L'eresia mazdakita nella letteratura pahlavi

The article intends to look at the way the Mazdakite phenomenon has been perceived in the Pahlavi sources, especially religious texts. In the excerpts examined, we can see how the Zoroastrian literary production has faced the aftermath of this movement both in the late Sasanian era (starting from the reign of Husraw I) and in the Islamic era. The texts show various ways in which the memory of this phenomenon has been shaped and utilised to assert dominant narratives in re- action to the social and religious upheaval that took place during the reign of Kawad I; in the case of late Sasanian literature, we can find a message of restoration and consolidation of the old social order and justification for the violent repression at the hands of Husraw, while in the Islamic era the Zoroastrian communities use the themes of heresy and heretoroxy as an identitarian tool to consolidate a form of orthodoxy in reaction to the Islamic rule.