News Science Quarterly (NS)

News Science Quarterly (NS)

Narrative analysis of Mirza Saleh Shirazi's travelogue to London

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Associate Professor, Department of Media and Propaganda, Soura University
Abstract

Objective: The first Iranian journalist was Mirza Saleh Shirazi, who published Kagaz Akhbar newspaper after traveling to England and imitating the London newspapers. The only remaining document of this journalist is his travelogue. This research was done with the aim of analyzing the narrative of Mirza Saleh Shirazi's travelogue to London. For this purpose, the narrative analysis of the travel report was carried out in the "Franz Karl Stanzel" method.
In this research, the theory of "other" has been used to understand the presence of Mirza Saleh Shirazi in Europe. In no other period in the history of human thought has another role in the field of knowledge been as important as today. This concept is very important today in the fields of politics (immigration), sociology (multicultural societies), linguistics and philosophy of language (Weingenstein and Heidegger), philosophy (Levinas), psychology (Lacan), and literary criticism (Derrida).
 According to Derrida: "Any system or structure (language, identity, etc.) is meaningless without putting another within itself. "In short, the self is different from another point of view."
Methods: In this research, Franz Karl Stanzel's narrative analysis method has been used. The reason for using the method of narrative analysis is to find a key event in Mirza Saleh Shirazi's travelogue as a narration from a first-person perspective. According to Woods, "a key event is when it has the right ingredients at the right time and place."
Results: 
Mirza Saleh's travelogue is written from the perspective of "the first wise person" or "I am the narrator". The angle of view in Stanzel's model is the first element in the narrative, an important element that forms the form and method of narration in the travelogue. The information of the travel story is provided to the reader of the travelogue through the mediator and the author's point of view.
In the first part of the journey, when Mirza Saleh arrives in Moscow, he refers to Napoleon's campaign against Moscow and his defeat. This story is in fact in the scenario of Mirza Saleh's journey and the effect it has on him in London, and the only narrator is his withdrawal from the first person to enter the world of "Danny Kol", which changes the image of the story and actually shows zero degrees of narration. Reflects from  anythings.
Mirza Saleh's character is his monologue in his experience of printing-house (Basmeh Khaneh).
In all these narrations, Mirza Saleh, as a reflective character, mentions "presenting a pleasant landscape" from the rules and laws of England, the entertainment of London men and women, the urban planning situation in London, schools, and education, clothes, and make-up of the people that surprised him. In this narrative, he is immersed in self-destruction "without the identity of his realm of existence."
He writes about the fun of men and women: "A group of your daughters and sons sang well, lost their instruments and instruments, and were there until two o'clock before midnight, after which they rode in a cart and went home.".
Mirza Saleh in "My Narrative in the World of Characters" and his position as the narrator of the first-person position in the lab, like fasting in Moscow.
Mirza Saleh, as a "reflective person" through the eyes of the camera, criticizes the brothel in London: "And it is another house just like here. He is said to have brought a group of fugitives and kept them repenting in the same way. "From the day he founded the McDonnell Hospital, he repented to 4,000 prostitutes and returned to his house and tribe."
It is interesting that Sargoravazli's attempt to bring Mirza Saleh into the Freemasonry (Freemasonry), which was a secret organization of the British: "Ozli contacted every Iranian. In order to use him politically, he released him into the group of brothers and the building block. Engineer Mirza Saleh Shirazi also entered this organization according to his travelogue on the twentieth of Rajab (AH) equal to 1817 (AD). He says that because he had been asking to enter the Forgetful Assembly for some time, he gave me the opportunity to enter their circle, and they made an appointment. "I came back and it is not permissible to write too much about it." The inner view of Mirza Saleh's prayers and fasting and the outer view of his astonishment in London and finally his entry into Freemasonry
Conclusions: In this research, the theory of "other" has been used to understand the presence of Mirza Saleh Shirazi in Europe. In no other period in the history of human thought has another role in the fields of knowledge been as important as today. The analysis of the narration revealed that Mirza Saleh, after arriving in London, despite his adherence to religious beliefs and criticism of some phenomena such as prostitution, under the influence of law, order, material welfare, entertainment, urban planning, hospital, industry (blacksmithing, glassmaking, museum and especially Basme Khaneh) to accept London as another and distance himself from his own Iranian identity. In this narrative, the change of his clothes should be considered as the change of his thought. These changes can be clearly seen from the narrator's point of view in Stanzel's typological circle.
The research results showed that he used my narration as a witness. In the world of characters and narration, Mirza Saleh talks about his learning experience with a monologue that is the narrator of the change of his personal identity. He narrates the internal and external styles of journalism, which shows the influence of London journalism on him and the acceptance of this ruling model of imitative journalism and its spread in Iran. In the analysis of the narrative, it was found that Mirza Saleh, after entering London, despite his adherence to religious beliefs and criticism of some phenomena such as prostitution, was influenced by order, law, material well-being, entertainment, urban planning, hospital, industry (metallurgy, glass making, museum, Basme Khaneh) is set to accept London as the "other" and distance himself from his Iranian identity.
Keywords

 
 
References
 
-           Afshar, Iraj (1952), Contemporary Persian Prose: Selections of the Best Works of Famous Iranian Historians and Scholars from the Beginning of Constitutionalism to Contemporary, Tehran: University of Tehran(in Persian) 
-           Alavi, Bozorg,( 1964) Geschichte und Entwicklung der modernen persischen Literatur. Berlin. S. 24
-           Bahmani, Mehrzad (2012), analysis of narrative and its application in the media, part two, Payam Al-Rashosh monthly, 11th year, number 126, pp. 36-33. (in Persian) 
-           Branven, Tams (2022), the narrative of fundamental concepts and methods of analysis, translated by Hossein Payandeh, Tehran: Morvarid Publishing House. (in Persian) 
o          Chatman, S. (1989). Story and Discourse, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press (First Printed 1978).
-           Denison,Stuart(2016) The Travelogues of Mirza Saleh Shirazi London A Persian View of Regency London,London Historical in:
-           file:///C:/Users/win_7/Downloads/mirza%20saleh%20shirazi%20in%20regency%20london.pdf
         Fragner, Bert,( 1978) Persische Memoirenliteratur als Quelle zur neueren Geschichte, Habil. Schr. Freiburg (Breisgau), SS. 13-19
-           Hasanpour, Arash and Efat Matlabi (2009), "Analysis of the narrative "Kiss God on the Moon" with an emphasis on the issue of meaning", Quarterly Journal of the Society for Cultural Studies and Communication, 6th year, No. 21, pp. 145-165(in Persian) 
-           Hedayat و Hedayat Hirbohd (1917) The Development of the Modern Iranian Nation-State: From Qajar Origins to Early Pahlavi Modernization , the degree of Master of Arts In Political Science ,Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
-           Hosni Rad, Marjan (2011), analysis of the narrative in the novel Mrs. Davody and its comparison with the movie Saatha, master's thesis in English literature, Shahid Beheshti University. (in Persian) 
-           http://keramatollahrasekh.blogfa.com/post/881(in Persian)
-           Iranian, Jamshid (1980), Social reality and the world of fiction, Tehran: Amir Kabir(in Persian) 
-           Khanleri, Parviz (2006), "On Contemporary Persian Poetry" in the First Congress of Iranian Writers 1947, Tehran: Ostoureh. (in Persian) 
-           Parvin, Amin and Hossein Mirzaei (2009), "Another representation of the position of the West in travelogues during the rise of constitutionalism", Iranian Cultural Research, No. 9, Spring, pp. 77-106(in Persian) 
-           Rasekh, Karamat Olah (2012), "The idea of reforms in Iran in the 19th century and its reflection in the travelogue of Mirza Saleh Shirazi (1), in:
-           RasEkh, Karamat Olah (2018), Mirza Saleh Shirazi and reflexive traditionalism, Journal of Iranian Studies, Spring and Summer, Volume 18, Number 35, pp. 67-93. (in Persian) 
-           Stanzel , F.K (1984)A Theory of Narrative, Cambridge University Press: NY: USA.