Experts answer to oral history questions

100 Questions/21

Translated by Mandana Karimi

2026-3-16

We asked several researchers and activists in the field of oral history to express their views on oral history questions. The names of each participant are listed at the beginning of their answers, and the text of all answers will be published on this portal by the end of the week. The goal of this project is to open new doors to an issue and promote scientific discussions in the field of oral history.

In this project, a question is asked every Saturday, and we ask experts to present their views in the form of a short text (about 100 words) by the end of the week. All answers will be published together so that the audience can compare and analyze the views.

The content is the opinions of the senders and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Oral History website. Although the answers are supposed to be based on about 100 words, in order to be polite and not to leave the discussion incomplete, in some cases, answers longer than that are also accepted.

The experts are asked to submit their answers by Sunday night so that all answers can be published on Tuesday.

Question 21

Is oral history only the history of the oppressed and the forgotten class?

Hassan Beheshtipour

Official and classical history is often written by agents of rulers, but oral history benefits from the prominent feature that most of its narrators are ordinary people. They are consulted by interviewers and oral history compilers because of their role in a historical period. These narrators do not belong to a specific class or social group and include all those who have something to say but do not have a media or platform to convey their message. Therefore, if they can be called deprived, it is in terms of the possibility of freely and widely disseminating their message; otherwise, they are the owners of ideas, thoughts, and pure historical narratives.

Gholamreza Azari Khakestar

Oral history cannot be considered exclusively around one group. In fact, through oral history, the history of different social classes, especially those classes that do not have a role in history, can also be recorded. Since the creation of oral history, several perspectives have been considered. First, recording political history from

the viewpoint of the leaders of movements and revolutions. Second, recording the memories of soldiers and classes present in wars, and also addressing the gray layers and deprived classes forgotten in history through oral history. In other words, the slogan of oral history also emerged as a way to democratize history by a generation of oral historians who somewhat addressed the social history of societies. It seems that deprived and forgotten classes have not played much of a role in historical equations and are often considered by oral history researchers as witnesses or narrators.

Mohammad Mehdi Abdollahzadeh

Every historical work is an invention, usually a difficult and laborious invention requiring thought and planning, behind all these choices, the values of the historian play a fundamental role.

The historian's duty is to describe and recount important events that have happened, not to create narratives with a specific intention. When a historian narrates with a particular intention, they effectively misuse history and lose valuable opportunities in narration. It is true that the values of each historian affect their narrative in some way, but they must be careful to minimize this.

Oral history has created new windows for historians to also approach deprived and forgotten classes, just as depending on the subject, they can approach privileged classes.

Shafigheh Niknafs

Oral history research covers a wide range of topics. Depending on the subject and research question, a specific range of interviewees is selected. For example, this research can be about an event, movement, local history, ethnic history, lost businesses and industries, social groups such as women, workers, and immigrants, important governmental and administrative activities, military defense, education, biographies of individuals, daily life information, family history, natural disasters, social changes, and issues of this kind. Therefore, the social class position of individuals alone cannot be decisive.

Gholamreza Azizi

No! Oral history does not only concern the history of the oppressed and forgotten classes. Let us remember that the focus on oral history in the modern era began with Allen Nevins' project titled "Important People in American History." Years later, Marxist historians, subalterns, religious and ethnic minorities, and others (for various reasons) embraced this method for writing contemporary history.

Even Iran's oral history projects concerning the Pahlavi era and the Islamic Revolution (inside and outside the country) began with interviews of officials, influential people, and elites; but gradually, especially with the start of the Sacred Defense projects, ordinary people also gained attention.

Seyed Mohammad Sadegh Feyz

No! Oral history is not necessarily limited or partial; rather, it is cross-class; but since to answer historical questions—on any subject—it inevitably turns to unknown individuals or, as you say, the oppressed and forgotten classes who are actually involved in that subject, it shows more affinity to this group of people. Perhaps the appeal of this type of history lies precisely in this point: that the voiceless in oral history will have their voices heard by history. In other words, the role of these groups can be more prominent than other classes.

Abolfazl Hasanabadi

Reviewing the history of the formation and expansion of oral history shows that initially it was used to record the political memories of elites, and from the 1980s, simultaneously with the emergence of social movements such as feminism, workers, and marginalized groups, it has been significantly effective in recording their memories. This aspect has been so prominent in the function of oral history that many have considered its main goal to be democratizing history and involving various social groups in constructing part of their own history. Overall, examining the function of oral history today shows that a wide range of different groups use it as an effective tool for documenting and recording memories on various topics, and it is not exclusive to any specific subject area.

Hamid Ghazvini 

Oral history does not have class characteristics. Rather, it is a possibility available to all classes and social groups so that they can use it to record history and express their memories and observations of it. The fact that it has sometimes been said that oral history leads to the hearing and seeing of the narrative of the forgotten or silent classes of society does not mean that it is exclusive to that class; rather, it means that if in the past the owners of power engaged in writing and publishing history, today, thanks to oral history, other social groups without political and economic power can also enter this field. 

Abolfat'h Mo'men 

History reflects the course of developments in a society in various dimensions. In the past, more attention was paid to political, military, and to some extent economic history; but with the formation of the Annales School and its emphasis on social, cultural history and an interdisciplinary approach, history was freed from the monopoly of political issues and ruling classes. Oral history, as one of the methods of collecting historical data, is also influenced by this transformation. This method can both be the voice of deprived and forgotten classes and reflect managerial experiences, the role of elites, and social activists. Thus, oral history, while paying attention to the underprivileged, has led historians to record close history and diverse narratives of events and has provided the ground for new interdisciplinary research. 

AI

No, oral history cannot be considered solely the history of deprived and forgotten classes. Although this research method was initially used more to record the experiences and narratives of groups less seen in written sources, its function is not limited to this area. Oral history is essentially a method for recording lived experiences and personal narratives of historical events; therefore, it can include politicians,

commanders, managers, artists, and other social actors as well. In my opinion, the main value of oral history lies in complementing written history and revealing the human and experiential layers of events, not merely representing the voice of the underprivileged.