Document Type : Original Article
Author
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Ra. C., Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran
Abstract
During the 1960s and 1970s, Iranian society underwent significant transformations, among which the Pahlavi regime’s modernization program played a central role. This top-down modernization led to the expansion of urbanization and a marked increase in rural-to-urban migration. The idea of “returning to the village,” which emerged in the fictional literature of this period, can be understood as a critical response to the pervasive and technocratic nature of this modernization process. The present study seeks to address a fundamental question: how did Iranian intellectuals such as Samad Behrangi and Jalal Al-e Ahmad contribute to the construction of a revolutionary ideology? Employing the theoretical framework of social construction proposed by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, this research explores the hypothesis that, for Behrangi and Al-e Ahmad, a return to cultural roots—particularly the village—served as a strategy for confronting the identity crisis and existential alienation produced by the Pahlavi state's modernization efforts. The findings indicate that the notion of “returning to the village,” as articulated in the thought of these two influential Iranian writers, functioned as a symbolically constructed intellectual response to the Western-oriented civilizational apparatus of the Pahlavi regime. It offered a conceptual alternative to the disorientation and estrangement brought about by state-led modernization. Through its impact on the intellectual discourse of the 1970s, this idea indirectly contributed to the cultural groundwork that made the Islamic Revolution possible. The methodology adopted in this study is descriptive-analytical.
Keywords
)