A documented narration on the life of martyr Mohsen Vazvaee

Mohammad Ali Fatemi
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2019-10-30

“One Dear Mohsen” is the title of “A documented narration on the life of martyr Mohesn Vazvaee” written by Faezeh Ghaffar Haddadi. She has written this 560-page book upon the order of the Office of Resistance Culture and Studies of Provincial Centers of the Art Center in 2019.

The book starts with “Maybe Introduction”; then it has fourteen chapters with titles such as “Important Changes”, “Smart Selection”, “Standing inside Vitrine”, “Among Possible Jobs”, “Summer and One Incomplete Job”, “Tehran, Terror, Decision”, “One Dear Mohsen” and then there are attachments with the titles “Genealogy and a brief explanation of the book’s characters”, “Home and family”, “Friends”, “Photos”, and “Documents and letters”.

“Maybe Introduction” is the narration of how the information is collected and written. Faezeh Ghaffar Haddadi writes, “The mother, father, older sister and closest brother of Mohsen (Vazvaee) were not alive. One of his sisters had also lived in the United States since 1978 and I had no access to her… first i had several meetings with three of his brothers… Dr. Abdolreza Vazvaee, more than other brothers… has tried to keep Mohsen's memoirs and collect audio, text and newspapers related to him… my first interview with people related to Mohsen was organized by Hamid Reza Vazvaee, another brother of Mohsen… Brigadier General Badri was 94 and had arranged a meeting with me in the house of his grandchildren. A serviceman with military discipline and a gentleman… the fellow neighbors were found in an Iftari (breaking fast) banquet. I found the friends of the den (of espionage) one by one in the month of Ramadan. First, I went to see Mr. Zahmatkesh and tracked him the lead of the den’s guys and went ahead. He gave me the phone number of Mr. Zabihion. He took his number in front of me and called the whole active people in seizing the den of espionage (US embassy in Tehran), asking them about Mohsen. Everyone who had memoirs from him gave his number… we could find Mr. Nematollahi through Jamshid Bazyar; one of Mohsen’s old friends from the town of Kazeroon, accompanying him in the university and the den … then I put a statement in the group of the den’s old friends. For those who have been left. I found Essalat in this way. He did not live in Iran. He had come to visit family for a few days and I arranged a meeting with him … I also Saw Mrs. Mahboubeh for the first time in the month of Ramadan; Mohsen’s sister who lived abroad, had come to Iran to visit relatives… nobody knew that Mahboubeh had kept every letter sent by her family for years and among the letters there is one written by Mohsen for his sister… Mohsen’s cousin… Vahid Qaderi announced for the first time that he had memories from Mohsen … Khaleqi was one of Mohsen’s closest comrades and his deputy in the operations, but … he was silent for years … meeting with Khaleqi was challenging! … I had gone to visit one of the forces of the Ninth Battalion in the name of Mehdi Zaimirian … a paper in the Iftari ceremony of the Ninth Battalion comrades was changed hands that everyone who had the slightest memory of martyr Mohsen Vazvaee wrote down his number. The follow-ups and interviews with the numbers took several months … interviews with some of the people were very valuable; people like Dr. Ebrahim Shafiee, Mr. Akbar Nojavan and Mr. Rasouli…”

“Maybe Introduction” also covers the emotions of Faezeh Ghaffar Haddadi toward the process of the interviews and the book’s writing. Thus, it is longer than the usual introductions of memory books. She has also explained about how the book has been written, but not to the extent that she has dealt with the interviewers. Both on the basis of the writer’s explanation and the studying of the book’s chapters, it is clear that the whole information about the martyr’s fate including the letters and her sayings and writings about him have been mixed with the information obtained from the interviews and shaped with an integrated and detailed narration from the life of martyr Mohsen Vazvaee in the years between 1979 until his martyrdom in 1982; of course with an emphasis on bringing the same letters most of which written by the martyr and his sayings and some other documented texts which have looked important in the documented narration of the martyr’s life.  

The narration belongs to an important time of the history of Islamic revolution and the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Sacred Defense. The close relation of the book’s main character with the developments of that period had caused the text to be a documentary on life in those days – beyond the documentary of his life; especially it is obvious that the narration provides a true picture of the subject to the extent possible. And it makes a noticeable difference with similar works. This difference is evident in the attachments of the book and the type of presentation. A visual code has been released in the last page of the book “One Dear Mohsen: A documented narration on the life of martyr Mohesn Vazvaee”, suggesting the readers to hear the voice of Mohsen, to watch the videos of his interviews, and to see his colored photos and other ones in the book through scanning.”