Literary Heroization for the Cause of National Liberation
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 2019, special issue, p. 75–89 Volume in Honour of Professor Anna Krasnowolska doi:10.4467/20843933ST.19.024.10967 www.ejournals.eu/Studia-Litteraria ROXANE HAAG-HIGUCHI Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Germany e-mail:[email protected] Literary Heroization for the Cause of National Liberation Abstract Moḥammad Ḥoseyn Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat’s short novel Dalirān-e tangestāni (publ. 1931/1934) relates the story of warriors from Tangestān, located in the southwestern Iranian province of Bushehr, and their fight against the British in and shortly after World War I. From the time of its publication the novel met unfavorable criticism with regard to its artistic value but was ap- plauded for conveying patriotic spirit. This article argues that the novel is based on and struc- tured by the idea of heroization of the local protagonists, which ultimately served the national- ist policies of the Reżā Shāh period (1925–1941). In Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat’s introduction his novel is presented as a device of remembrance: just as remembrance of history forms the basis of a nation’s coherence, its self-esteem is augmented by the recorded memory of its heroes and their deeds. The protagonists of the novel are singled out for their heroic characteristics through the elaboration of specific motifs, e.g. individual bravery and the readiness for self-sacrifice. In the process of nation building, heroes also function as a link between the individual and the community; this article isolates the characteristics that are chosen in the novel to offer a model of identification to the imagined (Iranian) reader, and demonstrates how the contextualization of the heroes makes their integrative functions more visible. Keywords: early Persian novel, heroization, nationalism Moḥammad Ḥoseyn Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat’s short novel Dalirān-e tangestāni first appeared as a serial in the daily newspaper Kushesh in 1310sh./19311 and was published as a book in 1313/1934.2 The novel is about the fight of the local people of Tangestān (a coastal county of the South-Iranian province of Bushehr) against the occupation by and overall influence of the European powers, particu- larly the British, in and shortly after World War I.3 The locals’ struggle against the 1 The novel was published in 41 issues of the newspaper starting from no. 220 (S.M.ʿA. Jamālzādeh, Taqriż va enteqād, [in:] M.Ḥ. Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat, Dalirān-e tangestāni, Tehrān 1327/1948, p. 9). About the newspaper Kushesh cf. M. Ṣadr Hāshemi, Tārikh-e jarāyed va majallāt-e Irān, vol. 4, Isfahān 1363/1984, pp. 146–148 (no. 933). 2 As I am working with the fourth edition, hereafter, the work will be cited as M.Ḥ. Roknzādeh- Ādamiyat, Dalirān-e tangestāni, Tehrān 1327/1948. 3 The novel figures in most histories of modern Persian literature, cf. F. Machalski, Historyczna powieść perska. Materiały do studiów nad współczesną literaturą Iranu, Kraków 1952, p. 136; B. Alavi, Studia Litteraria 3 zeszyt_pers_krzywe.indd 75 2019-09-09 21:55:54 76 ROXANE HAAG-HIGUCHI British has also been fictionalized in Simin Dāneshvar’s bestselling novelSavushun (1969). Savushun is about a comparable situation in Fars during World War II but Dāneshvar’s novel is set in civilian surroundings rather than on the battlefield.4 At the time of its publication, Dalirān-e tangestāni was the only historical novel to focus on events that had happened in the recent past while other his- torical novels of the period – Moḥammad Bāqer Mirzā Khosraviʾs Shams va Toghrā (publ. 1909), Sheykh Musā Naṣri’s ʿEshq va Salṭanat (publ. 1919–1923) or ʿAbdolḥoseyn Sanʿatizādeh’s Dāmgostarān (publ. 1925) – relate stories set in distant, Pre-Islamic or medieval centuries.5 The book edition of Dalirān-e Tangestāni is accompanied by a bulky section of paratexts (59 of 218 pages) which comprise a paragraph by Shokrollāh Ṣafavi, the editor of the newspaper Kushesh, approving remarks by the author and literary scholar Saʿid Nafisi, a long article with laudatory and critical comments (Taqriż va Enteqād) by Moḥammad ʿAli Jamālzādeh and the “Preface” (Dibācheh) by Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat himself.6 The first part of Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat’s Dibācheh contains several encyclope- dic paragraphs with information about towns, villages, and prominent buildings of the region that are mentioned in the novel.7 The connection between the loca- tions and the characters of the novel is made by introducing the three protagonists with the local reference given in their names (nisba): Raʾis ʿAli Delvāri, Sheykh Ḥoseyn Khān Chāh Kutāhi and Zāʾer Kheżr Khān Ahrami.8 The author gives a synopsis of the historical events that are fictionalized in the novel with special emphasis on the role of the German agent Wilhelm Wassmuss (Waßmuß) and his collaboration with the local chiefs. He particularly turns against allegations that the local chiefs supported Wassmuss because they received money from him, and argues in favor of the genuine aspirations of the locals and a marginalization of Wassmuss’s influence. Jamālzādeh, in his review, covers a wide range of subjects. He applauds the patriotic fervor of the novel while at the same time is disapproving of its literary shortcomings: “[…] it is neither a full history nor a true historical novel […]” (na tārikh-e tamām va na romān-e tārikhi-ye ḥaqiqi-st),9 it lacks “literary coloring”, the author should have “made the inner world of the characters […] more evident […] Geschichte und Entwicklung der modernen persischen Literatur, Berlin 1964, pp. 156 ff.; V. Kubíčková, Persian Literature of the 20th Century, [in:] History of Iranian Literature, ed. J. Rypka, Dordrecht 1968, p. 407; Ḥ. Mir ʿĀbedini, Ṣad sāl dāstān-nevisi dar Irān, vol. 1, Tehrān 1383/2004, pp. 43 ff. (with extensive citations from Jamālzādeh’s review in the introduction to Dalirān-e Tangestāni). 4 S. Dāneshvar, Savushun, Tehrān 1349/1970; English translations: S. Daneshvar, Savushun. A novel about modern Iran, trans. M.R. Ghanoonparvar, Washington 1990; S. Daneshvar, A Persian Requiem, trans. R. Zand, London 1991. 5 Cf. Ch. Balaÿ, La genèse du roman persan moderne, Tehrān 1998; C.V. Pedersen, The Rise of the Persian Novel. From the Constitutional Revolution to Rezâ Shâh, 1910–1927, Wiesbaden 2016, ch. 3. 6 Ṣafavi: M.Ḥ. Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat, Dalirān-e tangestāni, Tehrān 1327/1948, pp. 4–6; Nafisi: ibid., pp. 7–8; Jamālzādeh: ibid., pp. 9–43 [hereafter cited as: S.M.A. Jamālzādeh, Taqriż…, op. cit.]; M.H. Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat, op. cit., pp. 44–58. 7 Ibidem, pp. 44–48. 8 Ibidem, p. 51. Delvār, Chāh Kutāh and Ahram are villages in the province of Bushehr. 9 S.M.ʿA. Jamālzādeh, Taqriż va enteqād…, 1948, p. 16. Studia Litteraria 3 zeszyt_pers_krzywe.indd 76 2019-09-09 21:55:54 Literary Heroization for the Cause of National Liberation 77 and should have imagined a small world for the protagonists of the book […]”.10 Moreover, he repeats the guidelines he had drafted ten years earlier (1921) in the well-known “Preface” to his collection of stories Yeki bud-o yeki nabud Once upon a Time) about what the function of the Persian novel should be, particularly about the role of the novel as a store for linguistic as well as sociological and ethno- graphic information.11 Jamālzādeh’s review set the tone for the critiques to come, particularly high- lighting the ideological assets and criticizing the literary shortcomings of the work. Alavi summarizes his evaluation with a harsh verdict: He [Ādamiyyat] wants to fill people with enthusiasm about the selfless warriors of the nomadic tribes of Tangestan who would otherwise have remained unknown, and he wants to inspire people with courage and intensify the struggle against foreign intrusion, but un- fortunately he lacks the artistic talent to fulfil such an important task.12 The most detailed analysis is presented by Christophe Balaÿ in his study on early modern Persian prose literature.13 Balaÿ also refers to the flaws of the novel in terms of artistic composition which result in unease when assigning it to a par- ticular prose genre: “Is it a document of history? Is it history? Or a figuration of history in a story…?”14 The main shortcoming, in Balaÿ’s view, is the total lack of a sentimental intrigue which would transform the narrative into a “verita- ble novel”.15 However, he attests to “the fundamental dialectics of the novelistic structure stretched between the two contradictory poles of the general and the particular”16 to the textual composition. In other words, it is the technique of indi- vidualizing a complex historical situation by setting up a configuration of charac- ters that lends a novelistic quality to Dalirān-e tangestāni. The present article is less concerned with evaluating the aspects of literary quality or genre. Rather, it will focus on a central feature that interconnects the main function of the novel with its structure and the representation of its char- acters, which I contend to be the heroization of the South-Iranian fighters for the cause of national independence. Heroization can be defined as a process where, through the participation of various political, social, and cultural actors, “a character acquires the focal position of a community”.17 Roknzādeh-Ādamiyat is an actor in the cultural field and participates in the heroization of historical figures that would have gone unnoticed otherwise. The paper examines what the 10 S. M.ʿA. Jamālzādeh, op. cit., 1948, p. 17. 11 S. M.ʿA. Jamālzādeh, Yeki bud-o yeki nabud, Tehrān 1320/1941, pp. 3–17. 12 B. Alavi, op. cit., p. 156. 13 Ch. Balaÿ, op. cit., pp. 316–320 (structural synopsis) and passim in the analytical chapters. 14 Ibidem, p. 320. 15 Ibidem, p. 361.