Hidden History and Oral History

Fazel Shirzad

2018-8-14

"Is history made by all? Or do only few people make history? Does the movement of history depend on a general law or depend on the few people? It is no coincidence that many respond to this question that this is a compromise that history had been made by all humans with those few people."

 Oriana Fallaci, Interview with History

Whereas history is a science of events and past conditions and story of past people, these events are in the minds of people, so anyone can be a narrator of events from the past through his memory. People in different parts of the world as valuable resources and treasures of information in the field of history can play a significant role in enriching oral history. In the meantime, indigenous and local people in distant places are valuable subjects and narrators for reliable historical information. Local narratives can even be searched in different formats, because oral history is also in local poetry and stories. In targeted research and interviews in order to achieve a specific topic, it can sometimes be sought through a number of indigenous and local people, ultimately common narration can be a valid finding.

Aware aged people

The prominence of Iranian community in the past centuries was the existence of aged people who were called "Tribal Elders". They were like the blazing lights, they were full of experience and lessons for community, and they certainly helped the nation to have a better fate. They are national capital.[1] Such knowledgeable and well-informed people can be the right options for those who are interested in oral history and interview. Such aware aged people are in different geographic regions that each of them can have words and narrations in a particular historical context. Of course, due to the age of such people, the issue of time should be taken into consideration here because it is possible that such aware people with full of historical information won't be alive and accessible due to lack of procrastination and neglect. So the time to find and these treasures - before the regret and loss of these historical aware people come to us - should be taken into consideration by enthusiasts and researchers. In book "Interview with History", written by Oriana Fallaci, describes this regret as follows: "How good it would be if the words of Joan of Arc[2] were recorded in his courts before he went to the top of fire, and how good it would be if Cromwell and Napoleon were asked something or recorded his words!"

The Importance of Native and Local Traditions

"A narration means a sequential retelling of an event, the discovery of the sequencing of a verbal narration that narrator retell it. Obviously, the event does not necessarily refer to objective events and foreign adventures, but if the retelling of mentalities accompanied by sequence and continuity, it will be narrative."[3] The situation of history and narration of every country and is owed to its narrators and historians of historical events. In some ways, native and local elders and narrator are the first narrators of verbal and oral history of each land, although their quotations may not have been seriously recorded. In a way, these professional people have different words in different perspectives. The different point of view of these individuals can be of great importance in historic studies.

Although the history in the chest of indigenous people can be called "hidden history," but finding these people and encouraging them to quoted and express what they have blocked in their chests makes it an "open story". Therefore, at a glance, the greatest attraction of a historian and historical researcher for making history and enriching historical events is to reveal this hidden history.

A Search for narrators

One of the basic necessities of receiving historical information through interviews with local and native people is to search and find such individuals. Searching is one of the most prominent features of researchers. Motivation behind these searches causes them not to feel difficulties in this way. "The effects and truth-oriented motives can be clearly seen in human life. Works, such as the growth, scientific development of the vast fields of education and the expansion of the intellectual and scientific richness that mankind today have, are all the effects of the truth-oriented motives that have been very beneficial in facilitating the work."[4]

In this way, undoubtedly, seekers and researchers are always faced with obstacles and challenges in finding the right people to collect information that perhaps these obstacles have made these scholars and historian uninterested in searching and finding. The obstacles, they are faced, include: 1) Lack of easy access to such individuals 2) Lack of full knowledge of local people about interview process 3) Lack of trust in the interviewers 4) Lack of full ability in native speakers to correctly interpret historical narration due to low proficiency in the official language 5) The Probability of the lack enough time and free time for narrators 6) Not having interest in the publication of narrations by narrator due to hypothetical consequences. 8) The unwillingness of narrators to publish the past memories and the factors of this kind. A researcher or person who is interested in collecting information through dialogue can reach such people in different ways, including: 1) through introduction by people who are familiar with indigenous and well-known people in certain areas. 2) Through studying in the special resources of that area in which the name people ,who have had experience in interviewing with interviewers and narrating historical events in local communities, have been mentioned 3) Visiting and searching in areas where you  heard and areas that such people have been living there in.

The native and local narrators and seekers will always try to maintain their relationships with them in order to be able to find other and more narrators and ultimately achieve more complete and credible historical events. On the other hand, the continuity of dialogue and historical research among indigenous and local people will cause people to be aware of such researches and encourage them to conduct voluntary interviews and facilitate the process of increasing historical information and the development of local and native oral history.