When Writing a Memoir Was a Secret Historiography
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi
2017-10-24
“Writing a Memoir and Its Place in Qajar Era Historiography: recognizing types of memoirs and reviewing evolution of writing a memoir in Qajar era based on influence of the constitutional revolution on this phenomenon and valuing status of this stream in historiography of Qajar era” is full title of a book by Somayeh Abbasi in four chapters and 240 pages. This book was published by Sokhanvaran Publication in 2017.
This work which was come out of the author MA thesis, states in the preface: “Russo-Iranian Wars which opened some progressive Iranians eyes to the new world led first contexts of taking intellectual and material achievements of new European civilization in Iran. Familiarity with modern historiography and its different forms were of new intellectual achievements of the West which was considered from middle of Naseri era. This familiarity with new methods and criticism of ancient Persian tradition of historiography was product of mental transformation and revolution in worldview and Iranian horizon in relation to traditional and rooted beliefs and ideas ruling Iranian intellectual system. Formation of writing memoir and diary- relying on individual and collective “self” (national consciousness) -as a new kind of historiography, secretly and informally, in criticizing conventional way of recording events that was a kind of explicit and ordered historiography should be considered in this direction . In this research, we are going to study formation of such historiography and influential streams on its evolution and to evaluate and determine their place in historiography of Qajar era.
The precise delimitation cannot be used to identify types of memoirs and separate them from other similar species, such as common travelogues and chronicles. Based on a variety of memoirs and biographies that include different categorizations, this area has a wide scope, but because of time constraints and extent of species close to memoir writing, in this research main basis was upon books that were published in title of “memoir” or have been considered frequently by experts of this field as memoir writing.
Regarding that historiography of each dynasty or era should be considered as a continuous process, because of suddenly or accidentally finding of a new document or source, or any new view, and given that many memoirs of Qajar era has been found and published in recent decades, and by acknowledging that most of these memoirs are written by historians of this period, and through studying and analyzing them, one can understand hidden angles of affairs and recognize of character of most of political and social activists of Qajar era, necessity of a comprehensive and extensive study of these sources and this almost untouched area of historiography of Qajar era Web is felt well ...
Considering that main purpose and task was based on text of memoirs related to Qajar era, we used descriptive-analytical method (main method in historical research) for gathering information and analyzing data. In this regard, after identifying memoirs of the period, which consists of 42 works, we placed them in a historical division in two periods before and after Constitutional Revolution, and based on ideas such as themes of class status of memoir writers and their thoughts on various issues we did textual-content analysis.
In order to answer to the concerns, clearly it is necessary to have a general knowledge about memoir and memoir writing and its history in the West and Iran’s history which is addressed in second chapter. In this chapter, which is titled “generalities and principles of memoir writing”, we first define the term memoir in Persian and other common languages, and then we proceeded to define concept of memoir writing and in an elaborate description we try to distinguish memoir from history and historiography, to specify its difference with legend and travelogue, as well as variety of memoir types and their differences. Functions of a variety of memoirs and extent to which these works are valued and authentication of the works, as well as reasons for memoir writing, is another topic in this chapter...
In analyzing and studying Qajar memoirs, in third chapter we did text analysis of memoirs through integration and focuses on two methods of historical analysis in introducing memoirs and precision in class status of memoir writers, in terms of their judgments on various issues, such as categories of individual “I”, woman and family, Shah, political affairs, religious affairs, modern European thoughts and manifestations. This chapter attempts to introduce and explain memories in a chronological division, and main criterion for this division is final year of compilation of a work, and in this fragile division, memoirs that were not clear final year of their compilation, year of starting their compilation, and in the case of lack of it, a period that consisted the most scope of subject is considered. Of course, the last criterion sometimes marked by the fact that beginning or end of compilation of a work is considered as main criterion for periodical division of a memoir due to accumulation of memories in a particular period. This trend is followed by table of the chapter in the same way, and with all its shortcomings in chronological division, it is the best way we could benefit from it.
The final chapter of the research is also titled “place of memoir in historiography of Qajar era”. In the first part of this chapter, because of importance of prose of these memoirs and simplicity that ruled texts of these works, we tried to examine shortly reasons for this simplicity and factors affecting them. Topics such as study of strength of memoirs prose, influence of vocabulary and Western species of literature on prose of these works, as well as study of use of vulgarity and folk speech are other parts of this chapter. Considering difficult and heavy prose of available works in field of traditional and formal historiography, and insistence of authors of these works in pursuing this trend, because of different prose of works in field of secret historiography (memoir writing), which relied on simplification, examination of prose of these works and their reasons as a development in prose (genre) of historiography works is necessity of research in this chapter that we addressed it as much as we could.
In next section, based on indicators such as using documents and correspondence and commands, having critical and historical view, and presenting untapped historical data, we analyzed position of memoirs in historiography of Qajar era relying on class status of memoir writers...
In historical analysis of memoirs it is possible to present data from two qualitative and quantitative approaches, and state that quantitative trend of memories have had a particular movement and overall has had uptrend. 15 memoirs in the pre-constitutional period by 14 memoir writers and 27 memories by 27 memoir writers during the constitutional period to Qajar fall are some of matters to be expressed in this field, but from qualitative point of view, or the same presentation of historical data from a political and social point of view, Its peak should be considered in memoirs of the constitutional era.
In classification of memoirs based on class status of memoir writers, it should also be admitted that the most memoirs are by dominant class that among totally 41 memoir writers, 23 people are belong to this class, of which 12 are in the first period, and from point of view of valuing memoirs based on characteristics of historiography the most scores should be also given to the memoir writers of the dominant class, and the superiority should be considered in terms of memoirs of this class.”
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