977 with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini’s
homeland and families by any means necessary— as a visual reminder of the physical and emotional The organizing curator is Judy Stubbs, the IU Art Museum’s Pamela son, Mostafa, rumored to have been assassinated by security services. The
Buell Curator of Asian Art.
including the sacrifice of both limbs and lives. pain Iranians endured for over a decade, as a group first round of anti-government protests began in the religious city of Qom
Artists commemorated the bravery of children in of dying men carry their own hearts to the grave The exhibition and related programs are funded by the Thomas T. and slowly spread throughout Iran. From the uprising’s earliest days, Iran’s
Solley Endowed Fund for the Curator of Asian Art, Indiana University’s
the war while also lamenting their tragic and untimely (fig. 10). Pahlavi monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah, attempted to stifle public dissent,
Fig. 9 Nasser Palangi Themester 2011 program, the IU Art Museum Arc Fund, and the
deaths. For instance, one poster, These Are Our Heroes, (born 1957), Visualizing these experiences of human trauma IU Center for the Study of the Middle East. which resulted in several civilian deaths.
depicts a young boy preparing to join the battle; the Heirs of Zaynab, 1980. and suffering allows individuals to collectively Following the Shi’ite custom of commemorating the deceased forty
©2011, Indiana University Art Museum. All rights reserved.
grenades attached to his waist signal his eventual self- Middle Eastern remember, mourn, and safeguard their experiences Produced by Indiana University Art Museum Publications days after their death, activists organized mourning ceremonies across the
Posters Collection,
destruction in a human-wave assault, as his crying within a shared historical memory. Iranian Design: Brian Garvey Fig. 3 (Shahpur Bakhtiyar Qarib?), country in honor of the slain protesters. These public ceremonies became the
Box 3, Poster 85, Editing: Linda Baden
sister clutches the Qur’an (fig. 8). Graffiti writing on Special Collections posters thus historicized events as they unfolded, Photographs: Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center
Graffiti Wall with Khomeini and loci from which further protests developed. Growing exponentially, the cycle
Ali Shariati Posters, 1981. Middle
the wall behind the two figures exalts other boys as Research Center, commemorating and preserving the recent past, the of the University of Chicago Library of violence and lamentation threw Iran deeper into chaos, which, eventually,
Printing: Metropolitan Printing Service, Bloomington, Indiana Eastern Posters Collection, Box
“leaders” who have already sacrificed themselves for The University of
ever-changing present, and the unknown future. www.artmuseum.iu.edu 4, Poster 175, Special Collections turned into a nationwide civilian uprising. Public sentiment continued to
Chicago Library
the cause. The poster symbolizes a loss of innocence Research Center, The University of grow against the Pahlavi regime in August of 1978, when a fire was set that
for the young generation, as well as for the nascent Chicago Library
Making War, Making Peace
burned down the Cinema Rex in Tehran, killing over four hundred people
Islamic Republic itself. trapped inside.
 Only a few weeks after this catastrophic
A New Battle of Karbala
event, the tide turned definitively against the Marked by chemical weapons and human-wave assaults,
government when, on September 8, 1978, the Iran-Iraq War was one of the deadliest wars of the
government tanks and helicopters opened twentieth century. Facing the existential threat of the
fire against thousands of protesters in Tehran, Iraqi invasion, the struggling and militarily weak Islamic
killing dozens. Known as Black Friday, the Republic deployed an immense propaganda campaign
event was consecrated in revolutionary posters in order to convince Iranians to fight on the war front.
that depicted the bloody aftermath in the Young men enlisted in the army and paramilitary forces,
streets of Tehran while claiming the deceased resulting in an estimated million casualties on the
as victims, martyrs, and pioneers of a just Iranian side alone. The war was devastating, and hence
Islamic state (fig. 1). Black Friday was the it needed to be given greater symbolic meaning.
pivotal event during the revolution and marked At this time, fighting for the Islamic Republic was
the beginning of the end of the Shah’s rule. conceived as a righteous reenactment of the Battle of
On January 16, 1979, Mohammad Reza Karbala. In 680 CE the Battle of Karbala resulted in
Shah fled Iran, and on February 1, Khomeini the definitive sectarian split between Sunni and Shi’a
returned from his exile in Iraq and Paris to Islam. In the wake of the succession crisis following the
be greeted by millions of cheering Iranians. death of the Prophet Muhammad, the Umayyad ruler
Emerging as the clear leader within a power Yazid I sought to assassinate Husayn, the grandson of
vacuum, Khomeini and his supporters worked the Prophet Muhammad. Accompanied by his family
quickly to consolidate power. Results from and followers, Husayn fought Yazid on the plain of
a referendum the next month declared the Fig. 1 Commemoration of Black Friday Massacre, ca. 1980,
Fig. 4 The Corrupt Carter, 1979. Middle Eastern Posters Fig. 5 An Iranian Fist Punches Saddam Hussein, the Fig. 6 The Martyr, ca. 1981. Middle Eastern Posters Karbala, where he was brutally murdered. For the Shi’ite
Collection, Box 3, Poster 94, Special Collections Research Growling Mutt, ca. 1980. Middle Eastern Posters Collection, Collection, Box 4, Poster 197, Special Collections Research
formal dissolution of the monarchy and the Middle Eastern Posters Collection, Box 1, Poster 8, Special
Center, The University of Chicago Library Box 3, Poster 163, Special Collections Research Center, Center, The University of Chicago Library
community, Husayn’s death stands as the seminal act
formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
The University of Chicago Library of martyrdom and the promise of salvation. As a
swift changes were immediately celebrated prototype for self-sacrifice, Imam Husayn was the model
in posters and other graphic media, as Iran’s to which Iranians aspired in their own modern-day
Demonizing the Enemy
printing presses were no longer controlled by Battle of Karbala.
the Pahlavi regime (fig. 2). Another driving force during the revolutionary ears locked shut and money shoved into his Posters and other graphic media conflated the
During the climactic period of civil unrest period was the demonization of both real and head and mouth. Such images served to vilify the historical past with the present, as soldiers were
lasting from October 1977 to January 1979, perceived enemies. The Pahlavi monarch was American government and to underscore the moral repeatedly depicted as martyrs on the battlefield of
protesters produced posters and pasted them the main target of antagonistic protest chants, decadence of capitalism (fig. 4). Karbala. For instance, one poster entitled The Martyr
on graffiti-scribbled walls. The resultant graffiti slogans, and leaflets distributed during the The other recipient of post-revolutionary depicts a blindfolded Iranian soldier being executed
display of public dissent echoed the violence revolution. After the U.S. Embassy was stormed by animosity was Saddam Hussein. Khomeini hoped and thrust from this world into the next, where Imam
in the streets of revolutionary Iran. Several a group of young Islamist radicals on November 4, to inspire other Islamic revolutions across the Husayn and decapitated martyrs await him (fig. 6). The
artists chose to recreate the chaotic urban 1979, however, attention also turned towards the Middle East, including in Iraq, where Saddam Islamic Republic thus successfully tapped into a larger
landscape in their posters, which thus record United States (nicknamed “the Great Satan” in Iran). Hussein’s Ba’athist regime ruled over the largely Shi’a framework of salvation by verbally and visually
the anti-imperial slogans and chants that were Together with the United Kingdom, the U.S. was Shi’a population of Iraq with an iron fist. One presenting the Iran-Iraq War as a consecrated extension
scribbled on walls, while also praising the seen as the real power behind the Pahlavi monarchy poster of Saddam Hussein produced in Iran around of the Battle of Karbala.2
chief ideologues of the revolution, including and was still resented by Iranians for the 1953 CIA- 1980 shows him as a growling bulldog leashed Belief in the salvific reward of a martyrial death
Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Shariati (fig. 3; see led coup d’état that overthrew the democratically in by the Soviet Union, the U.S., and Israel, to be is deeply entrenched in Shi’ite culture, and Khomeini
front page). elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq. defeated by the collective punch of the Iranian employed this religious worldview as a means of
Posters produced by the Islamic regime The U.S. was characterized in Khomeini’s people’s striking fist (fig. 5). By depicting Saddam urging all Iranian men to fight—and die—for both their
after 1979 reimagined the revolution as an speeches and the Islamic Republic’s propaganda as as merely an attack dog of foreign world powers, religion and their nation. The pictorial arts visualized
ideologically Islamic one, even though it a decadent and corrupt imperialist nation. By the poster insults him and diminishes the danger and consecrated official rhetoric by providing images
was a pluralistic uprising composed of both depicting the U.S. as the moral antithesis of the posed by the Iraqi leadership, while predicting its of the heavenly consummation of martyrs as they
secular and religious groups.1 Shi‘ite Muslim Islamic Republic, Khomeini and his supporters eventual destruction by the Islamic Republic. are venerated for their sacrifice on earth. The poster
rituals and symbolism, however, were key in aimed to capitalize on the Iranians’ approval of the In September 1980, Saddam Hussein, feeling Certitude of Belief metaphorically depicts the threshold
sustaining revolutionary fervor. As a result, the U.S. hostage crisis, while simultaneously galvanizing threatened by the Islamic Republic’s attempts to between a soldier’s death on the battlefield and a
artistic program of the newly formed Islamic the populace to identify with the Islamic Republic incite the Iraqi Shi‘a majority to overthrow his redemptive Shi‘a paradise (fig. 7). By encouraging
Republic emphasized the Shi’ite aspects of the Fig. 2 Hasan Isma’ilzadah (born 1922), The Shah’s Exile and its mission. leadership and seeking to take advantage of the Fig. 7 Kazim Chalipa (born 1957), Certitude of Belief, Iranian citizens to die for their country, and by
ca. 1981. Middle Eastern Posters Collection, Box 3, Poster
protests above all others in order to legitimize and Khomeini’s Return, 1979. Middle Eastern Posters Images produced at the height of anti-U.S. revolutionary chaos in Iran, ordered the invasion 67, Special Collections Research Center, The University of promising individuals spiritual salvation through
the newly formed government’s claims to Collection, Box 1, Poster 11, Special Collections Research sentiment include, for example, postcards of a of Iran. Thus began the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. Chicago Library martyrdom, the Islamic Republic successfully secured
Center, The University of Chicago Library
spiritual authority and supremacy. corrupt and grotesque President Carter, with his its own survival during the war years.