A Critical Review of the book “Everlasting Spring”

Written by Gholam-Reza Azizy, retired faculty member & oral history researcher
Translated by Kianoush Borzouei

2026-3-2

■ Everlasting Spring: The Oral History of Maryam Saeedi (Retired Faculty Member, Research Institute for Documents and Archives; Oral History Researcher)
■ Interviewer: Atiyeh Jafari
■ Editors: Atiyeh Jafari & Sheyda Radpanah
■ Language Editor: Kimia Mohammad-khan-zadeh
■ Publisher: Foundation for the Preservation and Publication of the Values of the Sacred Defense; Sacred Defense Documents and Archives Organization; North Khorasan Provincial Office for the Preservation and Publication of the Values of the Sacred Defense; Mabar Publishing
■ First Edition, 2024

The comprehensive military invasion launched by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime against our beloved homeland on the final day of the summer of 1980, and the subsequent eight-year Sacred Defense waged by the Iranian nation in response to this ruthless aggression, rapidly became a fertile source of literary, artistic, political, and historical production. From the earliest days of the war, poets, novelists, playwrights, screenwriters, and scholars alike engaged with this immense event. Following the end of hostilities, the documentation of oral histories also commenced and gradually gained momentum.

One of the defining characteristics of these published oral history interviews, however, has been the predominance of a masculine narrative of war and resistance. While accounts from male combatants—undeniably significant in their own right—constitute a crucial component of historical memory, their dominance has produced two notable deficiencies: the marginalization of women’s roles in the Sacred Defense and the relative neglect of logistical and support activities behind the front lines.^[1]

Providing a comprehensive explanation for why this imbalance has occurred requires a broader scholarly inquiry involving historians and specialists in the field. I do not claim authoritative insight in this matter. Rather, I confine myself to a brief observation concerning the underrepresentation of women’s contributions and perspectives, and approach Everlasting Spring from the standpoint that it constitutes one of the rare oral history interviews of the Sacred Defense that illuminates aspects of women’s engagement in wartime support activities, as well as the postwar attempts of female members of the Basij.

The interviewee, whose deeply rooted religious convictions stem from her familial environment, social background,^[2] and consistent participation in religious rituals and political demonstrations, consolidated these foundations after the victory of the Islamic Revolution through attendance at the Talabeh Hosseiniyeh, engagement in preliminary seminary studies (p. 68), and—most decisively—unwavering allegiance to the leadership of Imam Khomeini. Ultimately, these commitments peaked in her recruitment into the Basij.

Her multifaceted presence as a Basij instructor—providing military training and emergency response education in both Basij bases and schools—alongside her service in wartime logistics headquarters, airport inspection units, and the Atabat Command Center, represents merely a fraction of the extensive and diverse activities undertaken by Iranian women during the Sacred Defense and its aftermath. From this perspective, the narrative is profoundly feminine in essence.

It is feminine not merely because the interviewee, the interviewer, the editors, and the language editor are women, but rather because the very language of the book is imbued throughout with distinctly feminine qualities. Across its various sections, one can discern subtle glimmers of delicate maidenly perspectives (for instance, in the portraits of a daughter’s relationship with her parents and siblings, as well as in reflections on the matter of marriage proposals), tender maternal emotions (such as assuming a motherly role toward her sister’s children and the children of her husband’s second marriage), and the lived realities, concerns, and hardships of women (including both her own struggles and those of other women actively involved in Basij programs and wartime support activities).

The book’s vivid, detailed descriptions—such as the account of the narrator’s first day at school—exemplify this sensibility: “At last, the long-awaited day arrived. My mother woke me early in the morning. With boundless excitement, I rose from bed and prepared myself. I put on my gray school uniform, a pleated skirt with a white collar matched to a white headband, and finally placed my chador upon my head. My mother slipped a sandwich of bread and cheese into my bag, set the Quran on a tray, and asked me to pass beneath it.” (p. 32)

Perhaps the major feature of this feminine lens lies in its holistic portrayal of life itself—interweaving joy and sorrow, hope and despair, illness and loss. The narrator does not shy away from recounting deeply personal medical experiences, including a misdiagnosis of infertility and its profound emotional repercussions. In doing so, the narrative unveils an intimate tapestry of civilian life during the years of imposed war.

The book’s title—Everlasting Spring: The Oral History of Maryam Saeedi—appears less than ideal. By conjoining the genre of oral history directly with a personal name, the title risks privileging individual subjectivity over historical inquiry, thereby veering toward memoir rather than scholarly historiography. Titles such as Everlasting Spring: An Oral History Interview with Maryam Saeedi or In the Trench of the Basij: An Oral History Interview with Maryam Saeedi would arguably offer greater conceptual precision.

According to the bibliographic information, the interview was conducted by Atiyeh Jafari and comprises fifteen hours of recorded dialogue—ten hours of primary interviews and five hours of supplementary sessions—carried out between June 22 and late October 2024 (p. 16). However, the number of sessions, specific dates, and locations remain unspecified.

Several ambiguities also surround the editorial process. While the book cover attributes the editing solely to Atiyeh Jafari, the colophon and CIP data list both Jafari and Sheyda Radpanah as co-editors. The nature of this collaboration remains unclear: whether responsibilities were divided, shared equally, or sequentially assigned.

Furthermore, it remains unclear how this collaboration was realized in practice: Did one of them carry out the primary editing while the other was responsible for review and refinement? Did they work together simultaneously on the entire manuscript? Were the chapters divided between them? Or was the process conducted in some other manner?

From a historical standpoint, at least two statements in the text appear questionable. The expression “end-of-term examinations” (p. 63) is historically inaccurate, as in 1977–78 the semester-based credit system had not yet been implemented within Iran’s educational framework. At that time, examinations were conducted on a trimester basis. Accordingly, the correct formulation in this context should be “third-term examinations” or “final annual examinations.”

Similarly, in the sentence “In 1986–87, despite the war on the southern front, counterrevolutionary forces, Fadaiyan-e Islam, and the Monafeqin caused considerable unrest” (p. 76), the interviewee fails to clarify what is meant by the “unrest” of that year. The editors, too, pass over this statement without providing any explanation or contextual elaboration.

The author recalls no record of disruptive activities carried out by Fadaiyan-e Islam in 1986–87. Might it be that the narrator inadvertently referred to Fadaiyan-e Khalq as Fadaiyan-e Islam, thus conflating the two groups? If so, given that both the Monafeqin and Fadaiyan-e Khalq had effectively left the country before 1983–84, does this statement in fact allude to the events of 1981–82, including the tragedy of June 28, 1981, the declaration of armed struggle by the Monafeqin against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the flight of Abolhassan Banisadr and Massoud Rajavi, and the subsequent emergence of a highly securitized atmosphere within the country?

From an editorial standpoint, considering that the book benefited from the work of two editors in addition to a language editor, one would not expect the text to exhibit numerous orthographic and stylistic errors; regrettably, however, this expectation has not been met. While the inconsistent use of half-spaces—manifesting either as incorrect word concatenation^[3] or unwarranted separation^[4]—may be attributed to layout and typesetting issues, even setting this aside, conspicuous flaws in pagination remain evident. These include the initiation of chapters on even-numbered pages (pp. 74, 76, 116, 118, 136) and the presence of blank odd-numbered pages (pp. 73, 75, 115, 117, 135), both of which contravene standard publishing conventions.

Numerous spelling errors are likewise observable throughout the text, including: siyanat (p. 13), seifijat (p. 22), dors (p. 38, instead of darrus), enshallah (p. 44, instead of in shaAllah), floks (p. 52, instead of Volks^[5]), kart (p. 57, instead of kard), ey ettela (p. 59, instead of bi ettela), mowludi khana (p. 86), parvash (p. 94, instead of parvaresh), tard (p. 109, instead of tard meaning “expelled”), and qati (p. 130).

The book opens, and its first question begins with the phrase “Once again, I thank you” (p. 19), a formulation that leaves the reader perplexed, as it remains unclear whether this expression refers to a previous interview session or to an earlier exchange within the same session. Furthermore, the sentence “… since you were there. I am interested in …”(p. 19) is syntactically incomplete, and the use of a period in place of a comma disrupts its grammatical coherence.

Throughout the text, the  persian letter “y” is consistently employed to represent the Persian ezafe construction, a practice that appears stylistically and orthographically questionable.

From a grammatical perspective, additional slips are evident. In the preface, the subject is inconsistently associated with both singular and plural verb forms, suggesting that the text was originally composed by a single author but subsequently modified to reflect dual authorship, without all corresponding verb forms being corrected: “I intend to speak about a woman in this book … in conclusion, we express our gratitude … we extend our special thanks” (pp. 15–16).

Another recurring issue is the unmotivated omission of verbs. For instance, in the sentence “ Both originally Isfahani and lived in Isfahan” (p. 20), the verb “were” has been omitted without syntactic justification. A similar lapse appears in footnote 4 on the same page: “ She a teacher; but since she had excellent service …”, where the verb “was” is missing.

In the phrase “… he had gone and spoken; but my father said” (p. 59), the correct verbal form should read, “but my father had said.”

The text also reflects the informal tendency to pluralize already plural Arabic broken plurals, resulting in forms such as marasemat (p. 27 ff.), rosumat (p. 44), and kasabeha (p. 66), all of which are linguistically redundant.

In the expression “occasionally to for assistance” (p. 76), the preposition “to” is spare.

Explanatory glosses are both scarce and, in certain cases, inappropriately placed or insufficiently clear. For instance, “Razpour” is first mentioned on page 87, yet its explanatory note appears only upon its second occurrence on page 88. Moreover, in the sentence “Haj Agha Mousavi was the eulogist of the Bojnurd neighborhood” (p. 28, footnote 2), it remains unclear whether this refers to a district named Bojnurd within the city of Bojnurd. Likewise, terms such as Farsonka lamp (p. 23), Katune Katune (p. 22), and the names of traditional childhood games such as Tutuleh and Taris(p. 26) would have benefited from brief clarifications.

One unresolved ambiguity concerns the martyrdom of the interviewee’s brother at the hands of SAVAK agents. The narrative does not explain why this case was not pursued after the Islamic Revolution, even following her employment by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially given the subsequent availability of SAVAK archival records through the efforts of the Center for the Study of Historical Documents.

In the book’s concluding passage, the final manifestation of the feminine perspective and tone remains vividly present. The narrative ends with heartfelt wishes for the happiness and spiritual well-being of Arman, Ainaz, and Mahmoud’s children, accompanied by the hope that they may never, even for a moment, lose remembrance of God. This aspiration for the joy of future generations ultimately heralds renewal, continuity, transformation, and the arrival of ever-new springs yet to come.