An Enquiry into the Political life of Sadollah Darvish

Sadollah Darvish، one of the reactionaries of the Jungle Movement، is most known to scholars of this field. Although his outstanding positions of authority during the Jungle Movement in Gilan (1920 1921) such as the headship of Rasht’s Constabulary، the military police and Mazandaran''s Red Army as well as his appointment by Mirza Kochak Khan as an ambassador to negotiate with the federal government and Theodor Rothstein، have turned him to one of the leading figures of the Jungle Movement at that time. Yet، disregarding such an important role and performance، scholars have long tended to marginalize Sadollah Darvish as regards the events of that Movement. Strangely enough، his being a non-native as well as lack of scholarly awareness of his political background and fate have all added to the inefficiency of historically objective scientific research done in the field. Having a critical approach towards the memoirs of Sadollah Darvish and matching them against other present documents، the present article aims at studying the causes of his turn to political activities including the Germanophil measures he took in the course of the First World War and his effective presence in the Jungle Movement.