Hagop Tcholakian: Armenian is not only Grammer and Literature.

Attached is my translation of a posting by eminent scholar Hagop Tcholakian on his Facebook page that was reproduced by the “Aztag” Daily of Lebanon. The link to the original is attached, Vahe H Apelian

In 1987, at the Karen Yeppe Jemaran, I was working with my students on an exhibition devoted to the history of the Syrian Armenian schools. The students placed an unexpected abundance of materials on the editor's table. Aroyan approached me (how did I forget your name, son) and handed me a big bundle, he said.

- Look at them, sir.

I opened the bundle with disbelief. In my many years of teaching career, I never had a student who was so indifferent to the Armenian language. I tell you truthfully that I would have publicly reprimanded him, or expressed my negative opinion about him to the teaching staff, had it not been for my feeling responsible for his indifference. Why wouldn't Aroyan change? I would wonder. Why couldn't he connect several sentences together? The book always stayed open on his desk and his gaze remaining affixed on it. He would never turn his head towards me until I called his name. He would turn his head towards me, but he would not answer my question. and I would not know what to make from that gesture. He would also not say "I didn't learn", "I didn't know", as students would say.

I opened the bundle. After glancing overt one or two documents, I quickly spread the content of the bundle on the table, eager to see the rest with great impatience. There were school pictures from different parts of Syria. There were statistics, certificates, trustee's records, letters with the headmaster's seal, old textbooks, even student workbooks, and many more.

I remained speechless. How had this boy gathered all these?

It found out that Aroyan regularly visited antique dealers. There were several of them in the old districts of Aleppo. Sometimes I also stood in front of such a store. Old papers, books, that could contain valuable material pertaining to Armenian communal life in Syria, were sold in kilos as scrapped paper.

.Aroyan had known all along that that books, documents that were left behind from the household of those who left the city for good could be found in these stores. 

He had been painstakingly collecting them.

 Բնագիրը՝ 

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