Heartache and Heroism (hozn va hemaseh) Sadegh Ahangaran's Performances of Maddahi-Rituals in the War Documentaries Chronicles of Triumph

During the Iran-Iraq War 1980-88, the “Culture of the Front” (farhang-e jebhe) was brought to the Iranian urban landscape mainly through the voice of Sadegh Ahangaran and his nohes (eulogies). Although the sound of wartime Iran remained traditional in its aesthetics and the poetry of Ahangaran’s songs was as artful as the poems by older masters, the propagandistic effect of those wartime nohes was of immense powerfulness. As images of leaders of the revolution and martyrs in murals and on billboards constructed the Islamic Republic visually as a nation (Varzi 2006), so did Ahangaran’s voice confine the soundscape of Khomeini’s “Iran-e Eslami”. His ubiquitous presence was facilitated by Seda va Sima in general, and by the war documentaries Revayat-e Fath, directed and narrated by Morteza Avini, in particular. The films not only brought Ahangaran’s voice and sermons from the front into the living rooms, but also provided a communion for the nation of potential martyrs and their families.
This presentation dissects various performances of Ahangaran embedded in Revayat-e Fath and discusses their significance within the context of the Special Session, the “The Chronicles of Triumph: Aesthetics of the Sacred Defense Culture in the Works of Morteza Avini and Sadegh Ahangaran”. It analyses the song’s lyrics in terms of their literary topoi that reflect the ideological war discourse of the time. It furthermore highlights the rituals’ performances as well their narrative function within the war documentaries which contributed significantly to the implementation of Avini’s concept of Illuminationist Cinema. On the three levels of text, performance and narration, the categories of identity, affect and nation building are taken up to crystallise the defining moments of political culture in wartime Iran. These, ultimately, were to shape the Islamic Republic until the present day.