Abstract
This study discusses the maddahs who sadden and grieve the audience by reading poems during the mourning ceremonies organized with great enthusiasm in contemporary Iranian society. Traditional background of reading poetry in terms of Maddah style goes back to the Karbala days within various Shia rumors and accounts. Receiving governmental support for the first time during the Buyids era and became visible in the public sphere, the maddahs had been turned into an important propagandistic tool in re-construction of Shiite identity and effectively instrumented during the Safavid campaigns over the neighboring Sunni states, and also maintained this function throughout the Qajar era. In addition, the maddahs had been effective in mobilizing the crowds for anti-Shah demonstrations at the threshold of the 1979 revolution, also had a similar function within the context of the Iran-Iraq war and played an important role in mobilizing the Shiite masses to the front line. Today, the maddahs, described as “Khamenei’s soldiers” due to their support for the supreme leader of the revolution, make a name for themselves in the background of many socio-political developments in Iran as well as being the performer of a religious ritual. Recently, separated from traditional practices in maddah performance, a new public storytelling movement called “pop style” experiencing a transformation in terms of music and content emerged. The purpose of this study is dealing with the historical development and current dynamics of public storytelling tradition, which has a significant ground in Iran-centered Shia states and communities, in context of the Shiite hadith accounts, contemporary western travelers’ observations, and main studies from relevant Persian academic literature.