Enlighten me on Persians and Iranians

[LoraPiano]

Very confused while talking to a friend’s friend who is a Persian. I have googled it but not sure still. Is Persia part of Iran? Or is Iran part of Persia? Looks like Persia doesn’t exist as a country? Is it a wider region?

or is it that Iranians are muslim and Persians are Zoroastrians but live in the same region?

Are Iranian and Persian two distinct cultures or a subset, eg I have been to my local Iranian restaurant that had Persian food, like an Indian restaurant that serves Goan food?

I think Persian is a language and an ethnicity and Iranian= a citizen of Iran.

Persia predates Iran

Iran used to be called Persia, think was just renamed.

I have a Persian friend. She doesn't identify as being Iranian due to the rigidity imposed by the leaders, the ethos etc. She says life as a Perisan was much more free. That's not a lot but it's all I know.

I can’t answer your question (well I could try but someone else will do a better job) however I’m currently reading Persepolis because my dd has been asked to read it for school. It covers some of the history of the area from the point of view of a young girl/woman.

Persia is the old name for Iran, it was changed to Iran in the early 20th century .

Persia is an ancient kingdom and an ethnic group. It forms part of what is now Iran, but Iran is larger and contains other ethnic groups (like Kurds or Azeri for example).

The West used to refer to all of Iran as Persia up to first third of the 20th century.

Also, those wanting to invoke the ‘romantic’ cultural heritage of the region without mentioning the geopolitical context of Iran can use Persia as a bit of a fudge. See “Persian Restaurants” etc, particularly in North America.

Persia is the old name for Iran. It changed to Iran in the 1930s.

Zoroastrianism predated Islam and is now a minority religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

Persian is the fancy name for Iran

A cracking book, and an excellent film adaptation

Persian - an ethnicity (one of many found in Iran)
Iranian - from Iran

Persias name was changed to Iran in the 1930s. Iran is just Persian for Persia, if that makes sense.
like England asking non English speaking counties to refer to them as England, rather than Angleterre for example

My understanding when people say this is that they are telling you where they/their family originate from whilst distancing themselves from present day Iran.

Married to an Iranian (name changed for this). He would call himself Iranian, as would his family as, in his words "saying Persian would be like describing myself as from mesopotamia!" (Ie ancient and archaic). But plenty in the community do use it, and I think it is also sometimes a way of indicating that you identify more with the old regime, rather than supporting the Islamic Republic. I think people do also tend to confuse Iraq/Iran (it happened particularly around time of second Gulf war) so people would associate Iranian with "terrorism" (sadly) whereas Persian sounds more exotic and romantic.

As other have said, my understanding is that it's an ethnicity from within Iran.
Due to how the region was divvied up back in the day by the Brits (literally straight lines on a map) with no regard for tribes/regions etc there are a number of people who are legally Iranian but would identify as Kurdish (with further ethnicities within this group - Sorani, Badini).
So I've worked with Iranians who speak Kurdish Sorani and those who speak Farsi which is also called Persian.

Briefly, Persia is the ancient name for that whole area, and was used for a few thousand years. It was at one point the world's largest empire, covering territory between Northern Africa, Turkey, the Arabian Gulf and all the way over to India. The culture and faith was mostly Zoroastrianism, and there was a huge emphasis on poetry and the arts generally. Over time, the empire retracted to the modern state you see on maps now.

Iran starts to be used interchangeably as the name of the state in the early 20th century. It's linked with the shift towards Islam and away from Zoroastrianism - they have similarities but are quite different culturally. The fall of the Shah in 1974(?) is a big transition point too, where it becomes an Islamic faith state and goes more hard-line - previously, the two faiths bumped along together relatively happily, but then the Ayatollahs take over and impose very strict versions of Islam, and that's when the name Iran really sticks. I understand people generally now say Persian for the pre-Islamic traditions and customs, and Iranian for the Islamic cultural strand.

It's a fascinating part of the world, and really not covered by the school system at all - I found "Drinking Arak Off an Ayatollah's Beard" a very accessible book if you want to learn more about it.

persia is the old name of Iran broadly speaking although borders have shifted over time. before Islam came to the region, Persians practiced zorastranism (did I spell that right?) some practitioners of this faith moved to other parts of the world at that time, including to India (they call themselves Parsi). if you want to try Parsi food (different from Persian/Iranian food) - dishoom is a good bet. Iran is multiethnic

it is easy to romanticise the old regime but the Shah was a despotic ruler who was put there by the west. he squandered the country's wealth and starved the people. the ayatollahs came to power as a result of a people's revolution. however unfortunately as is usually the case often with revolutions, things haven't worked out as planned and things have gotten from bad to worse. and all of this is made worse by the sanctions and the complete chaos of the middle east. ultimately it is always the people that suffer.

ps many people who came to this country during the revolution were supporters of the Shah and from the aristrocratic elite, hence they will have a skewed view of what happened at the time of the revolution.

That would be my experience too, the family I knew who described themselves as Persian also came to the UK at a time when there was lots of immigration but they weren't forced out, iyswim, so it was also I think to subtly signal that they weren't 'refugees'.

Married to a Persian chap too.

Ime the diaspora post-revolution prefer to be thought of as Persian rather than Iranian although it’s a distinction without a difference really.

if you want to try Parsi food (different from Persian/Iranian food) - dishoom is a good bet

Seconded!

@GolgafrinchamB I had no idea there was a film adaptation, thank you.

My Grandad fought in Persia in WW1. It's what is now Iran.

Isn’t the language Farsi?

I used to teach children from Iranian families when I lived in London, and they referred to themselves as Persian.

Pre revolutionary Iran was also known as Imperial Iran and Mohamed Reza was known as the Emperor of Iran not Persia . the only time I met Iranians who say they are Persian is in the US, no idea why really , maybe like PP mentioned to differentiate themselves from revolutionary Iranians. Lots of attacks went on in the 80s sadly.