ABSTRACT
With the victory of an Islamic Revolution in 1979 in Iran, the cultural landscape of the country experienced a dramatic transformation both at the grassroots level and the formal structural levels. This chapter reviews policy documents adopted by various administrative and legislative bodies to map the evolution of Iran's cultural policy scene in the past four decades. Known mainly through the western media representation focusing largely on political issues, Iran is less familiar to the outside world, especially those in the west, from a socio-cultural perspective. Officially known as the 'Islamic Republic of Iran', the country was called Persia at the international level until 1935. To have a clear understanding of the motives and drivers of cultural policy after the Islamic Revolution and especially the necessity of a 'Cultural Revolution' from the perspective of its agents, there is a need to illustrate the cultural policy scene of pre-revolution era.
