From Muzaffar al-Din Shah's Speech to the Meeting of Reza Shah and Atatürk: The Story Behind the IRIB Archive / How Were 30,000 Old Tapes Saved from Becoming Unusable?

Nourollah Moradi, the first director of the IRIB Archive Unit, recalls the time when the audiovisual archive of the organization was meant to turn from a pile of tapes and images into a preservable and retrievable memory for the Iranian nation. Its oldest audio recording is Muzaffar al-Din Shah's speech in the First Majlis, and its oldest video recording is Reza Shah's trip to Turkey and his meeting with Atatürk. In an interview with Safir Arjan, Moradi speaks about the formation

Narges Kiani: "The archive is the nation's memory, just like your family photo album is your memory. The oldest audio tape that can be found in the radio archive is Muzaffar al-Din Shah's speech in the first parliament, and the oldest film tape is Reza Shah's trip to Türkiye and his meeting with Atatürk. From that time until today, this wide range of audio and video has built the memory of the Iranian nation. In my opinion, anyone who deals with archival material soon realizes what valuable material they are dealing with. Unless he is caught by bigotry, which means resigning from reason. Of course, I have to remind you that luck was on my side that whatever I wanted from the Broadcasting Organization, as the first manager of the "Archive Unit", the organization accepted. Including the copying of 30,000 "two-inch" tapes on "Umatic" tapes and after me on "CD", which if it didn't happen today we would be faced with 30,000 tapes that we couldn't review because there is no longer a device for playing "2-inch" tapes in the world..." This is part of the words of Nurullah Moradi, a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh in the field of librarianship and information. This is an interview with Ambassador Arjan, who has been working as the Director General of Archives and Libraries of the Broadcasting Organization since returning to Iran from America in 1357 to 1377. (Main photo: Puri Soltani's office in the National Library - sitting from right: Puri Soltani and Kamran Fani. Standing from right: Narges Neshat and Noorullah Moradi - all photos of the report belong to the publishing site of the librarian of the article "Visual-auditory archives (excerpts from Abolfazl Najari's interview with professor Noorullah Moradi)".

From the beginning of cooperation with Reza Qutbi to the continuation of cooperation with Hashmi Rafsanjani

About a year before the revolution, in May 1357, when he had just returned to Iran, Noorullah Moradi was faced with an offer of cooperation from Reza Qutbi (the first head of Iran's National Radio and Television), who was looking for someone to work with "IDL". Arthur D. Institute Little, to implement their cooperation and plan to shape the audio-visual archive of Iran's National Radio and Television. At that time, about a year had passed since the presence of "IDL" specialists in Iran and the beginning of their work. These experts, by preparing a detailed report, had drawn the road map that had to be taken to organize the archive. However, despite having the technical ability, their plan was plagued by shortcomings due to lack of familiarity with the native culture and art of Iran. For example, the importance of a piece of music in Shur device was hidden on "IDL" that an Iranian could understand its importance. Therefore, the presence of an Iranian familiar with this importance was needed along with the specialists of the administrative institute of "EDL".

Nurullah Moradi, who had returned to Iran from America in May 1357, was introduced to Reza Qutbi in the summer of that year and got to know him and was hired to cooperate with "IDL" in the process of shaping the archive. With the occurrence of the revolution in February 1357, the experts of "IDL" left Iran, while their memory was limited to the aforementioned detailed report. After the revolution, despite the differences created, Moradi was commissioned by Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani (the 8th CEO of the Radio and Television Organization) to shape the audio-visual archive of the organization.

From Sadegh Qutbzadeh to Mohammad Hashemirafsanjani; The eighth CEO of the Broadcasting Organization

"On August 15, 1360, about 30 months after the victory of the revolution, I was appointed as the eighth CEO of the Broadcasting Organization." This is a part of Mohammad Hashmir Rafsanjani's conversation with Ambassador Arjan. The 8th CEO after Sadegh Qutbzadeh, the five-person council, the three-person council, Taqi Farahi, Mohammad Meghari Islami, Ali Akbar Mohtashmi, Abdullah Nouri (joint) and Ali Larijani. Sadegh Qutbzadeh was appointed as the head of the radio and television organization on 23 February 1357. The organization whose name was changed from "National Radio and Television of Iran" to "Sadasama of the Islamic Republic of Iran" after the "Referendum of the Islamic Republic" and resumed its activities in May 1358, after a break of several months. In December 1358, the Revolutionary Council, however, dismissed him due to dissatisfaction with the performance of the head of the organization, and a five-member council including; Mohammad Mousavi Khoiniha, Gholam Ali Haddadadal, Ahmed Azizi, Behzad Nabavi and Ebrahim Pirainde took over the management of the organization. However, the life of this council did not last three months and after the election of Abul Hassan Bani Sadr to the presidency, with his decision in March of the same year, a three-member council consisting of Gholam Ali Haddadadal, Mohammad Ali Hadi Najafabadi and Ahmed Ghazanfarpour replaced the previous council. The council administration did not last more than five months and with the election of two members of the council to represent the parliament, the administration of non-council television affairs and Taghi Farahi were once again appointed to manage the organization. The division of votes and factionalism continued in the organization, and the management of affairs was practically out of the management's control. So he also left the job after a while, and Mohammad Megheiri Islami took over the management of the organization. The next supervisors of the organization were Ali Akbar Mohtashmi and Abdullah Noori, who temporarily managed the organization in November 2009.

With the approval of the "Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Authority" law in the Islamic Council, in February 2019, a supervisory council consisting of representatives of the executive, legislative and judicial branches was formed with the main priority of "appointing the CEO and the policy and principles of broadcasting programs". Immediately after its formation, the Council appointed Ali Larijani as the CEO of Sedavasima, but the disagreement between the members of the Supervisory Council and the CEO caused him to resign in July 2016, and Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani was appointed as the head of the organization by a leadership decree. The supervisory council also disagreed with Hashmi Rafsanjani on some policies and actions, which led to his dismissal, but with the direct order of the leadership, he was once again appointed as the CEO of Sedavasima in 1362. 10 years later, in February 1372, Ali Larijani was appointed as the head of the organization and in 1378, he was retained in this position for another five-year period. (Taken from: Radio and Television (Iran) from page 92 to page 109 - Mehbobeh Kalantari and Parveen Qodsizad - Volume 19 of Islamic World Encyclopaedia: Zolkafel - Rashid)

After Ali Larijani, in 1383, Ezzatullah Zarghami became the head of the organization, and after two five-year terms, Mohammad Sarafaraz succeeded him on 17 Aban 1393, contrary to the 10-year routine of Mohammad Hashemirafsanjani, Ali Larijani and Ezzatullah Zarghami for only three years, until May 22, 1395. The management life of Abdul Ali Ali Asgari started on May 22, 1395 and ended on Mehr 7, 1400 after a 5-year period. Since Mehr 7, 1400, Peyman Jabali has been in charge of the management of the Broadcasting Organization, which is less than a month since he completed his first 5-year management period.

Thinking about "what to do" after the "mushroom growth of the archive"

"The history of audio-visual resources archiving began with the institutions that served the archives. That is, when the cinema was built, the film archive was also brought up, when photography and photography came into existence, the photo archive continued, when radio and television came into existence, the radio archive and television archive came into existence. But don't think that the founders of cinema or radio and television were so smart that they created the archive from the time cinema and radio-television were created. They were a phase of history, always behind. An example is a document in France that shows that in the early years of cinema, someone wrote an article and complained to the Louvre Museum that you have a button archive, you collected the buttons of military and personal people in different centuries, but you don't have a film archive and the films are disappearing. This is a part of the detailed text of Abolfazl Najari's interview with Noorullah Moradi in the book "Oral History of Iran's Library" (Ketabdar Publishing). Nurullah Moradi, who apart from the "Management of the Archive Unit of the Broadcasting Organization" has also collaborated with the Library Services Center, the National Library, the Central Library and the Document Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and several other important information and publishing institutions, believes: "All over the world, the management of radio and television in the first stage tried to develop its coverage; Whether local or national. Once they opened their eyes and noticed the archive, which had mushroomed and turned into a huge warehouse, and now they had to think about what to do. This issue also happened in Iran. Of course, the world had arrived earlier and we arrived later."

The excuse of Ambassador Arjan going to Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani; The then CEO of the Broadcasting Organization and Noorullah Moradi; The first manager of the organization's "Archive Unit", whose full text will be published soon, re-introduced the issue of "the departure of the archives of the Broadcasting Organization from the country", this time from the words of Mahmoud Farjami; The writer, journalist and satirist had a conversation with Ambassador Arjan. According to reports (Ambassador Arjan emphasizes that he does not have an official document in this regard), the case is assigned to the administration of Ezzatullah Zarghami in the management department of the organization and the presence of Hojjatul Islam Hossein Mohammadian as the director of the archive unit of the organization. A file that is more than the story of a hard drive, a person or a network, it is the story of a country's visual memory protection mechanism; A memory that, if its copies have been made available to others, must be able to follow its exit path from the first access to the last destination.