Report on the unveiling of the book Kaman

When a Magazine Becomes a Document of Oral History

Compiled by Iranian Oral History Website
Translated by Fazel Shirzad

2026-3-3

The unveiling ceremony for the book Kaman was held on Wednesday, 18 February 2026, at the Cafe-Book of the Arts Center. The event was attended by Hedayatollah Behboudi, historian; Mahboubeh Azizi, compiler of the book’s notes; Kourosh Parsanejad, designer of Kaman magazine; and several other contributors to the publication.

The book Kaman, subtitled “The Daily Notes of Hedayatollah Behboudi, Managing Director of Kaman: From the Magazine’s Birth to Its Closure,” written by Hedayatollah Behboudi and compiled by Mahboubeh Azizi, was published in 2026 by Sooreh Mehr Publications. The book is issued in octavo format with a print run of 1,000 copies. These are daily notes (candid, direct, and free of promotional tone) recording anxieties, shortages, hopes, and the looming danger of repetition. The entries begin on 2 May 1996, the final issue’s closure is recorded on 9 August 2005, and the last diary entry is dated 26 September 2005. If Kaman was a magazine in the 1990s and 2000s, today (through these notes) it has become a primary source in the oral history of Iran’s war journalism.

A Wish Deferred for Years

Expressing sorrow over the early passing of one of Kaman’s key pillars, Behboudi said he did not know what words could convey the absence of Ahmad Goudarzian, who had been one of the magazine’s main supports. He noted that Goudarzian’s young daughter was present at the ceremony and expressed hope that his wife would also attend. He reflected on whether anyone had ever asked Goudarzian what came of all the effort he devoted to Kaman. Although he worked with love and dedication, life’s practical demands were unavoidable. Behboudi prayed for him and recalled that they had worked side by side for roughly 20 to 25 years (at the magazine, and before that at Iran newspaper and at the Office of Islamic Literature).

He then spoke about the beginnings of Kaman in 1996. In the 1980s, a cultural supplement titled Sahifeh was published in the newspaper Jomhouri-ye Eslami, with contributors such as Seyyed Mehdi Shojaei, Morteza Sarhangi, and Qeysar Aminpour. After Sahifeh ceased publication, the team moved to the Hozeh Honari, where they initially launched a quarterly titled Ketab-e Moghavemat (Book of Resistance), which ran for four or five issues. The aspiration to establish an independent magazine remained alive. Finally, after leaving Iran newspaper, they secured the license for Kaman in 1996. For about eight years they lived with the magazine and carried the work forward. Publication gaps were partly due to the need to secure a livelihood and to update their knowledge and sources in order to avoid repetition. Over time, however, they gradually lost the opportunity to strengthen their intellectual and scholarly foundation, and he felt the threat of repetition was endangering Kaman.

In the book’s introduction, Behboudi writes that the biweekly Kaman consumed eight years of his most industrious youth. If he were to weigh the joys and hardships of that period, the scale would tilt toward distress and hurt. Yet during that complicated time he encountered people he would not otherwise have met, and passing through the storm of Kaman was worth it for the sake of those relationships.

Discovering the Backstage

Mrs. Mahboubeh Azizi said that reading the diaries changed her understanding of how Kaman had taken shape. As a long-time reader, she had never imagined that behind its professional coherence lay such fluctuations and challenges. In her view, Kaman was distinguished by three features: a fresh language in war literature, innovation in design and graphics, and serious respect for its audience. This last characteristic is particularly evident in the diaries, where problems and even doubts are openly recorded rather than concealed.

Azizi explains that after years of collaboration with Morteza Sarhangi, she decided to create a comprehensive information archive for him. In 2021, to complete this archive, she approached his longtime friend Hedayatollah Behboudi to see whether he had documents or photographs that could be added. He entrusted her with a number of photographs along with his daily diaries so she could extract material related to Sarhangi. As she read through the notes, written daily from 1993 to 2009, she found many observations about the years of Kaman’s publication. It occurred to her that publishing the notes related to Kaman in book form could significantly contribute to the history of resistance literature journalism. What the reader now encounters, she writes, are the days that passed with Kaman.

Navy Blues of Childhood and the Form of War

Kourosh Parsanejad, the magazine’s designer, spoke about the roots of his visual sensibility, recalling the navy-blue covers of books by Sadegh Hedayat that he had seen in childhood. Olive tones and brick-leaning reds later became the magazine’s consistent palette. Although Kaman was printed in only two colors, its visual language was sharp and fractured, marked by pointed angles, broken lines, and forms inspired by military uniforms. War was present in the design itself rather than in overt slogans.

Mohammad Karimi referred to a lesser-discussed aspect of Kaman: its engagement with global war literature, visits to war museums, and reflection on the experiences of other countries. In this sense, Kaman was not merely a domestic publication but an effort to compare and situate the Iranian war experience within a broader international framework.

Nosratollah Samadzadeh described Kaman as a “buried treasure” of the war field, suggesting that some works reveal their value over time and become more authoritative as the years pass. He also noted that Ahmad Goudarzian compiled systematic indexes every 25 issues, giving the magazine a library-like order.

On the morning of the ceremony, someone dialed Kaman’s old telephone number. On the other end of the line was a pizza shop. A number that once connected readers to the editorial office of a cultural magazine was now taking food orders.

The book Kaman ultimately records an experience—one that shows how behind every cultural product lies a network of friendship, voluntary effort, economic anxiety, professional meticulousness, and the desire for continuity. If oral history seeks to illuminate what happens behind the scenes, this book stands as a clear example of such an endeavor.