Abundant but Immature Memoirs; A Theoretical and Critical Void in Sacred Defense Literature
According to the correspondent of Iran Book News Agency (IBNA), the book “A Textbook on Memoir and Memoir Writing with an Approach to the Imposed War of Iraq against Iran,” authored by Mohsen Shahrezaei, has been published by Imam Hussein University.
In the book’s preface, the author considers memoir the most important part of Sacred Defense writings, from which “story,” “poetry,” and “play” have taken shape: “Memoir takes contemporary man to yesterday’s events and informs him about some historical occurrences. This important literary genre can narrate how an event came into being from the storyteller’s perspective and leave a profound impact on the listener or reader.”
Shahrezaei writes about the history of memoir writing in Iran: “‘Memoir writing’ and ‘memoir-recording’ in today’s modern style, unlike epic poetry in Iran, do not have ancient roots, and their formation is attributed to the Qajar era. The Qajar and then Pahlavi eras were often intertwined with courtly memoir writing. However, with the onset of the Islamic Revolution and especially the occurrence of the imposed war by Iraq’s Ba’ath Party against Iran, ‘memoir-telling and memoir writing gained popular currency.'”
The Most Important Part in the Field of Sacred Defense Writings
However, the main point in this book is about memoir writing concerning the Iran-Iraq War, and the author has focused on examining memoirs from this period: “Memoir can be considered the most important part of Sacred Defense writings. Therefore, it is essential to conduct precise scientific studies on it, and in addition to a scientific and historical perspective, attention should also be paid to the lived experience of memoirs during and after the Sacred Defense. In this chapter, we discuss ‘memoir’ and then explain some of its characteristics and differences from other genres.”
“Memoir and Memoir Writing: Scientific Foundations and Historical Background,” “Memoir Writing and the Imposed War of Iraq against Iran,” “Memoir Writing and the Production of Memoir Books,” “Characteristics of War Memoir Books in Different Periods,” and “Examples of War Memoir Writing Based on Standard Books” are the titles of the book’s chapters.
According to the author, there are ambiguities regarding the first memoirs published, and no precise information is available. As stated in this regard: “No one knows who the first combatant interviewed was, or what the first memoir by a combatant published in an official newspaper or read on state radio and television was, or to whom it belonged. Furthermore, the first book published about the war with the subject of memoir is also a matter of dispute. Nevertheless, one can discuss a number of memoir books compiled and published by various individuals in the early days of the war. Familiarity with these works, in terms of introducing their authors and expressing their thoughts and mental perceptions, can be very important.”
The Issue of Moving Away from the War’s Practice
First-generation war books are often based on emotion with mention of crises, events, and sometimes accompanied by sloganeering and emotional literature, and many are concise in style but rich and profound. This trend continued more or less until the late 1990s. Books like “Life Was Good” and “Beside the Kheyn River,” authored by Hassan Rahimpour and Ashrafsadat Mosavat (mother of martyr Mehrdad Sistani) respectively, are narrated as single memoirs or a slice of time with a single theme. The narrator addresses a topic worth telling. The main theme of these books is how humans confront war. The book “Epic of Borhani Hill,” which narrates two days of siege of combatants on a western hill of the same name and was written by Hamidreza Taleghani, is another such book that received attention for its unique subject. Most books of this kind come with a value-oriented perspective and engage the reader’s heart and soul. In general, it can be said that war memoir books until the late 1990s depended on the chosen topic and subject in terms of their existence and integrity, and their prose benefited from a kind of influential intimacy. However, from the end of the 1990s, as the issue of moving away from the war’s practices gradually occurred, the subjects also transformed, and another path began in this regard, with memoir books shifting towards autobiographical biographies.
Critique of Sacred Defense Memoir Writing
Memoir writing has a long history in literature, growing quantitatively with the Sacred Defense but not qualitatively. Among the most important reasons for the weakness of immature and sometimes burnt-out works of the Sacred Defense are: the lack of necessary literary mastery in many creators of these works, the propaganda atmosphere remaining from the war era, the emergence of numerous sub-genres in this literary form without scientific and theoretical backing and merely based on taste, and the failure of criticism to form and develop. The void of theoretical and scientific discussions is significant, and this has led to the absence of suitable and practical criteria for these works, consequently leaving the field of criticism empty and allowing numerous sub-genres to emerge based on unscientific and diverse tastes. Memoir writing has a long history in our literature, but those who write in this field lack this background. Many problems in this area stem from weak interviews. An interview can be rewritten many times, but there is no longer an opportunity to compensate for a poorly conducted interview.
Apparently, the main problems begin when writers, either due to their mastery of the work method or with the imagination of any innovation, resort to innovations that, instead of optimizing the content and text, have distanced the original genre from its structure and led to further disarray in the forms and contents produced in the field of Sacred Defense.
The book “A Textbook on Memoir and Memoir Writing with an Approach to the Imposed War of Iraq against Iran,” authored by Mohsen Shahrezaei, has been published by Imam Hussein University in 118 pages for 120,000 Tomans.
