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Memory- telling or history-writing
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While reading a memory book, we have faced with the problem that the book’s text and content is not something more than the mentioning of memories or the subjective memories of the work’s owner. In other words, in addition to expressing observations and what is heard during his or her life, the memory-teller on many occasions or according to the requirements talks about the conditions and events which he or she has not witnessed them or even has not heard from other person, but has read and heard them several years or even a few decades later in the books, journals and words, and now have placed them inside his or her memoirs again with another view. In other words, after the passing of several years from the events and situation of his or her time, he or she has resorted to mention them again through using others’ writings and words, and in fact has rewritten or even written the history of that historical issue or period.
Now the main question is that whether the mentioning of the unseen and unheard stories or in other words the rewriting and retelling of the events and writing the history of a period is the duty of memory-teller? Can a memory book be a proper place for writing a history? Can a memory-teller be placed in the position of a history writer who has found a special and expert status and looks at the history from that position? And finally, do the readers of such works go to obtain such books for reading the subjective memoirs of the owner’s book or just looked for a book about history and knew that the writer has also written about history?
Certainly, each of the above questions can be answered in numerous articles and of course scientifically which cannot be brought up here but briefly in response to all of them it can be said in general that undoubtedly, a book with the title and content of memoirs should have its own special characteristics and features and must be avoided to enter the areas and realms which are irrelevant to memories so that the reader finds out correctly around what subjects the book revolves. Moreover, it is crystal clear that the vocabulary of each of memory-writing and history-writing has its own meanings, definitions and conditions within which the memory-teller is not included. However, in spite of this, we see today that the number of the memory-books which are after memory-writing or their owners claim to write history are increasing day by day and books with such titles are published increasingly, in a way that the memory-teller claims to know and write history. However, it seems that if every person recognized his or her own status and position, certainly we do not face this messy and unprofessional situation and consequently, we will have better and more valuable works in the field of memoirs.
By Jafar Golshan Roqani
Translated By: Mohammad Bagher Khoshnevisan
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