In the historical course of human societies, there are rare and sensitive situations in which a person becomes famous due to his exceptional characteristics. Not only to become famous but the awakened minds to the extent that those around him near and far make legends for him. Such people have so much to say that, according to Charles Baudelaire “they are a thousand years old”
There are not many such privileged situations and there are only a few of people like that because a lasting reputation is worthy of those who create original works. With the current state of the world, literature is valuable when there is a shout of anger. The writer must step in the way of the intellectual movement of his readers. He must rebel against oppression and introduce superstitions and cumbersome traditions to the society and be careful not to be influenced by ideological systems themselves, because our ideology hinders the growth of the idea that superstitions and religions.
Sadegh Hedayat was and is a clear example of such a person. Hedayat is the greatest Iranian writer in the 20st century and it can even be said that it is the 21st century and many centuries.
Hedayat was a free thinking man. He had a moral principle far removed from the Iranian traditions of his time. He was morally oriented, not in the mystical sense of the word but also means Ethique- His moral basis was absolute freedom in every issue. Hedayat was vigilant but often frustrated in Iranian society because it is necessary to live in all societies that are suffering from cultural poverty and subjugated by lying and hypocrisy are necessary for life. The key to success in appearance such a way that think that the people of such a land have been forced to suffer from schizophrenia. people often don’t accept the truth expressed by intellectuals, they only believe and read things that are in line correspond to their beliefs.
Hedayat did not avail the Iranian society of that day. He was famous but his reputation was a heavy burden. In the society of that day in Iran, where all attention should be paid to the king or the absolute ruler, there is no place for the fame of the writer and intellectual.
The form and content of literature is a means of artistic, cultural and social communication that cannot serve the structures that are in the form of tradition and custom of society transformation must begin. Sadegh Hedayat was the creator of poetic and non-poetic literature and a thinker who deal with the depths of the souls and expressions of the forgotten people. He had a new perspective in which there was no direct or indirect moral message there was no glorification of the lower classes of society and society was not condemned for poverty, ignorance and public misery on the contrary, the people were not only not behind the rich and ruling class in the immorality, evil and corruption that was in the society of Iran at that time, but they were also ahead because they were very happy with this situation. Voltaire had a direct influence on Hedayat. He had dismantled the old ideas in France. Hedayat wanted to do something similar to Voltaire in Iran. But he knew full well that Iran was not yet at a level where it could abide the burden of such a cultural revolution. Superstition, tyranny and colonialism had Iranian people were oversight in everything that progress could not be made unless the cultural infrastructure collapsed.
Iran during the Qajar period is collapsing and Reza Shah is on the way to power, but Reza Shah cannot do anything for Iran he faces with a honless and tailless giant and people who are both conservative and reactionary. Reza Shah should be friends with writers and intellectuals, but he prefers suffocation. Hedayat does not see the modernity in the form of empty words such as modernity and innovation. Innovation must take place, which is why Hedayat was opposed to Reza Shah proceedings.
The modernity that Hedayat says is primarily freedom of expression and thought.Hedayat began to study the sociology and anthropology of the Iranian people according to his interpretation of Schopenhauer's dialectic. He got a bitter result. Iranians do not read book, they do not have the patience to read thick novels, Iranians are not used to looking for the message that is in the stories of realism everything is a story for them and a story for entertainment, and if it has a message, it must have a moral message, a morality that is derived from religion. The Iranian people have forgotten that no matter how strong Iranian culture is, it still gets sick, stagnates but thought and freedom are abandoned in Iranian culture, Iran is not France where the Dadaism or Surrealism movement becomes a literary revolution.
Hedayat made many attempts for Iranian culture and literature, but unfortunately failed he thought that a cursed spider who had been expelled from his homeland he was like an innocent exile. He victim to the stupidity and blind prejudices of the Iranian people. It is the custom of the land of Iran to kill decent children in order to mourn for them later. Hedayat was a homeless man who had neither the heart to stay in Iran nor the possibility of staying in Paris Hedayat's suicide was a complete failure of Iranian literature because Hedayat had said the day before his suicide, "I was just learning to write. "
The story of S.G.L.L. which stands for ( serum gegen liebenschaft ) it is one of the most mysterious stories of Hedayat written in 1932. The story that was written at the time was not very understandable to the Iranian society of that day of course, in my opinion, it can be said that the main reason that Hedayat reached a dead end in Iranian society was this issue. Hedayat ahead of his time. In this story, Hedayat, with his special delicacy and sharpness, has predicted the future of the human race in a way that is wondrous in its place. In this story, Hedayat deals with anthropological and sociological issues in thoroughgoing.
Hedayat describes the greatest problem of humanity in this way there was only one pain, one incurable pain, and that was the fatigue and boredom of a life without purpose. In the story of the impasse, he says that all the people were fashioned, had lost their freshness and freshness, had sunk their nails into the belly of their lives, had taken refuge in their fears, obsessions, superstitions and selfishness. Some had achieved their dreams and some were pursuing them. People just dragged their carcasses from one hole to another.
Confusion and aimlessness is the biggest problem that all human beings face today. 21st century man today is madly in search of riches and most of that money is money, which is a means to live, but unfortunately with the policies of the capitalist system, money has become a goal for life today and all human societies sacrifice humanity for their goal.
Hedayat had well foreseen such events, he told in the same story of S.G.L.L. "The world will not be destroyed, but it is humanity who will be destroyed by himself " he says. At the time when Hedayat said these words. many people considered these words as a sign of pessimisim and madness, some even said sarcastically that Hedayat wrote that he had used cocaine. But this prediction occurred on January 16, 1945 at 5:29:53 p.m. Terrible explosion. The explosion that was the beginning of the destruction of humanity The explosion that nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer saw when he saw that now I am dead. Destroyer of worlds.
Today, these same explosions have plunged the Middle East into the abyss of destruction the children of the Middle East are born in the midst of smoke and fire, they live in the midst of smoke and fire, and in the end they burn in smoke and fire and they become fragmented. Humans far away from their true nature, and Hedayat sees the cause of all this confusion as being far from their nature. Art is the main essence of nature that has been set aside and Hedayat believes that the farther we go from our nature, the more miserable we become. In terms of Hedayat the true nature of man means eating well, sleeping well, listening to music, playing love and all the natural needs of human. In traditional societies, there has always been an attempt to suppress the sexual instinct, but of course, all these efforts have not only not yielded positive results, but on the contrary, society has become more involved in corruption and prostitution.
As Freud believes that the suppression of sexual desire causes sexual perversions in the person, so Hedayat in the story of S.G.L.L. Beautifully expressed. (Six months had passed since the serum injection to kill the lust, but contrary to expectations, it had a strange effect, because in the laboratory there was a mistake in the liquid and its amount) of course, in my opinion, this sentence is a metaphor for the prejudices and indulgence that occur in traditional and religious societies. In the following, Hedayat the image shows such a society in this way "People were suffering from a certain kind of madness," The city was full of suicides and insane movements. Factories were exploding and people in cities shouted. People were pulling their eyes out a woman filled her son's skull with alcohol and ate it, a girl who had surrounded herself in her room with lustful pictures had killed herself, the painters and artisans whose subjects were lust. Lustful music, lustful thoughts, thinkers and philosophers spent all their time on lustful matters. All these issues that Hedayat expresses in his story cause the destruction of humanity, the destruction of morality and spirituality. Yes, Hedayat had a good prediction of the future. Hedayat directed his thoughts directly and without irony. He was a staunch opponent of superstitions and their teaching to children and adolescents. In the story of AROSAK E POSHT E PARDE, Mehrdad, the main character of the story is a perfect example of an Iranian youth in the 20s. Hedayat says about Mehrdad that his brain was accumulated from the advice of a thousand years ago.
Hedayat was very aware of the writers of his time. He was the first to introduce Sartre, Kafka, Joyce, Virginia Woolf to the Iranian literary community and even translated some of their works. This was while the European literary community still did not have a complete and correct knowledge of Kafka. Hedayat said about Joyce that he changed literature and after him literature is divided into two parts: literature before Joyce and literature after Joyce.
He also spoke of Virginia Woolf as the greatest and most interesting writer of the twentieth century. Virginia has poetic and meaningful writings that are free of any niaiserie His critiques are at the height of his intellectual delicacy, and his writing technique has become a model for many writers around the world.
Sadegh Hedayat, with his genius and talent, could have made a dramatic change in Iranian literature and world literature, but unfortunately he fell victim to prejudices and then decided to end his life, which in fact ended the growth and dynamism of Iranian literature. One hundred years after his death, Hedayat is still felt absence in the Iranian literary community.
The end
Friday. June. 11. 2021
Iran