Live History: A Study of 40 Years of Oral History of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense – 9

Concept of history and methods of executing oral history discussed

Maryam Rajabi
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2019-5-21

According to the website of Iranian Oral History, in continuation of the meetings of "Live History: A Study of 40 Years of Oral History of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense", what follows is the final part of the report of third session. The meeting was held in the Qasr-e Shirin Hall of the Islamic Revolution Museum and Holy Defense on Tuesday evening 19^th of February 2019. In previous parts of the series of report of the third session, you read the text of speeches by Gholamreza Azizi, the Head of the Research Center of the National Library and Archives of Islamic Republic of Iran, Faezeh Tavakoli, the Secretary of the Oral History Group Work of Iranian Association of History and the discussion of the participants with them.  

How and why the events happen

In continuation of the third session of "Live History: A Study of 40 Years of Oral History of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense", one of the participants asked, “Can our history shape in our time? Or it will shape later? It seems a filmmaker, an author, some who interviews, and someone who writes a book, all of them are the ones who can shape our history later.”

In response, Gholamreza Azizi said, “At present, there are one or two theories which do not agree with what you say. Something like grand history says that we have events which are historic when they happen and do not need to pass through until their significance is identified as a turning point in history. For instance, when the price of a car like Pride increases three to four million tomans overnight, there is no need to think whether it is a history or not later. The reason why people like Bastani Parizi says that forty should pass from an event and then we can talk about it, is that the documents come out during this forty years and sensitivities are reduce. For example, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution said recently that do not ruin the 22^nd of Bahman rally for the sake of reckoning with the government, what does it mean? Those who argue that some time should pass from an event and then we should start writing down have two reasons for their argument, one is the sensitivities are reduced and secondly, the clouds of ambiguity go away and the documents come out. The main part of an event is recognized later or else history has shaped and happened yesterday. The recent terrorist attack in Zahedan during which 27 home-grown youths were martyred in cold blood has happened. There is no need that one year passes from it in order to shape. It may violate something later and, but it makes no difference in the origin of the event. There is an event origin; an explosion at this time and the number of martyrs. For my instances, I speak about events of the day which are politicized so much, but I prefer not to use other examples. An event has happened and no need one week passes from it in order to be considered as historic. History is said to an event which has happened in the past and now we want to look for the reason. Regarding the reality or reason and fact of the event, the researchers believe that we usually cannot reach to the fact or depth of an event. We try to approach the reality and fact as much as possible. They also bring many reasons. In the second impression, we have no way but to wait so that some time passes from an event and then collect the documents and to see why it has happened, not how it took place, because we know how right now. Right now, we know that a bus has been blown up. The next morning, nobody says it has been a car or a plane. It has been a bus with 27 martyrs. We do not say tomorrow that 6 people have been martyred and add 21 others arbitrarily. These are the realities that have happened, but what was the fact of the story? Yes, it needs time, documents and analysis.”

Faezeh Tavakoli also said, “When I first told you the concept of history, I meant this point. When we say ontology, it means that an event has happened. In the second part, we want to reach cognition with our historic knowledge; it should be subject to statute of limitations to some extent in order to find various aspects, conditions, documents, evidences and narrators and our oral history activists go and conduct interviews in order to reach cognition. It means that we have to reach to epistemology out of ontology, but it takes time.”

Every method has features

Then, Yadollah Izadi, a participant of the meeting and the Head of the Oral History Group of the Center for Sacred Defense Documents and Research said, "Inn executing oral history, we are facing with a subject in the interview which effects on editing; the motion of body, excitement and emotions and feelings that the speaker has which cannot be seen in audio. These are our observations while interviewing, especially when we use the subject of the interview and the tools such as map. When the narrator is explaining that he had a machine gun working and that I eventually crossed in this way, sometimes we feel that he is narrating something with ambiguity and hesitation, looking for his documents and his tone is somehow which seems he is in hesitation, but this hesitation is not recorded. We always say that a notebook should be with the interviewer and writes such margins which are more important than the text. With his or her impressions, when editing, he or she should say that the authenticity and accuracy in narration is the same thing that the narrator has spoken or another concept should be considered. I want to say that for the truth of narration and authenticity and accuracy, you have to adjust it; even with other narrations. For instance, we interviewed 50 commanders concerning the liberation of Khorramshahr and faced with difference of narration about entering the city. A commander said he was the commander of the unit which first entered the city. Seven to ten commanders were present in that meeting. The narration of the higher commander with that of the unit level was different. They reach a consensus there and said that in the geographic area you acted, you were not aware of the geographical situation on the right and this was our decision and plan and you were not in on it. I stress more on the perception the interviewer has from narration and the behavior he or she sees in the environment. In editing the text, he or she should bring these in the footnotes and attachments." 

Gholamreza Azizi said, “Our colleagues are carrying out a work under the title “Report of Interview”, namely they note the things done during the interview but are not recorded. However, we have progressed with camera in this field. A playwright while writing a play writes the states that the actor must know; we in oral history interviews should act inversely. Oral history interviews till now have been divided into several types and the names that I have given to them are arbitrary in the worst form and self-made in the best form! I have not seen that anybody uses them. We have a method in which we write documentaries. This method says that I print whatever has happened during the interview exactly, like the works of Mr. Lajevardi. It has repetition, mantras, contradiction and this is the same thing that has happened. The second method is that the text of an oral history interview is published scholastically and it is almost like the entire works published by the Art Center including the memory book of Ezzat Shahi. The interview has been really conducted and we have no doubt that they are the words of Mr. Ezzat Shahi exactly but they have been rewritten with a scholastic pen. We have another group that I have already given the name scholarly to it. Mrs. Tavakoli in connection with editing spoke about scholastic writing of oral history and referred to methods of qualitative research and categorization in this way that after interviewing, we come and categorize them. We do not have this method in the works published in Farsi. I have a fourth method too; we have two types of research methods one of which is more extreme and the other more serious. There are some characteristics in any of these methods. For example, in the documentary-writing method, the authenticity of your narration is perfect, because you can hand over the tape to the one who has bought the book and say, “Listen! I have not removed the cough and have written inside parenthesis. I believe that if we are supposed to criticize any of these works, we should do it with the criteria of editing. As a person who works scholarly and with categorization and qualitative research and content analysis, I cannot say that the work of Mr. Lajevardi is wrong, just as Mr. Lajevardi cannot come and criticize the work of Mr. Mohsen Kazemi with his own criteria. Each of the four methods should be calculated with type of their editing. Our argument in history is which of them have become closer to the fact and truthfulness. I have interviewed and concluded that I want to publish my text as a mere historical resource. I am publishing resource and data and there is no problem.”