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its history and was a patriot in the full sense of the word. He was a part of Persian history,
certainly Persian cultural history, and was very sensitive to current political movements
and attitudes. Being a poet himself, he was closely in touch with the fellow dissident
poets, the poets of the left, who tended to write what they called the “new poetry” – that
is, they created new forms of poetry, writing not in the ghazals and the formal structures
of the past, but free verse, so to speak. The subject matter was very direct and
contemporary, a kind of realism at work. Through Sepenta I met the poets and
antiquarians and historians, politicians, and musicians, and those in the theater of which
there was a very interesting kind in Isfahan, as well as many of the religious people. I met
most of the leading mullahs (Islamic clerics) in Isfahan, of all kinds, ranging from the
most conservative to the various Sufi sects.
In fact, one of the very first official occasions I attended in Isfahan at the suggestion of
Sepenta was a funeral in the mosque which was down the street from the consulate on the
Chaharbagh, the main, ceremonial street of Isfahan. The Chabar Bagh (four gardens) was
built in the time of the Safavids, in the 16 th century. It has water courses down the middle
of a broad avenue, with eight rows of chenar, which is a kind of plane tree, ancient plane
trees including some that were planted in the time of the Safavids, a very beautiful
avenue. The funeral was for a poet who had just died. He was a reformist poet. I can
recall it very well because I had no idea what to expect. It turned out to be a most
courteous moving event at which I was given a place of honor, served a cup of coffee,
bitter coffee, and a cigarette. The mullahs were reciting suras (chapters) from the Koran,
Sufi poetry, and declaiming about the life of the deceased poet. It was an auspicious
beginning I thought, this very first official act I did in Isfahan. The word got around
Isfahan that I had gone to the mosque. Sepenta knew what he was doing in suggesting
going to events like this funeral. It was clearly the right kind of introduction, the right first
step.
Q: I’d like to step back. Where in 1959 did Isfahan fit into the Iranian body politic, and
what was going on in Iran at that time?
MILLER: Well, Isfahan is in the middle of this very large country, Iran. Tehran is up in
the north, eight hours by car. It’s about 500 miles, one hour by plane. It’s the second city
in size in Iran – it was then, and it is now. It was the capital from the 16 th century until the
19 th century, and anyone with any sense would still put the capital there, in the center of
the country rather than Tehran. It has sufficient water and the climate is excellent, ideal,
but for political reasons the Qajars, the successor dynasty to the Safavids, established
their capital in Tehran, to the north.
At that time, Iran was organized into ten ostans as they were called in Persian, ten states.
Each state was governed by a governor called an Ostandar, and each subsection of states,
several counties or the equivalent would be under the governance of a Farmandar who
reported to the Ostandar. Then there was a mayor, Shahrdar in the case of Isfahan, who
was elected. This was from the time of the Constitution in 1905. The mayors were
elected. This was an understanding in the 1905 group and really, from that time on, that
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