Step-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.

The 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.

The 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?

Oral 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.

Oral 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....

Of 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?

A 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.

The 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.