Hamasdegh, the Quintessential Armenian Villager (No. 1)

Hamasdegh, the Quintessential  Armenian Villager (No. 1)

Translated by Vahe H. Apelian

Hamasdegh wrote the attached translated autobiography at the urging of his friend Mrs. Maro Hagopian (Maro Amazon) on June 16, 1945. Hamasdegh was born Hambardzum Gelenian (Համբարձում Կելենյան). In spite of fact that he came to the U.S. at the age 18, he remains the quintessential Armenian villager through his depiction of the Armenian village as a figment of his literary imagination rooted in the life he lived in his native village. .

Autobiography

"I am born in 1895 (July 16), in the Perchinj (Փերչինճ), one of the important villages of Kharpert. Armenians and Turks populated the village. The Armenians lived in a different neighborhood and were farmers and artisans.

My childhood and adolescent worlds were in the village bordered by distant mountains; its large church built of stone, its school, its labors, and the saints who inhabited the church. There was a strange intimacy among the saints, the stars and the villagers so much so that even now I am driven to say that the sky above that village was different and so were its villagers.

Many years have come and gone by but I still remember vividly the stones that had fallen from its stone bridge, the raven swinging on the poplar tree branch, the page of the hymnal that had oil marks on it; as well as the girls of the village who warmed and fired our youthful imagination.

After attending the village school, I attended the central school of Mezere (Մեզիրէ) one of the main towns of Kharpert, where my horizon ceased to be the distant mountains but literature that reached us from Bolis (Պոլիս) and Caucasus (Կովկաս). In those days prominent were Varoujan, Siamento, Raffi, Aharonian, Isahagian, the prominent writer from Kharpert Tlgadentsi (Թլկատենցի), and the prominent educator Roupen Zartarian who was the principle of the school a few years before I attended the school. 

The principal of the school during my days was Dikran Ashkharhian (Տիգրան Աշխարհեան) who was very much liked by the students. He was from Arapgir and was a celibate priest before. Afterwards he had left for Bolis and was later exiled and was subjected to the same fate much like the rest of the intellectuals. It was to him that I presented my first notebook of poetry I wrote. He encouraged me to continue on writing. 

I came to the United States in 1913, at the urging of my father. Otherwise coming to America was not enticing to me. My father had come to America a year before me. The environment and the conditions were different to me. During the first few years I continued my studies to broaden my reading and enrich my library. My proximity to “Hairenik” Daily and its staff became the impetus to resume writing. My first poem in “Hairenik” Daily was published in 1917.

My literary drive to be original  had carried me away me from life, away from the earth and had me hovering in the blue sky above.  During those years “Punig” (Փիւնիկ) literary magazine started publishing and I became a regular contributor. I have a good number of literary works in “Hairenik” Daily and in “Punig” I could have collected them in a book had I not hovered in the sky above far from the life I lived. But those literary works interested me as literary form and shape. 

In 1920 I stayed in New York for one year where Shirvanzate (Շիրվանզադէ)  lived also. I had read almost all his literary works, but I did not know him personally. We met frequently. He became the reason that I ceased hovering in the sky above and came down to earth. In 1930 Avedik Isahagian had newly arrived from Armenia when I met him for the first time in Paris. He liked to repeat Shirvanzati’s saying` “I salvaged Hamasdegh”.

I wrote my first successful novel “Dapan Markar” (Տափան Մարգար) and presented it to Roupen Tarpinian for publishing in “Hairenik” Daily when “Hairenik” Monthly was not there yet. Thanks to Tarpinian’s thoughtfulness “Hairenik” Monthly became a reality and I became a faithful contributor to the monthly. I have published my serious literary works there. I owe to Tarpinian the publication of my two books in America, “The Village” (Գիւղը) and the “The Rain” (Անձրեւը). I have literary works comprising of small novels, poems, dramas, novels, published in the daily and the monthly. Maybe one day they may be collected in books. I believe “The White Horseman” (Ճերմակ Ձիաւորը) is one of my important literary works. 

During the past years, the  daily demands do not leave much room for me to pursue the finer things in life.”