Zarian

[ara baliozian]

Gostan Zarian (1885-1969)

Biography by Ara Baliozian

 

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.

 

 

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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.

[ara baliozian]

MY TWO FAVORITE ZARIAN QUOTATIONS

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1.

"An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's

yataghan."

 

2.

"Our political parties have been of no political use

to us.

Their greatest enemy is free speech."

[ara baliozian]

FROM THE DIARIES OF GOSTAN ZARIAN

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Selected and Translated by A.B.

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Beirut / April 1954

Rain.

Went to Antelias with Father Shahen and Shahan Berberian. I told them,

the Armenian church has become another shop.

 

April 6, 1954

Dinner with Shahen Vartabed and Shahan Berberian.

Old memories, new hopes.

Shahan understands a little of everything.

Generally speaking, the Armenian atmosphere is stifling.

 

Salzburg / December 12, 1956

Everywhere Mozart, Mozart, Mozart. He has become a source of revenue,

he who was buried in a paupers' grave.

 

Vienna / March 14, 1957

For a number of years now, we have been living like monks. Once in a

while a play or a concert, nothing else. I don't see any Armenians,

which is no great loss.

 

Vienna / April 5, 1957

We must oppose the concept of art as entertainment. Art must be a

mission and a destiny. One must be more than an artist.

 

Florence / November 26, 1957

Dinner with Mrs. Mann-Borgese [Thomas Mann's daughter]. Long

conversations about literature and her father. I didn't know that

Thomas Mann's mother was a Brazilian and he had thus a dual

sensibility: German and Latin. Mrs. Mann-Borgese is herself a talented

woman and the author of many essays. She can't be said to be a great

beauty, but is endowed with qualities far superior to beauty: a

graceful bearing and a high degree of intelligence

***

Five months now that I have not seen a single Armenian newspaper. So

much the better. The only thing that connects me to my fellow

Armenians

is the language.

 

April 1958

We always forget that what interests us is not the nation itself but

our conception of it. (My case.)

--- End forwarded message ---

[ara baliozian]

FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF GOSTAN ZARIAN

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Selected & Translated by A.B.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

1.

Withered souls and twisted minds are parasites that smother life.

Exposing them is our sacred duty.

 

2.

They asked Nietzsche why some of his writings are obscure and

incomprehensible and he said because he didn't want swine to enter his

garden. Our swine have already entered our garden, alas, trampled over

our beautiful plants and flowers, and reduced them to grass.

 

3.

To have a homeland means to be able to live in harmony in a certain

environment and to feel at home in its atmosphere. With us, homeland

has always been a distant mirage.

 

4.

There are those who think membership in a party qualifies them as

experts on any given subject.

 

5.

With us, simple words become sources of endless controversy and

everyone rises to the defense of his monastery, his chickens, his

village, his dialect.

---

[ara baliozian]

ZARIAN & HIS CONTEMPORARIES

**************************************************

by ara baliozian

 

Whenever I question Zarian's contemporaries I notice

again and again that they refuse to discuss the work

and prefer to gossip about the man, and more

specifically the insults he apparently inflicted on

them.

A minor novelist: "We organized a picnic in his honor

and instead of thanking us he complained about the

food."

A third-rate versifier who considers himself a first

rate poet: "He was an arrogant name-dropper. Unamuno

told me this, Verhaeren told me that, Picasso told me,

me, me, me!"

An academic in Yerevan: "He was unbearably

self-centered. No one liked him."

An occasional journalist: "Once, when I was a boy, I

carried two of his atrociously heavy bags to the top

of a mountain in Cyprus and he didn't even thank me."

Of Zarian we can truly say that he was too good for

his people, including our so-called intellectual

elite.

To those who say, "But there must be some truth in all

that anecdotal evidence. The man must have been

inconsiderate, perhaps even rude, in his dealings with

his fellow Armenians"; I say, yes, certainly, I agree.

Rudeness is unforgivable in any man, including

writers, especially writers. But then, Charents was an

attempted murderer: that doesn't seem to stop our

academics from studying his works and the public from

idolizing him.

[ara baliozian]

ZARIAN ON STYLE

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Translated by Ara Baliozian

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Translator's note: The following passage is taken from

Gostan Zarian's collection of essays, reminiscences,

travel impressions, diaries, and notebooks titled

NAVADOMAR (Logbook), edited with an introduction and

commentary by Youri Khachaturian (Yerevan, 1999).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

For an authentic writer nothing can be as easy as

being difficult; and nothing can be as difficult as

being easy.

"Make it simple," Oscar Wilde once wrote to a friend

from jail, "otherwise I will think you have nothing to

hide."

That which is simple has many layers of meaning.

Simplicity is like the skin that covers muscles,

nerves, and all the other secrets of the body.

That which is difficult has nothing to say. When you

finally unravel its mysteries you discover it is

devoid of all sense. And those who praise this kind of

writing are either simple-minded dupes or cunning

operators whose hidden motives have nothing to do with

literature.

[nairi]

Thanks!