كليدواژه :
رمان تاريخي , شاه بيشين , محمد كاظم مزيناني , روايت تاريخ جايگزين , محمدرضاشاه
چكيده لاتين :
In the current article, the authors tried to evaluate some aspects of alternative history narration in the historical novel, Shah-e bi Shin, written by Mohammad Kazem Mazinani. Alternative history narration is an emerging genre in Persian literature, which could lead to the creation of attractive, compelling stories, somehow opposed to the historical imaginations of audiences. Alternative history finds a new timeline for historical narrating, using ingredients like having an appropriate scenario and finding a point of divergence (POD). Alternation of historical narration includes alternation in fictional events and fictional persons. The research background belongs to the historical novel, Shah-e bi Shin, limited to literary meetings and interviews, and no detailed research has been done, except for two short articles by Majid Estiri and Maryam Goudarzi. Alternative history is a new subject in fiction literature and is sometimes confused with historical metanarrative style and post-modernism.
Shah-e Bi Shin narrates a real story of the Pahlavi period about a historical character, Mohammad Reza-Shah. This narrative allows writers who are interested in adding historical novels of alternative history to Iranian fiction literature, to use examples of alternate history that happened from the story character’s viewpoint. Shah-e Bi Shin, including components of alternation history narrating in branches of birth, death, lifestyle, and finally, the metamorphosis of character helps break the boundary between imagination and reality. In this research, we tried to draw the audience's attention to create new and intact narratives using historical events, besides introducing alternative historical genres and discovering novel power and imaginary narrations in Shah-e Bi Shin the historical novel. Alternation history has rooted in the historical imagination, for it can reach more readable and idealistic works of true history. This literary art seeks historical “what if”s, to show a new history to the story and its audiences.
Shah-e Bi Shin novel has been narrated from Mohamad Reza Shah’s view. So, it consists of life details, personality, and behaviors of this historical character; a defeated character who always seeks in his mind the answer of “what if”s that could change the destiny and history of his land. This component makes us look for more components of this idea, and investigate historical alternate examples in this novel from the language of Mohammad Reza Shah and his surroundings. The alternation of historical events in this novel ends with the events that belong before Shah’s exodus from Iran. Events like coup defeat, Mohammad Reza Shah and Soraya’s unsuccessful escape, Shah’s assassination in university, and finally, leaving the homeland which was among the worst choices he has made, in Mohammad Reza’s view.
Alternation of the historical character of this novel almost refers to Mohammad Reza, himself. These events occurred during the period from his birth to his death that happened outside Iran. During this period, he was complaining about everything and imagining other events and occurrences, in his mind, which if they had happened, would have changed his life and the history of his homeland. The novel’s atmosphere is a reflection of Mohammad Reza's childhood and such a stifling atmosphere continues after he had just survived an illness. He was upset about his birth all over the novel. That feeling of dissatisfaction spread to his destiny. He did not like this life and wishes he were a farmer or a lawyer in one of the American cities and had a normal life rather than being a country king and deprived of those works he did like to do.
Mohammad Reza was so dissatisfied with this destiny, as he likes to come to a personal metamorphosis. This can help the imagination of alternative historical genres and create a story with a surrealistic atmosphere. Death and death types are other designs and deviation points which help to break down the timeline of the story. Modification in his death type or death time could cause other historical events and movements, and create a new history for novel and story audiences. Statistically analyzing the representations of alternate historical narration in this novel, we found a high frequency of alternate characters compared with alternate events (63 to 37%). Also among representations of alternative characters, statistical data that belong to birth change has the most, and personal metamorphosis has the least quantity.
