Marie-Thérèse, Baroness Ullens de Schooten, 1905-1989

Marie-Thérèse Ullens de Schooten was born in 1905 of Belgian and Austrian parents. In 1926 she married a Belgian diplomat, which resulted in her subsequent travels to Egypt; San Francisco, California in the United States of America; Norway; and the cities and rural areas of Iran.

Ullens first trip to Iran was in 1948, and so began her documentation of the nomadic peoples of Iran, in particular of the Qashqā'ī tribes. While in Iran, Ullens befriended André Godard, the director of the Royal Archaeological Services of Iran (1928 – 1953, and 1956 – 1960) and his wife, Yedda Godard. After the sudden death of her husband by heart attack in 1950, Ullens was an annual guest of the Godard's, up until about 1970.

The audio tapes in this collection were recorded in both field and institutional settings. Most of the recordings stand alone as unique documents, but as Ullens also developed an interest in making documentary films, she recorded much of the material as a basis for the soundtracks to her films. The titles of some of these films are: Esquisses Caspiennes; Aux Confins de Kurdistan; Nouveaux Horizons; Persepolis; Et Depuis Néarque; La Sédentarisation des Turcomans; Voyage au Pays des Dervish Sufi: L'Ultime Pèlerinage; Qashqā'ī. The films are held at the Harvard University Fine Arts Library as part of the Marie-Thérèse Ullens de Schooten Collections at Harvard University.

Ullens also authored several books. One of the most well-known of these is Lords of the Mountains: Southern Persia and the Kashkai Tribe (London: Chatto & Windus, Ltd., 1956). It is a fascinating account of a journey with her husband through the south of Iran (Persia) in the 1940s. Ullens was the first person to be invited to film the Qashqā'ī tribe as well as interview the Qashqā'ī chief Nasser Khan. Her account provides ethnographic detail about the Qashqā'ī customs and society at the time of their spring encampment. An appendix describes the tribes of Persia, another lists the Qashqā'ī clans and locations.