Iran International
Nowruz and the turning of the year have always carried, even in the happiest times, a blend of celebration and sorrow. Remembering the departed is part of welcoming the new year.
Among Iranians, Nowruz has long been tied to renewal and to the idea of the “triumph of good over evil.” Yet Iran’s turbulent history has often cast a shadow over the holiday, turning it into a moment marked by loss, war and unresolved grief.
This year carries all three.
Since 2022, a continuous national mourning has taken hold. The dead of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement—some known, many unnamed—have left their mark on the country’s rituals.
At Nowruz tables across Iran, mothers sit with clenched throats and tearful eyes, or stand beside the graves of their children.
Iran has seen such Nowruzes before. During the war with Iraq, the new year arrived under the sound of missiles falling on cities, as young men were sent to the front in waves. Celebration persisted, but it did so alongside fear and loss—often shaped by what many would later call the “ignorance and irresponsibility” that drove a generation to war.
The death of the young has long been among the deepest sorrows in Iranian culture.
The story of Siyâvash, the innocent prince killed unjustly, still carries the grief of mourning mothers. In the Shahnameh, his death comes on the eve of Nowruz. The holiday marks renewal, yet in Ferdowsi’s telling it is shadowed by war and sacrifice.
That grief echoes in one of the epic’s most enduring lines: “If death is justice, then what is injustice?”
Over time, mourning became ritual. The death of Siyâvash gave rise to Suvâshun ceremonies, observed for centuries in parts of greater Iran. The convergence of death and renewal came to symbolize a belief that justice, however delayed, would prevail.
Today, the Siyâvashes are many. Their images appear on walls, in homes and in the hands of protesters, carried like the banner of Kaveh the Blacksmith.
One custom, known as now‘id, marks the first Nowruz after a loss, when families visit the bereaved. Last year, at one such table, a young woman sat silently, her hair turned white by grief for her slain son. Then she broke the silence: “Was it not enough to kill him? What did you do to my child’s head?”
Her question lingers. So do many others like it.
Nowruz has long been intertwined with remembrance. In ancient belief, the days before the new year—Farvardegân—were a time when the spirits of the dead returned. Homes were cleaned and tables set not only for the living but for those who had passed. The bond between the two was renewed.
In recent years, many of the dead have been buried in unmarked graves, or in cemeteries where tombstones are repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt by grieving families. Flowers return, even when they are torn away.
And yet Nowruz endures.
Neither war nor repression, nor the hostility of those who reject Iran’s pre-Islamic traditions, has erased it. Each year, after the fires of Chaharshanbeh Suri are lit and the dead are honored, the new year arrives again.
As one line often recited at gravesides has it: “If we feared the sword, we would not dance in the gathering of lovers.”
Iranians celebrate Nowruz as they always have: with hope that the coming year may bring a more just life—one in which rights are equal, dignity is preserved and the state serves its people rather than stands above them.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.