Indra: Diran Chrakian 150th anniversary

Vaհe H Apelian

Indra is the pen name of the Armenian writer Diran Chrakian. It is said he adopted the Hindu god’s name by rearranging the letters of his name. 

I will admit that Indra is just a name for me. I have not read any of his works, nor it is likely that I will.  But my interest in the writer arose when I read in the March 2025 issue of the literary magazine Pakin, Raffi Ajemian’s extensive study of Indra, the person, his literary works, his convoluted life, and his search for a large than life purpose.

  Raffi Ajemian’s study in Pakin comprises eighteen pages, from page 53 to page 71, He cites 52 small lettered footnotes, some of which are relatively long passages to bolster his analysis. Raffi’s study in fact is a dissertation of sorts, and is a reflection of his personal interest in Indra.

I attached my communicative translation of excerpts from Raffi Ajemian’s opening paragraph hoping that it may give a glimpse of his fascination and his fascinating presentation of the Armenian writer named Indra whose 150^th anniversary is this year.

 “Dear Indra, this year is the 150th anniversary of your birth. And to think that after so many years, your work continues to radiate its charm and to always have new readers beyond the mountains and seas of your native Skudar (note: Üsküdar), with its cypress trees. What a miracle it is! Who would have imagined that after so many years of the martyrdom of your people, your name would still be on our lips. At the end of your life, didn't you also turn the page of your life revealed in the name of the Indian god, and said to your friend Kegham about the fate of your papers: "What is the worth of the miserable spark that could have ignited in me, next to the magnificent reflection that I burned?" You had all your papers burned, and you abandoned the writer in you and dedicated your life as a preacher. Allow me to say that as a reader, that the tiny fire, to which you allude, burning within in the author of "Inner World" (Ներաշխարհ, 1906) and "Cypress Wood" (Նոճաստան, 1908), has not ceased spreading for the past 150 years.

It is true that you, in turn, like your people, would be martyred in a terrible way, dragging your body to Diyarbakir, to bury it near the Slivan Bridge, having the name of Christ on your lips until the last moment, preaching His love and peace. 

But for us, as your readers, it is your work published under the name of Indra that continues to ignite the flame of writing as  prose and poetic expressions of a unique quest, expressed in writing.»

Raffi Ajemian's continues saying: «One cannot help but to ask who was Diran Chirakian and not try to explain the transition from mortal Diran, to the creative Indra and  revert to Diran, but this time as a mere preacher.» Raffi Ajemian's  study of Diran in that issue of Pakin is his search of Diran Chrakian the man and Indra the writer.

 

I also included below a short biographical sketch of Indra that was posted in the September 11, 2025 issue of “Ararat” daily in Lebanon, to cap the writer at the 150^thanniversary of his birth (1875 – 1921)

'"Diran Chrakian, known in literature as Indra, was born in 1875 in the Scutari district of Istanbul. He was first educated at the Berberian School, under the tutelage of Retheos Berberian, who had a profound influence on his intellectual and artistic development. He taught at Berberian and other schools for several years, before briefly going to Paris and then Egypt to study.

Indra’s first major literary work was “The Underworld” (1906), in which he expressed his inner anxieties, his magnetic love for nature, and his quest for art. The following “Nochastan” (1908) directed his spiritual aspirations towards eternal and invisible worlds. He was a poet of great sensitivity, who worked for the Armenian press in Constantinople for about fifteen years as a teacher and writer.

In the 1910s, Intra went through a deep spiritual crisis. Renouncing his literary work, he became a preacher of the Gospel. During the First World War, he refused to bear arms, remaining faithful to his conviction of “not killing anyone.” However, the tragic events of 1915 irreversibly disturbed his mental equilibrium. He burned most of his manuscripts and focused on religious preaching.

After the armistice, in 1918-1921, with his group of weekly preachers, Chrakian gave new impetus to his activity as an evangelical preacher in the provinces bordering the Black Sea. To the point that he was condemned by the Kemalists as an “enemy of the people” and, with his followers, in February 1921, he was arrested and exiled to the depths of Tigranakert. Unable to withstand the beatings and tortures inflicted by the Turkish policemen guarding the exiles, Chrakian died near Silvan at the age of 46.»