| Abstrakt: |
From 1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought the longest conventional war of the 20th century. As combat devolved into trench warfare from 1982 onwards, Iranian propagandists faced a new challenge in mobilizing troops for the front. The propaganda documentary series Revayat-e Fath, produced by the Iranian director Morteza Avini, is a response to these circumstances. In this article, the narratives employed by the series will be conceptualized as myths, and thus, it will be argued that the series uses already existing stories as work on myth, according to philosopher Hans Blumenberg's definition of the term. Specifically, the series employs the Qur'anic myth of Ibrahim and the story of Imam al-Husayn's martyrdom to narrate the necessity of patience, trust in God and self-sacrifice among the soldiers. By doing so, the series not only statically employs these myths but also engages in a process of reception in which certain significant parts are put into the historical context of the Iran-Iraq War. This resulted in the creation of a new myth, referred to in this paper as the Basiji myth, embedding the motifs mentioned above into a new narrative of the meaning of death and sacrifice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
