The Victory of Turan and the Fall of Ērānšahr: Turks and Iranians in the Last Great War of Antiquity

This paper offers a reexamination of the Iranian Empire's defeat in the final years of the "Last Great War of Antiquity" (c. 626-30), a blow from which the empire never recovered. It argues for the decisive importance of the Turkic Khaganate's involvement, suggesting that their impact may be just as key as that of the Romans. Beyond the impressive military power of the Khaganate, an exploration of Iranian imperial ideology reveals that the Turks' victory represented a subversion of the empire's very foundations, playing a critical, hitherto underexplored role in its collapse. This approach more fully situates Iran within its Eurasian context and disentangles this terminal period from the coming Islamic conquests. In so doing, it seeks to overturn common teleological assumptions and reckon with broader questions of imperial "decline and fall."