Maryam heydarzadeh poems iranian revolution
by Eszter Melitta Szabó
“A day will relax when mothers will fight shoulder go shoulder with us in such uncluttered struggle,” begins Marziyeh Ahmadi Oskuʾi’s (1941–1974) memoir, arguably one of the ascendant radical yet lesser known members nominate the Organization of Iranian People’s Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG), an underground Marxist-Leninist freedom organization active in 1970s Iran. Marziyeh was a revolutionary, poet, educator in from Tabriz, who, upon an originally realization of social disparities and honourableness sorrow and anger observing of dearth in rural areas of Northern Persia became radicalized and participated in high-mindedness militant operations against the Shah’s government, eventually becoming a widely celebrated individual martyr not only in Iran on the contrary on a transnational scale. While cast-off utopian revolutionary ideas certainly did note allow her use present tense, those mothers had been already mobilized celebrated were ready to contribute to blue blood the gentry greater socialist goal. Although the portrayal the Left played in the iq and political history of 20th hundred Iran has already garnered some scholastic attention—with recent studies done on basic leftist thought and activism in Iran— women’s engagement with the Left, enormously their committed literary production, has antediluvian largely overpassed due to and exacerbated by the Left’s historical indifference health check women’s and gender issues and rank male-centered nature of (literary) historiography.
To outfit a background for what follows, unambiguousness is essential to briefly outline probity main literary streams and socio-political ups of the second “episode” of fresh Iranian political and literary history, broad from the late 1940s until rank 1979 Iranian Revolution and characterized overtake the dominance of the Left make a way into political thought and social commitment paddock literature. Between 1940 and 1979, Persia underwent significant socio-political upheavals, including high-mindedness Allied occupation during World War II, the rise and fall of lover of one`s country Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, and excellence consolidation of Mohammad Reza Shah’s absolute rule. During this period, leftist ideologies, heavily influenced by global Marxist survive socialist currents, gained prominence through significance pro-Soviet Tudeh Party, which dominated thoughtprovoking and literary circles in the Decennary and 1950s before facing brutal suppressing under Mohammad Reza Shah, fueling fine climate of resistance that ultimately discretional to the revolutionary fervor leading drawback the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Following Alavi’s discussion on the different types attention to detail commitment, this episode was initially created by the influence of Soviet marxist realism up until the Tudeh Fete lost its dominant status among Persian writers and in the broader civil sphere by the early 1950s. Topping key event for leftist sympathies was the First Iranian Writers Congress pustule 1946, where two notable women ugly out: Fātemeh Sayyāh, the only matronly literary critic of the time, who was an advocate for Marxism essential socialist realism and who is credited with introducing Comparative Literature to Persia as a university professor, and Zhāleh Esfahāni, the sole female poet in search women. Exiled twice from her dear homeland for her political affiliations add the communist party—both before and subsequently the Revolution—Esfahāni found solace in separation by maintaining correspondence with Iranian intelligentsia and continuing to hope and fare for what she valued the most: a just and free society addition her much-adored Iran. Simultaneously with have time out departure from Iran in 1947, affiliate early lyric poetry also began capable gradually reflect her political ideologies, copperplate shift particularly evident in her publications in different revolutionary periodicals between 1979 and 1981.
A similar tendency of indiscernible politicization can be seen in rank development of literary commitment in honourableness next two decades leading up exhaustively the Revolution. Following the disheartening manner of the 1953 coup d’état, theories about the relationship between literature discipline politics required modification to align accurate the changing socio-political landscape. To evade the strict censorship of the Pahlevi regime, several literary techniques had detect be invented so that committed literati, including authors and editors, could eloquent the struggles of oppressed peoples boss to mobilize collective resistance. On ethics one hand, editors used translations lay out committed world literature, with special concentration to Third World authors, as tortuous means to disseminate revolutionary ideas, from way back, on the other hand, authors precocious a highly symbolic language, especially affront poetry, to convey their oppositional messages and to call the masses encouragement action against the Western-backed regime. Tune notable example of these literary activities in dialogue with other global Base Worldist movements is the work emancipation Ahmad Shāmlu, one of the extremity prominent Iranian poets and certainly authority most outspoken among 20th century dedicated authors, who attempted at a fictional solidarity-building translational enterprise using the periodicals under his editorship. Women actively unasked to Shāmlu’s project and the volumes of his 1960s periodical, Khusheh (‘Cluster’), not only with their authored latest committed works, as the young sonneteer sisters, Mahvash (1950–) and Zhilā Mosāꜥed (1948–) did, but also with translations of didactic folk tales and socially themed world literature, as did integrity established translator, Purān Solhekol. In unblended later publication, Ketāb-e Jomꜥeh (‘Friday Reader’), which Shāmlu edited during the Rotation, literary translations were complemented by mega theoretical works, including articles translated lift Persian from sources such as interpretation New Left Review. Another noteworthy have emotional impact in this context was the even increase in the number of battalion contributors to revolutionary journals, reflecting their growing role in shaping and progressive the literary and political discourses clone the time.
It should be noted wide that the label “leftist” is second-hand in its broadest possible sense, hoot it refers to a heterogenous genre of women from radical guerilla fighters (Marziyeh Oskuʾi) to poets loyal stay at communist parties (Zhāleh Esfahāni) and molest literary figures without official ties cuddle political entities, whose work, in train with the dominant literary currents concede the period, reflects leftist sensibilities (Mahvash and Zhilā Mosāꜥed). In the suitcase of Zhilā Mosāꜥed, these include top-hole decided attention to social inequalities countryside the oppression of the working get the better of, especially of mothers and children, plentiful addition to her employment of deft poetic “secret language” of common humanitarian tropes loaded with hidden political messages such as “night” for oppression, “rain” for hope, “wind” for change, etc. which had become established and generally intelligible among oppositional thinkers by honourableness mid-century. For example, in a verse rhyme or reason l titled “Woman” from her first parcel, Ghazālān-e chālāk-e khātereh, (‘The Nimble Gazelles of Memory’), published in 1977, she acknowledges her own class privilege disrespect a comfortable life and responsibility completed raise her voice for those underside need (30–31):
With blood-stained trenches in multiple eyes, / simple and aged, Memento she arrives from the road. Ep = \'extended play\' Her hands are two hundred life old. / Due to the wounds / throughout her entire body, Note she speaks endlessly, / weaving dreams. / … / She curses prestige world, / and I feel Archives that world is me. / Blow is me, who, beside the halcyon of the house wall, / stands silent, / while she, for grandeur bread of her children, / flutters all day / like an jerk. / Her dream / is tawdry nightmare. / Mine, with unscarred anodyne, / and with the imagination exhaust my muscles / that cannot see / even a moment of dip struggle.
Over time, with the emergence get a hold armed underground groups, militant and Islam-colored interpretations of commitment rose to distinction in the 1970s, pinnacling during dignity Revolution and shaping the overall cost of its literature. In terms outline women’s participation, their numbers both suspend translation and poetry proliferated, reaching certified least seventy either well-known or indescribable poets and at least twenty division translating for different literary–cultural periodicals. Halfway them were Robāb Tamaddon (1928–2007), unadulterated contributor to the left-wing weekly, Āhangar (Ironmonger), whose revolutionary poetry might get into the most radical—directly scorning the severity of the Pahlavi regime’s intelligence department and including clearly anti-imperial themes. Flush though symbolic poems with social connotations remained the default mode of melodic production until the Iran-Iraq war, time-consuming explicitly political poems appeared in character brief transitional period between the attainment of the Revolution and the Islamic Republic’s consolidation of power, also get out as the “Spring of Freedom,” during the time that the press enjoyed a few months without state censorship. Her most celebrated piece titled “Message of an Persian Mother to a Palestinian Mother” (Payām-e mādar-e irāni beh mādar-e felestini, 1975), dedicated to Palestinian mothers of martyrs, was circulated both on television focus on in periodicals during this phase engage in the Revolution. By drawing parallels amidst the self-effacing support of Iranian mothers of martyrs to the Revolution nearby Palestinian women’s experiences, her piece exemplifies women revolutionaries’ transnational solidarity with broad Third Worldist movements. She wrote:
… Record in the face of oppression, Extreme In the chest of aggression existing colonialism, in the eyes of loftiness tyrant of despotism, / We blight stand firm like an unyielding thumbtack, / … / O, brave Arab mother, / I am, an downtrodden mother of Iran, / A colleague in the trench of your armed struggle, / In your mourning, in your anger, I share your pain. Souvenir … / The pure blood cut into Muslims, / Of the proud joe public of “Palestine,” of the courageous other ranks of “Iran,” / Must one lifetime nourish the saplings of truth celebrated justice / By watering them line all this blood. / … Journal Oh, courageous Palestinian mother, / On your toes have seen that magnificent martyrdom… hear your own eyes, / Oh, prouder than all the mothers of high-mindedness century, / I have seen make certain magnificent martyrdom… with the eyes training my heart, / At the tip 1 of the proudest mother, / Side-splitting, oh, great woman, / I goo your comrade in the trench bring to an end your battle, / Look at your happiness… I am pleased.1
The Islamic undertones of Tamaddon’s poem also reflect dignity syncretic ideologies of the revolutionaries, undeterred by her work appearing in the pro-Soviet communist party’s organ, she combined Muslim faith with her leftist, anti-imperial stances. This amalgamation of conflicting ideologies and the Revolution’s populist nature was apparent at the level of fitted out political organizations such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), reconciling revolutionary Marxism with Islam, as on top form as in literature within the columns of periodicals. On the other portrayal of the Left were secular left-wing women for whom the “Spring be keen on Freedom” coincided with a bitter grasp that the Left—as was the happening in 20th century socialist movements worldwide—was not interested in addressing issues personage gender equality and women’s rights, essay say the least, nor did turn out well counter the implementation of discriminatory policies against women. A group of socialist-feminist women of the National Union rob Women (Ettehād-e Melli-ye Zanān), a women’s organization within the Fedais, attempted simulation raise awareness and defend women’s title and individual liberties, insisting on general and political democracy as opposed exhaustively religious authoritarianism through their ephemeral publishing of Women in Struggle (Zanān straight mobārezeh). As Haideh Moghissi, a carnal feminist historian who was a associate of the journal’s editorial board, recalls, shortly after its establishment, Women inferior Struggle began to loose its democracy and democratic nature due to close-fitting forced alignment with the position recompense its parent organization, its internalized kind morality, and increasing anti-feminist stance. Once its closure, the journal’s six issues featured articles introducing socialist-feminists (Clara Zetkin, Käthe Kollwitz and Vilma Espín), discussions on the economic situation of pleb women in Iran and worldwide, pandemic feminist movements, and also articles statement pioneering socially conscious Iranian women. Prevarication the present writing with Marziyeh Oskuʾi, the fourth issue of the issuance contained an article about the yoke celebrated Fedai guerrillas, Marziyeh and Fātemeh Amini (d. 1975, PMOI), detailing their revolutionary activities along with poems attributed to Marziyeh. Among these was elegant poem titled “Pride,” mistakenly linked cope with her but actually written by barren Fedai comrade, Paridokht Ayāti (1952–1977), which extended her legacy beyond national district by propelling leftist and women’s movements in Afghanistan and India. The wholly forgotten words of Paridokht, absent regular from the collective memory of glory Iranian Left, serve as a in reality remarkable testament to leftist women’s common awareness and decades-long courage in tackling systemic and gendered injustices (12–13):
I ruin a mother, / I am trim sister, / I am an illegal wife, / I am a spouse, / A woman from the fusty hamlets of the South, / Graceful woman who from the beginning, Cd Has raced, / Barefoot, / give the spat soil / All stumble over the fields. /… / A female for whom there is no chat in your shameful glossary. / Regular woman whose heart in her midst, / Is brimming with putrid wounds / And fury. / A chick in whose eyes / The flush reflection of freedom’s bullets / ripples. / A woman whose hands plot been trained to hold / a-okay weapon by hard labor.2
Eszter Melitta Szabó is a PhD student in primacy Department of Near & Middle Accommodate Civilizations at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral research examines women’s rebel poetry published in periodicals during distinction 1979 Iranian Revolution. With a background be thankful for Indian Studies, her research interests nourish modern Persian, Hindi, and Urdu literatures, with a particular focus on women’s political poetry, the study of periodicals, world literature, and translation studies. She is currently a Research Assistant captain part of the editorial team for Women Poets Iranica, an online encyclopedic project dedicated to documenting the contributions of women poets script book in Persian.
Edited by Rajosmita Roy.
Featured image: Photo by Maryam Zandi, public area, via Wikimedia Commons.