vThe Beaver Night & Beside the Oven

What a lot of mediocre soldiers and militants whom have turned into national heroes by the dexterity of the poets, minstrels, artists, and historians. What a lot of wonderful heroes who are buried under the dust of history, because they have not found any way to the mysterious world of artists and writers. Religiously speaking, poets and historians do not write the esteem and reverence of the God's devotees.

vCommunicative Archives, Documentary Researches

Written, documentary and oral history are three methods of historiography that each one has its own special purpose, credit, and usage; but in our country, documentary and oral historiography under the impression of a phenomenon called Islamic Revolution have created new waves in the study and compilation of history. Collection, record, and publication of documents obtained from pre-revolution police, security and political organizations and the US embassy have helped researchers in their documentary researches and completion of this kind of researches.

vHuman Being and His Memoirs

Although oral history is a relatively new approach in historiography, its background goes back even to the pre-civilization age and the invention of writing and many nations would obtain their historical identity by oral quotation of events. Also the first sources of the great historians such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Plutarch have been these very oral narrations of witnesses of events.

vSixteenth International Oral History Conference: Testing our Points of View

As the time for the Prague 2010 conference fast approaches, we can feel and share the excitement and anticipation from all different corners of the world where oral history is present. We congratulate the organizers for the extraordinary response and interest generated by the conference, particularly during this time of trying global economic conditions.

vAnatomy of Oral History

For centuries, the historical information was exclusively communicated orally. With the advent of writing, however, people came to rely almost entirely on written documents for information about the past, but the approach of oral communication was almost lost. The advent of sound recording technology has once more enabled students of the past to collect and use information communicated by speech.

vStep-by-Step Guide to Oral History

We all have stories to tell, stories we have lived from the inside out. We give our experiences an order. We organize the memories of our lives into stories.

Oral history listens to these stories. Oral history is the systematic collection of living people�s testimony about their own experiences. Historians have finally recognized that the everyday memories of everyday people, not just the rich and famous, have historical importance. If we do not collect and preserve those memories, those stories, then one day they will disappear forever.

vWar Atmosphere, Being Unbelievable for the Next Generation

The anti-revolutionary movements in Kurdistan had been started in 1358 (1980) and the Revolutionary Guards and Army forces had been deployed there. He was sent there as a voluntary force (basiji) in 1358 (1980). He was among the selected people in shooting, but due to His small body, He started working in logistic sections and this made him malcontent. But He made his way in another area which was gathering war oral history from combatants' memoirs. this is an interview with one of oral history protagonists.

vThe oppression even Shaddad (an ancient tyrant of Arabia) did not commit

Talking about the sacred defence period, you can not understand the greatness and glory of those days unless you listen to that period's men. The war disabled and former POW, Mohammad Mohammadi is one of the historical memories of the imposed war. He was injured seriously when captured by the enemy in the first months of the war and during the third stage of Beit-ol-moqaddas Operation. He patiently spent hard days of captivity with the late Aboutorabi, and then in 1365 (1986), due to his physical disability, returned to the country by the help of International Red Cross.The following is our interview with this souvenir of war period:

vOf Us and the War

Everything has a truth and the possibility of its manifestation or concealment depends on the relationship that the human being makes with it. History is not an exception and its essence manifestation is bonded to our style of viewpoint and confrontation with it. Now how this viewpoint is and how it should be? How can we find the truth and possibility of war manifestation?

vA Manifestation of Spiritual Power

The memoirs of The Supreme Leader of I. R. Iran are repeated description of epic, bravery, patience and resistance of the zealous men of the sacred war and the fight scenes.
The 8 years of sacred defense is full of memoirs and there are still many eager hearts waiting to hear the told and untold stories of that epic and sacrifice era. Although the renewed description of bravery, resistance and outstrip in bravery scenes is a repetition, but the re-description of the epics do not bother the minds of the addressees.
The following part is a section of The Supreme Leader of I. R. Iran�s memoirs, as the highest executive official of the country in the period of the sacred defence.

vThe Invisible Deep Rivers

The oral literature of each period or day is like the flowing waters in the deep land, the flowing rivers that sometimes remained no name or address on the great soil of a land. No doubt, the oral literature of the sacred defense period emerged five months after the all-out invasion of Saddam's army (backed by all the world's militarists of that time). The beautiful and ancient city of Qasr-e Shirin was pounded five months before the aggression of Saddam's army against the Iranian soil.

vAbstinence of Sloganeering

Akbar Sahraee has gained the fluency in his writing and style from many ups and downs of his life, his youth and adolescence, and interest in football, studying and classic stories. After the order of Imam Khomeini considering the Kurdistan disturbances he left the camp of football to the camp of war and joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. He witnessed the martyrdom of Dr. Chamran in Dehlavieh region. Here is an interview with him:

vI Hope That Reaching Day

Just professionals understand the importance of his work. He is behind the scene. Different examples are brought for his works. Someone has been tired of life and the other one has no insurance for curing his or her eyes. Mr. Oqabi is one of the editors of the Artistic Section. He was 31 when entered the atmosphere of war.

vMy job is not writing narratives


Mrs. Maryam Shanaki is one of oral history pioneers in Iran-Iraq eight-year War. She went to Abadan in 1981-82 with her tape recorder and began recording oral memoirs of the girls who had remained in Abadan. This work was the initial step of women oral history compilation in eight-year Holy Defense.

v2010 IOHA PRAGUE, XVI International Oral History Conference Between Past and Future


Welcome
International Oral History Association and the Czech Oral History Association we invite you to participate in the Sixteenth International Oral History Conference, �Between Past and Future: Oral History, Memory and Meaning� that will be held in Prague, Czech Republic from 7 to 11 July 2010.

vOral History and Oral Writing in Historical Texts (Relying on Tarikh-e Beyhaghi)


"The past accounts are categorized into two parts and there is no third one; they should be heard from someone or read from a book." Beyhaghi

vSecond Iranian Oral History Conference Call


Documents Research Center of National Library & Archives of I.R. Iran will hold the Second Iranian Oral History Conference on the 30th anniversary of Holy Defense (Iran-Iraq 1980-88 War),

vIOHA 2010 Prague - latest news II (January 2010)


Dear Colleagues,

we would like to inform you that our conference website
(www.ioha2010prague.cz) is already updated and there are available new
relevant information:

vclose past


. A historian who knows that the memoir may not be pure, he or she should consider motivations, status, real position and the personal specifications of the interviewee, and at the same time as much as possible and necessary, force the interviewee to speak and lead him or her in his preplanned path. In other words, the interviewer should control the interview, and it is with this control that oral history is differentiated from memoir-writing.

vThe Concept and Nature of Interview in Oral History


The main topic of the article is to review the "concept of interview" in the new-born type of historicism known as "Oral History".
The nature of interview as "oral connection" is determined on the basis of its goals and relations with the generality of the text's structure.
Interview in oral history is generally used as "heuristic instrument". However, we in this article have tried to consider "interview as dialogue" in the oral historicism and the generality of the interviews as historic narration (empirical narration).
Therefore, in the first place, oral history must be as proof of history and then a source and a basis of information (Oral Resources) for historicism.

vThe Most Democratic Method of Historicism


If we pay attention to the propaganda of the public media in Iran and some journals and books published by state and even non-state institutions, we found that these institutions and cultural and publication centers look at the war with a kind of Gnostic-divine approach and tendency and show somehow as if the war is basically a good and holy phenomenon. Even some regard the "Sacred Defense" term as a kind of defense and even the sanctification of war and violence. Is this really correct? Is war really sacred and good?

vOral History and Memoirs


Having become scientific and methodological, oral history has created a field which contributes to other fields of the humanities or benefits from them. It has been based on drawing up remembrances, their analysis and preparation. Memoirs are not only a source for oral history but also one for literature and art. This short article aims to provide the reader with the definition of memoirs-recording and the related terms.

vOral History Writing Know-how


He gathered his initial memoirs from war in Mordad 1367 (August 1988) in Dokooheh Garrison. This was the beginning of a job that was finally led to the writing of the book "Dasteh-1"(Squad-1). We have conducted an interview with a busy author of the books related to eight years of the Sacred Defense about the methods of writing down war's oral history....

vNarrator and Narration


After a long delay, the 22th issue (autumn 2007) of "Negine Iran", a quarterly about Iran � Iraq war, was published under the title of narrator and narration