On Horseback of Memories

Mohammadreza Iravani

Reading a page of a book out of thousands and millions of pages is, for us, like looking through a window on brighter side of the world that is constantly calling us, tempting us to set on a journey with the frigate of a book for more and more adventures...

A New Glimpse on Memoirs

Ghassem Yahusseini divides war memoirs into three general periods and presents an account of the evolution and main characteristics of each category. According to this writer, the first period coincides with the eight-year period of Iraq’s imposed war on Iran. During this period, Yahusseini says, the main axis of war memoirs is highlighting epic bravery of combatants and humiliation of the enemy – mainly due to propagandist and security reasons as well as internal and foreign pressures. With the end of war in the second half of 1980’s, although the main form and content of these writings still imitated the mottos aiming the humiliation of the enemy and magnifying the gallantry of the combatants and martyrs of war, new steps were taken towards explaining the reality of war far from the current magnifications. According to Yahusseini the third wave of memoirs or memory writings began in late 1990’s that is still running on and is fortunately getting closer to its maturation and perfection. The main feature of the third wave of holy defense memoirs, in his opinion, is the grayish texture (more realistic) of the memories and the memorialists show less interest in black and white approach. He insists that basically memory writing is a subcategory of historiography and the book of memories should be considered of the main sources of reconstructing a historical event by the historiographer.

The 1990’s (1370-80) is one of the main spans of time when Iranians wrote down their memories. In this period a number of memoirs by statesmen, courtiers and men of power of Pahlavi Era were released.

‘The Palace of Loneliness’ penned by Soraya Esfnayari, ‘Three Women: Iran Teimoortash, Ashraf Pahlavi and Maryam Firouz’ penned by Masoud Behnoud, ‘My Daughter Farah’ penned by Farideh Diba, and ‘From Palace to Prison: Behind the High Walls’ penned by Azar Arianpour wife of ex-Pahlavi Minister of Health Shojaeddin Sheikholeslam are some of the memoirs published in aforementioned decade.

On Horseback of Memories | Page 49
Author:   Mohammadreza Iravani (1966 - )
Publisher:   SARIR, Tehran
Foundation for Preservation of the Holy Defense Values
ISBN:   9786005156607
Release Date:   First Print, 2011
Language:   Persian
Genre:   Nonfiction
Category:  Holy Defense Literature, Historiography, Memoirs
232 Pages