Studying the Semantic and Structural Features in Freedmen's Letters during the Imposed War

 From long ago, letters have served people as a great, substantial communication resource and an efficient tool. They have also helped people in communicating with each other and conveying their desires and thoughts to others. Letters can be considered as the most important tool for conveying thoughts and opinions as they could save people from dissociability and redeem them from mental isolation. Letter writing is a process in which a communication is formed between two or more people by sending a paper work for a person to another or others. Letter writing can be accomplished in any subject. In primitive age, letter writing was done in paper, but today, with the improvement of technology and invention of tools, such as computer, internet, cell phones, etc., letter writing in paper and traditional correspondence have faded and have partly given their way to these tools. Overpassing the social function of letters, we can define this word according to Amid Dictionary as ‘a written subject that is addressed to a particular person and is usually sent to a receiver through post and in an envelope; or it is a paper letter on which some matters are written’. Letter writing has been of great importance in history and in Iranian and Islamic civilization; As it is recorded in literary and historic texts. This importance was to an extent that Iranians even in the pre-Islamic period, it had ordinances and special standardizations for secretaries and techniques (Rastegar Fasaei, 2001: 194-195). Centuries after Islam, letter writing propounded among secretaries in Arabic with Iranian-Islamic style by accommodating the principles of letter writing in Persian and Arabic, and the letter writers being influenced by the Quran and letters of prophets and caliphs to the kings of neighbor countries and Islamic agents and functionaries (Khatibi, 1996: 309 – 361). In the middle of Qajar era and the introduction of writers like Fazel Khan Garousi, Mirza Malkum Khan, and more importantly, Qaem Maqam Farahani, the style of letter writing transformed in Persian literature to an extent the sentences of letters became shorter and the extravagance in using rhetorical features was minimized in Qaem Maqam’s letters alongside the simplicity of language and its closeness to natural speech (Aryanpour, 2008: 65). Simplification of the structure and language of letters, whether in administrative letters or in friendly and family letters, which were the consequences of literacy growth, lead to more extension in letter writing as one of the main communication tools in decades after revolution, particularly during  the imposed war. A point that this article delves into.

Considering the point that freedmen's letters form an important part of war and holy defense documents and also these important documents have not been collected and codified in an authentic and formal collection yet, also having utilized the library and quite rich sources of Payam-e-Azadegan publication and corresponsive sites, the main method the researcher has used was collecting the documents and works of martyrs and martyrs and veterans affairs foundation, and has used more than six thousand letters.

3-1. Letter 3-1-1. Classification of captivity letters Apart from the common classifications in the field of literature and correspondences, captivity letters can be divided into the following types based on their form, their general or particular nature, the addressee and the content: 1- Letters with frontispiece 2- letters without frontispiece 3- pattern letters (stereotype) 4- exclusive letters.

3-1-2. Letters with frontispiece They are letters with a special slogan and mark of an organization, imperial system, company, factory, etc. Frontispieces which were accommodated to captives for writing letters, were papers in white and blue, which were 21 centimeters long and 14 centimeters wide. They were endorsed with sender and receiver’s address and the letter had been divided into two parts. Its top was for the captive’s text letter and the addressee could reply the letter at the bottom of the paper. These papers belonged to the International Committee of the Red Cross and had a particular form:

3-1-2-1. The blue frontispiece This kind of frontispiece was given to captives who met the Red Cross representatives and wanted to write letter for the first time, or it was given to captives who were prohibited from writing letters for a period of time and were uninformed of their family. These kinds of letters were unilateral and the captive only could write a letter at the bottom of it and inform his family about his health.

3-1-2-2. The white frontispiece These letters were open and they have to be passed and checked by censorship office of Iraq while exiting or entering Iraq and they were usually controlled by members of militia organization – that were known as feudists among people.

3-1-3. Letters without frontispiece These letters do not have any frontispiece and sign like general papers, such as paper of notebooks or other kinds of simple or lineolated papers. They were also mostly used for friendly and family correspondences. Naturally, it was not possible to use ordinary papers for letter writing in captivity period and letters had to be written in particular forms. But, using letters without frontispiece in front was common among fighters some of whom acceded to camps as a document with captives.

3-1-4. Pattern letters (stereotype) According to Moein dictionary, stereotype letters are kind of letters that are written in a particular framework and usually has similar style and structure. Thus, it can be said that most of the captivity letters are stereotypes because they are written in a particular format with specific structure. The paper of the letters are the same, flat and equal in size, the volume and space of letters are limited and their content is about greetings. Pattern letters can be studied from two general aspects: 1- their addressee and its application 2- their dominant framework in the structure form.

3-1-4-1. Classification of pattern letters based on the addressee and application: Considering the addressee and application, pattern letters are categorized into personal or family letters, friendly letters, letters to politicians, letters to enemies, testaments and power of attorney.

3-1-4-1-1. Personal letters (family) Personal letters are letters that a captive wrote to his immediate family members, which include father, mother, sister, brother, spouse and child. Among these, there were correspondences between the captive and his other relatives as well.

3-1-4-1-2. Friendly letters Friendly letters can be considered as continuator of the tradition of Akhavani letters in ancient literature. But there is a difference between these two kinds of letters that friendly letters of captives are much simpler than Akhavani letters in ancient literature structurally and also in the way they express a statement.

3-1-4-1-3. Letter to Imam Khomeini: Though captives were given only two paper sheets for each correspondence to Iran, they sometimes wash their hands of their family and write a letter to their spiritual father, Imam Khomeini, due to  the abundance of captives' passion for the Islamic system of Iran and government representatives, especially Imam Khomeini.

3-1-4-1-4. Letter to enemies: The other main types of captivity letters based on the addressee are letters which were written to the enemies of the Islamic Revolution and the opposing forces. These letters are distinct from family letters in their epic tone and their collective state. Also, word choice in these letters is somehow different from other letters, based on the purpose of their writing.

3-1-4-1-5. Testament: Freedmen’s will to their family and friends usually made part of the letters; however, in captivity literature we sometimes face letters in which captives devote a whole letter stating their commendations and wills. There are not much absolute wills in captivity literature and wills of Mahmoud Amjadian (a martyr freedman) and Ma'sumeh Abad (a freedman) can be named as two examples.

3-1-4-1-6. Power of attorney: Considering the point that some of the captives had properties, houses, cars, etc., before they became captivated, they had to reveal and clarify the quality of occupation for their family. Therefore, the International Committee of the Red Cross coordinated with the Islamic Republic of Iran, gave the captives particular papers titled as power of attorney, which were authentic to Iran government and its content was indispensable to the addressees. If a captive want to write a power of attorney then he filled one of those papers and sent it to his family. For brevity, I avoid exemplifying an instance in this article.

Studying about six thousand letters of freedmen, it was concluded that they can be divided into different types as: letters with frontispiece (in blue and red), letters without frontispiece, pattern letters and exclusive letters. There are some main patterns in captivity letters which are repeated in most of captives' letters. If pattern letters are considered as the most important general kind of captivity literature, it will be noticed that they are continuator of the style of Akhavani letters in previous centuries of Persian literature in their structure, frequent frameworks, in the way they begin, the text form of the letters and their end. The distinction between captivity letters and ancient correspondences are caused by the diversity in their expression and simplicity of words, and how they get close to colloquial language and abundant use of words related to accents. This distinction has special sight in letters where political and revolutionary thoughts of writers were posed and also in descriptions of the condition and qualification of camps.