“They Were, (and) are no more” (Կային, Չկան) is the title of the last chapter of Antranig Zarougian’s “The Greats and the Others” (Մեծերը եւ Միւսները) book where he casts a glimpse of the way an intellectual group of writers related to each other, as poets, novelists, journalists, and editors who propelled the post genocide Western Armenian literature to new heights that subsided with their passing away. The attached is an abridged translated segment from that chapter. Vahe H. Apelian
“ The following day, I was in the Noubarian Library with Aram Andonian.1 He was the first to speak.
- “Let us go to eat and then we talk”
And after tapping with his hand at the knee of his leg on which he limped noticeably, he said:
- “The First War made me lame. During the Second War my son was injured in the only battalion of the French Army destroyed in fifteen days, that fought valiantly. As a result, he lost one of his legs.
After the lunch, as an attractive server started serving us coffee, he turned to me and said:
- “Tell Shirian that if I do not have coffee, but I offer coffee served by such a beautiful girl,” gesturing amicably to her.
Andonian must have been a regular there because the girl smiled and seemed to accept the compliment although she understood not a word of the language we spoke. Such gestures do not need a translator.
After the lunch we stayed together for three hours in the library. A few years there was an uproar in the Armenian newspapers over Professor Ardashes Apeghian2, visiting Paris, which was under occupation, accompanied by a few Gestapo officials and had picked a few books from the Noubarian Library and taken them with him to Berlin. There was a sense of shame in me as well. I thought I had a share in the crime committed by an ideological Armenian intellectual who had robbed an Armenian library with the help of the Nazi police.
- “Do not pay much attention to the uproar in the Armenian newspapers.” Said Andonian. “There was not much in what he took. He has already returned most of them. He took with him those he needed for his personal research, although I suspect that serious scientific research can be expected from that person…..”
Then suddenly, he said:
- “ Let us leave such nonsense. See those…”
“Those” were three or four notebooks with black covers. They were mid-size, in small tiles lined sheets of papers. All the pages of the books were densely filled in with a sharp pencil in small size letters. It was a genocide diary. On some of the pages there were drawings of emaciated bodies, cadavers, sullen faced bandits, horsemen with raised swords……….
He read to me a few pages from each notebook that had dates, names, and occurrences.
After the death of Andonian these diaries were not in the Noubarian Library anymore. I found out that Ardavast had taken possession of his father’s notebooks. I looked for him. I had people look for him. Puzant Topalian searched him. Garbis Jerashian undertook the work of a detective looking for the address of Ardavast among the countless addresses in Paris and eventually found him. He appealed to Artavast to return the notebooks to the library. He categorically refused. His responses for monetary rewards were vague. I heard with my own ears, although it was not authenticated, that Ardavast in a moment of rage had wanted to burn all his father’s manuscripts…..
I have never met Ardavast in person. He likely has a gentle soul and a kind heart, although understandably bitter for what life had in store for him. If there is anyone who reads these lines assumes the task and succeeds in having him return his father’s manuscripts, surely will merit a grateful Armenian nation.
It is impossible to come to terms that an Aram Andonian’s son – an Ardavast – could destroy or obliterate his father’s trust that besides being personal, is also national.
Nonetheless, what happened to those black covered valuable manuscripts?
They were, are no more….
1. Aram Andonian was born in Constantinople. There he edited the Armenian journals Luys (Light) and Dzaghik (Flower) and the newspaper Surhandak (Herald). Andonian then went on to serve in the department of military censorship of the Ottoman Empire. He was arrested by order of interior minister Talat Pasha of the Ottoman Empire on the eve of April 24, 1915, and joined the large number of Armenian notables who were deported from the Ottoman capital. Andonian was deported to Chankiri, then, halfway there, returned to Ankara and was deported again to the camps in the Ra's al-'Ayn and Meskene. However, Andonian survived in Aleppo in the underground.[3] When British forces occupied Aleppo, a lower-level Turkish official, Naim Bey collaborated with Aram Andonian in publishing his memoirs, an account of the deportation of the Armenians. The Memoirs of Naim Bey were published in 1920, and are sometimes referred to as the "Andonian Telegrams" or the "Talat Pasha Telegrams." The telegrams are purported to constitute direct evidence that the Armenian genocide of 1915–1917 was state policy of the Ottoman Empire. They were introduced as evidence in the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian.
According to Robert Melson, Andonian's report on post-1915 deportations and killings of Armenians are crucial for the research of that period.
From 1928 to 1951 Andonian directed the Nubarian Library in Paris, and succeeded in hiding and saving most of the collection during the German occupation of Paris. He also worked to collect eyewitness testimonies of the genocide.
He is the author of a Complete Illustrated History of the Balkan War (Vol. 1–5, 1912–1913), published originally in Armenian. (Wikipedia).
2. Artashes Abeghyan (also Abeghian) (Armenian: Արտաշես Գաբրիելի Աբեղյան 1 January 1878, Astabad, Nakhchivan – 13 March 1955, Munich) was an Armenian philologist, historian, educator, activist and politician of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He was the son of Armenian scholar Manuk Abeghyan, who was behind the Armenian orthography reform in the 1920's. He graduated from Nersisian School.During the period of the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920), he served as a member of parliament.
From 1926 to 1945, he was professor of Armenian Studies at the University of Berlin, and wrote prolifically in German on Armenology. During World War II, Abeghyan headed the Armenischen Nationalen Gremiums (Armenian National Council) in Berlin, a collaborationist body created by Nazi Germany. He also wrote for the ANG's newspaper titled Azat Hayastan ("Free Armenia"). His home was destroyed by the Allied bombing of Berlin, after which he fled to Stuttgart. He settled in Munich in 1947, where he taught Armenian Studies at the University of Munich until his death in 1955.
No comments:
Post a Comment