Copyright by Mikiya Koyagi 2015
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Copyright by Mikiya Koyagi 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Mikiya Koyagi Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Mobilizing Iran: Experiences of the Trans-Iranian Railway, 1850-1950 Committee: Kamran Scot Aghaie, Supervisor Benjamin Brower Yoav Di-Capua Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet Mobilizing Iran: Experiences of the Trans-Iranian Railway, 1850-1950 by Mikiya Koyagi, B. So. S.; B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2015 Dedication For my parents, Noriyuki and Toshiko Koyagi And for Richard M. Lewis Acknowledgements At the age of six, I began a daily solo commute to my elementary school via crowded rush hour trains, so from early on railways have been an intimate part of my life. Particularly growing up as I did in the Kansai region, Japan’s second largest metropolitan area with more than fifteen million people whose primary mode of transport is the train, the social impact of railways is a subject that has interested me for a long time, albeit in a very different cultural context. In this sense, I need to acknowledge all the people that gave me memorable moments in relation to railways, from my high school friends who tolerated my company in a packed train every morning to my former colleagues at West Japan Railway. I am most indebted to Kamran Scot Aghaie, my advisor. Kamran has been my greatest academic advocate for the long years I have worked with him. He has always been supportive, encouraging, and understanding. Meetings with him were almost therapeutic at difficult moments. He also gave me invaluable advice whenever I needed professional guidance. I only wish I had recorded all of them. I am truly grateful for all he has taught me. I thank Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar for introducing me to the Persian language over a decade ago. Since then, he has always been my most valuable Persian teacher. I am also indebted to Yoav Di-Capua, who always gave me candid comments and encouraged me to explore ideas that I could not have thought through by myself. I also thank Benjamin Brower, who agreed to join my committee later. v Conversations with him were always inspiring. At the University of Pennsylvania, I was fortunate to have an opportunity to work with Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, who introduced me to reading shekasteh. I would like to thank her for agreeing to stay on my committee after I left Philadelphia. I want to extend my gratitude to Houchang Chehabi for sharing his materials and encouraging me to write this dissertation while giving me the vicarious experience of traveling around the world through his intriguing stories. I also thank Afshin Marashi and Cyrus Schayegh for giving me helpful comments on sections of what became this dissertation at different stages. The research for this dissertation took me to a number of places including Chicago, Princeton, Tehran, London, and Copenhagen. I would like to thank the staff at the libraries and archives I visited. In particular, I am grateful to Flemming Møller at the COWI Archives in Copenhagen for his tremendous help. I also thank Annette Olsen, Gholam Madhooni, Mostafa Papi, Persis Karimi, and Farah Mashayekhi for sharing their personal collections and memories with me. Kristine Andersen translated some Danish documents for me. I would also like to thank the Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation as well as the Department of History and Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin for their fellowships and grants that supported the research for this dissertation. At the University of Texas at Austin, I was fortunate to be part of a community of graduate students in Iranian Studies and Middle Eastern History. In particular, I would like to thank Shaherzad Ahmadi, Mardin Aminpour, Blake Atwood, Mahyar Entezari, vi Somy Kim, Brian Mann, Farkhondeh Shayesteh, and Lior Sternfeld. Some of them, along with their families, shared so much joy and anxiety all graduate students go through. In Iran, many people welcomed me with utmost hospitality that one can expect only in Iran. I especially thank Farzad Hadavi for his friendship. Very special thanks to Richard M. Lewis for all his support over the years. Along with our furry children and Sydney Lewis Kelley, he has always cheered me up. He has also helped me by editing this dissertation at various stages. Without his support, I could not have finished this dissertation. Thank you, Richard. Most importantly, I would like to thank my parents. My parents, Noriyuki and Toshiko, have always respected my decisions. I am grateful that they have always believed in me and encouraged me to pursue my aspirations in life. Without their support, I could not have come to the United States, pursued graduate education, and written this dissertation. vii Mobilizing Iran: Experiences of the Trans-Iranian Railway, 1850-1950 Mikiya Koyagi, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Kamran Scot Aghaie Abstract This dissertation examines how various groups in Iran planned, imagined, constructed, operated, and used railways from the beginning of the technological imaginary in the second half of the nineteenth century to the aftermath of the completion of the Trans- Iranian Railway in the mid-twentieth century. Specifically, it analyses the experiences of such groups as “Western” statesmen and entrepreneurs, the Qajar political elite, including travelers who went abroad, merchants, landowners, tribal laborers, foreign and Iranian railway workers, modern middle-class vacationers, pilgrims, and all sorts of occupants of the railway space. By discussing intensified state-society and intra-social interactions linked to the railway project, this dissertation argues that various segments of Iranian society actively interpreted the meanings of railways, took advantage of the opportunities they presented, and sometimes wove them in heterogeneous understandings of self, community, and nation. Thus, contrary to the homogenizing vision of modernists that existing scholarship tends to privilege, the Trans-Iranian Railway project created multiple experiences with railway technology. viii Additionally, this dissertation makes supplementary arguments. First, by shifting focus from the centralizing state to non-state actors, it defies the temptation to narrate the history of railways in Iran through Reza Shah’s policies (r. 1925-1941). Rather, it presents the continuation of social transformations before and during the Reza Shah period as well as state-society and intra-social interactions during and after the Reza Shah period. Especially, the hitherto neglected period of the Allied occupation and its aftermath was a crucial period of transformation in explaining how Iranians experienced the railway project. Second, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of transnational connections of non-state actors at various junctures of Iran’s encounter with railways. In particular, it emphasizes Iran’s connections with its surrounding world rather than with the “West,” and thus resituates Iran in a broader regional framework. ix Table of Contents List of Tables .................................................................................................................. xi List of Figures ............................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Penetrating Qajar Dominion ........................................................................ 30 Chapter 3: Imagining a Trans-Iranian Railway ............................................................. 65 Chapter 4: Living Along the Railway Route ............................................................... 115 Chapter 5: Mobilizing Railway Workers .................................................................... 167 Chapter 6: Traveling Citizens in the Railway Space ................................................... 216 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 262 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 270 x List of Tables (Table 5.1) Backgrounds of Iranian railway workers ...................................................... 181 (Table 6.1) The number of passengers in 1323 (1944-45) in each class ......................... 240 (Table 6.2) The number of passengers in 1322 (1943-44) .............................................. 247 (Table 6.3) The number of passengers in 1323 (1944-45) .............................................. 248 xi List of Figures (Figure 1.1) Commemorating the completion of the Trans-Iranian Railway. ..................... 1 (Figure 1.2) Roads and railways in Iran, 1938 .................................................................... 3 (Figure 2.1) Map of Iran at the beginning of the twenty-first century .............................. 30 (Figure 3.1) Juxtaposing Iran and Europe. Kashkul .......................................................... 97 (Figure 3.2) Juxtaposing Iran and the world. Setareh-ye Sobh ....................................... 101 (Figure 4.1) Juxtaposing the Naseri period and the Reza Shah period. Nahid ...............