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Comte Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-82)
After
the revolution, Gobineau returned to Paris. He worked as a journalist,
while studying ancient civilizations. Following the February 1848
revolt, which ended France's monarchy, Gobineau became an associate of
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French foreign minister and author of La Démocratie en Amérique (Democracy in America,
1835-1840). During his brief 1848 tenure, Tocqueville appointed
Gobineau his chef de cabinet. This appointment launched Gobineau's
diplomatic career.
Gobineau's
diplomatic assignments included tours in Bern, Hanover and Frankfurt.
From 1854-1858, he served as first secretary of the French mission and
then as France's Charge d'Affaires at the court of Nassur ul'Din shah
Qajar of Iran (Persia). Following his return to France, Gobineau
published his 1859 memoirs Trois Ans En Asie (Three Years in Asia).
After
a mission to Newfoundland, Emperor Napoleon III sent Gobineau back to
Iran (1861). In 1864, he moved to Athens and in 1868 to Rio de Janeiro.
During the war of 1870-71, Gobineau was in France. His final diplomatic
post was Stockholm (1872-77). Forced into retirement, he left Sweden
for Rome, where he spent his final days writing and sculpting. Comte
Joseph Arthur de Gobineau died on October 13, 1882.
Gobineau
wrote extensively. His works range widely from essays and short stories
to large volumes on ethnology and history. AlthoughThe Renaissance, a
series of historical sketches on Savonarola, Caesar Borgia, Julius II,
Leo X and Michelangelo is considered his masterpiece, Gobineau's best
known work is Essai sur l'Inégalité des races humaines (1853-55).
Gobineau's
doctrine held that the different races are innately unequal in talent,
value and ability. Only the white or "Aryan" race, "the creator of
civilization," was capable of absorbing and creating culture. In its
purest form, only the white race possessed the supreme human virtues of
honor, love of freedom, etc. Other races could only change their
innately inferior character through racial intermingling. Along with
the notion that "all men are capable of an equal degree of perfection,"
Gobineau dismissed environmental conditions in shaping humans.
Gobineau's racial views greatly influenced Germans, particularly
Richard Wagner and Adolf Hitler. (Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica,
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/biogs.htm
Trois ans en Asie
(Three years in Asia) 1855-1858
First issue published in French appeared in 1859 in Paris First Farsi translation was published in 1988 in Teheran
Book Author Comte Joseph De Gobineau France’s Charge d’affaires at the court of Nassur ul'Din shah Qajar of Iran
Joseph De Gobineau, born on June 14, 1816 in a Parisian suburb, came
from an aristocratic background. His Father was in command of Louis
18th’s Imperial guards, and the young Gobineau was attending
military school, when the second French revolution unfolded in July
1830. With his family fortune turning overnight, Joseph was forced to
leave the military school and depart for sanctuary in Germany and
Switzerland.
With revolutionary fervour subsiding in France, the young Gobineau
returned to Paris and took a few odd journalistic assignments as a way
of making a living, while at the same time he pursued studying his
favourite subject of ancient Western and Eastern civilizations.
Following the February 1848 French revolution resulting in the
abolishment of the monarchy, Gobineau became associated with Alexis de
Tocqueville, the French foreign minister. This move was the launch of
De Gobineau’s career as a French diplomat at a time of great
political upheavals in France and elsewhere.
His numerous foreign diplomatic assignments took him to Bern, Hanover,
Frankfurt, and on a tour of duty to Teheran, Iran, from 1855 to 1858,
as a first secretary of the French mission for half that period, and as
Charge d’affaires for the rest of his assignment in Iran. In 1859
after his return to France, De Gobineau published his memoirs under the
heading of “Trois Ans En Asie” (Three years in Asia).
In October 1861, Emperor Napoleon III dispatched Comte De Gobineau on
his second diplomatic mission to Iran, where he stayed for another two
years. Following his last assignment in Iran, he served as the French
diplomat in Greece, Brazil, and Sweden before his retirement in 1877,
after which he moved to Italy to live the remaining years of his life.
During his tour of duty in Iran, this French diplomat took an interest
in the remaining Zartoshties still surviving in their ancestral land
under very trying conditions. His account of the plight of the
Zartoshties has proved a valuable source of information. In addition,
De Gobineau used his diplomatic influence with the court of Nassir
ul'Dinshah Qajar in support of Maneckji Limji Hataria who had arrived
from India on a mission to ameliorate the conditions of his
co-religionists in Iran. The starting focal point of Hataria’s
effort was the rescission of the Jazziya head tax imposed on the
Zartoshties and attempts to gain them more civil rights and protection.
De Gobineau’s support proved valuable. The help that this
relatively obscure French diplomat rendered to the Zartoshty community
of Iran, which was caught in a desperate struggle for survival, must be
acknowledged.
Review of his book:
De Gobineau’s fascination with ancient civilizations, his own
life experience as a privileged Frenchman whose family fortunes
suddenly overturned, his literary and journalistic skills and attention
to details was a unique combination of factors that shaped the
character of this French diplomat and gave him a unique sensitivity to
the experience of the Zartoshties in Iran. His book, reflecting his
observations of his excursion in Asia, mainly in Iran, and his
assessment of the characteristics of the Arabs, the Turks and the other
neo-Iranians in shaping the plights of the countries in Western Asia is
very revealing. One of his concluding chapters, entitled “The
possible outcome of interactions between Europe and Asia” is very
revealing as to De Gobineau’s outlook on the drastic changes Asia
was subjected to as a result of the imposition of Arab rule.
De Gobineau’s book contains informative observations on Iran in
the second half of the 19th century. He dedicates an entire chapter to
a review of the three religious minorities, the Sufis, the Nassiries
(branch of Eastern Christian church), and the Gabers (a degrading term
applied to Zartoshties by the Moslems).
A few of his narrations relative to the Zartoshties of Iran are included here to display the agony of the battered community.
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1. Gobineau reports that one of the rules imposed by the Muslim clerics
that impacted Kafirs (non-Muslims), which played havoc with the
Zartoshty community, was the rule of inheritance. If any member of a
Zartoshty household would convert to Islam, he would automatically
inherit all the family’s belongings, to the exclusion of the
remaining Zartoshty family members. This law was meant to attack the
fabric of the minority community, and continued to take a heavy toll on
the Zartoshties of his time.
2. Gobineau’s close observation, and intimacy with, the Zartoshty
community of Yazd is revealed by his recounting that one of the big
debates going on in that community was on consumption of meat in their
daily diet, with some expressing strong views against it, while others
favouring it.
3. Reporting on the great work of Maneckji Limji Hataria, Gobineau
observes that only a miracle can save the Zartoshties of Iran, given
their diminished state. Because of their lack of knowledge of their own
religion, they faced not only external but also internal threat.
4. He continues his observation of the Zartoshties by stating the
praise to be paid to these people is not solely for their intelligence
but even more for their positive outlook on life given their
circumstances. He goes on to say, “the Zartoshties believe very
soon a Syoshant will arrive and lift them out of their misery and will
help restore Zoroastrianism to its greatness.” As to where the
saviour will come from, there is difference of opinion, with some
believing he will come from the direction of Afghanistan, others
believing the liberating syoshant and his army will come from the West.
One Zartoshty man from Yazd was so consumed with his belief that the
arrival of the Syoshant and his liberation army was imminent, that,
fearing they would not have a sufficient supply of Sudreh and Kushti
(the religious underwear and cord worn by Zartoshties), he sold all his
belongings, buying all the Sudrehs and Kushtis he could. He loaded the
Sudrehs and Kushties on a couple of camels and left Yazd in the
direction of Afghanistan, and was never heard from again (a likely
casualty of highway robbers). Gobineau goes on to commend the
Zartoshties for possessing free spirits and aspiring to great and high
ideals.
5. He reports that on the death of a family member, Zartoshties in some
locations found it necessary to completely cover and block the doors
and other openings to their home before lighting up a fire for the
performance of religious observances, out of fear of attack from the
Muslim fanatics and ruffians roaming the neighbourhoods and terrorizing
the minorities.
6. Gobineau also reports his tally of the Zartoshties of Yazd,
enumerated village by village, to consist of total of 1837 women, 1300
men, 1377 girls, and 1796 boys. Gobineau’s recording of
population of the battered Zartoshty community of Kerman indicates 239
women, 178 men, 219 girls and 189 boys in total. No significant
population of Zartoshties could be found elsewhere in their ancestral
land.
7. Gobineau relates: One of his Zartoshty friends (wearing the yellow
coloured outfit the Zartoshties were forced to wear for easy
identification) was passing through a shabby and desolate alley in the
city of Isfahan, when he heard a strange noise directed at him. The
Zartoshty man stopped and looked around, and noticed an old and strange
looking woman motioning him to get close to her. The man hesitated, but
seeing that the woman insisted, walked towards her. Standing at the
doorway of her house, she insisted on his entering. The Zartoshty man
was hesitant but entered. She led the way, and asked him to sit down on
a stool in the middle of her front yard. She rushed to bring him tea
and a plate full of fruits, and invited him to eat. As the Zartoshty
man reached for the fruit plate, the woman sitting a short distance
from him and staring at him, suddenly burst into tears. The Zartoshty
man, shaken at this experience, froze in puzzlement, and asked the
reason for her crying. The woman, holding back her tears stated: alas,
I wanted you to come to my house even for a short while, as I know you
are the follower of a great religion that my ancestors also followed at
one time. She continues, maybe you are not well versed in the tenets of
your faith, but my Father would from time to time make reference to
this great religion and get very emotional about it. She went on to
say, “I concur with my father’s view that what you have is
much better than what I have been left with.
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Evans Experientialism 
