Redemptive Memories: Portraiture in the Cult of Commemoration.

Abstract

The practice of placing martyrs’ photographs on tombstones has become particularly widespread in Iran since the late 1970s: a practice which is directly linked to sociopolitical realities, characterized by revolutionary protest and war. The self-sacrifice of modern martyrs of revolution and war is ideologically related to the martyrdom of the Shiite saints, whose example they have emulated. In this article, I situate contemporary martyrs’ grave images culturally and historically in the Shia visual culture of Iran, and discuss two other genres of commemorative images, the saintly martyrs’ portraiture and portraits of diseased and sick members of the local community. The presence of the three genres of portraiture in contemporary Iranian public life invites questions such as, how is portraiture used in the memorial culture other than in the politicized martyrdom culture, what are viewers of saintly martyrs’ portraiture invited to remember, why is it important to remember the saints’ sacrifice, and how does the politicized martyrdom culture relate to non-politicized aspects of memorial culture? I suggest the iconographic rendering of saintly martyrdom is able to convey what are held to be meta-historical truths about the battle at Karbala. Contemporary martyrs’ portraiture represents a historical interpretation of those truths in which martyrdom is emulated. The portraiture of diseased and sick members of the local community relates to the meta-historical truth regarding saintly intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]