Global and Iranian history are both closely intertwined with the lives and destinies of prominent figures. Every one of them has laid a brick on history’s wall, sometimes paying the price with their lives, men and women alike. Women have been especially influential in the last 200 years, writing much of contemporary Iranian history.
In Iran, women have increased public awareness about gender discrimination, raised the profile of and improved women’s rights, fought for literacy among women, and promoted the social status of women by counteracting religious pressures, participating in scientific projects, being involved in politics, influencing music, cinema... And so the list goes on.
This series aims to celebrate these renowned and respected Iranian women. They are women who represent the millions of women that influence their families and societies on a daily basis. Not all of the people profiled in the series are endorsed by IranWire, but their influence and impact cannot be overlooked. These articles are biographical stories that consider the lives of influential women in Iran.
IranWire readers are invited to send in suggestions for how we might expand the series. Contact IranWire via email (info@iranwire.com), on Facebook, or by tweeting us.
"I was four months old when my father died. I do not know where I was born. I was a small orphan, raised by strangers. I had no father or mother. My aunts raised me. I only labored. I always only labored. When the celebration of Haji Norooz [Iranian New Year] came around, together with my friends, we sang songs; Hajji Firuz would call on us and give us two tomans as a salary. We hid that money in our scarfs. We were very poor, but there was no sorrow in our time."
So said Khangol Mesrzadeh, who died on March 18, 2020 – a silent event that did not receive any news coverage, with public attention fixated on the coronavirus pandemic. Mesrzadeh did not know the exact date of her birth or where she came from, but she knew as much as anyone would wish to know what song is and how it should be sung. With the magic and grief in her voice, she became famous as the Mother of Kurmanji Lullabies – lullabies that resonated with her own sorrowful life story, filled with ambiguity and suffering.
Mesrzadeh believed she had been born close to the time "when the Russians entered Iran”: around 1941. It transpires she was born among the Sivkanlu tribe in the village of Ughaz in Shirvan County, in northern Khorasan province. Her father left Iran for the Soviet Union when she was three months old and never came back. At the same time, she and her sister were abandoned by their mother.
Kalimollah Tavahodi, a writer and researcher who was born around the same time in the village where Mesrzadeh was born, was the first person to draw Mesrzadeh out from her endless loneliness, writing a book called Kurmanji Songs with Farsi Translation.
“We have many highly talented artists similar to Khangol in northern Khorasan. They all have either died in silence or do not dare to sing. In my book One Thousand and One Nights of Kurmanj, I try to introduce them one by one.
"Khangol spent her childhood, adolescence and youth on laboring in walnut gardens. Since her childhood she would raise her voice and sing. She was legendary. So was her playmate, Madineh. But Madineh died young."
Mesrzadeh married at a young age and gave birth to two children. According to Tavahoddi her daughter still lives in Shirvan, while her son has moved to Tehran and works as a laborer in the district of Qaleh Hasan Khan. Towards the end of her life and after the death of her husband, Tavahoddi says, Mesrzadeh’s brilliant mind was blighted by Alzheimer’s Disease. But for decades before being struck down by illness, she had been the informal keeper of Kurmanji melodies and songs.
The Kurmanjis are a group of Iranian Kurds who were driven to northern Khorasan many years ago. Kurmanji is the northern dialect of the Kurdish language and has a fascinating oral literary tradition, whose history and expansive output is a pleasure to read.
Tavahoddi himself has also written a six-volume treatise called The Historical Migration of Kurds to Khorasan in Defense of Iran's Independence, which documents some of this hidden treasure-trove. Noting that today, a vast proportion of Iranian children are unlikely to know who Khangol Mesrzadeh was, Tavahoddi says: "Khangol can still be counted as one of the luckiest. She was a woman who could not sing in her deeply traditional community."
Mesrzadeh was able to give a public performance just once in her life, and just one album of her renditions is available to those interested in learning more. Many might have heard of her name, but precious few have been made aware of her unique talent and expertise in singing Kurmanji lullabies. Those who have are unanimous: she did not receive the attention she deserved in her life.
On May 13, 2017, a special program of performances was held in the main hall of Tehran Art College, entitled One Thousand and One Nights. The masters of Maqami Music of Northern Khorasan entertained audiences, and Mesrzadeh herself also took to the stage to sing her lullabies, accompanied by musician Isa Gholipour playing the traditional dotar. This was the first and only gathering of lovers of folkloric music in the presence of the Mother of Kermanji Lullabies and her fantastic, beguiling voice.
Tavahoddi was the one who had brought her there, alongside another unknown but “legendary” performer from northern Khorasan called Bibi. “Nobody even looked at them,” he recalls, “until finally somebody asked, ‘Can you sing too’? They said, ‘Yes’! They asked, ‘What can you sing’? Khangol answered, ‘Whatever you say, I will sing it for you’. ‘Without it being written?’ ‘Yes’, she answered... and when she began to sing, they were flabbergasted. Everything was unique and brand new.”
The only recorded album of Mesrzadeh’s works is Kurmanji Women’s Songs, which was produced and distributed through the efforts of a group called Radio Navahi. To them and others, Mesrzadeh was an invaluable treasure and a unique, living archive of Kurmanji songs. She was infatuated with singing, and used to say: "When I am alone, no matter whether I am sad or happy, I only sing, and I am alive only through these songs."
The gestures Mesrzadeh made while singing were unique to her: the way she bent her head, closed her eyes, the way she shook her hand, head, and neck with the highs and lows of the lullaby.
She did not know Farsi and by the end of her life, her mind had degenerated. Tragically, she had even forgotten the songs. But she never forgot singing. In the final years of her life, when asked to sing, her eyes would sparkle with joy and she would reflect, painstakingly, on the task, summoning up a song from her subconscious. With a deep breath, she would begin singing, and all the cells in her body would respond to and be transformed by the lullaby. On occasion she would suddenly fall into a deep sorrowful silence mid-flow, because she could not remember the rest of the lyrics.
When news of her death broke, Kayhan Kalhor, a well-known Kurdish khamancheh (spiked fiddle) player from Iran, wrote: "Khangol Mesrzadeh is one of the numerous masters of the music of Northern Khorasan, who was not discovered as she deserved. Her talents and abilities have thus been lost. The suppression of women did not allow Khangol and other women artists to blossom and be seen. Khangol could very well have been the cultural ambassador of Kurmanji women."
Prominent Twitter personality Omid Tusheh posted one of her lullabies on his page. He wrote: "The sorrow in Khangol's lullabies sent me right back to my childhood, when my grandmother would sing Kurmanji lullabies with the same melody for her numerous grandchildren. Sometimes my mother, too, sings some of them for her grandchildren. But I am sure my sister will never sing such lullabies for her children."
Khangol Mesrzadeh now rests peacefully in her hometown.
Read other articles in this series:
Dr. Mina Izadyar, a Zoroastrian Doctor at the Service of All Iranians
Mahshid Amirshahi, Writer, Journalist and Satirist
Parvin Motamed Amini, A Life Devoted to Education
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