People’s actor’s “unacceptable behaviour” barring him from travelling abroad: USCRFC and V.K. Papazyan’s cancelled trip to Iran in 1934

the aim of the article is to analyze a particular case of Soviet cultural diplomacy in Iran – the trip of the People’s Artist of the Armenian SSR and the Georgian SSR V.K. Papazian to Iran in 1933-1934 and the problems with his trip to the same country in 1934. Using the methods of intertextual analysis and historicism, the article reflects the difficulties associated with the travel abroad of Soviet artists and the participation of Soviet diplomats and employees of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (USCRFC) in these processes. Based on unpublished archival documents from the USCRFC collection in the State Archives of the Russian Federation (SARF), including V.K. Papazyan’s report on his trip to Iran in 1933–1934 in Russian and French and his published memoirs, the article reconstructs the details of the first and successful trip of the Soviet artist to Iran to assist in organizing a national theater. The article notes the factors that prevented V.K. Papazyan from repeating his trip to Iran to participate in the celebrations of the millennium of the Iranian poet Abulkasim Firdawsi in the autumn of 1934. The author proves that the reason why V.K. Papazyan was not included in the delegation to participate in the celebrations was the unfavorable impression he made in Iran on the Soviet plenipotentiary representative S.K. Pastukhov, since he did not emphasize that he was a Soviet People's Artist in the announcements of his performances. However, the author also demonstrates that poor command of the Russian language and lack of understanding of Soviet realities, and not deliberate provocation, were the real reasons why V.K. Papazyan, who arrived in Soviet Russia only in 1922, did not indicate the relevant information on the posters.

Реза-шах, Армения, культурная дипломатия, Фирдоуси, советско-иранские отношения