Recommendation of the Supreme Leader to the Founders of Resistance Literature & Art Department

Provision of Twenty-Year Plan of War Memoir Plan

Two Speeches from Morteza Sarhangi

Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2018-10-23

Reported by the Iran Oral History Site, Morteza Sarhangi, founder of Resistance Literature & Art Department, had two short speeches within last couple of weeks as reads below.

In the Fourth “Holy Defense Memory Night” Special Program attended by the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, held on 26 September 2018 in Imam Khomeini Husseinieh, said: “Preserving the war literature is as noble as protecting its territory. Soldiers of war return home and pick up their pens and write about what they have experienced. They write to tell us the price they have paid for us; for us, thousands of kilometers away from the fronts.

The soldiers in the battlefield are soldiers of war and when they write they act as the defenders of the history. Their literature completes the war and leaves it to us to protect them as we defend our country. This literature informs us; since it is the closest and the clearest narrative of war recited to us which tells us the price we paid for it.

The veterans write their memoirs to tell us the end price of war. These soldiers give us the bill of war and tell us to defend what we like the way they have defended our homeland. They age but keep the memories of was young and vivid. They write against oblivion.

Memoirs of war are full of lessons that nations shall employ for prosperity of their land and this literature is the best teacher! We shall as well be good students of the memoirs of veterans who put their lives and youth in line for us and protected the borders of this ancient land.”

In the meeting of the narrator and author of the book “Farangis: Memoirs of Frangis Heydarpour” with the Supreme Leader of the revolution stated a couple of notes about the meeting. His speech as reported by the Office of Protection and Publication of the Relics of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is: “At the noon of Sunday (30 September 2018) when Ms. Farangis Heydarpur and Ms. Fattahi attended the commentary meeting of the Supreme Leader on the book “Farangis” after the noon and evening prayer led by the Supreme Leader of the revolution, they had a short meeting. After the meeting, the Supreme Leader summoned me and said: “Women are taking lead in writing memoirs; considering that they write with their feminine feelings” and it is true. Some authors act like technicians who arrange paragraphs one after another and the output is a book filled with no feelings and hence no effect; but when women write, the effect is the opposite. The fact is that the voice of war is louder in the memoirs of women; since they are mothers and mothers know what it feels like when a young soldier falls on the ground. They write with their whole spirit and as mothers they have noble and pure feelings in reciting their memories. 

The Supreme Leader honored Mr. [Hedayatollah] Behboudi and me by saying: “You have made many efforts and done plenty; you should provide a twenty-year plan for the war memoirs to lead the way for the next twenty years.” In the “Memory Night” program held on Wednesday, 26 September 2018, the Supreme Leader stated that we have to make efforts a hundred times more than what we have done. Today, he recommended us to provide a twenty-year plan. He probably recommended twenty years because of our age and said that we have to work hundred times more. His statement indicate the importance of the issue and the existing capacity.

Once we believed there is no end to the war memoirs and it would continue after us; we are the ones who are not there anymore; we are the ones who are not involved. In fact this literature is a national treasure – like oil springing off the wells; like oil hidden in the heart of our land, these memoirs are hidden in the heart of the society. You should excavate to dig up these treasures. There should be professionals to go and discover these national treasures; and this capital has to be provided to the society as a spiritual energy. As it is all over the world; war soldiers grow old but the world keeps their memories alive since they are filled with energy and devotion. Then they present this spiritual energy in their community and society at difficult times to resolve their problems; they solve issues by presenting their veterans.

In defense wars like the one we experienced, the defenders of the land are not women anymore, they are not old, they are not children, but they are all soldiers. The sudden transformation of the Iranian nation to soldiers, put the world at risk. Their calculations for attack was intact and accurate; the fact that Iran has no army; no organization and has no artillery was true but they never imagined that the whole nation will suddenly transform into soldiers; and Farangis is one example; a woman who suddenly turned into a soldier.”