Major New Iran Archive Arrives at Stanford
Page from one of Shahrokh Meskoob's notebooks, now in the Green Library archive.
Major New Collection Joins Stanford’s Rapidly Increasing Modern Iran Archive
The papers of Shahrokh Meskoob, one of modern Iran’s most respected and acclaimed public intellectuals, literary critics, memoirists, and Shahnameh scholar and commentator, were recently donated to Stanford University.
The collection includes hundreds of letters from some of Iran's most prominent intellectuals, thousands of pages of notes, and first drafts of many of his manuscripts.
In April of 2020, the launch of this collection will be celebrated with a scholarly conference organized in collaboration with the Green Library at Stanford.
Iran Archives at Stanford
A few months ago, the private papers of Seyed Jalal Tehrani—an astronomer, political figure and a head of the regency council in the last days of the Shah’s rule—were donated to Iranian Studies and the Hoover Library & Archives.
Earlier this year, Homa Sarshar, one of the Iranian diaspora’s most esteemed journalists, generously donated the entire collection of recordings of forty years of her radio program to Stanford. The donation includes copies of the invaluable Iranian Jewish Oral History Project she and her family helped create. The collection is now housed at the Green Library at Stanford.
The Ardeshir Zahedi Archive, donated to the Hoover Library & Archives in 2017, is easily the most important collection on the history of Iran’s modern diplomacy outside Iran. The collection includes important documents, hundreds of historic photos, and some of General Fazlollah Zahedi’s private papers. Additionally, Ambassador Zahedi created an endowment that will allow the Iranian Studies Program to host a fellow for one quarter each academic year to undertake research on the archives.
In 2016, the acclaimed film maker Reza Allamehzadeh donated to Stanford copies of all of his taped interviews with some of Iran’s leading dissidents.
Four years ago, the private papers and manuscripts of Houshang Golshiri, a prominent modernist writer, were donated to the Iranian Studies Program and are now at the Green Library.
With these new acquisitions, and with the documents and posters already housed at the Hoover Archives and the Green Library, Stanford is now an indispensable—if not preeminent center—for archival research on modern Iran’s culture and politics.