Book Review:

We also fought

Compiled by: Zahra Ghasemi
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2023-2-14

Memoirs of Holy Defense is one of the topics that has been discussed a lot in the field of publishing. One of the custodians of this work is the Cultural Front of the Islamic Revolution, which has tried to collect these memories orally under the title of oral history. The book "We also fought" is the fifth book in the series "Supporting the War" and the twelfth book in the series "Women of the Revolution" published by Rahyar, affiliated to the Cultural Front of the Islamic Revolution. The narratives of this book are related to the activities of Mallard women in supporting the war fronts.

Mohammad Mehdi Rahimi, whose familiarity with several active women of Mallard seems to have encouraged him to collect their memories, is the author of the book. The number of interviewees is not known, but the narratives of 13 women have been published in 66 episodes. Apparently, the number of interviewees was more than this, and the author of the book, Narjes Tavakoli Leshkajani, selected narratives that had a story line and compiled them with historical categories. The time of the interviews is not known, but the text of the interviews was provided to the author for the first time in 2017, but he did not manage to compile them due to the dispersion at that time. Again, in 2021, the author started editing and compiled the present book from 1000 pages of text.

The subject of the narratives in the book is about the activities of the women of Mallard city during the war. These women (Jamila Nakini, Khadija Eskandari, Rababe Ershadi, Roqia Chiraghi, Setara Taheri, Shamsi Kandari, Golchin Hosseinabadi, Masoumeh Rasouli, Masoumeh Shorbai, Molouk Ataalahi, Munir Zahidpanah, Mehri Heydari Majed and Mohin Khamisabadi) spend a lot of time preparing food that Most of them were baking bread, they spent time together. Shamsi Kandari has been the liaison between women and construction jihad and managed the activities. Their house has also been the center of doing things.

The book has a publisher's foreword, an author's introduction and a historical introduction. In the introduction, the author has specified the method of work and its time. The historical introduction is also a review of Mallard's cultural and social history.

The women's narrative is divided into 4 chapters; The first chapter, titled before the revolution, is more about their memories of their activities in the pre-revolution era. 7 narrations are included in this chapter.

The second chapter, entitled Revolution and the beginning of war, contains 10 narratives of women about revolutionary activities and the beginning of war.

The third chapter titled "The Beginning of Jihad" has 39 narrations, which is the largest part of the book. The mood of women in doing work, side activities, the way of doing things, etc. are among the topics that the narrators have addressed.

The fourth chapter, entitled the poem of the resolution and the end of the war, with 9 narratives, deals more with the end of the support work and activities of women after the war.

The text of most of the narrations is one or two pages long; Short narratives that, despite not being continuous, have dealt with one issue and have been able to present a good picture of the atmosphere of women in supporting the war in those days.

At the end of the women's narratives, the last part of the book titled "Photographs" is dedicated to the introduction of the narrators along with their pictures. Some of the pictures are dedicated to the days of war and women's activities, which are new in their place.

The book "We also fought" was published in 216 pages by Rahyar Publications in 2023 and was unveiled in a ceremony in Alborz province in June 2023.