İran Çalışmaları Dergisi

Öz

Gulâm Huseyn Sâidî’s novel The Cannon, one of the most important figures of Iranian literature, is a literary work that allows us to interpret the historical narratives of the transition period of Iranian history to the Constitutionalism in a different context. In the 19th century historical conditions, Sâidî depicts the effects of the Constitutional Monarchy period in the Azerbaijan region of today’s Iran and deals with change through the metaphor of the Cannon. The Cannon metaphor, which is at the center of the narrative in the novel, represents both the innovations of the era and the opposition of the people against the innovations of the era. The novel, which deals with an important period in Iranian history, focuses on the impact of political economy transformations on social processes. The novel, which deals with Iran’s northern neighbor Tsarist Russia’s policy of expanding its sphere of influence as a colonial power, reveals the dynamics of the transformations caused by the Eurocentric capitalist economy in the region through Russia. In this respect, Sāidī’s novel is not only a literary work but also an important source that sheds light on a historical period. This article aims to relate the social and political transformations to macro-historical conditions by analyzing Ghulām Huseyn Sāidī’s novel The Cannon in relation to Iran’s transition to the Constitutional Monarchy period. In this context, the study examines the colonialist influence of Tsarist Russia in Iran within the context of its policies in the northwestern Azerbaijan region of Iran, where the plot of the novel takes place.