Preface: A Glance on the Principles of Development in Oral History

The need to maintain authenticity and protect the originality of the mind and language of the references of narrative in the process of recognition and retrieval of their memories and organization and compilation of the findings in an organic bodies, in a way that the reality be reflected as best as possible, makes considering principles and structures of development in oral history more necessary. The purpose of development is that after identification and collection, constructive material of the text be organized, ordered, integrated and classified (and if necessary, revealing allegorical and ambiguous issues) in a way that the result of the person’s life be in the maximum possible accuracy, integrity, authenticity, and documentary condition. In this regard, the act of development is a kind of engineering and architecture of the text and he worked more than four decades on developing «Dehkhoda Dictionary» and «Persian Dictionary». He had also written more than 50 books on contemporary Iranian literature and culture including «Persian Grammar: The Verb», «Literature and Writing» and «Selected Poems and Essays of Dehkhoda». Dr. Ahmadi Givi died in 1391 at the age of 85. The present text is the result of a 3-hour interview with him in Tir and Mordad 1386 in the Dehkhoda Dictionary Institute. This interview was done by the National Library and Archives of I. R of Iran in the form of an oral history interview.