Poet Vahan Derian, lyrist, public activist

 Vahan Derian (January 28, 1885 – January 7, 1920) was an Armenian poet, lyrist and public activist. He is known for his sorrowful, romantic poems, the most famous of which are still read and sung.Vaհe H Apelian

Diana Der Hovanessian, who has translated his poems, wrote the following about him.

“Vahan Derian is part of the education of every Armenian poet, and part of the adolescence of every educated Armenian youth. Quoting Derian—even misquoting him—is standard procedure for high school and college students. He probably is unmatched in western literature, except by another Armenian poet, Missak Medzarentz. Like Varoujan, Siamanto and Vahan Tekeyan, the poets who were his western Armenian contemporaries, Derian was also a man of ideas and convictions, a political being. 

The striking thing about his poetry is its musicality. In his poetry of love and loss, homesickness, death and transience, it is the diction and the echo of musical phrase after phrase that endear him to readers.

He was born (1885) and educated in Tiflis, attended the Lazarian Armenian College in Moscow. He continued his education at Moscow University, at which time he joined the Russian Social Democrats. During his student days he was arrested by the Czarist police for political activity. Suffering both suppression and oppression had made many Armenians of the time believers in socialism of some kind.

His first book in 1908 «Մթնշաղի անուրջներ» ("Twilight Reveries"), made him a celebrity. Hovhannes Toumanian, dean of Armenian poets, called him the most original lyric poet of the decade.

In 1913 he went to the city later called Leningrad to study Eastern languages at the University of St. Petersburg. Here his friendship with Maxim Gorky led to a collaboration and publication of an anthology of Armenian literature. It was while he was a student that the Turks massacred two-thirds of the Armenian population.

After the Russian Revolution Derian was in charge of the Armenian sector in the Ministry of the Nations (republics), and attended the conference at Brest-Litovsk with Trotsky. He died in 1920 of tuberculosis.

For a short time following his death, even while readers continued to esteem his work, critics denied Derian's poetry its pre-eminent place in Soviet Armenian literature. "Social realism" was demanded by the authorities. 

Charents rendered the final judgment claiming that "Derian was not only a poetic genius, but the personification of poetic myth." 

Attached is one of his poems that is rendered into a sentimental song.

 

When you grow weary, when the world’s ways enrage you—

Turn back to me, return to me once more;

My aching heart has beaten for you alone—

It has no wish to cause you pain again.

 

Should fortune smile and pleasures come your way,

And strangers lovingly greet you —

Perhaps I may weep for your good fortune, my dear,

Still, turn back—return to me once more.

 

And if, afar, a heartless destiny

Should leave your soul suffer, un sympathized—

Oh, know that my own soul will ache as well,

In inconsolable anguish for your pain…

 

Երբ կհոգնես, կըգազազես աշխարհից՝

Դարձիր իմ մոտ, վերադարձիր դու նորից.—

Ցաված սիրտըս միայն քեզնով է շնչել՝

Չի կամենալ նա վերըստին քեզ տանջել։

 

Եթե բախտն ու վայելքները քեզ ժպտան,

Օտար մարդիկ քեզ սիրաբար ողջույն տան

Գուցե ես լամ բախտիդ համար, իմ անգին,

Սակայն դարձի՛ր, վերադարձի՛ր դու կրկին։

 

Եթե հեռվում ճակատագիրն անհոգի

Սիրտըդ մատնե անկարեկից տանջանքի,

0՜, գիտեցիր, իմ հոգին էլ կըցավի

Անմխիթար մորմոքումից քո ցավի…

 

Վահան Տերյան