Book Review:

Proceedings of the Second National Conference on the Oral History of Sacred Defense

Zahra Ghasemi
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2020-8-25

The Proceedings of the Second National Conference on the Oral History of Sacred Defense is the title of the book that includes the papers presented for this conference.

The call for the National Conference on the Oral History of the Sacred Defense was published in August 2016, and the conference was held at the National Library in March of the same year. The main issues of the conference include:" Theoretical foundations and background of the oral history of Sacred Defense, necessities and opportunities, policy-making and role of the military and national organizations in the oral history of Sacred Defense, pathology and barriers to the oral history of Sacred Defense and other issues related to the oral history of Sacred Defense."

Among the submitted papers, 4 papers were presented inside the conference and 15 papers were presented as workshops in three sections. Forty-eight papers, with scientific and research rankings, have been published in this book. There is no specific way of writing papers and each paper is written in the personal style of each author. Few papers are irrelevant to oral history and relate only to the subject of Sacred Defense.

Based on titles, the papers are categorized into seven chapters:

The first chapter, entitled "Interviews in the Oral History of the Sacred Defense", contains 4 papers. The papers in this chapter address issues related to the interview section in oral history, proving the necessity of interviewing with the warlords, the progress of war towards the establishment of sacred ideals and ideas with the phenomenology of elevating morality, strategic strategies, logistical power and ideological attitude in the war based on interviews, paying attention to differences and sharing memoirs with oral history and important details for interviewing questions are some of the results obtained in the papers in this chapter.

The papers in this chapter include: "The Necessity of Interviewing with Warlords in Responding to the Doubts of Later Generations", "Phenomenological Analysis of the Content of Interviews in the Oral History of War", "The Interviewer's Challenge in the Oral History of Sacred Defense: Do not Respect the Boundary Between Oral History and Memory" and "Ways to Get to the Details of Oral History Interviews on the Subject of Sacred Defense."

In the second chapter, entitled "Methodological Frameworks of Oral History of Sacred Defense", papers are presented that express the method of conducting various aspects of historical research in oral history.

Some issues are discussed in the papers of chapter two such as the necessity of the oral history researcher's familiarity with social research methods and skills, examining the framework of the oral history project of Sacred Defense commanders and using documents to complete memoirs, common boundaries of memories and oral history and the necessity of teaching the basic principles of interview in oral history and writing it to the researcher, explain the criteria for criticizing the works of the oral history of the Sacred Defense, the principles and rules of compiling the oral history of the Sacred Defense, proving the superiority of software output for oral history projects over the written output, turning memory into a cultural commodity and its industrialization, comparing two person-centered and subject-oriented approaches in oral history, introducing the method and style of contemporary historiography and oral history to record Sacred Defense events scientifically, the need to equip the oral history researcher with quantitative and qualitative methods of social research and its skills and the method of compiling oral history.

These papers include: "An Introduction to Methodology in the Oral History of Sacred Defense", "Methodological Frameworks of Oral History Projects of War at the Sacred Defense Documentation and Research Center", "Oral History and Its Interaction with Writing Memoir", "Criteria for Critique and Analysis of Oral History of Sacred Defense", "Principles and Rules of Research in Oral History", "How to Present Oral History", "Typology of Memory Discourses in Iran", "Comparison of common approaches in the oral history of Sacred Defense", "Contemporary Historiography and Oral History", "Introduction to methodology in the Oral History of Sacred Defense "and" Criteria for Compilation in the Oral History of Sacred Defense."

The papers in the third chapter, include: "The Role of Art and Media in the Oral History of Sacred Defense," examine "The Role of Non-Professional War Photographs in Oral History and How to Use Them", "The Role of Children’s Illustration Art as Significant Media in the Oral History of the Sacred Defense"," The Role of Art and Media in the Oral History of the Sacred Defense", "The Role of the Art of Photography in the Compilation of Oral History in the Field of Self-Sacrifice and Martyrdom" and "The Role of Women Artists in the Oral History of the Sacred Defense."

The title of chapter four include: "The Role of Women in the Oral History of Sacred Defense." some issues are examined based on three memoirs in the papers of this chapter such as explaining the role of women in the Sacred Defense using the method of oral history, expressing the position and role of women of Birjand’ Narjes school in the Sacred Defense in the form of oral history, the need to show the role of women in the Sacred Defense in the form of oral history, war and women's reproductive health In the city of Sarablah, The role and position of women in the Sacred Defense.

The titles of this chapter include: "Oral History of Women in Sacred Defense", "Oral History of Women of Narjes School in Birjand during the Sacred Defense", "Oral History of Sacred Defense with the Approach of the Role of Women in Promoting the History of Sacred Defense", "War and Women's Reproductive Health in Sarablah" and " A Study of the Role of Women in Sacred Defense Based on the Three Memoirs Entitled I am Alive, the Girls of OPD, and The Closed-Door Period."

Papers in chapter five are related to "Critique of the Oral History Books of the Sacred Defense."

the subject of the papers in this chapter include: "Examining the theme and intellectual level of the captives’ memoirs based on 5 books of Captivity Memoirs, the position of narration in the book "Line Breaker of Dessert" and examining its content, critical reading, and evaluation of researches done on the book "Da" and proving their ineffectiveness."

The papers in this chapter include: "A Study and Analysis of the Oral History of the Sacred Defense Era", "A Study and Analysis of the memory book Line breaker of Dessert "and "A Meta-Analysis of Previous Research on the book Da."

Chapter six is devoted to the "Pathology of the Oral History of Sacred Defense."

Subject of this chapter include: Identifying the damage of the oral history of the Sacred Defense and provide solutions to improve its situation, identifying the insight damage of the oral history of the Sacred Defense, identifying the factors affecting the oral history and provide solutions to improve the extraction of historical information in the oral history. Pathology of the Oral History of Sacred Defense Based on the books published in Gilan province and providing a solution to eliminating these injuries, the pathology of the oral history projects of the Sacred Defense, investigating the effect of policies implemented in publishing and articulating the oral history of Sacred Defense in ensuring the national security of the country, examining the boundaries of oral history and its memoirs and pathology, using the power of graduates of related fields to record the history of Sacred Defense with the method of oral history, the need for policy-making in the field of Sacred Defense productions.

the titles of the papers in chapter six include:" The necessity of recognizing and eliminating the harmful pests of the oral history of the Sacred Defense", "Insight Pathology of the Oral History of the Sacred Defense", "Analysis and Study of the Challenges and Damages of the Oral History of the Sacred Defense", "Challenges of oral memories based on war documents", "The pathology of oral history and its solutions with an emphasis on Sacred Defense", "Pathology of policy-making in Articulating the Oral History of Sacred Defense", "Pathology of oral History of Sacred Defense in the Field of Memory Boundaries", "Pathology of Oral History of Sacred Defense Based on the Narrative Structure of Memory"," Pathology and Practical Solutions in Accelerating the Documentation of the Oral History of Sacred Defense" and "Pathology of Research and Oral History in the Field of Sacred Defense".

The other papers, which have not been included in the classification, are presented in chapter seven, entitled "Other Tittles".

The subject of papers in chapter seven include: "Using cyberspace to express the history of Sacred Defense, strategies for more effective use of oral history in documenting the history of war, the role of the oral history of Sacred Defense in the educational system, the importance of oral history in the field of Sacred Defense, expressing normative characteristics of media ethics in preserving and promoting the oral history of Sacred Defense, strategies for cultural promotion and identification using warriors' memoirs, application of local documents in compiling the oral history of the Sacred Defense, recognition and correct understanding of Imam Khomeini's defense thought, speech and action and Its use, research report, The need to record the lives of veterans and retirees of the Sacred Defense era in the form of oral history."

The titles of the papers in this chapter include: "Oral History of Sacred Defense and Cyberspace", "Description, Explanation, and Understanding in the Oral History of War", "Methods of Cultivating Oral History of Sacred Defense in the Educational system", "Necessity to Pay Attention to Oral History of Sacred Defense by Looking at Centers Active in this field ", "The Ethical Position of the Media in Media Policies to Preserve and Promote the Oral History of the Sacred Defense", "Rereading the Oral History of the Sacred Defense, a Soft Power from the Language of Cultural Warriors", "The Role of Local Documents in Compiling the Oral History of the Sacred Defense", "The Oral History of the Sacred Defense Lessons Learned in Imam Khomeini's Thought, Speech and Defense Performance", "Seventy Days of the Tinab Front, Collective Narrative Engineering in the Basic Narrative of Oral History", "Sacred Defense Retirees".

At the end of the book, pictures of the scientific meeting related to the committee of conference and the holding of the conference are included.

The collection of papers of the Second National Conference on the Oral History of the Sacred Defense, with a volume of 702 pages, was published by the Foundation for the Preservation of Relics and Publication of the Values of the Sacred Defense in collaboration with the Printing and Publishing Institute of Imam Hussein University.