µþ·¡±á¸é´¡±·³ÒĪ, á¹¢AMAD, teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer. Born in mid-1939 into a lower-class Turkish-speaking family in TabrÄ«z, BehrangÄ« completed elementary school and three years of secondary school and then attended the local teacher training school for grade schools, from which he received a certificate in 1957. Later, in the course of eleven years of teaching Persian in village and town schools in Azerbaijan, he obtained a B.A. degree in English from TabrÄ«z University.
BehrangÄ« began writing short stories and translating from Turkish into Persian in the late 1950s. He published his first story, “Talḵūn,” in the spring of 1964. In the spring of 1965, he and BehrÅ«z DehqÄnÄ« published the first volume of AfsÄnahÄ-ye Ä€á¸arbÄyjÄn (Tales of Azerbaijan). The second volume of these Persian versions of Turkish tales appeared in the spring of 1968.
The appearance in the summer of 1965 of BehrangÄ«’s severe critique of educational methods and textbooks called Kand o kÄv dar masÄʾel-e tarbÄ«atÄ«-e ĪrÄn established the author as a social critic and brought his name to the attention of JalÄl Ä€l-e Aḥmad (1923-69), a leading literary figure of the day among anti-establishment writers. Ä€l-e Aḥmad subsequently endeavored without success to arrange for the publication by the Ministry of Education of BehrangÄ«’s AlefbÄ barÄ-ye kÅ«dakÄn-e Ä€á¸arbÄyjÄn (Alphabet for the children of Azerbaijan).
In 1966 BehrangÄ«’s “ŪldÅ«z wa kalÄḡhÄ” (ŪldÅ«z and the crows), his first published children’s story, was discussed in the popular weekly ¹ó±ð°ù»å´Ç·É²õÄ«, which brought the young author’s name to the attention of readers of Persian fiction. During the next two years, numerous stories by BehrangÄ« appeared in pamphlet form, some of them distributed surreptitiously as he developed a reputation as a dissident writer. In the summer of 1968 his best known work appeared, the folktale called MÄhÄ«-e sÄ«Äh-e kÅ«ÄÅ«lÅ« (The little black fish), which many readers have construed as an anti-establishment allegory.
In early September of 1968, on one of his wonted field trips to gather folklore and stories, this time to the ḴodÄ Ä€farÄ«n area near the Iran-USSR border, BehrangÄ«, who could not swim, reportedly went wading in the Aras river and drowned. This bizarre death in a faraway region combined with his growing reputation as a social critic and the presumed concern on the part of government authorities with his writing convinced some like-minded people that his death was not accidental. The Association of Writers of Iran (KÄnÅ«n-e nevÄ«sandagÄn-e ĪrÄn) immediately compiled a commemorative issue of Ä€°ù²¹&²õ³¦²¹°ù´Ç²Ô; magazine in BehrangÄ«’s memory. In the spring of 1969 twelve of his children’s stories were published in a volume called QeṣṣahÄ-ye Behrang. That summer all of BehrangÄ«’s articles, including several previously unpublished pieces, were compiled by DehqÄnÄ« in MajmÅ«Ê¿ahÄ-ye maqÄlahÄ. DehqÄnÄ« (who was later executed during the Pahlavi regime as a terrorist) published another compilation of BehrangÄ« stories and fables in 1970 called Talḵūn wa qeṣṣahÄ-ye dÄ«gar. The appearance in 1978 of NÄmahÄ-ye á¹¢amad BehrangÄ«, compiled by the author’s brother Asad, practically completes the corpus of BehrangÄ«’s writings.
During the 1970s, Behrangī became a hero and martyr figure for anti-Pahlavī groups, and during the 1979 Revolution he received considerable attention. A dedicated and indefatigable advocate of radical reforms, Behrangī is said to have been a model teacher. His antipatriarchal and anticlerical encouragement of the youth of Azerbaijan to educate themselves into equality with Persian-speaking Iranians, his passionate criticism of the wholesale adoption of American educational ideas and values, and his courageous willingness to confront the governmental power structure through his writing and teaching guarantee Behrangī a place in Iranian intellectual and social history, despite the fact that his fiction is not likely to endure for its literary merits.
Bibliography:
Other than BehrangÄ«’s works, which are given in the text, see Ê¿A. Ä€rÄm, Kand o kÄv dar ÄṯÄr-e á¹¢amad BehrangÄ«, Tehran, 1358 Š./1979.
Ä€°ù²¹&²õ³¦²¹°ù´Ç²Ô; 18, 1347 Š./1968.
Ṣ. Behrangī, The Little Black Fish and Other Modern Persian Stories, tr. M. and E. Hooglund, Washington, D.C., 1976.
B. Hanson, “The "Westoxication" of Iran, Depictions and Reactions of BehrangÄ«, Ä€l-e Aḥmad, and SharÄ«Ê¿atÄ«,” IJMES 15, 1983, pp. 1-23.
M. C. Hillmann, “á¹¢amad BehrangÄ«,” Literature East and West 20, 1980, pp. 196-98.
E. JamšÄ«dÄ«, ZendagÄ« o marg-e á¹¢amad BehrangÄ«, Tehran, 1357 Š./1978.
G. R. á¹¢abrÄ«-TabrÄ«zÄ«, “Human Values in the Works of Two Persian Writers,” Correspondence d’Orient 11, 1970, pp. 411-18.
G. J. J. de Vries, review, “The Little Black Fish and Other Modern Persian Stories,” Edebiyat 2, 1977, pp. 121-28.
“YÄd-nÄma-ye á¹¢amad,” °±ð³ÙÄå²ú-±ðÂá´Ç³¾Ê¿²¹ 1/6, 1358 Š./1979, pp. 2-29.
(Michael C. Hillmann)
Originally Published: December 15, 1989
Last Updated: December 15, 1989
This article is available in print.
Vol. IV, Fasc. 1, pp. 110-111
