War in Persian Literature

 
 
Narratives of war, whether in verse or prose, comprise a significant part of Persian literature.  While much of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh [The Book of Kings] is devoted to scenes of battle between champions of various adversaries and to the praise of the heroic acts of kings and other warriors, there are also other volumes of poetry and prose devoted to chronicling specific military campaigns of Iranian rulers over many centuries.  In modern times, and especially in the final decades of the 20th century, once again writing about war became of inevitable interest to literary artists in Iran, albeit with a change of outlook, for the most part, from romanticizing armed conflict and praising warriors to depicting war as a destructive phenomenon and presenting those who fight in them as unwitting victims.  Addressing this important topic, the papers on this panel examine the impact of war on the literary imagination of contemporary Iranian writers and vicissitudes in perspective and approach to writing about war from the past to the present. (Panel convenor Faridoun Farrokh)

Chair
name: 
Faridoun Farrokh
Institutional Affiliation : 
Texas A&M International University
Academic Bio: 
Professor of English. Research interests in rhetoric, eighteenth century English literature, contemporary Persian fiction
Discussant
Name: 
Paul Sprachman
Institutional Affiliation : 
Rutgers University
Academic Bio : 
Professor of Persian language and literature. Research interests: Translation; Persian satire; post-revolutionary literature including novels and short stories about the Iran-Iraq war.
First Presenter
Name: 
Mohammad-Reza Ghanoonparvar
Institutional Affiliation : 
University of Texas at Austin
Academic Bio : 
Professor Comparative Literature. Research Interest in Persian literature, translation, and literary theory
Concise Paper Title : 
Modern Warfare in Persian Literature
Paper Abstract (maximum of 400 words) : 
In classical literature when writers and poets chose the subject of war, they often focused on the heroic acts of their protagonists and composed either epic poems or prose narratives called the "zafarnameh" [victory chronicle] or the "fahnameh" [conquest chronicle], generally presenting a romantic, and usually an impersonal, picture of war and those who fought it. By recording such events, their purpose was to enhance the image of the rulers who were their patrons, to instill pride in the hearts of the subjects, and to historically immortalize certain victories or military expeditions, and at the same time, to present the enemy as the prototype of evil. In modern war literature, in contrast, literary artists often concentrate of the tragic consequences and individual and collective suffering caused by the immensely destructive effects of modern warfare weapons which make it possible for enemies to kill each other without even actually seeing each other. Ironically, however, modern literature of war, despite the impersonal nature of modern warfare, is very personal, and despite all efforts to make it easier to dehumanize the enemy, undermines the demonization of the enemy. After an overview of Persian war literature in the early decades of the 20th Century, this presentation focuses on an examination of the Persian novels and short stories written about the Iran-Iraq war, especially by writers with first-hand experiences of the battlefields.
Second Presenter
Name: 
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
Institutional Affiliation : 
University of Maryland
Academic Bio : 
Professor of Persian, research interests critical theory, Persian poetry, modern Persian literature
Concise Paper Title : 
Russo-Iranian Wars of the Early 19th Century in Persian Poetry
Paper Abstract (maximum of 400 words) : 
The disastrous wars of Iran with Tsarist Russia over various territories in the Caucasus in the early 19th century have received widespread attention by historians of modern Iran. However, no reliable account has been produced that might take note of the fact that in undertaking these military campaigns, Iran’s political and military leaders solicited and received substantial support from the shi`a hierarchy, often in the form of Treatises on the Holy War (Rasa’el-e Jihadiyyeh), fortified by poems and other writings aimed at mobilizing the masses of Iranian people. While constituting an impressive literary corpus, the numerous poems, both of a didactic and narrative nature, in which Iran’s poets encourage the populace to defend their religious honor and protect their country remain obscure and almost entirely unfamiliar to modern-day readers of Persian poetry. Whatever the reasons for this remarkable laxity of scholarly attention, the texts and social contexts of these writings lay the foundation for renewed alliances between church and state. In attempting to draw attention to the Persian poetry on the Russo-Iranian Wars of the early 19th century, the present paper, in effect tries to foster better comprehension and appreciation of the alliances forged in those texts between the religious elites of Shi`a Islam and Iran’s political and military establishment. By exploring the reasons for this lack primarily within the texts of the poems, it seeks to uncover the dialogic and discursive interstices of the poetry thus produced.
Thid Presenter
Name: 
Mehdi Khorrami
Institutional Affiliation : 
New York University
Academic Bio : 
Professor of French, research interests in critical theory, contemproary European literature, Persian fiction
Concise Paper Title : 
Moments of Silence: The Authentic Narratives of War in Recent Persian Fiction
Paper Abstract (maximum of 400 words) : 
When Mahmud Darwish said: “I'm looking for the poet of Troy, because Troy didn't tell its story”, he was specifically referring to the triumph of the victor which, with its either direct and/or internalized dominance over the process of production and distribution of narratives of war, to all intents and purposes, left the story of the vanquished untold. With regard to war narratives, in the context of this general background of discursive confrontation, there are more subtle elements which function to generate multiple narratives, each of which attempts to authenticate and legitimize itself and its discourse. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the multifaceted efforts of the dominant discourse to control the narratives of the war is one of the best cases for a study of the formation of these narratives. In this presentation I will attempt to identify systems of meanings which are behind these narratives and seeking to justify them. In this regard, I will examine the genre of war literature (or, as the official discourse in Iran calls it, “the literature of the sacred defense”) as reflected in Iran’s contemporary Persian fiction. I will argue that in fact, official efforts to appropriate the narratives of war have created the problem of authenticity for these narratives. The more efforts have been made to authenticate them, the more spurious they have become. This even includes works which have tried to dissociate themselves from the official discourse. The situation has contributed to the creation of a literary phenomenon in which the most successful war discourses are those in which the war stories are placed in the background or are deliberately absent. In particular, this latter has led to the emergence of sites of silence, which effortlessly contribute to the formation of the most expressive accounts of war experiences. The understanding of the idea that “silence is full of unexpressed words” should be considered one of the most significant elements in the reading of such works.
Fourth Presenter
Name: 
Faridoun Farrokh
Academic Bio : 
Professor of English. Research interests in rhetoric, eighteenth century English literature, contemporary Persian fiction
Concise Paper Title : 
The Nobility of Battle and the Scourge of War
Paper Abstract (maximum of 400 words) : 
The commonality of war as the inspiration and theme of enduring literature is pervasive in many literary traditions. So much so, in fact, that the epic form, having armed conflict as its focal point, is a universal genre of poetry and is present in every literary tradition in the world. In the literature of the Persian language the most prominent example is of course the Shāhnāmé, or "The Book of Kings,” the national epic of Iran. This presentation commences with an examination of the effect of the Shāhnāmé on the ethos of the average Iranian reader. It is true that the epic glorifies (and in some cases deifies) individuals, Rustum the most prominent among them. Yet the basis for the sublimation of the heroes is not only bravery at war and willingness to face at great risk formidable adversaries, human or otherwise, but also their sterling character and their unwavering loyalty to their respective sovereign lords. In addition to the great influence of the Shāhnāmé, Iranian readers are also endowed with an awareness of the heroics of the Battle of Karbala, which, aside from its religious significance, has bred manifold literary sensitivities in the Iranian readership. Such predispositions, however, promote an expectation of formality both in the behavior of war heroes as well as the literary depiction of their exploits. As such, the paper argues, Iranian national ethos, unlike that in the west, had no precedent in dealing with the dynamics of modern warfare until the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. The introduction of firearms and mechanization of combat had changed dynamic of war and with it the aesthetics of literature emanating from it. This study finds that earlier Iranian fiction coming out of the frontlines heavily echoes the tenor of the Shāhnāmé and Karbala tradition in character and plot development. However, we find that ultimately the protagonists in later literary representations of war experience emanating from the trench warfare in the south of Iran are presented more realistically and are as a rule outwardly simple, ordinary individuals. However, once exposed to the dynamics of the battleground, they turn fatalistic and their daily encounters with blood and gore and the imminence of death and dismemberment become the leitmotif for the violence and misery concomitant with the larger picture of the war itself.

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