Zoroastrian Studies Seminar Series: Massimiliano Vassalli

The History of the Zoroastrians of Iran and Its Challenges

The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies in collaboration with the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, the Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foundation, the Zoroastrian Society of Ontario, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation jointly present "Journeys and Encounters: The History of the Zoroastrians of Iran and Its Challenges" on Friday, January 9, 2026, 1 p.m. (Eastern Time: Canada & US)

Abstract:
Within the history of the Zoroastrians of Iran, the period from the last Persian Revāyat (1773) to the establishment of the first Iranian anjoman (1854) stands as one of the darkest and least understood moments. Two Parsi testimonies – those of Mullā Fīrūz and Hataria – at the beginning and end of this period portray markedly different communities: the first, weakened by recent events yet still spirited; the second, in pronounced economic and cultural decline, unable to preserve its identity. The study of these decades faces a scarcity of local sources – Muslim and Zoroastrian – and a cessation of official contacts with their brethren in India, while the increasing European presence allowed travellers to record encounters with the Zoroastrian community, although these were strongly influenced by a Eurocentric perception of the ‘Other.’ As an ongoing project, TRAVELS aims to illuminate this period by overcoming both the scarcity of local evidence and Western biases toward Asian religions.

Bio:
Massimiliano Vassalli is a postdoctoral researcher at Sapienza University of Rome and a visiting fellow at the University of Toronto (2025–2027). In 2024, he was awarded the Marie Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowship for the project Tracing Records and Views of European Literature on Zoroastrians of Iran in the Late Modern Age (TRAVELS), devoted to the history of the Zoroastrian community in Iran between 1773 and 1854 by integrating European, Parsi, and Iranian sources. His research encompasses Zoroastrian literature and history across the ages, with a focus on the legend of Zarathustra and cross-cultural intellectual exchanges. He has published on late antique Zoroastrian texts and nineteenth-century encounters between Zoroastrians and Europeans, and his recent book on Dēnkard VII (2024) provides an Italian translation and commentary of the Pahlavi text, alongside a study of Zarathustra’s reception in European intellectual history.

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