CIST-2016-0073 Author Siavush Randjbar-Daemi Title “Down with the Monarchy”: Iran’s Republican Moment of August 1953 Contact Email
[email protected] Acknowledgments Siavush Randjbar-Daemi is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Iranian History, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester. The research for this article was first presented at a workshop co-organised by the Author and Oliver Bast in Manchester in September 2013. The Author is grateful to the participants, particularly Ervand Abrahamian and Mark Gasiorowski, and to Fakhreddin Azimi, Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Homa Katouzian, Nasser Mohajer and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. The Author has been assisted in the retrieval of essential sources by Hosayn Amini, Mohammad-Hosayn Khosrowpanāh, Rezā Khojasteh-Rahimi and Maryam Shabāni. -1- Siavush Randjbar-Daemi “Down with the Monarchy”: Iran’s Republican Moment of August 1953 Abstract The purpose of this article is to explore and analyze Iran’s “Republican Moment” of 16-19 August 1953, arguably the last concerted effort to abolish the monarchy and establish a republican order in the county prior to the Revolution of 1978-79. By drawing on a broad range of primary source material that have thus far remained relatively understudied by existing scholarship, such as the political press of those crucial days, the essay will attempt to shed light on a number of significant domestic developments which impacted the outcome of the actual coup of 19 August 1953. Further attempt will be made to explain the importance of calls in favor of the Republic and the Premier Mosaddeq refusal to take heed of them.