ara baliozian

AN UNFORGETTABLE LESSON ***************************************** According to Lord Kinross (the author of several books on Turkey and a monumental biography of Ataturk) the Turks not only admit the Genocide among themselves, but they also brag about it: "We taught those Armenians a lesson they will never forget!" they say. The reason why they refuse to make the same admission openly to the rest of the world is that they don’t know what we will do with it. Because, if historic Armenia was occupied by illegitimate means (ethnic cleansing) as opposed to legitimate means (war), then the victims will be justified to make demands that if not met may provoke retaliation. The Turks know that the present regime in Yerevan does not represent Armenians of the diaspora; neither do our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors. So that even these gentlemen were to send a delegation to Ankara with the message, "An admission is all we want," the Turks are smart enough to know that there are many Armenians out there who have nothing but contempt for all forms of compromise with the enemy. The irony here is that by saying "we taught them a lesson they will never forget," they are not only bragging but also scaring the hell out of themselves, because by acknowledging the fact that we will never forget, they are also expressing an awareness of the fact that as long as there is a single Armenian alive in the world, no Turkish diplomat will feel safe.

READING READERS ***************************** If you want to know more about Armenians as tourists, ask a tourist guide. If you want to know more about Armenians as patients, ask a doctor. Armenians as readers? Ask me. My impression is that Armenian readers are as a rule hard to please. Those who are easy to please may well outnumber them but since they are seldom heard from their numbers are difficult to assess with any degree of statistical accuracy. About the others, who are always more vocal, ubiquitous, and loud: they go far beyond expressing displeasure: they make demands; they set down rules, specific goals and a program. They are not readers. Rather, they are commissars and like all commissars they harbor a killer; and they have been successful in murdering Armenian literature. Every other Armenian writer I meet these days has either given up, fallen silent, or tells me, "I am the last one." A GUIDE TO THE PERPLEXED **************************************** A reader writes: "I have been reading you now steadily for over three years and may I confess that I have failed again and again to establish any kind of rapport with you: I have no idea who you are and why you write as you do. Please explain." Another writes: "After reading over a thousand essays by you I have reached the conclusion that you are an anti-Armenian racist and a dangerous influence on the next generation." My answer to both readers: I am in no position to choose my readers, but you are in a position to choose what to read and what not to read. Some day if I ever write for children, fools, and mentally challenged readers, I may have better luck with you and your kind. But until then, do yourself a favor: stop reading me. Because that’s exactly what I do when confronted with a writer I neither understand nor like.

that's all i remember; there may well be more details somewhere...

if i am not mistaken there is an armenian department there and 8% of their income is devoted to armenians!-- including scholarship, books,etc. / ara

Martin: i have corresponded with several Armenians in the Gulvenkian foundation; one of them, (now dead) even wanted me to translate his works into english! the other's name was Keshishian.../ ara

OF PROPHETS AND MESSIAHS *************************************** Let others speak in the name of Truth, God and Country. I speak in the name of common sense and decency, and if that’s not good enough for some of my readers, I say, that’s not my problem but theirs. Let them wait all they want for an Armenian Socrates, Christ, Gandhi or Solzhenitsyn to appear among us and as they wait let them meditate on what happened to the Greeks, Jews, Indians and Russians… After the Athenians condemned Socrates to death, the Athenian Empire collapsed never to rise again. Christ did not save the Jews; if anything, he condemned them to two thousand years of persecution. Immediately after Gandhi’s India declared independence, millions of Indians massacred one another in an orgy of violence. Solzhenitsyn exposed the satanic evils of Stalinism but there are many Russians today (also Armenians in Armenia) who miss the good old days under Stalin. A thousand philosophers, messiahs, prophets, and dissidents cannot save a single human being who has made up his mind to destroy himself or save a nation that is on its way to the devil.

KISS OF DEATH ************************ In the biography of a contemporary American writer (Saul Bellow) I am not surprised to read that almost every year following the publication of his first book, he was awarded a literary prize or grant by such American cultural foundations as the Ford, Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Pulitzer. As a Canadian citizen I too have been awarded a series of grants and awards from Canadian sources, but I haven’t had much luck with Armenian foundations, one of which (The Gulbenkian in Lisbon) is said to have more money than the wealthiest American foundation, including those mentioned above. One possible explanation: I have no political connections, institutional affiliations, and "khnamiyakan gaber," (literally, "in-law ties, i.e. friendly insiders or influential relatives). To those who say, "Armenian foundations are not friendly to you because you are anti-Armenian," I say, Bellow has called the United States "a moronic inferno," so what? Besides, I don’t consider myself anti-Armenian but anti-charlatan and anti-philistine. The real explanation may well be that those who staff our foundations are philistine charlatans and mediocrities whose number one concern is not to be exposed for what they really are. If true, to be awarded a grant or a prize by them should be as welcome to me or to any writer as a kiss of death.

Dear Martin: I have been writing for Armenians for more than a quarter of a century and so far I have not detected a single sign of progress. All the signs that I have seen have been in the opposite direction. This much said, may I add that, nothing would give me more pleasure than to wake up tomorrow or ten years from now (assuming I’ll live that long) and to discover that I have been wrong. / ara

Dear friend: Seventy years ago we had intellectual giants; we have none today. This to me represents not progress but decline.

MY REPLY TO BERJ ********************Berj: Armenia must survive without the diaspora: that’s like saying if a man can survive with one eye, one leg, one arm, and one kidney, why don’t we deprive him of these items? Are you sure you are not a sadist? All nations have crucified/backstabbed their messiahs: am I right in assuming you see nothing wrong in this? Are you implying, if others have behaved in that manner, why don’t we follow their example? As for examples: Instead of making a list of names, tell me in what way Socrates, Christ, and Gandhi helped their people? In what way Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn helped Russia? Russians followed Lenin and Stalin, and the USSR collapsed because its structure was corrupt not because of what Solzhenitsyn wrote. To say Solzhenitsyn was behind the collapse of the USSR is to recycle Stalinist propaganda, because that’s exactly what Stalinists are saying today. Are you sure you are not a crypto-Stalinist? If, as you say, you are in your twenties, I suggest you be more receptive, my friend, and less bloodthirsty! / ara

ON THE ART OF WRITING *********************************** The most important thing to remember is: the less art the better. Be brief. Write 100 pages, reduce them to one page, squeeze that page into a single paragraph, and discard it into the wastepaper basket. Be honest. Forget all about the crap you have been exposed to by sermonizers and speechifiers. Speak from your own experience and testify on what you have observed with your own eyes. Do these things and you’ve got it made, which in our environment means making the maximum number of enemies, among them editors and publishers. If you remember, the title of this essay is "the art of writing," not the art of being published. But if you want to know all about getting published, I will be glad to tell you that too – for the same money. All you do is remember two things: kiss ass and recycle crap.

SHOPTALK ************************ Hostility towards selfless intellectual labor is not criticism; neither is censorship. Editors who practice censorship have been notoriously fallible judges. Consider the Soviet era. And if you think the Soviet era is history, think again! Our partisan editors are not only neo-Soviet but also crypto-Stalinist. They practice censorship; hey have no respect for free speech and no use for the exchange of ideas or dialogue; they are committed to a closed system of thought and they operate on the assumption that what they know is as clear as daylight and anyone who doesn’t agree with them is either a complete ignoramus or an enemy of the people. The only difference that I can see between Soviet editors and ours is that, unlike to Soviet, our editors don’t have any influence on their local police and are thus in no position to recommend the death penalty – which may explain why I am alive.

why don't you tell us what it is that they have in common? the need to screw the masses?

HOVANNES READERS ***************************** Once upon a time I had as many as fifty thousand readers: that’s when our partisan as well as non-partisan editors in Canada, the United States and the Middle East printed everything I wrote. So what if most of these readers were of the (what’s known in the business as) "shithouse" variant? – that is, they read me in the john. A reader is a reader even if he does his reading while engaged otherwise. And now that our editors have conferred upon me the status of non-person, how many readers to I have? Hard to say. A dozen? Two? It doesn’t really matter. I can always console myself by repeating the old Chinese proverb: "If you think the right thoughts, you will be heard thirty thousand miles away."

Warning: some of the material below may be dated. If so, please forgive me for posting it here. i wrote it some years ago.... / ara Time Frame Theorists *************************** Time-frame theorists are a dime a dozen among us -- Armenians who say, "It will take two or three more generations until we produce honest bureaucrats and leaders"; or, "The lifetime of the present regime cannot be more than five or at most seven years; after which everything is bound to improve." Time-frame theorists are essentially fatalists and poltroons who believe that human action and individual initiative are useless and history is at the mercy of impersonal and invisible forces controlled by still another impersonal and invisible force called Time. Since man is incapable of changing the course of history or his own jagadakir (Armenian for destiny, literally "written on the forehead") his sole option is to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. During the Soviet era we had Armenians who were convinced the Soviet Union would last a thousand years. Did history teach them a lesson? I doubt it. Time-frame theories may die but time-frame theorists will always be with us. That's because we shall always have among us cowards and opportunists who will do and say nothing in defense of the people lest they offend the sensibilities of those in power. When such individuals speak of charity, compassion, and understanding, you may stay assured that they reserve these noble sentiments not for the victims but for their victimizers. The Root of Our Problems ********************************** We remain hopelessly divided and fragmented today because we behave not as a nation but as a collection of tribes. This has been said before, many times, but it bears repeating. Listen to Nikol Aghpalian (1873-1947), statesman, literary scholar, educator: "We Armenians are products of the tribal mentality of Turks and Kurds, and this tribal mentality remains stubbornly rooted even among our leaders and elites." But our tribalism is not a final verdict without appeal. There is a way out. Those who say otherwise have understood nothing of our history and care even less about us. We were victimized at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire not as tribes but as a nation. We may go on behaving as tribes but history and our enemies have singled us out and defined us as a nation. I say therefore, if we can suffer as a nation, we have earned the right to behave as a nation. This is the best argument against those who divide us by exploiting our tribalism. I will go further and state that, we will acquire national consciousness only on the day we understand that all those who have divided us and continue to divide us today in the name of this or that ill-defined orthodoxy, doctrine, ideology, or policy, are our gravediggers regardless of what they profess, preach, or speechify. Again according to Nikol Aghpalian: "When man does not submit himself to the rule of law, he will have to submit himself to the rule of man, that is to say, cliques and gangs." Enemies of Literature ******************************* Whenever our writers have run out of foreign and domestic persecutors, they have persecuted one another. Hagop Oshagan never lost a chance to denigrate Zarian's work and character. He even wrote an entire play attacking him as a double-talking manipulator and hypocrite. At the turn of the century, Zabel Yessayan (who survived the Genocide but fell victim to Stalin's purges in the Soviet Union) wrote a satirical novel titled Phony Geniuses in which she excoriated Indra (real name Diran Chrakian), a noted contemporary poet, teacher, and mystic. In a famous manifesto, Charents (himself a victim of Stalinist purges) condemned many important writers to irrelevance simply because they did not share his ideology. Some of my dedicated enemies are writers who mention my name only to denigrate my work. Others go further and completely ignore my contributions as translator. I have seen outlines of 20th-century Armenian literature written for American reference works in which Zarian's name isn't even mentioned (which is like writing about 19th century Russian literature without mentioning Dostoevsky) because mentioning him would have necessitated citing my translations in a footnote. Instead of combatting our tribalism these writers perpetuate it and for doing so they are rewarded by our ruling classes and elites whose greatest enemies are those among us who dare to speak up against prejudice, ignorance, divisiveness, and fragmentation -- that is to say, our tribalism. Culture and Barbarism ******************************* A great deal of nonsense is spoken in the name of culture or cultural values. We forget that every culture at all times and everywhere has also produced those who have resisted or rejected these very same values. Roman values were rejected by Christians, bourgeois values by communists, and communist values by dissidents. Likewise, medieval values were rejected by humanists, totalitarian values by democracies, conservative values by liberals, and fundamentalist values by a wide assortment of other -isms. Culture is first and foremost a process of ferment, conflict, and dialogue. To suppress dialogue and dissent is not culture but barbarism. As for cultural values, let's make one thing clear: we have conflicting interests not conflicting ideas, ideologies, doctrines, or principles. We are dominated by shopkeepers not statesmen, ideologues, theologians, or philosophers. Because as far as I know there is not a single Armenian on earth who openly subscribes to an ideology, orthodoxy, or philosophy that remotely justifies the destruction of the nation. Our Foreign Policy Options ************************************ By suppressing the opposition and adopting a pro-Turkish foreign policy, President Levon Der Bedrossian has proved that he respects only those he fears. His supporters may call that "respect" but his adversaries will be inclined to see it as opportunism or even cowardice. As for the Turks: why should they care whether or not what motivates Levon Der Bedrossian is respect, fear, or self-interest so long as he treats them as friends and an important fraction of his fellow Armenians as enemies? Like all imperial powers, the Turks have mastered the art of divide-and-rule, which simply states: "Why should we bother to fight our enemies so long as we can manipulate them into fighting among themselves and against one another?" Speaking as a concerned citizen: I am all for peace, coexistence, and cooperation with our enemies. I don't see blockade and the occasional massacre (whether we are the victims or victimizers makes no difference) as a desirable, or even viable, option. But the question that keeps nagging at me is: If our president can be flexible enough to be on friendly terms with those who attempted to exterminate us, why can't he be flexible enough with those who died in defense of our homeland? Reflections of a Concerned Citizen Sometimes I am attacked on the grounds that I am neither a political pundit nor a philosopher, and that I quote others too frequently to be an original thinker and I repeat myself too much to be a creative writer. But whether or not what I am doing qualifies as literature, journalism, political commentary, criticism, polemic, or some other academic discipline is irrelevant to me. I don't feel the need to classify myself and I care even less how others choose to see me. I don't even mind being described as a derivative hack who doesn't deserve to be published and read. (This, by the way, is already what our partisan editors have decided to do anyway, so that my critics may have good reason to feel vindicated.) I know one thing for certain: the questions I raise and discuss will have to be raised and discussed sooner or later by others, and if these others are more competent than I and if they carry out their task by means of an easily classifiable genre (drama, fiction, essay, political treatise, philosophical analysis) so much the better. But it seems to me, in our context, it would be far more useful to introduce the concept of direction rather than literary genre: we either advance in the right direction by discussing our problems objectively or we ignore them in the name of this or that academic abstraction. To our junkies of classification, I say: If it is classification you want, then classify me simply as a concerned citizen. I for one will be more than happy with that tag. Heroism and Culture ***************************** No nation in the history of mankind has ever declared war against another in order to lose it. We confronted the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century and we lost. We lost because they were many and we were few; they were armed and we were not allowed to bear arms; they were bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians and we were civilized Christians. We lost because we were stupid enough to believe in the verbal commitments of the Great Powers and they were smart enough not to. Even more to the point, we lost because we were divided and they were not. Finally, we lost because those among us who were wise enough to see the coming catastrophe were ignored by the extremists -- the very same people who are now saying: We did nothing wrong because our men were heroes and martyrs and (as everyone ought to know) both heroism and martyrdom are beyond criticism. But heroism and martyrdom are not incompatible with (i) an objective assessment of all the factors that led to our tragedy, (ii) a constructive critique of our performance, and (iii) the courage to accept responsibility for our blunders -- without which heroism and martyrdom become wasteful exercises in futility, or, in the words of Avedis Aharonian (1866-1948), author and statesman: "Heroism without culture is barbarism." By culture what Aharonian meant here is not recycled partisan propaganda, chauvinist verbiage about the snows of Mt. Ararat, endless lamentations for our fallen heroes and martyrs, or, for that matter, pilaf, shish-kebab, and belly-dancing, but a better understanding of reality. The Elites and the Masses ********************************* The main purpose of all elites, power structures, and orthodoxies is to keep the masses ignorant so that they may be more easily manipulated by the ruling classes. Some thinkers of the past have argued that, in order to make metaphysical, theological, or philosophical truths accessible to the masses, it is necessary to create laws, rituals, and belief systems. The fallacy in this elitist argument is that, it also justifies promoting prejudice and subservience, and by extension, war and massacre. Anyone who says God is one or God is three in one, or, for that matter, anything else that cannot be clearly demonstrated to be true or false, cannot be taken seriously, and to take such a man seriously even if he happens to be the Pope of Rome or the Emperor of China or the Czar of all the Russians is an unmistakable sign of frivolity. And speaking of the Pope, the Emperor, and the Czar: did these gentlemen ever share the same belief systems? Did they ever make an effort to harmonize their orthodoxies? Did they ever meet and agree on anything? Mankind will enter a golden age of universal brotherhood, peace, and cooperation only when it begins to perceive the charlatanism in all orthodoxies and the ****ography in all power structures. * * * In Praise of Peace, Coexistence, and Cooperation ***************** Some of the worst blunders in the history of mankind were committed by men who focused on their short-term gains to such a degree that they lost sight of their long-term interests. Our long-term interests suggest that coexistence is our only viable option. Unless we learn to coexist with our enemies, we will either massacre them when we get the chance or vice versa. This is the tribal way of eternal feud and vendetta. There are many Armenians who don't hate the Turks, or, if they hate them, they are more than willing to suppress their need for revenge. There are also many Turks who have no interest in covering up the Genocide. But these Armenians and Turks have so far failed to produce spokesmen or institutions to promote coexistence. Some day, if these Armenians, Turks, and Azeris step forward and identify themselves as supporters of peace, coexistence, and cooperation, we may be surprised to discover that they are -- and they have always been -- in the majority.* A Literary Giant or a Moral Midget? ***************************************** This year marks the centenary of one of the most prominent poets of the Soviet era, Yeghishe Charents (1897-1937). Preparations are afoot in both the Homeland and the Diaspora, and according to recent press reports, some of our most important political and intellectual leaders will participate in celebrating this momentous anniversary. I wonder how many of these gentlemen, who are now busy composing tributes, odes, lectures, articles, perhaps even books, will dare to mention the facts that, for most of his life, Charents was a loud-mouth Bolshevik propagandist, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a molester of young women, and an attempted murderer -- his victim: a respectable young woman who dared to resist his sexual advances. As for his frequently quoted and consistently ignored final message -- "O Armenian people, your salvation lies only in your collective powers!" -- it is sometimes forgotten that it came only after he had spent his life dividing the nation into good Armenians (Communists) and enemies (or "bourgeois nationalists", among whom, be it noted, he included some of our greatest intellects and far better men than himself). With a role model like Charents, why should we be surprised if there are today dozens of charlatans with the morals of a skunk who pretend to be literary giants?

reply to my critics: ***************************** There is no hope for the diaspora? To say that is to condemn the homeland to death. The azeris have oil; armenia has its diaspora. Whether you like it or not, we are like siamese twins; if one of us dies, the other may wither away too… please note that I said siamese twins and not Cain and Abel! now, my reply to berj, who it seems, needs heroes and messiahs: well, my friend, I have nothing but contempt for a nation that needs to crucify its saviors. I am even prepared to call such a nation a bunch of sadistic bastards! Have a nice weekend! / ara

AN ARMENIAN STORY ****************************** Two friends are having a drink in a bar. One of them, let’s call him Jack S. Avanakian, says to the other: "The earth is flat." "It’s not!" the other replies. "I tell you it’s flat like a pancake!" "It’s round like your stupid head. Haven’t you seen photos taken from outer space?" "All fakes." So they go on arguing for a while until Jack falls silent and the other goes home thinking he has been successful in convincing his friend that the earth is round. Next day, same time, same place, when the two friends meet again, Jack S. Avanakian says: "I thought it over and I still think the earth is flat." Another heated exchange follows until Jack runs out of arguments and again falls silent. On the third day when they meet again and Jack says "The earth is flat!" the other gives up in disgust and says: "Have it your own way." And forever after Jack thinks he knows more about the cosmos than his friend. Something very similar happens when you argue with an Armenian chauvinist or partisan who has made up his mind that his party is never wrong because his boss happens to be more Catholic than the Pope, more bolshevik than Stalin, and more Ottoman than Suleiman the Magnificent! Moral I: To be Armenian and to be reasonable are incompatible concepts. Moral II: An Armenian hates to lose an argument because he sees it as an extension of his manhood. Moral III: When an Armenians says, "I am right," or "You are wrong," what he really means is: I may be wrong and you may be right but since my heart is in the right place and the Good Lord is on my side, it follows, I am ahead of you even if I happen to be dead wrong. Moral IV: To be open minded, to understand, and to be receptive to new ideas are quintessentially un-Armenian concepts.

WHY I WRITE *************************** To share my despair, what else? If I were a rich man I would share my wealth. I would be a benefactor. I would be popular. I would make headlines in our weeklies. I would count among my friends nine bishops, three archbishops, two patriarchs and at least one catholicos. I would sport medals identifying me as a Nakharar of Vaspourakan, a Sparabed of Avarair, a Prince of Cilicia, a King of Armenia Major and an Emperor of Transcaucasia. (Have you noticed that even people who hate reading fiction, love living in it!) But these are things that are destined to remain beyond my wildest dreams. As an overworked and underpaid scribbler, all I have to share now is my misery and since I cannot be a benefactor, I must reconcile myself to being a malefactor, what else?

We are a contradiction that refuses to be resolved. Result? Stagnation, decline, degeneration, and "we are few!" Actually, that’s a big lie. We are not few!!!!!!! Our assimilation and mortality rates are high. And they are high because we refuse to resolve our contradictions. A vicious circle! A dead end! And result #2? Death by white or red massacre! / ara

I agree! If god doesn’t exist we must assume he does, and he is our father; which also means we are all brothers. But it does not follow that any human being is authorized or qualified or licensed to speak in the name of God.

RESPECT ************************ "Armenians will respect you only if you become a success in odar circles," I am told again and again by well-meaning friends. Maybe, but why should I care to have the respect of readers who don’t respect their own judgment? -- readers so confused, ignorant and base that they must look up to odars for guidance -- the very same odars who are invariably dismissed by them as uncivilized, ruthless, double-talking brutes.

for more on Zarian please search for "Gostan Zarian" on your Yahoo search engine. / ara

Gostan Zarian (1885-1969) Biography by Ara Baliozian (summarized by Shant Norashkharian) * This biography was published in the introduction of THE TRAVELLER & HIS ROAD, a partial English translation of Gosdan Zarian's work by Ara Baliozian, (Copyright Ara Baliozian 1981) *. * Ara Baliozian has given total authorization to Shant Norashkharian for posting any of his works/translations on the Internet/ World Wide Web.* Gosdan Zarian was born in Shemakha, the former capital of Azerbaijan, on February 2, 1885. His father, Christopher Yeghiazarov, was a prosperous general in the Russian Army—"a strong man, profoundly Christian and Armenian"—who spent most of his life fighting in the mountains of the Caucasus. He died when Zarian was four years old. After attending the Russian Gymnasium of Baku, in 1895, when he was ten, he was sent to the College of Saint Germain in Asnieres, near Paris. He continued his studies in Belgium, and, after obtaining a doctorate in literature and philosophy from the University of Brussels, he spent about a year writing and publishing verse in both French and Russian, delivering lectures on Russian literature and drama, and living a more or less bohemian life among writers and artists. Speaking of this period in his life, Zarian was to write: "We used to have cheap food with Lenin in a small restaurant in Geneva, and today, a syphilitic boozer with his feet on a chair and hand on revolver is telling me—" 'You counter-revolutionary fanatic nationalist Armenian intellectuals are in no position to understand Lenin.' " In addition to Lenin, Zarian also met and befriended such poets, artists, and political thinkers as Appolinaire, Picasso, Plekhanov, Ungaretti, Celine, Paul Eluard, Fernand Leger, and the renowned Belgian poet and literary critic Emile Verhaeren. It was Verhaeren who advised him to study his own mother tongue and write in the language of his ancestors if he wanted to reveal his true self. Heeding his advice, Zarian studied krapar (classical) and ashkharhapar (vernacular) Armenian with the Mekhitarists on the island of San Lazarro in Venice (1910-1913), where he also published THREE SONGS (1916) , a book of poems in Italian (originally written in French), one of which, titled "La Primavera" (Spring), was set to music by Ottorino Respighi and first performed in 1923. Next we find him in Istanbul, which was then the most important cultural center of the Armenian diaspora, where in 1914, together with Daniel Varoujan, Hagop Oshagan, Kegham Parseghian, and a number of others, he founded the literary periodical Mehian . This constellation of young firebrands became known as the Mehian writers, and like their contemporaries in Europe- the French surrealists, Italian futurists, and German expressionists-they defied the establishment fighting against ossified traditions a preparing the way for the new. "In distant cities people argued and fought around our ideas," wrote Zarian. "Ignorant school principals had banned our periodical. Well-known scholars looked upon us with suspicion. They hated us but did not dare to say anything openly. We were close to victory...." At which point, the proto-fascist Young Turk government decided to exterminate the entire Armenian population of Turkey. The holocaust that followed claimed 1,500,000 victims, among them 200 of the ablest Armenian poets and authors, including most of the Mehian writers. Zarian was one of the very few who survived by escaping to Bulgaria, and thence to Italy, establishing himself in Rome. In 1919, as a special correspondent to an Italian newspaper, he was sent to the Middle East and Armenia. He returned to Istanbul in 1920 and there, together with Vahan Tekeyan, Hagop Oshagan, and a number of other survivors of the holocaust, he founded another literary periodical, PARTSRAVANK (Monastery-on-a-Hill). At this time he also published a second book of poems, THE CROWN OF DAYS (Istanbul, 1922). Following the establishment of Soviet rule in Armenia, Zarian returned there and for the next three years taught comparative literature at the State University of Yerevan. Thoroughly disappointed with the regime, in 1925 he again went abroad where he conducted a nomadic existence, living in Paris, (where he founded the French-language periodical LE TOUR DE BABEL), Rome, Florence, the Greek island of Corfu, the Italian island of Ischia, and New York. In New York he taught Armenian culture at Columbia University (1944-46), founded the English-language periodical THE ARMENIAN QUARTERLY (1946) which, though it lasted only two issues, published such writers as Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Henri Gregoire, and Marietta Shaginian. From 1952-54 he taught history of art at the American University of Beirut (Lebanon). Following an interlude in Los Angeles, he once more returned to Soviet Armenia in 1961, where he worked at the Charents Museum of Art and Literature in Yerevan. A bowdlerized edition of his novel THE SHIP ON THE MOUNTAIN (originally published in Boston in 1943) appeared in Yerevan in 1963, and shortly thereafter in a Russian translation in Moscow (1969, reprinted in 1974). He died in Yerevan on December 11, 1969. Zarian was a prolific and many-sided writer who produced with equal ease short lyric poems, long narrative poems of an epic cast, manifestoes, essays, travel impressions, criticism, and fiction. The genre in which he excelled, however, was the diary form with long autobiographical divagations, reminiscences and impressions of people and places, interspersed with literary, philosophical and historical meditations and polemics. To this category belong THE TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD (1926-28), WEST (1928-290, CITIES (1930), BANCOOP AND THE BONES OF THE MAMMOTH (1931-34), COUNTRIES AND GODS (1935-38), and THE ISLAND AND A MAN (1955), all of which were published in serial form in the now vanished emigre monthly HAIRENIK of Boston. So far only three of the works ( The Traveller and His Road, West, Cities) have been published in book form in a single volume titled WORKS (Antelias, 1975), with a laconic introductory note by Boghos Snabian. In Armenia, Zarian's fame rests on the narrative poem THE BRIDE OF TETRACHOMA (Yerevan, 1965; originally published in Boston, 1930), and the already mentioned censored edition of THE SHIP ON THE MOUNTAIN. The entry on Zarian in the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, volume 3 (Yerevan, 1977), doesn't even mention his THE TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD, which is generally regarded, together with BANCOOP AND THE BONES OF THE MAMMOTH, as one of his greatest achievements. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Short Bibliography "The fact remains that sooner or later Armenian writers will either swim in his river or drown in their own cesspool." Ara Baliozian (Nor Gyank, Nov 30, 1995) Writings by Zarian: Zarian, Constant, "The Priest of the Village of Bakontz," trans. James G. Mandalian. Armenian Review 2, No. 3-7 (Autumn 1949), pp. 28-39. Zarian, Gostan, Nave leran vra (The Ship on the Mountain) (Boston: Hairenik Publishing House, 1943). ________, Le bateau sur la montagne (The Boat on the Mountain), trans. P. Der Sarkissian (Paris: Seuil, 1969). ________, Bancoop and the Bones of the Mammoth, trans. Ara Baliozian (New York: Ashod Press, 1982). ________, The Traveller and His Road, trans. Ara Baliozian (New York: Ashod Press, 1981). ________, The Island and A Man, trans. Ara Baliozian (Toronto: Kar Publishing House, 1983). ________, "The Bride of Tetrachoma," trans. Ara Baliozian, Ararat (Summer 1982). ________, "The Pig," chap. in A World of Great Stories, ed. H. Haydn and J. Cournos (New York: Avenel Books, 1947). ________, "The National Turkey Hen," trans. Ara Baliozian, chap. in Yessayan, Zabel, The Gardens of Silihdar and Other Writings (New York: Ashod Press, 1982). ________, "Krikor Zohrab: A Remembrance," trans. Ara Baliozian, Ararat (Spring 1982). ________, "My Song," "Ecce Homo," "Alone," and "Morning," in Anthology of Armenian Poetry, ed. Diana Der Hovanessian and Marzbed Margossian (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 189-193. Writings about him: Amirian, Lemyel, "To the Editor," Ararat (Autumn 1972), p. 33. ________, "The Wound Again: Dichotomy as the Key to the Armenian Character," Ararat (Summer 1974), pp. 40-43. Baliozian, Ara, "Introduction," Banoop and the Bones of the Mammoth ________, "Introduction," The Traveller and His Road ________, "Introduction," The Island and a Man ________, "Historian of the Heart," Ararat (Winter 1980), pp. 70-72. ________, Intimate Talk (Kitchener, Ont.: Impressions, Publishers, 1992), pp. 19-21, 112-113. ________, The Greek Poetess and Other Writings (Kitchener, Ont.: Impressions, Publishers, 1988), pp. 234-241. Durrell, Lawrence, "Constant Zarian--Triple Exile," The Poetry Review (January/February 1952). Kelikian, Hampartsoum, "The Wound Remains the Wound: Armenian Writers of Our Time," Ararat (Autumn 1973). Kuprianova, Nina, "Interview with Gostan Zarian," Soviet Literature (March 1966).

DECONSTRUCTION ******************************** "We don’t have literary critics," Zarian has said. "What we have instead are meddlers with derivative criteria gathered from here and there – amateurs who have made of literary criticism an arid field of dismal mediocrity." Oshagan Sr., our foremost literary critic and a contemporary of Zarian, retaliated by saying Zarian didn’t have a single original idea in his head. Oshagan Jr. echoed his father’s words when he wrote in ARARAT Quarterly (Autumn 1994): "Zarian’s ideas have grown old prematurely. Of course, Zarian’s thought is vulnerable and his ideas and his intuitive truths cannot resist five minutes of serious examination." There you have it, deconstruction Armenian style: demolition!

looks good! thanks / ara