On the occasion of Bijan Ashtari’s death; Translator of “Red Dictators” (Guest Note)

It was just a few months ago that the world of Mario Bargas Yusa lost. A writer of the Nobel Prize in Literature who wrote historical novels and had no dictatorship. Josia was a leftist in a young man and later departed from politicians seeking crime and violating freedom, and seeing the efforts of a group of leftist intellectuals to justify these crimes, seeing freedom to justify the future of now, and preferred to be a person’s conscience.

Josia was always present to advance the cause of freedom. Although we know him more about his novels, we must remember that he had numerous articles and lectures in defense of freedom, and even once in his country, Peru, he was nominated for president and continued to write and defend freedom for the rest of his life.
So far, you may have looked at yourself as a note and asked yourself what Josia has to do with it, especially as Bijan Ashtari has not translated any of Josia’s works. Perhaps it should also be taken into account that in my mind, the translator, even in the news of his death, must be named after a writer. Maybe for me to the audience of Mr. Ashtari’s translations, it was difficult to write about his death, so I tried not to go to Bijan Ashtari, but the reason I would like to say is that Bijan Ashtari was the same and liked freedom.

Bijan Ashtari has been translating and writing in cinema journals for years and was a well -known personality in Iranian art. Since the mid -1980s, it has been translating books known as “Red Dictators”. Writing against leftism still has its own difficulties, and it can be imagined how difficult it was at that time, given at least some of Mr. Ashtari’s audience and audience. The difficulty of the work was that such a set was empty so many years.

Bijan Ashtari began his work with larger red dictators. Most of its translations were the biography of the Red Dictators, from senior Soviets such as Lenin, Stalin, Bukharin, Trotsky and Brezhnev to Paul Put and Anwar Khoja, who were smaller communist dictators, and of course the socialist dictators, which were less known for their personality. However, Ashtari was not content with the translation of the life of dictators, to present a more transparent image of life in communist regimes, about celebrity dissidents such as Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak, respectively, the Soviet Nobel Poet and Writer, and the book “Omid”. One of the most famous books on life in North Korea.

Another part of Bijan Ashtari’s translation record is dedicated to literary stories, which were also intended to clarify the communist system, including the book “The Skin Hat for Comrade Yafim Samonovic Rachlin” and its final translation that contained stories by Isaac Babylon.

But in addition, Bijan Ashtari had an active Instagram plate. He was constantly writing about the issues of Iran and the world, and in addition to his books, he would also introduce his audience to his worldview and, while describing the cause, to keep people with himself, which of course has many difficulties. In this space he heard a lot of insults and, of course, saw his opponents set fire to his translations and threatened himself many times. However, although many think that the era of left -wing is over, the red criminals should be scandalous because the seductive sound of this idea can still attract fans and create a disaster.

Ashtari, who was leftist in the past, once responded to a number of comments that they wanted to introduce him to real communism, publishing a picture of his youth alongside Kianori, saying I must say that if I had stayed in my previous beliefs and the Tudeh Party was still active, I would have been the secretary -general of the party. Of course, he has repeatedly emphasized that he still believes in his past aspirations and wants human life for everyone, but he has been knowing for years that the way to that human cause is not leftist but from the road of freedom, and now he strives to do so.

Finally, I have to say from the translation of Jane Sharp’s book “Civil Disorders”, which was sent by Mr. Ashtari, but never received permission. A few months ago, he wrote about the taste of his intellectual opponents at the Ministry of Guidance to prevent the printing of his translations. Even those translations of Mr. Ashtari who had been licensed were sometimes canceled for some time or were not allowed to attend the book fair. It is as if the translator should never have been comfortable. In addition, just a year ago, Mr. Ashtari announced that their books had been removed from the book house site and therefore their insurance had been cut off.

In spite of all these problems, Bijan Ashtari did not come short, did his job, gained a lot of audiences, and thus had his work, a deeper and deeper work than anyone could erase. Undoubtedly, the Iranian cultural community and freedom -seekers know it. I extend my condolences to Mr. Ashtari’s death. The bad news for the red dictators, however, is that although Bijan Ashtari is no longer between us, its translations are, but are read and read and continue to influence.

This exclusive note on Bijan Ashtari’s work and translations by another translator in the field of dictatorship in the Communist countries, Massoud Yusuf Hasirchin, has been available to DigiKala Mag. We are grateful to him and remember Bijan Ashtari, who was a free translator and human being.