ULRICH MARZOLPH The Persian national epic in between tradition and ideology* B esides China and Egypt, Iran is the home of one of the ancient cultures of our world. Although more than two and a half millennia have passed since the Achaemenid ruler Cyrus 11 (559-529 BCE) founded the Persian Empire, Iran still today exists in its core qualities as a country and as a culture. Admittedly, several decisive historical changes have taken place, relating above all to linguistic developments, territorial integrity and religious orientation. Nevertheless, up to the present day Iran has managed to maintain a distinct consciousness of its cultural continuity. The conscious emphasis on this continuity from the Western point of view might appear as a kind of cultural-historical arrogance. However, the Iranian argument can be countered with little more than critical sub- limation: From the Iranian point of view, even Greece, constituting both the cradle of Western civilization and Iran's arch-enemy, after a short period of Hellenistic sovereignty in Iran had been degraded to its former position of regional relevance by the Sassanian empire. In addition, the Macedonian emperor Alexander, who by conquering Iran had humiliated its religious and cultural consciousness, by the Islamic period had been adopted as a native Persian and was even lifted to the rank of the "last Achaemenid ruler" (Noldeke 1896-1904: 145 ff., Bosworth 1980). The originally foreign conqueror was transformed into the half-brother of the Persian king Darius and thus elevated to the position of legitimate ruler. Keeping these arguments in mind, both the seniority and the mag- nificence of the Iranian civilization dwarf the cultural and historical importance of its European counterparts. Moreover, Iranian culture out- shines the other cultures commanding a comparable historical depth by yet another important fact: at the end of the twentieth century, Iran still regards itself as one of the world's leading nations, while Egypt is in ruins and the Chinese dragon still lingers on in splendid isolation. The present paper constitutes a revised and slightly enlarged English version of a paper originally presented in German at the eleventh "Symposion zur Volkserzahlung" that took place in Innsbruck in October, 1997. The German version has been pub- lished in the conference proceedings under the title "Das persische Nationalepos im Spannungsfeld von Uberlieferung und ideologischer Instrumentalisierung" in Lares LXV (1-2), 1999: 81-99. The Kalevala and the World's Traditional Epics. Studia Fennica Folkloristica 12, 2002