“ Your Iranian oral history research is urgently necessary to study Iran,s modern history.”
Bozorg Alavi
Professor of literature and modern history of Iran
Humboldt University, Berlin
February 2, 1995
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“I am writing to introduce you to an oral history project you probably have not heard of. I was recently in Berlin
and sampled videotaped interviews with Iranian political activists. I can not describe how impressive they are.
The project was carried out under the auspices of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.
The project director, Dr. Hamid Ahmadi, has spent the last three years interviewing 40 significant men and women from
twenty different political organizations. These interviews provide incredibly rich information on cultural and social
as well as political and organizational history. The interviewer has a wonderful knack of getting his interviewees to
talk about subjects they would not normally speak of -- what is more write about if they had ever written their autobiographies.
They reminisce about their childhoods and such topics as the day their father first put on a European necktie. They talk
about everyday life in prison and their relationships with the guards, fellow political prisoners, and the non-political
prisoners. The tapes run over 400 hours. These tapes will be extremely useful for future students - - not to mention old-folk
like us - interested in understanding modern Iran.“
Ervand Abrahamian distinguished Professor of History, Baruch College,
City University of New York
December, 1996
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T
his Association, which was established in Berlin in June 2000 and is headed by Hamid Ahmadi, is a member of the
International Oral History Association (IOHA). It aims to build up archives of the recollections of all Iranian social
groups and interests and, in this way, to preserve the historical legacy of the Iranian people. One key motive for its
foundation is the realisation that every year we lose several prominent Iranian who, regrettably, leave no record of
their life experiences and contributions in the fields of politics, science, literature, arts and other areas of life…
".
details
Bulletin of the International Oral History Association, Vol. 1, Num. 1, June 2002, PP. 63 - 64.
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As of August 2006, Columbia University has acquired a valuable collection containing about five hundred hours
of interviews in DVD format. Although transcripts are not available, there is a complete catalogue of the contents.
The DVDs will reside in Columbia’s Oral History Collection…
With every passing year several Iranians who once played
a significant role in that country’s recent history perish without leaving any record of their experiences and contributions
in the fields of politics, science, literature, the arts and other fields. The Research Association for Iranian Oral History,
based in Berlin, Germany and led by Dr. Hamid Ahmadi, seeks to preserve this historical legacy of the Iranian people and to
build up archives of the recollections of all Iranian groups with an emphasis on individuals who did not always belong to
the core state-elite. …“
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said
Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute,
Columbia University
From
Newsletter Fall 2006, Middle East Institute, Columbia University
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In Iran- -as in the rest of the world- - conventional history saw the past mainly through the eyes of those at the top
of society - - through the perceptive of courtiers, landlords, tribal chiefs, religious notables, government officials, and,
of course, royal chroniclers. Dr. Hamid Ahmadi belongs to a new generation writing history from below. In this massive oral
history project in Berlin out of which have come a series of published memoirs, including Khaterat-e Bozorg Alavi,
Maham dar in Khaneh Haqi Darim, and the latest one entitled Gozar Az Tofan: Khaterat-e Morteza Zarbakht,
Dr. Ahmadi has preserved for posterity the ideas, sentiments, experiences, lives, and what the French Annales School calls the
mentalities of those not belonging to elite- - some of whom actually came from the lower middle class and even the working
class. It is through endeavours such as that of Dr. Ahmadi that we will be able to construct a history of modern Iran from below.
Without such painstaking endeavours we would inadvertently perpetuate the conventional tradition of writing of history from
above- - seeing the past through the eyes of either past or present rulers. As a historian of modern Iranian politics I am eternally
grateful to Dr. Hamid Ahmadi for his Research.
Ervand Abrahamian Distinguished Professor of Iranian and Middle Eastern history and politics.
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The Middle Eastern Division in Widener Library enjoyed a bountiful year of acquisition in over 60 languages. The Persian collection benefited greatly from acquisition of the Iranian oral history DVD collection, a set of more than 200 video discs containing some 475 hours of interviews with Iranian political activists, particularly from the left, in an effort to document the people and organization behind the resistance to the Pahlavi dynasty brought down by the revolution of 1979.The collection was produced largely through the efforts of Hamid Ahmadi, founder of the Research Association for Iranian Oral History (RAIOH) in Berlin, and provides an excellent complement to Harvard’s own Iranian Oral History Project.
Havard University, Middle Eastern Division, Widener Library Annual Report 2008-2009
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