خسرو شاکری زند، ۱۹۳۸-۲۰۱۵

Khosrow Shakeri-Zand

Maziar Behrooz

(Cosroe Chaqueri, b.1938 Tehran, d. 2015 Paris), prominent Iranian historian and progressive intellectual passed away in Paris following complications from a stroke. Shakeri was born in Tehran in a well-to-do family which traced its roots to the Zand family which briefly ruled over parts of Iran in the 18th century. He received his early education in Iran and his higher education in the United States and France. Shakeri was not only an academic but an advocate of left of center political views.

Academically, he was a pioneer in introducing critical study of Iranian labor and leftist movements as an independent field of work. In this context, his work may be divided into three categories all of which were related to the history of working class and leftist politics in Iran. First, Shakeri was a pioneer in collecting and publishing a 21-volume work , documenting primary sources of Iran’s labor and leftist movement in the first three quarters of the 20th century. Second, he contributed his own writing and historical analysis on the Jangal Movement of Mirza Kuchik Khan, the roots of Social Democratic Movement in Iran and the role of Armenian-Iranians in the early 20th century upheavals of the country. Third, Shakeri was instrumental in resurrecting or further detailing the lives and contributions of a number of key leftist political actors in Iran’s 20th century history. Among these one may mention Avatis (Mikaelian) Sultanzadeh, a founding member of Iran’s Communist Party who perished in Stalinist prisons in 1938. Taqi Arani and Iraq Eskandari were two other such political figures recognized in his work.

Shakeri’s non-academic political and intellectual activities included playing an instrumental role in the Confederation Iranian Student movement which heavily influenced the anti-shah struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Shakeri was an avid advocate of the independent left movement in Iran and a consistent critic of Stalinism and Soviet policy toward Iran. In this context, he considered himself a left of center follower of Dr. Muhammad Musaddeq and his brand of Iranian patriotism. In the 1970s, he founded the Mazdak and Padzahr while in exile in which he published the works of unconventional intellectuals. Chief among these was publication of the writings of Mustafa Sho’aian, an intellectual revolutionary of 1970s whom Shakeri knew from his high school days in Iran.

After the revolution Shakeri participated in publishing in Ketab-e Jom’eh, [did he publish it or contribute to it?]founded by Ahmad Shamlu, the prominent Iranian literary figure and poet. After returning from exile in the 1980s, he focused on publishing his research which resulted in the publication of the aforementioned works as well as a number of incomplete ones [unclear]. Shakeri was active, both politically and intellectually, until his death earlier this year.