Persophilia and Aryanism: Beyond Orientalism in European Intellectual Thought

ABSTRACT This paper examines Persophilia as a racialized esthetic–intellectual formation within European thought that reimagined ancient Persia not as an exotic other but as the Aryan cradle of civilization and a mirror for Europe's own idealized self. Moving beyond Edward Said's framework of Orientalism, the study situates Persophilia within the eighteenth and nineteenth century “Oriental Renaissance,” when philology and racial science converged to construct an Indo–European genealogy linking Europe, India, and Persia. Through analysis of Hegel, Goethe, and Nietzsche, the paper traces how philosophical, poetic, and moral discourses transformed Persia into the symbolic origin of European modernity. Hegel historicized Persia as the dawn of reason, Goethe romanticized it as the locus of universal love and poetic refinement, and Nietzsche reimagined Zoroaster as the prophet of moral renewal, all reproducing admiration that was simultaneously hierarchical. The paper then explores how Iranian intellectuals from the Qajar to Pahlavi periods localized this racialized admiration, reappropriating Persophilia to construct an Aryan–Persian national identity that excluded Islamic and non‐Persian elements. By connecting European intellectual history with Iranian nation‐building, the article demonstrates how Persophilia bridged Orientalism and Aryanism, transforming fascination into a racial project that continues to shape conceptions of civilization, modernity, and authenticity in Iranian political discourse.