The head of military organization expresses

Army war veterans to become oral history interviewers

Maryam Assadi Jafari
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2019-7-30

Iranian Oral History website – The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army during the eight-year holy defense defended Iran’s territory with all might from ground, air and sea, and has published many works in the areas of novel, narrative biographies, collection of memories, atlas of battles, war chronicles, and research books in order to keep and record this epic. Meanwhile, we miss oral history tangibly. Thus, some institutions like the Organization for Preservation of Works and dissemination of Sacred Defense Values has carried out measures during the recent years.

It is worth mentioning that several book titles related to the role of army in the sacred defense backed by the army and other publishers have already been published among them we can mention the book “The Secret of Pearl” authored by Mouness Abdizadeh.   

In an interview with Iranian Oral History website, the head of the Organization for Preservation of Works and dissemination of Sacred Defense Values, Second Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Fouladi explained about the measures carried out in the area of oral history.

General Fouladi said, “It is several years that the Organization for Preservation of Works and dissemination of Sacred Defense Values has started recording the memoirs of army war veterans including the commanders, the designers of the operations and the combatants of the scared defense period, and so far, some one thousand hours interviews with army war veterans including ground, air, sea and defense forces have been registered and recorded in the Documents Center of the organization. Part of the oral history projects have turned into forty book titles. “Seven flights: Biography and memories of Second Brigadier General Pilot Mohammad Karim Abedi”, and “What do you do here: Based on the memories of First Captain Commando Janbaz (disabled veteran) Alireza Salehi Fashami” written by Ahmad Hosseinia, “The Secret of love: Based on the memories of Second Brigadier General Seyed Torab Zakeri” by Alireza Esfandiari, and “The hero of Sistan: Collection of memories of Brigadier General Mohammad Ebrahim Sharifi” written by Gholam Hossein Zargar are among these books.

Explaining about the translation of some books in the areas of memory and oral history into English, the general added, “The book “Claimless Men” including the biography and memories martyr Brigadier General Esmaeel Zare’iyan Jahromi has been translated into English and published by the Publications of the Organization of Preservation of Army’s Works. Such works are available to foreign readers and audiences through our colleagues who are sent to other countries as military attaches. Also, some military attaches visit our military museums and we give such works to them. At the same time, so far, we have translated from Arabic into Farsi the memory book of former Iraqi Chief-of-Staff General Nizar al-Khazraji. Moreover, we have published the retranslation of the book "Destruction of Eastern Gateway" authored by Vafiq al-Sameraee.

In evaluation of the perspective of the measures by the Organization for Preservation of Works and dissemination of Sacred Defense Values in the field of oral history, the Second Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Fouladi said, "This year, we had access to countless number of army war veterans through setting up of the management of preservation of works in the provinces. Finally, the books will be available to the interested people both through publication and the website."

In response to a question about the method of educating and using the oral historians in the Organization for Preservation of Works and dissemination of Sacred Defense Values, he stressed, "For oral history interviews, we are going to use the collection of our colleagues who are selected among the veterans; the individuals who have the experience of participating in the sacred defense period and are interested in registering and recording the war memoirs. We do not need the people outside the organization for cooperation because the army veterans have been present in the battle fields. But if the number of interviews are increased, we will go to other forces."