Appearance of Printing Industry in Iran
Some people believe that the appearance of printing industry in Iran goes back to the Ilkhanid period, while others believe that Jewish people with Persian language brought it to Iran due to the importance of printing some books. In 1639, Christian missionaries published three books in Persian and the printing house in which these books have been published could be the first Persian printing house in the world. According to the existing documents, the first book published in Iran is called psalm of David or Saghmos, which was published in 572 pages in 1638 by the Armenian priests of Julfa located in Isfahan. The reason that the Armenians were capable of establishing a printing house in Iran and freely print Christian sources and become 15th in the world is the encouraging environment created by the Safavid Shah Abbas I. Almost 30 years after migration to Julfa, Isfahan, the Armenians established a printing house and began printing some books. It is said that some Iranians in the Safavid period had the required information from the printing house and entered it to Iran.
The main changes in printing and publishing goes back to the period of Abbas Mirza Qajar and such a period is equal to the consequences of Iran-Russia war. In 1233, Agha Zineh Al-Abedineh Tabrizi ordered to establish a printing house in Tabriz, which was supported by Abbas Mirza. The first Persian book called Fathnameh, which described the wars between Iran and Russia, can be considered as the first printed work published in Iran at zelhajje,1234. The investigations represent that the government used the printing industry to achieve its goals. In 1240 and almost 7 years after the establishment of Tabriz Printing House, Fath Ali Shah ordered to establish a printing house in Tehran with the help of Mirza Zineh Al-Abedineh.
After the lead printing, lithography became a popular printing method in Iran. In order to learn how to use lithography, Jafar Khan Tabrizi was sent to Moscow and when returning to Iran, he imported lithographs to Tabriz in1239-1240. The Qur’an has been considered as the first lithography book and was published in 1248 by Mirza Assadollah in Tabriz and three years after its publication, Zad al-Ma’ad was published in Tabriz. Lithography became popular not only in Tabriz and Tehran, but also in most cities of Iran, but half a century later, lead printing became popular again during the period of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. By the establishment of the Dār ul-Funun, the Iranian printing house has been affected and therefore, a printing house has been established inside the school and it began to publish the articles of professors and education books of students. In this printing house, almost 40 education books were published. Government printing houses have been established at the period of Naser al-Din Shah. During a period after the formation of the first parliament, a printing house was established to print the contents of the parliament and became the largest printing house in the country. After establishing the legitimacy, another printing house has been established under the leadership of Abdullah Khan of Qajar and continued its activation until 1328. Gradually, lithography has been replaced by the lead printing and in 1330, few lithography has been left.
In 1307, 1310 and 1317, education books were published .Then, several government printing houses were established, such as the Army printing house, the printing house of the National Bank of Iran, the tobacco printing house of Iran and the railway printing house.
After the war, Taban Printing House, which was the first private printing house equipped with new and automatic machines, underwent significant changes.
In 1330s, new two-color and four-color offset printing machines entered Iran and caused extensive changes in the printing industry.
In 1340s, cheap pocket books has permanently been used.
In 1357, the printing houses were very active in showing the anti-government attempts of Pahlavi.
In 1371, color printing has permanently been used and Hamshahri newspaper was considered as the first colored newspaper in Iran.
Then, stamps, paper moneys, documents and bus tickets were printed. In 1367, a printing house has been established for printing banknotes and since 1367, the country’s banknotes have been printed in this printing house.
2th of September is considered as the day of printing industry.
With the appearance of the first printing houses in Iran, the Zomorod printing complex is capable of printing different types of orders using the modern technologies.
Author 