Shirin

Christian - Queen - Myth of love. Historical Reality and Literary Effect

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Shirin, the beloves wife of the Persian shah, Chosroes II (b. 628), pulled political strings behind the scenes and supported the Christian minority in Iran. After the fall of Chosroes, Firdausi remembered Shirin in his epic, the „Shahnama“. Around 1180, the Persian poet Nizami wrote of her alleged love for the master builder Ferhad in his epic „Chosroes ans Shirin“, which was often mimitated in Persian, Turkish, and Indian literary circles. Shirin besame an image of love par excellence, living on even as far as Europe in no less a work than Goethes „West-östlicher Divan“.