Auction of Souls: Discovering Aurora (Arshaluys) Mardiganian (Mardigian)

By Anahid Toutikian-Meymarian, Los Angeles, CA, 7 March 2015

Translated and abridged by Vahe H. Apelian

This account about Aurora Mariganian may be the last personal account about her after whom the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity was establshed. UPDATED

“Sometime in the early 1990s, "Ungerouhie" (a female associate) Yevgine Papazian, an elderly member of the Armenian Relief Society’s Anahid Chapter of Greater Los Angeles, told me about a granny by the name of Aurora  Mardiganian who lived alone in Van Nuys and was in need of help. She also told me that Aurora had formerly lived in New York.

A few days later Yevgine and I paid Aurora a visit. We knocked at her door and after a while, a granny dressed in woolen clothes let us in. We passed through a narrow hallway into a fairly large room. We were astonished to see the room was full of cardboard boxes as if she had arrived from New York only yesterday, although she had been living in Los Angeles for fifteen years. There was hardly any room to move around. Next, at the entrance of the room, there was a chair and a desk. Next to them, in large letters, there was a telephone number and on the wall was the calendar of the New York Prelacy.

We sat over the cardboard boxes next to the entrance. On one of the walls, there was a picture of a tall man with a teenage boy. The granny told us the man in the picture was her son Martin and the teenager is her grandson.

Granny Aurora had a likable face with a smooth skin and a pair of black and expressive eyes. She spoke in a soothing and impeccable Armenian, although her accent was different from ours. I asked her where was she born. She said she was from Chemeshgazak, a town about 20 miles from Kharpert.

I asked her who took care of her. She said her son visited her once a week; brought her necessities and left soon after.

“With the aid of my cane, I used to walk to the grocery store on Burbank Street and purchase groceries. I am not able to do it anymore.”

“Mayrig (Mother), call me, and I will gladly bring to you what you need,” I said.

We became friends. Every now and then she would call me and ask for grapes, pomegranate, her special brand of cheese and the like. One day I mustered the courage to suggest that she allow me to move the cardboard boxes and let us furnish the room for a more comfortable and pleasant living. She refused. “Let us open the windows so that you'd have sunshine in the room,” I then suggested. She refused again. The sun would shine outside but we would be sitting in a nearly dark room.

Another time, a lady who lived in the same building stopped when she saw I was knocking at Mayrig's door. She had hardly finished telling me that I was knocking at the wrong door because no one lived in that apartment when the granny opened the door to her neighbor’s astonishment.

Granny Aurora had fallen from her bed the night before. She was bruised but she had not fractured any bones. For the very first time since meeting her, I entered her bedroom to lower her bed. At that very moment, she pulled a bundle and unwrapped a book. The book was Ravished Armenia. 

- “Mayrig, let me borrow the book. I will read it and return to you in no time,” I promised.

-  “I cannot give it to you,” she said. “Already people came and took everything away. Only this book remained,” she said.

I was able to secure a copy of that book in microfilm in one of the public libraries. I could not believe what I read in the book: maybe one of mankind’s worst crimes, which were perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks against the Armenians.

Her baptismal name was Arshaluys Mardigian. She was born in 1901 in Chemeshgazak to a wealthy family. The Mardigians were one of the best-known and respected names in Chemeshgazak. Arshaluys was a vibrant girl with long black hair, expressive eyes, with a sunny disposition much like her name. She was the second eldest among her siblings. She had an older sister, a younger brother, and two younger sisters.

On Easter morning in 1915, her father promised her that the following year he would enroll her either at a Constantinople or a Paris school. In addition to attending the American College of Marsovan, she was privately tutored at home. Not long after the conversation with her father Turkish gendarmes entered the room to take her to the local pasha’s harem. Her father sent the gendarmes packing.

Shortly after the incident, the deportations and the massacres of the Armenians began in full force. Her father and her 15 years old brother Boghos were killed almost right away. From April 1915 to November 1917 Arshaluys witnessed the killing of the rest of her family. She survived by taking refuge in a series of towns--Arapgir, Malatia, Diyarbekir, Urfa, Mush, Yerzenga ending up in Erzeroum at an opportune time. The Russian army was advancing into the city.

In Erzeroum she took refuge at the doorstep of a building that carried the American flag. Exhausted, she passed away at the entrance. The house was the residence of American missionary Dr. F.W. MacCallum who took her under his protection. Gen. Antranig happened to be in town also. Having heard of her story, he visited her. The Armenian hero complimented her for her courage and took his parents’ wedding ring from his finger and slipped it on her finger telling her to tell her story when she landed in America. The American Relief Organization sponsored her travel and on November 5, 1917, she arrived in New York.

A New York Armenian family took her in. Not long after, Harvey Gates, a writer, asked her to tell him of her experiences during the genocide. The Armenian family had her narration translated into English. In 1918 Ravished Armenia was published. The book was reprinted in 1919 as Auction of Souls.

In November 1918 Ravished Armenia was made into a film. Gates and his wife Eleanor changed her name to Aurora Mardiganian and put her on stage. From 1919 to 1920 Aurora Mardiganian, as the author of the book, the star of the movie and as a witness to the Armenian horrors, was presented to the public whenever the movie was shown--in the United States and in England. She became an instant star. People wanted to see her in person as much as see the movie. Screenwriter Gates and producer Col. William N. Selig became the prime beneficiaries of the profits generated from the movie. By 1920 Aurora was worn out. Physically and emotionally drained, she refused to make further public appearances

She married in 1929--after overcoming her long-time aversion to the company of men. She tried to live a normal life away from the limelight. The couple had a son, Martin Hovanian.

I met Aurora when she was 91-years-old. Her daughter-in-law was not Armenian. Relations between them had soured to a point that her daughter-in-law did not let her grandchildren visit her. Over the years, people who had been interested in her and had visited her had gotten what they wanted and had moved on. Joy and contentment had long ago abandoned her. The fear that she would be harmed had never left her. She lived alone, praying, reading the bible and the periodicals she received from the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in New York.

One day, when I visited her, I found Aurora Mayrig very weak and withdrawn. It was obvious she had not slept well the night before. She had had a nightmare. She told me that the "Turks had cut the rope". In the movie, There is a scene where Aurora escapes from the harem by jumping from the roof of a building. But instead of landing on the next roof, Aurora fell 20 feet and broke her leg. The movie producers continued shooting despite her pain.

Aurora Mayrig was meticulous in grooming herself. That day I noticed that she was not her normal self. She seemed too weak even to wash her hair.

Not long after, on January 3, 1994, she moved to the Ararat Nursing Facility in Mission Hills. I continued to visit her. I found her sitting in a wheelchair, withdrawn and not taking notice of her surroundings or participating in the social activities the social workers were conducting. She was in no mood to engage in conversation. That became my last visit.

On January 17, 1994, earthquake damaged our Los Angeles home. Busy attending to the repairs and certain that Aurora was in safe hands, I had not visited her for some time.

Months had passed by when I heard that she had died. I went to the Ararat Nursing Facility to find out the circumstances of her death. “Who was she?” Mrs. Evelyn Jambazian, the nursing director, asked me. Then she said that the only thing she remembered of Aurora was that one day a limousine had stopped in front of the facility and out had come a granny--Granny Aurora.

I smiled. Of course, she was Aurora Mardiganian, the one-time movie star. If others did not pay her attention, it's fair that she treated herself, I thought. Mrs. Jambazian told me that Aurora had passed away not long after. She became ill on February 5 and was taken to the Saint Cross Hospital where she had passed away.

Mrs, Araksi Haroutunian, who for many years had attended to her as well and I tried to find out where she was buried so that we could visit her grave, offer a prayer, place a wreath and burn incense in her memory. However, we could not get any information. The hospital would not tell us because we were not related to her. Her son’s telephone number had been cut off; we did not know any of her relatives to get the information we were looking for.

We found out that we had to go to Norwalk where personal public records are kept. My husband and Hagop Arshagouny went there and after searching unearthed the following.

Aurora Mardigian had died on Feb. 6, 1994. Her remains were cremated in the U.S. County Hospital public crematorium. Two individuals unknown to us had witnessed the affidavit. Her ashes? No one knew where they were scattered.

The news was heartbreaking. The one-time Arshaluys Mardigian of Chemashgazak had ended up not having a grave. What remained of her? Sweet memories and her book that Kourken Sarkissian translated into Armenian in 1995. In 1997 a new edition of her book appeared, edited by Anthony Slide. Plans are underway in Argentina to have the book translated into Spanish.

From Arshaluys Mardigian and from all those who became victims of the Armenian Genocide another major 'relic' also remained: their just cause. The world may disavow the Genocide of the Armenians. Eventually, we will prevail because our cause is just.”

Note: 

The translated piece is a chapter from Anahid Meymarian’s book Իմ Սուրբ Հայրենիք ("My Holy Fatherland"), published in Los Angeles in 2005.

Mrs. Anahid (Toutikian) Meymarian is from Kessab. She has a B.A. from Farleigh Dickenson University in NJ and an M.A in psychology from California State University Northridge (CSUN). She is a retired teacher having taught at the Holy Martyrs Ferrahian School since its founding by Gabriel Injejikian. Catholicos Aram I has bestowed upon her the Order of St. Mesrbob Mashtots. She lives with her husband Puzant, a well-known sculptor whose works grace institutions in Diaspora and Armenia.

It was later revealed that Aurora Mardigian’s ashes were buried in an unmarked grave after having remained unclaimed for four years. The four years were a grace period the county gives to claim the cremated remains of a deceased. No one had claimed her ashes.  Vahe H. Apelian, 12/03/2015

Lest We Forget Them

Vahe H. Apelian

Eric Bogosian ended his *Operation Nemesis” book stating that the story that fired his imagination and took seven years of his life to research and narrate was his grandfather’s gift to him. In an introspective mood, he noted, “we come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing. We all know, either implicitly or explicitly, that all we really have is our place in the memories of others. We exist to the degree that we know and remember one another; even the most isolated among us. We share a collective understanding that we are all part of a greater whole”.

I was reminded of the quote while reading Dr. Zaven Messerlian’s latest book titled “Excerpts Salvaged From the Press “ (Մամուլէն Փրկուած Էջեր). The 390-age book is a selection from the many articles Messerlian wrote between 1963 to 2010 mostly in the Lebanese-Armenian press. Meticulous record keeping is Dr. Zaven Messerkian’s hallmark.

In addition to the perennial topics such as the Armenian Genocide, the "Armenian Question", Diaspora schools, and the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the bilingual (Armenian and English) book contains the eulogies of the late Catholicos of All Armenians of Blessed Vazken I, the acclaimed benefactor Alex Manougian along with many other leading Lebanese-Armenians Dr. Messerlian has known personally.

The eulogies are replete with biographical information about these Armenian personalities including the author's experiences with them and provide vital information for the history of the Diaspora, which came about on its own, without guidance. Some internal mechanism manifested itself under difficult conditions and brought about our post-genocide diaspora spread literary in four corners of the word and yet functioning cohesively.

The deceased, listed below, Dr. Messerlian eulogized were among those Zaven Messerlian knew personally, whose selfless efforts contributed to bringing about the Armenian Diaspora we know today.  

Rev. Dikran Kherlopian (1891 -1968), an acclaimed educator and community leader.

Megerdich Messerlian, Dr. Zaven Messerlian’s father (1898-1979). He was a community leader, activist, philanthropist and a noted Lebanese Armenian trader.

Kersam Aharonian (1916-1981), an educator, author, and a long-standing editor of the 'Zartonk' daily.

Maitre Khosrof Tutunjian (1894-1982), a community political leader, editor, author.

Feridé Salibian (1922-1989), an educator.

Goruyn Keshishian (1914-1990), the longtime director of the Gulbenkian Foundation Armenian Department.

Khacher Kaloustian (1915-1985), an educator and a pedagogue.

Papken Megerdichian MD (1911-1985), a surgeon, and the longstanding director of the Lebanese Armenian Sanatorium.

Asbed Donabedian (1923-1993), an educator and a noted Armenian numismatist who had amassed the largest private collection of ancient Armenian ancient coins.

Ardashes Khachadourian (1931-1993), an educator, Armenian linguist, and an author who amassed the largest private collection of representative Armenian journals, periodicals.

Hovsep Yenikomishian MD (1895-1994), a noted physician, Armenian community advocate and activist.

Prof. Levon Babigian (1917-1996), a scientist and a professor at the American University of Beirut. He was also an Armenian community advocate.

Levon Vartan (1925-1997), an educator, author, and editor.

Esther Shirejian (1908-1999), veteran educator, librarian.

Dr. Houseg Donabedian (1916-2003), a pharmacist, lecturer, and a community leader.

Antranig Manougian MD (1910-2008), psychiatrist, longtime director of the Lebanese national psychiatric hospital, member of the Lebanese Parliament.

Vazken Tutunjian (1915-2006, an educator, author, miniaturist.

It's their eulogies that reminded me of the Bogosian quote. In the final analysis, the existence of these dedicated individuals is affirmed only as long as the succeeding generations remember them and appreciate their contributions that helped the post-Genocide Armenian Diaspora rise from the ashes.

Dr. Zaven Messerlian has authored 10 books, three of which are in English and the others in Armenian. The first book, published in 1955, was a 14-page booklet in English. It was translated to French, Arabic and Serbian. His last book is in English as well and is titled Armenian Participation to the Lebanese Legislative Elections 1934-2009.  Excerpts Salvaged From the Press  (2013) is his ninth book. The number of the pages in these ten books adds to impressive 2634 pages in total.

Messerlian’s contribution to Armenian literature and journalism becomes more impressive when we bear in mind that he is not a professional writer or a columnist. He is an educator who has been the principal of the Armenian Evangelical College since 1967. Nowadays the school is named after its benefactors Yeprem and Martha Philibosian. He started his teaching career at the same school in 1960 when he was still a graduate student in history at the American University of Beirut. He was not yet thirty when he was entrusted with the mantle of the school's leadership. He remains steadfast on his calling to educate succeeding generations through the heyday of the school when it boasted almost 800 students in 1974-1975--the year that marked the start of the Lebanese Civil War.

The publication of the book has been made possible by the foundation set up by Mimi and Armen Haroutunian to cover the printing expenses of Armenian books. So far the foundation has made possible the publication of 40 books.  Dr. Zaven Messerlian may be contacted at P.O.Box 11-129, Beirut, Lebanon or through the school’s email (A_E_C@cyberia.net.lb).

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Bottom of Form

A Farewell to Arms

Vahe H. Apelian

Rupen Der Minassian, courtesy Mikle Babayan

Mikle Babayan recently posted on his Facebook page a copy of Roupen Der Minassian’s farewell message to the Army as the first Republic of Armenia’s Minister of the Military. It appears that the Republic of Armenia referred to its Defense Minister as Minister of Military.

The commander’s farewell message was posted on November 25, 1920, during a watershed period in the recent Armenian history. The government headed by Hamo Ohanjanian had resigned, compelling Roupen’s resignation as well. Simon Vratsian had accepted to be the Prime Minister to form a caretaker government to cede the government to the communists. 

Along with Roupen Der Minassian’s farewell message, Prime Minister Simon Vratsian’s communiqué, dated also November 25, 1920, is also listed. The communiqué is headlined “From Prime Minister’s Orders, No. 71.”  In it, the last Prime Minister of the First Republic Simon Vratsian noted that according to the parliament’s November 13 decision he had accepted the position of Prime Minister and a day earlier, on November 24, had formed the last  government of the Republic of Armenia consisting of six members entrusting the defense minister’s post to Dro, Drasdamat Kanayan.

Five days later, on November 29, 1920, the Communist Party of Armenia took over the nascent Republic of Armenia. Two days later, on December 1, 1920, the last Prime Minister of Armenia, Simon Vratsian, ceded control of the country to the Communist Party and hence the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia came into being that would last for the next seventy years.

According to Mikle Babayan, PM Vratsian's communiqué and Roupen Der Minassian’s farewell message appeared in “Razmig” (Combatant), which appears to have been the military ministry’s official paper. (See attached)

Roupen Der Minassian’s farewell message is emotional and brutally honest. We should bear in mind that since the fall of the last Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia in 1375 AD, the Armenians did not have a standing Army until “Thanks to the efforts of Armenian National Council of Tiflis, an Armenian military corps was established to fight against the Ottoman offensive of late 1917 and early 1918.” (Wikipedia).  

I attached the translation of Minister of Military’s farewell address. My cousin Jack Chelebian M.D. ably edited my translation.

The message is headlined as follows:

“Republic of Armenia Minister of Military

Soldiery Command

1920, November 25, Yerevan, No.511

The farewell message reads:

“Resigning my office of Minister of the Military, I consider it my obligation to the Armenian army’s officers, soldiers and officials to express my grateful thanks for the victories they achieved over time against the external enemy, as well as their accomplishments in the mission of establishing law and order in the country.

Witnessing the formation of the Armenian Army, its development and the victories it achieved, I firmly believed in the fulfillment of our beautiful age-old dream of a United and Independent Armenia, completely liberated. I followed with excitement our army’s advances on the borders of Eastern Armenia.

However, our newly established army did not prove to be strong enough to be a match against our enemy’s forces forged through centuries of warfare and unfortunately had to concede to the stronger and better organized adversary.

But I am deeply convinced that our army’s weakened morale will soon shift. The bitter reality instructs us to respect and love our homeland and its hard won independence and freedom.

Onward to awakening, to noble tasks, to resolute bravery for the salvation and preservation of our Fatherland.

Minister of the Military

Roupen Der-Minassian”

Updated on March 10, 2020

Because it was MEDZ YEGHERN and not a mere GENOCIDE

Vahe H. Apelian

" The victim (the Armenian) is compelled to deny his own words (Medz Yeghern), like Peter denying Jesus three times. " Vartan Matiossian.

Although President Trump, this year as well, did not use the word genocide, even after the senate resolution but let us face it, the use of the word genocide has proliferated because one can accuse a party for having committed genocide on the pretext that the intent of the killing was to wipe out the subject. The U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, defines genocide as INTENT “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, religious group”. The body count has no legal relevance for having committed genocide.

 I was brought up in Armenian schools commemorating the Medz Yeghern (Մեծ Եղեռն), The Big Crime that befell on the Armenians in 1915. The word Yeghern has an inherent sadness embedded in it and it’s not meant to imply crime in the ordinary sense for which we have the word vojir. In spite of the fact that the word genocide was well coined by then, the descriptive term Metz Yeghern was more commonly used. I remember attending an exhibition of the Medz Yeghern in the American University of Beirut in 1965, at the fiftieth-anniversary commemoration

It was President George W. Bush who used the term Medz Yeghern for the very first time. I was aghast to read in an Armenian newspaper an article in response to his use of the term, headlined along the line, “It was Genocide Mr. President, not Medz Yeghern”. I was aghast because we seemed to negate the very term our own survivors of the genocide had coined.

We lost a golden opportunity during the Obama’s administration. For the eight years he was in office he used the term Medz Yeghern. Instead of fighting tooth and nail his use of our very own term, we should have capitalized on his use of the term and help bring the term in mainstream lexicon. If Tsunami, Karaoke, Kwanza, Hanukah, Shoah, and Nakba have successfully made inroads in the English language lexicon and are very well understood what they mean, there is no reason we could not have introduced Medz Yeghern as another term to mean what it exactly means: the genocide of the Armenians, usurpation of its historic lands and the banishment of its survivors.

There is another argument in favor of using the term Medz Yeghern because what happened to Armenians in 1915 cannot possibly be conveyed merely with the generic word genocide. Raffi K. Hovannisian, the American born and raised Armenia's first minister of foreign affairs, sums it best. I quote him: "Worse than genocide, as incredible as that sounds, is the premeditated deprivation of a people of its ancestral heartland.  And that's precisely what happened.  In what amounted to the Great Armenian Dispossession, a nation living for more than three millennia upon its historic patrimony-- at times amid its own sovereign Kingdoms and more frequently as a subject of occupying empires-- was in a matter of months brutally, literally, and completely eradicated from its land.  Unprecedented in human history, this expropriation of homes and lands, churches and monasteries, schools and colleges, libraries and hospitals, properties and infrastructures constitutes to this day a murder, not only of a people but also of a civilization, a culture, a time-earned way of life. This is where the debate about calling it genocide or not becomes absurd, trivial, and tertiary".

Indeed calling the Armenian existential experience merely with the generic and much-abused word nowadays, genocide, is indeed “absurd, trivial and tertiary”. It was more than that, much more. Our unfortunate experience was unique. It was MEDZ YEGHERN and has to go down in history not as another genocide but uniquely as Medz Yeghern.

It was Shavarsh Missaking, the eminent editor of the famed Armenian daily "Haratch" (Forward), who first introduced to the Armenian public the newly minted word GENOCIDE, in his editorial dated December 9, 1945, almost right after Raphael Lampkin coined the term.

Armenian compound words with the root word tsegh were abundant as early as 1905, as the Armenian dictionaries listed in Nayiri indicate. It is not that the survivors lacked the linguistic skills, they simply felt no reason  to coin the compound word tseghasbanoutiun (Ցեղասպանութիւն)  when they had their very own term for the great crime they experienced that threatened their very own existence. Even after Shavarsh Missakian introduced the word tseghasbanoutiun (Ցեղասպանութիւն) for genocide, it never replaced and can possibly embody the sentiments the term Medz Yeghern has come to convey in our literature.

Yes, our unique experience was a MEDZ YEGHERN and not a mere genocide.

Note: Updated on April 24, 2020

The Last Representative of the Western Armenian Poetry

Compiled by Vahe H. Apelian

Today Hrach Kalsahakian covered the life and the literary works of Mateos Zarifian (1894-1924) in a Youtube broadcast, linked below. He frequently posts there presenting persons and events pertaining to Armenians and Armenia. In his recent broadcast he also read a poem Mateos Zarifian wrote inspired by the ancient ruins of Baalbek, in Lebanon and likened its magnificent past and its sad reality to his tumultuous young life. He had gone to Lebanon hoping that its sunny and temperate weather will have a beneficial effect on his health.

Mateos Zarifian is considered to be the last representative of the Western Armenian poetry. This distinction is presumably accorded to him because he was born at a time when the overwhelming majority of the Western Armenians inhabited their ancestral lands and his literary productivity occurred there and then and outlived the rest. He passed away in Istanbul in 1924.

I quoted the following from the “ThisWeekInArmenianHistory” blog “prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee (ANEC), a joint project of the Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Relief Society.” I thought the readers of my blog might find it interesting and informative. Hopefully, I am not infringing any exclusivity.

It is unfortunate fact of the Armenian literature that a number of Armenian poets, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, died of tuberculosis at a young age much like Mateos Zarifian. The blog also names the following young poets who died young: Bedros Tourian (1851-1872), Vahan Derian (1885-1920), Misak Medzarentz (1886-1908).

The quote:

“Zarifian the less known of the four (poets who died young) was born on January 16, 1894, in the neighborhood of Gedik Pasha (Constantinople). He spent his childhood and youth in Scutari. He studied at the school of Ijadieh, the Robert College, and the Berberian School, which he finished in 1913. He was an active sportsman and earned prizes in the Armenian Olympic games organized in Constantinople (1912-1913) 

He went to Adana to work as a teacher of English and physical education at the local Armenian school. The first symptoms of tuberculosis, a strong chest pain, appeared at that time. In 1914 he interrupted his work and went to Lebanon, hoping that the mountainous air would help cure him. At the beginning of World War I, he was drafted into the Ottoman army. While studying at the school of non-commissioned officers, his unruly behavior landed him before a military tribunal, which sentenced him to exile. However, some influential interventions helped commute this sentence to long-term prison. Some months later, he was freed and started serving at the military hospital as a male nurse. 

After the armistice of Mudros (1918), Zarifian went to the interior as a translator for the British army to participate in the task of gathering Armenian survivors. Between 1919 and 1921 he worked at his alma mater, the Berberian School, as a teacher of English and physical education. His illness prompted him to pour his life experience into literature. In 1919 he started publishing poems in the daily Jagadamard. His poetry reflected a hopeful approach to life and death, and his love poems disclosed the melancholic overtones of his soul, “Ah! The superb poem of my soul, Of my ruined, destroyed soul…”

He published two volumes of poetry, Songs of Grief and Peace (1921) and Songs of Life and Death (1922), which were critically acclaimed. His long battle with tuberculosis came to a critical point after 1922. Zarifian, the last representative of Western Armenian poetry, passed away on April 9, 1924, at the age of thirty. “

The Armenian Wikipedia notes that the eminent man of letters Vahe Vahian compiled Mateos Zarifian’s published and unpublished poems, prose, and correspondences in 1956 in Beirut in a voluminous book. A selection of his poems was published in Yerevan, Armenia in 1963 and republished in 1981 assuring this young Western Armenian eminent poet’s rightful place in the Armenian literature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4I4HNHj8T4

The First Phrase

Vahe H. Apelian

The first phrase: "To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding" (King James Version).

Tradition claims that the first phrase Mesrob Masdhots translated into Armenian, after having the heavenly divine vision for the Armenian alphabet, was the second verse of Proverb 1 that reads: "To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding" (King James Version).  It is claimed that King Solomon, son of King David, in his old age wrote the Proverbs and the Ecclesiastes.

The translated Armenian verse, quoted above, used to be printed on the cover of some of our notebooks when I attended Sourp (Saint) Nshan Armenian school. On the cover of the notebook there was also a drawing of Mesrob Mashdods looking upward and from the upper left corner of the notebook cover, lines descended towards him giving the impression of heavenly inspiration. Tradition also claims that young monk Mesrob Mashdots, had a heavenly vision where the 36 characters of the Armenian Alphabe were revealed to him.  Two other characters were added later on bringing it to the 38 characters we have now.

For decades I never found out the actual verse of that quote but I remained impressed by the profound message it conveyed. The Armenian Evangelical schools in Lebanon have the quote as their motto. Whenever I came across the quote, it was presented without making reference to its Biblical source. And when I found out that it is Proverb 1:2 and read it, I felt disappointed. The very first Armenian translated phrase in Krapar (classical Armenian) is so profound, so beautiful, that it was a disappointment for me to read it not only in English but also in vernacular Armenian. As far as I am concerned the vernacular Armenian translation of the Bible that came about because of the Evangelical movement among us in the 19th century is a poor translation of the Bible. It appears to have been done in haste. Now, much like in English, there are different versions of the Bible in Armenian but the the Classical Armenian (Krapar) translation of the Bible is  pristine and has remained unchanged.

The Armenians translated the Bible in 405 AD, right after they came out with their own characters. The translation is in Krapar, classical Armenian. I can read Krapar but I cannot write in Krapar for it has its own grammatical rules and verb tenses and distinct usage of words. Linguists, both Armenian and none Armenian alike, claim that the original Armenian translation of the Bible, which the Armenian Apostolic Church uses to this day, is so beautifully done that it is called the "Queen of the Translations" (Թագուհի Թարգմանչաց). 

There is an Italian saying that claims  "Translator, (is) traitor". But the Armenian Apostolic Church has canonized the early translators and to this day observes The Feast of the Holy Translators (Սուրբ Թարգմանչաց տօն, Sourp Targmanchats don). I do not know if early translators of the Bible and other relevant Christian literature have been revered to such an extent in other cultures as well. Without translated works we would be living in a cultural cocoon of our making.

Nowadays the overwhelming majority of us do not read and write in Armenian character. Most of us read in the language of the larger society of the countries we reside be it in English, French, Russian, Arabic and many others. There is a great need for modern-day translators. This time around to translate Armenian literary works into the other languages we speak. One can safely say that our written culture is founded on translated literary works and will perpetuate on translated Armenian literary works as well.

As to the young monk Mesrob Mashdots, who translated the very first sentence into Armenian, was canonized and hence he is considered a saint and is buried in a chapel in Oshagan (Oshakan) in Armenia, some 17 miles north-west of Yerevan.