Oral History Interviews

ISEAS’ oral history project was first initiated in 1973 to generate primary source materials for scholarly use. The interviews focused on local experiences of the Japanese Occupation and Singapore in the immediate post-war period. Subsequently, the scope of the interviews expanded to cover autobiographical memoirs of prominent personalities in business, education, and politics. Due to limited resources, the oral history programme became dormant after 1997. Oral history interviews at ISEAS are now conducted on a project basis.

Of note in the collection are the oral histories of Myanmar’s post-independence political development, conducted from 2017 to 2019 with the help of ISEAS’s former Senior Visiting Fellow U Ye Htut.  Over a dozen prominent generals and high-ranking policymakers have contributed their oral histories that document their life experiences and involvement in various aspects of social and political development of post-war Myanmar in the 20th century. These interviews comprise more than 110 hours of audio recordings, with almost 2,900 pages of transcripts in the Burmese language.

Note

Background static noise may be present due to the age of the recordings.

Access

To access any of the interviews, please make a request through the Viewing Request form. We will respond to your request within one week of receiving your completed form. Once your request is successful, please visit the Library in person to access the Library’s oral history interviews.

Note: To use any resources at the Library, including the oral history interviews, please sign up for an ISEAS Library membership. Membership is free of charge and registration is available online.

In addition, a SEALionPLUS account is required to access this digitised collection. If you don't have one, we'll create it for you.