Next Year in Van (Գալ Տարի Վան)

Next Year in Van (Գալ Տարի Վան)

Vahe H. Apelian

Some time ago, a comedian I was watching on television being interviewed, was asked what were the sources of his comedy materials? He said that he mostly derives them from personal experiences and happenings. He then noted saying everything personal is universal. I say this for a reason. Whenever I dwell on personal happenings, it is in an attempt to attract and retain a reader’s attention.

Socially, I spent my formative years from my adolescence to my teens and beyond with organizations affiliated with Tashnagsoutiun. I was not in my teens yet when my father had me enrolled in the local Paplken Sunny Badanegan (Youth) Meoutiun (Association). We held our meetings in the dilapidated community center in West Beirut. It was built over a hill for we entered at ground level but its balcony across the entrance extended over the street below. We were not allowed to step on it because of the possibility of its collapse.

The community center must have been a one-time Middle Eastern type house that typically consisted of many rooms around a large central hall to accommodate the family members and their families. Although the building was old but the center was very impressionable. A big framed picture of the A.R.F. founders was hung on the center of one of the walls. Many pictures of freedom fighters adorned the rest of the walls. The community center had its own permanent resident we knew as Shahbaz Hairig. He too was once a freedom fighter. In his old age, he had found refuge in one of the rooms of the community center. Young and older adults met behind the closed doors of its many rooms or hurriedly went in and out with an air of determination pursuing something very important. It was in the far end left-hand side corner room that we youngsters held our meetings on Saturday afternoons.

From Badanegan I stepped into Zavarian Ashagerdagan Meoutiun (pre-college student association). Vicken Hovsepian (Montreal), Ohan Armenian, (Los Angeles) and I (Cincinnati) were elected to the committee along with the two others whose names I do not remember. We voted Ohan to be the chairman, Vicken the treasurer and I was voted as the secretary. It was an unprecedented election because the Nshan Palandjian Djemaran students always ran the Ashagerdagan Meoutium. Three of us as Armenian Evangelical High School classmates had campaigned for a change! There was a lot of enthusiasm in those days. We held our meeting in that community center.

From Ashagerdagan, I stepped into the Zavarian Oussanoghagan Meoutiun. It was considered a privilege to be a member of the Zavarian Student Association for you had to be a college student. We were considered associate members with a grace period of up to two years. After which only those who took their oath to become members of the Tashnagsoutiun continued their membership. We continued to hold our meetings in the same community center.

It is during my Zavarian years that one of the most memorable speeches of my life happened sometime late sixties. We had organized a roundtable discussion about the ways and means of achieving a united, free and independent Armenia. The prevailing reality was grim and the prospect of achieving a united and free independent Armenia was even much grimmer for the roundtable participants. As the all-day discussion came to its end, Dr. Papken Papazian concluded the meeting with a speech that has remained etched in my memory.

Dr. Papken Papazian was a Tashnag leader at the highest levels. He was also a lover of theater. I am not sure if he practiced medicine or if he, in fact, had any interest to practice medicine. He was a superb orator. His bespectacled demeanor on the podium, his gesticulation, tone of voice, eloquence of language captivated us all. He and Sarkis Zeitlian were orators most of us did not want to miss hearing. That afternoon Dr. Papazian extolled our efforts and urged us to keep the dream alive for we cannot predict how the turn of events will pan out in the future that would be favorable to our cause. I bet most of us, at least I did, attributed his speech to pep talk to keep us going.

Fast forward. If my recollection serves me well, it was in November 1989 that James Baker declared, as the Berlin wall collapsed, that the Soviet Union we knew does not exist anymore. Traditionally November is the month when A.R.F. celebrates its day by having its chapters organize a public event.  I was asked to be the master of the ceremony of the year’s celebration. James Baker’s declaration came to my mind and I noted in my opening remark about the likelihood of Soviet Armenia emerging as an independent country. I remembered Dr. Papken Papazian as I remember him to this day. Who could have guessed then that the mighty Soviet Union would implode just like that? And from its ashes, the Third Republic of Armenia would emerge on September 21, 1991. I did not.

1965 was a remarkable year for us in Beirut. The 50th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide was commemorated in ways that we had not experienced before. It was the year we came out of our shells, so to speak. The year’s Armenian Genocide commemoration coincided with my high school graduation. The Armenian students held Armenian genocide commemoration in the Calouste Gulbenkian Hall of the Hovagimian Manougian high school on that year or a few years after. A student from each high school addressed the audience. Kersam Aharonian, the editor of "Zartonk" Daily and a Ramgavar leader who also taught in the same high school, made the closing statement. It is there that he introduced a slogan, “Next Year in Van”, and asked the students to repeat it henceforth year after year.

Fast forward. In 2010, for the very first time since 1915 church service was held in Akhtamar Island’s Saint Cross (Sourp Khatch) Church. In spite of all the controversies it created, it was a historical moment, as far as I am concerned for I had never envisioned that such a thing could happen in my lifetime. Henceforth whenever I read about Van, its historic island Akhtamar, Kersam Aharonian comes to my mind.

Were Papken Papazian and Kersam Aharonian clairvoyants? I leave that to the reader to ascertain. But I remain reminded that history runs on its own tempo and that its wheels turn and grind in ways that we just cannot predict.