Towfiq

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Towfiq
New Year's edition 1941 (Vol 19 Issue 21)
description satirical weekly magazine
language Persian
publishing company Towfiq Corporation
First edition 1923
attitude 1971
Frequency of publication weekly
Sold edition 35,000 copies
editor Hossein Towfiq (sen.), Mohammad Ali Towfiq,

Hassan Towfiq, Hossein Towfiq, Abbas Towfiq

Towfiq ( Persian توفیق) was the first satirical weekly magazine to appear regularly in Iran .

profile

The magazine went through three phases: Under the founding editor Hossein Towfiq it was more nationalistic; under the son Mohammad Ali Tofiq it was more politically and critical of the government; later the paper concentrated on pure satire.

history

In 1923, Hossein Towfiq was licensed to publish a satirical magazine. The publication of the magazine was discontinued in 1939 with the death of the editor.

After the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in August 1941 and the subsequent occupation of Iran, the son of Hossein Towfiq, Mohammad Ali Towfig, who had inherited the license from his father, started the with the help of his three cousins ​​Hassan, Hossein and Abbas Towfiq Magazine with a new political direction. Numerous editors of the magazine were active members of the communist Tudeh party, which was newly founded on the instructions of Josef Stalin . The magazine's political profile was satirical and critical of the government.

After the fall of Mossadegh on August 19, 1953, Mohammad Ali Towfiq was arrested. Hassan, Hossein and Abbas Towfiq first went underground. The publication of the magazine has been discontinued. Mohammad Ali Towfiq, who was registered as the official editor from 1941, was sentenced to prison, while Hassan, Hossein and Abbas got away without punishment.

Four years later, in 1957, Hassan, Hossein and Abbas decided to reissue the magazine under the name Majaley-e Fokai . They received the appropriate license and after Mohammad Ali was released from prison, the magazine traded again under its old name "Towfiq". The magazine, which had a circulation of 35,000, soon reached a high level of popularity. Some issues have sold more than 100,000 copies.

In this phase the magazine had a clear satirical profile with Kaka , a wise fool and his wife Geshniz Khanoum as protagonists. Kaka had a donkey and his son had a little monkey, Mamouli . From 1963 the publishers of Towfiq “founded” the donkey party with the motto “Donkeys of all countries unite!” “We are fighting for a world in which donkeys can live appropriately! " " We demand the establishment of a bank for hay! " .

In 1971 the magazine had to stop its publication. The reasons for banning the magazine are obscure. Some suspect that it was primarily the many jokes about Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda's sexual orientation that led to the ban.

Some editors had already left the magazine by this time and were working for the anti-Islamic satirical magazine Asghar Agha .

expenditure

  • New Year's edition 1958 (Volume 37 Issue 1)

  • New Year's Edition 1959 (Vol 38 Issue 1)

  • New Years Edition 1963 (Vol. 42 Issue 1)

  • New year's edition 1967 (vol 46 issue 1)

  • Last edition June 8, 1971 (Vol. 50 Issue 12)

literature

  • Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians . Vol. 1. Syracuse University Press, New York 2008, pp. 406-409. ISBN 978-0-8156-0907-0