The goal of the paper is to survey the main Soviet and Russian sources dedicated to Iran in WWII, in particular those dealing with the Soviet presence and policies there. Some contentious issues still impact the relationship between Iran and Russia on social and political levels, including Iran’s Russian policy. The Soviet/Russian historiographical perspective on Iran during the war has been influenced by several factors: Iran was the only Middle Eastern country invaded by Soviet troops; Russian and British invasion of Iran in August of 1941 was the first joint operation of the allies; Tehran was chosen as the location of the paramount meeting of the three allied leaders in 1943; and the Soviet occupation of northern Iran after the end of the war caused tensions not just between the Soviet Union and Iran, but also between the Soviet Union and the world community. The Soviet/Russian narrative is sometimes politically motivated. For example, the paper discusses how Soviet and Russian historiography deals with the question of the Russian bombardment of Iranian cities in August-September of 1941, and how it tries to demonstrate that, in spite of the common perception, Iran was a relatively active participant in the drama played out during the war on its own territory. Another example is the forceful promotion of the claim that a Soviet spy network foiled an alleged Nazi plot to murder Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill during the Tehran conference. In this case, scholarly works about Gevork and Goar Vartanian, combined with fictional and semi-fictional sources and films, (both documentary and feature), publicity unusual for professional spies, and a high political profile including awards bestowed by Putin, have been used to create a narrative to fuel the patriotic feelings of contemporary Russian audience. Among recent seminal works discussed in the paper are those by Saleh Aliev, History of Iran. 20th Century (2004); Jamil Gasanli, SSSR-Iran. Azerbaijan crisis and beginning of the Cold War 1941-46 (2006); and Alexander Orishev, Iranian knot: Struggle of intelligence. 1936-1945 (2009). Using newly available archival materials, these scholars address topics that had previously been excluded from scholarly discussion, such as the Soviet interference in Iranian Azerbaijan or the work of Soviet intelligence in Iran. The survey demonstrates that, although Russian historiography provides abundant material for the study of Iran in WWII, a topic so far understudied in western historiography, it has been affected by certain biases and political motives.

The period of 1939-1945(46) can be called the ‘period of silence’ in Iranian philately. The Allied occupation and preoccupation of the Iranian elite with political processes pushed cultural life into the shadow well until 1950. Little attention was paid to the stamps printing as well. And, yet, those rare commemorative and standard series of stamps that were issued in this uneasy time represent a very unique and interesting self-reflection of Iran on its domestic situation and place in the system of international relation. Thus, the period of 1939 – 1945(6) was marked by the revival of the "revolutionary stamps” printing, associated with the creation of Soviet-controlled semi-autonomous governments in Iranian Kurdistan (the so-called "Mahabad Republic") and Azerbaijan (the so-called "Azerbaijan democratic Republic"). Occupied during the Allied operation on August 25-September 17, 1941 by Soviet troops, these areas were effectively cut off from the control of the central government in Tehran. The separatist movement that broke out on these territories was actively supported in the USSR at the highest level. These government made a decision to overprint the standard stamp issues of 1942, 1944-1945 with the sign "people's government of Azerbaijan, December 1945". The mentioned separatist movements caused a lot of trouble to official Tehran, ruffling the nerves of the Iranian government, which was forced to use all available levers to neutralize the support of the autonomous regions from the Soviet Union and severely suppress the uprising, bypassing the requirements of the Western allies to observe the norms of humanity. These events were commemorated by a series of stamps named "in honor of the restoration of control over Iranian Azerbaijan on December 12, 1946". However, it has another name: "in honor of the liberation of Iranian Azerbaijan". At this point, the phrase in catalogs and philatelic publications is cut off for reasons of political correctness, but knowledgeable philatelists in Iran add its ending "from Soviet influence". With this name, the government of Iran not only expressed its attitude to the Soviet Union, but also clearly indicated whose side it intends to take in the raging "cold war". All in all, this phenomenon of the ‘war period stamps’ and how they were reflecting the main historical events of the country represent the core subject of the paper.

The post-1917 Russian migrant communities in Europe, as well as the USSR and European states’ policies towards them, have been sufficiently studied in international scholarship. However, West and South Asia received significantly less attention, although the region served the main transit zone in this process, especially Iran. Dozens of thousands of refugees from the Soviet Union passed through Iran during 1917-1946 and many of them settled down in this country. These migrants became an integral part of political activism professed by Russian émigré communities all over the world in the 1920s-40s. This often resulted in them being manipulated by other governments in their foreign policies toward the USSR, especially by Britain – Russia’s traditional rival in the region. On the other hand, the positions of the Soviet government in political and military terms toward its southern neighbours were significantly stronger than those in Europe. Having an upper hand in the South, the Soviet government would resort to military invasions, large-scale intelligence operations, bribery of local police and the military, particularly in the border areas, as well as to imposing inter-state border-control treaties, ? all this done with the aim to neutralise the anti-Soviet émigré activities and to physically liquidate their networks and active representatives abroad as well as to clandestinely repatriate larger numbers for subsequent prosecution on the Soviet territory. The 1941 allied invasion of Iran became the first British-Soviet joint political and military action shifting the paradigm of the two preceding decades. It changed British policies toward Russian émigré communities in Iran, making them even more vulnerable than before. Methodologically drawing on the most recent works in Migration Studies, in general, and in Russian Emigré Studies, in particular, my paper looks into the phenomena, such as displaced statehood, political activism and cross-cultural interaction in the context of the policies of the relevant states (Iran, Britain and the USSR) toward Soviet refugees in Iran during the allied occupation 1941-1946. The primary-source base of this research consists of mostly untapped documents from British, Russian, and Iranian archives as well as memoirs and private correspondence of migrants themselves. While highlighting some continuities, the paper traces significant changes in the policies of the above-mentioned states toward Soviet refugees in Iran, and puts forward a detailed analysis of the causes, developments and outcomes of this process.

This paper examines the role of the USSR in the formation of the national liberation movement in Iranian Kurdistan during the Second World War. The authors present the complex array of factors leading to the Kurdish proclamation of autonomy and the extent of Soviet influence and support, especially in the military sphere. Previously unexamined documents from Russian state archives and other sources reveal the tension between ideology and pragmatism that characterized Soviet policy toward the Iranian Kurds and bring to light new details about Soviet involvement in Iranian internal affairs while the Red Army was stationed in northern Iran during the Second World War.