Parellel Discursive Fields in Pre-Revolutionary Russia and Iran: The West as a Model or an Anti-Model

Iranian and Russian intellectual traditions reveal a similar discursive genealogy in relation to Western modernity. Differing social context, historical periodization, goals, methods scope of inquiry, political debate reflects fascinating parallels, some which prevail today. The over orientation contemporary Iran Russia’s deep-rooted ambivalence towards norms institutions. This study delves deeper into this dilemma by revealing that both countries are heirs heritage casts the West binary: as either model or an anti-model. In case Iran, took form ‘Westoxication’ narrative developed counter-discourse early twentieth-century drew on liberal principles, Russia, it manifested Slavophile-Westernizer controversy. Both debates were embedded complex exercise self-reflection, with psychological, historiographic religio-cultural dimensions ultimately revealed pattern illuminates persists countries.