zarian

[ara baliozian]

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!

[MJ]

Ara,

 

I know you have done extensive work on Zarian. Is it possible for you to post some of your work here, so that we learn more about Zarian? Is it also possible to have some of Zarian's oroginal work posted in this thread?

 

Thanks.

 

Martin

[ara baliozian]

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).

[ara baliozian]

for more on Zarian

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