Person1878 – 1944

Reza Shah

Also called: Reza Khan, Reza Shah Pahlavi

Army officer who overthrew the Qajars and founded the Pahlavi dynasty as Shah of Iran (1925–1941), driving modernization from above

Born to a military family in Mazandaran, he joined the Persian Cossack Brigade young and rose to officer. After the 1921 coup he unified the army, crushed provincial revolts and centralized the state. As shah he introduced the Trans-Iranian Railway, Tehran University, modern law codes and conscription, while suppressing the press and opponents and amassing vast estates. Forced out by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of 1941, he died in exile in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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1 related event

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1925 – 1941Founding of the Pahlavi Dynastyleader
The soldier Reza Khan, having seized power in a coup, had parliament depose the Qajar dynasty and made himself shah, founding the Pahlavi dynasty and driving modernization from above.

Themes this person appears in

National Movements in Asia and Africa1915 – 1948
From the Hussein–McMahon correspondence to the founding of Israel — three decades in which India, West Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa, swept up in the tide of self-determination after the First World War, pressed toward independence and modernization