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# Empress or Queen of Iran: Soraya in 1953
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/imperatritsa-ili-koroleva-irana-soraiia-v-1953-godu/
- Published: 2026-07-23T08:10:22.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:34.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: The East, Monarchies, Mores, People

Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary was born in 1932 to an Iranian diplomat and a German aristocrat. She spoke several languages fluently, received a European education and from her youth stood out for her extraordinary beauty.

In 1951 Soraya married Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran. Theirs would have been an ideal union, were it not for the enormous responsibility that rests on the shoulders of monarchs: to bring heirs into the world.

Despite numerous attempts, Soraya was unable to bear a child. For a Shah who governed a state, the question of the succession was a political matter, not merely a personal one. After long years of struggle between feeling and duty to the state, the couple made the agonising decision to divorce.

The Shah later confessed that Soraya had been the love of his life. The former empress herself said: "I lost not only a husband, but a homeland."

After the divorce Soraya lived in Europe, tried her hand at the cinema and led a life in society, but never started a new family. To the end of her days she was called the "sad princess"; she died in Munich in 2001.

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