Nasru’llah Falsafi

Biography

Falsafi, Nasrullah (1901-1981), son of Nasrullah Khan Mustawfi Sawadkuhi. A historian, university professor, researcher, journalist, and poet born to a cultured family in Tehran. His father was Mirza Nasrullah Khan Mustawfi Sawadkuhi and his grandfather was Ha’iri Mudarris, a philosopher of renown under the Qajar Nasr al-Din Shah. Falsafi received his education at Alliance Francais and Dar al-Funun and having worked at the Ministry of Post and Telegraph and the Ministry of Justice, he was transferred to the Ministry of Education. Falsafi taught history and geography at Dar al-Funun and the Teachers’ Training College in Tehran and later held a professorship. He directed a number of periodicals, including the Post u Telegraph, Ta’lim u Tarbiyat, Danishsara-yi ‘Ali, Mihr, and Umid. He contributed historical and literary articles to Shafaq-i Surkh, Ittihad, Mard-i Azad, Ittila’at, Yaghma, Danishkada-yi Adabiyyat, and Sukhan. He served as Iran’s cultural attaché to Italy and Spain from 1956-1961. He translated a number of French literary classics into Persian in his youth and published some books and articles tanslated from French into Persian in the years 1926-1931 and published some short stories in the Mard-i Imruz newspaper which led to his recognition in academia and the press. Having contributed to the Shafaq-i Surkh newspaper, directed by ‘Ali Dashti, in the wake of Reza Shah’s coming to power, he collaborated with distinguished masters, like Sa’id Nafisi and Rashid Yasimi, and found a name for himself as one of the best translators rendering literary texts from French into Persian. His best translations at the time include Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, History of the Russian Revolution, and the Last Empress of Tsarist Russia which were all well recieved. Falsafi was appointed director of the journal Post and Telegraph in 1925 and was transferred to the Ministry of Justice at the behest of Dawar in 1928, though he was transfered to the Ministry of Education after a while at the suggestion of the Minister of Education and taught at the Dar al-Funun. Commissioned by Muhammad Musaddiq, Falsafi translated La Cité antique by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges into Persian with annotations and supplements. He directed the journal Ta’lim u Tarbiyat for a while in 1934 and accepted an offer by the University of Tehran 1936 to serve as the chair of the history department at the Faculty of Letters. He directed the politico-artistic newspaper Amad from 1944 to 1947. He travelled to Europe a number of times in the 1940s to study numerous documents, decrees, and correspondence of the Safavid kings and their portraits and a number of rare manuscripts and thus authored a four volume history of the Safavids, Tarikh-i Zindigani-yi Shah ‘Abbas-i Awwal (History of the Life of Shah ‘Abbas I), regarded as one of the best works written in this field. He was a talented poet as well, though he rarely composed poetry. His ghazals, qasidas, and short mathnawi were published in a collection entitled Chand Shi’r (Some Poems). He died in Tehran and was laid to rest in the city of Rayy in the Shrine of Hazrat ‘Abd al-‘Azim. His most famous works include: Ash’ar-i Muntakhab az Sha’iran-i Rumantik-i Faransa; Jang-i Chaldiran; Hasht Maqala-yi Tarikhi wa Adabi; Tarikh-i Rawabit-i Siyasi-yi Iran wa Urupa dar Zaman-i Safawiyya; Usul-i Ta’lim u Tarbiyat; Tarikh-i Urupa dar Qarn-i 19 wa 20; Tarikh dar Parwarish-i Afkar; Zindigani-yi Shah ‘Abbas-i Awwal; Jughrafiya-yi Mufassal-i Iqtisadi-yi Iran wa Urupa; Jughrafiya-yi Mamalik-i Buzurg-i Dunya; Tarikh-i Iran az Hamla-yi ‘Arab ta Hamala-yi Mughul; translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables in verse; translation of Miriam Harry’s Land of Pharaohs; translation of Sar-i Tung-i Bulur by Maurice Oublent; translation of Le règne du roi Kawādh I et le communisme mazdakite by Arthur Christensen (with Ahmad Birashk); translation of selected poetry by Victor Hugo; Hasht Maqala-yi Falsafi; Tarikh-i Tamalluq dar Iran (incomplete).

Asar-afarinan (4/ 302); Sukhanwaran-i Nami-yi Mu'asir-i Iran (4/ 2738-2742).