The most recent donation to our Centre by John Drake

The Cartoonist and the Demon-King: How the Shahnameh became Wartime Propaganda by Archie Williams
Thursday, January 14, 2021

The posters depict scenes from the Zahhak cycle of the ​Shahnameh​, with the faces of wartime world leaders added to make a political point in the hope of enlisting Iranian support for the allied war effort. Thanks to the kind donation of John Drake, whose late father Sir Eric Drake collected the posters, the Centre now has almost all (five of six) of the series. Sir Eric spent over fifteen years working in the Anglo-Iranian oil company at their refinery at Abadan, starting as an accountant in 1935 and becoming the general manager in Iran in 1950.

Please read the essay about the posters by Archie Williams 'The Cartoonist and the Demon-King: How the Shahnameh became Wartime Propaganda' here: http://persian.pem.cam.ac.uk/sites/persian.pem.cam.ac.uk/files/uploads/wysiwyg/Kem%27s%20Wartime%20Shahnama%20Cartoons.pdf