Yetvart Boyadjian: The Writer and the Man

By Ohan Tabakian M.D.

The attached is my abridged translation of the first chapter from Dr. Ohan Tabakian's book "Memories and Life Experiences from the Dreamy Aleppo - Յուշեր ու Ապրումներ Երազային Հալէպէն). Both of them were my teachers in Sourp Nshan School. Yetvart Boyadjian taught us Armenian language for many years. Ohan Tabakian M.D. taught us chemistry during our graduating year, when he was a medical student. Both and some of the other teachers graciously accepted my parents' invitation to celebrate my graduation as depicted in the attached pictures. Vahe H. Apelian.

Yetvart Boyadjian

“Yetvart Boyadjian was my teacher in the Haigazian School in Aleppo from 1946 to 1948.

We lived in the same neighborhood. In those years the students had a lunch break at noon and went to their homes to have their lunch. He had tasked me to stop by their house, on my way back to school, and bring to him his lunch in the three-tier copper lunch canister that was customarily used in those days. I proudly carried the canister to school gently swinging it back and forth. I felt honored that I was given such an assignment. After all, I was the one who brought the teacher’s lunch to school. Thus I considered that I had a privileged relationship with my teacher.

After I graduated from kindergarten, I started attending another school and thus lost touch with him. In 1958 we moved to Beirut so that I will be able to continue my education in medicine there. I was offered a part-time teaching job in the Sourp (Saint) Nshan Armenian school where I was to teach chemistry and biology while continuing my education.

I was pleasantly surprised when I met him on the very first day I reported to the school. Baron Boyadjian taught Armenian to the higher classes of the school. Right after I greeted and embraced him he told me to address him by his name Yetvart and do away using the adjective “baron”. “We are colleagues now,” he told me. In time a special relationship blossomed between him and me.

Yetvart Boyadjian was born in 1915 in Jabal Mousa (Musa Dagh) in Khdr Bek village. He received his primary education from the local schools of Khdr Bek and Yoghun Oluk and at the age of fifteen, he started the second phase of his education in the Armenian Jemaran School of Beirut where he stayed for five years until 1935. Afterward, he became a teacher.

The clear bright days and the star-studded nights of his ancestral village always enamored him. But the turn of events in his life mostly kept him away from his ancestral village and left him wanting to live the village life. To make up for what he lost, he started writing an early age noting that he did not play much. He contributed to "Hayrenik" monthly, "Haratch", "Aztag" daily, "Nayiri" weekly, "Hask", "Dziadzan", "Aztarar", and "Agos" publications using different pen names such as Vazken Diranian, Y. Sarian, and Y. Dzovigian.

He wrote stories, prose, and poems and authored the following books “Love and Sorrow” (Ser Yev Vishd – Սէր եւ Վիշտ, 1944),  “The Land” ( Hoghe – Հողը, 1948), “Letter To My Children) (Tought Zavagnerous – Թուղթ Զաւակներուս, 1961),  “ An Exile’s Ledger” (Domar Darakri – Տոմար Տարագրի, 1963),“Two Letters” (Yergou Namagner – Երկու Նամակներ, 1964),  “Faces” (Temker – Դեմքեր, 1964), “Lost Birthplace” (Dznntavayr Gorousial – Ծննդավայր Կորուսեալ, 1984). 

" Often during our free time in the school, he and I would walk in the school’s yard conversing. Our walk also  gave him the liberty of smoking. In those days there was no ruling against smoking. But a few of our colleagues had complained to the principal voicing their opposition for his smoking in the break room during recess. 

The  Soupr Nshan school, its namesake church, and the Prelacy were next to each other in the same compound. Often time the Prelate, Archbishop Khoren Paroyan would join us. Most of our conversation was about the turmoil that affected the Armenian community in those years. 

Yetvart Boyadjian had a  daring and rebellious streak in him. His writing style reflected those traits. In one of his writings, he wrote: “Whoa to those who have no power in their nails. Whoa to the person who is away from the battlefield, away from the land. Alas to such persons and what a pity to such nations.”

He was a true son of the legendary Mussa Dagh. He was a man of strong convictions and remained steadfast in his principles. He was extremely kind, good-natured, unpretentious and an unassuming man. 

As a teacher of the Armenian language, he made a modest living. The good natured villager was his hallmark. He maintained a simple lifestyle camouflaging anguish and deprivation. He remained a very attentive parent and a much sought social company. He remained true to himself and there was nothing that masked him, 

 Yetvart Boyadjian drew contentment in teaching the Armenian language to the children of the genocide survivors growing up in a far away land. He drew much satisfaction in imparting to them the love of the Armenian language and all things Armenian. Nowadays his former students are dispersed all over the Diaspora. They are torchbearers of the present day Armenia. They remain steadfast in pursuing a just resolution of the Armenian cause. Undoubtedly something from Yetvart Boyadjian’s soul reverberates in his former students.

He passed away in 1965, at the age of 50, in Beirut, Lebanon far away from his ancestral village where he was born. Incense and wreath to his unforgettable sweat memory."