“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 Diaspora writers related to each other, as poets, novelists, journalists, and editors and in doing so propelled the post genocide Western Armenian literature to new heights that subsided with their passing away. The attached is my abridged translated segment from that chapter. Vahe H. Apelian
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| Nigoghos Sarafian, Nshan Beshigtashlian, Arpik Minassian. |
“We were on the outskirts of Bois de Vincennes, in Nigoghos Sarafian’s (Նիկողոս Սարաֆեան)1 house, with Nshan Beshigtashlian (Նշան Պէշիկթաշլեան)2 and their spouses. I immediately took a liking of Sarafian and we became bosom friends. After I left Paris, I read in “Haratch” an article Sarafian had written about our meeting and his impressions. It felt that our rapport was mutual. It continued this way for many years until one day when we became estranged from each other and ignored each other for good.
Sarafian did not have a telephone. Every time I visited Paris; I would send word to him through Arpik (Missakian – Արփիկ Միսաքեան)3. He would come to the hotel and we would spend the whole day together, dining in a restaurant on Eiffel Tower, or cruising on boat on the River Seine, or in a restaurant on its boardwalk that would last well into mid-night. When taking leave of each other, we would embrace and he would say:
- “ This was the best day of the year.”
In spite of our closeness, after taking leave of me, he would confront Arpik and ask her.
- “Arpik, be truthful. Did you remind Zarougian, or it was he who initiated contacting me?”
He was extremely mistrustful, egotistical, and self-absorbed, bordering to paranoia and entangled in his deep-seated anxieties. He thought that we were not sincere towards him. When I told Nshan Beshigtashlian about it, he raised his two arms wide upward swearing by the heaven above and summing up the situation with one word.
- “He is paranoid.”
Indeed, he was. Not in his literature, but in his social dealings. Although it makes no sense to dwell on the social for someone who did not socialize with anyone.
- “I am alone here, all alone.” He would always lament to me in his letters, writing: “Do they read what I write? Do they not read? I have no clue. You are fortunate there for you have people around you. I am in a desert, in a desert…”
In fact, Paris was not a desert during those years. But Sarafian had succeeded exiling himself to an internal desert where he stayed alone and bitter. In order to bring him out the self-isolation, a few of us came with the idea of devoting an entire issue of “Nayiri”4(Նայիրի) to him. All our contributors penned appreciative articles in that issue. It was a magnificent issue. No other of his contemporaries had merited such an accolade while still alive. I had a few copies printed on special quality paper and had them sent to him by airmail. “Come now,” I said to myself, “dare say that people don’t read your writings, they do not like you and they do not understand you.“
That issue of “Nayiri” was a bouquet of love and admiration. I envisioned, upon receiving the issue, his joy, even his tears, as I had seen it often on his cheeks, I was expecting a heartfelt letter from him. The letter arrived not long after. Sarafian who used to write to me pages and pages long, unending letters; this was what he had written to me acknowledging the receipt noting: “I received the issue. Thank you.” All together three words - (in Armenian: «Թերթը ստացայ։ Շնորհակալութիւն») – and his signature. That was all.
It was a friend from Paris who entangled the knot. In the same issue we had printed Sarafian’s address so that interested readers might write to him. Someone – most likely playing a cruel joke on him, or might be out of maliciousness – had told Sarafian – “You know why they had printed your address? They meant to say that no one likes you here and they are appealing to readers to take pity on you and write letters to you from there.”
Our Sarafian, a veritable Nicholas; I would have responded but I kept my peace taking into consideration Nshan Beshigtashlian’s diagnosis, “he is paranoid”.
That kind of sickness is not curable. Neither I, nor the weekly were all too well-off either. To obtain that issue of “Nayiri” from the printer I had to borrow a few hundred liras (with interest !). But our hero from Paris, would send me a rancorous “thanks”, which was much more a swearing not only at me, but also two of my friends with whom we had conceived the idea: Yetvart (Boyajian – Եդուարդ Պոյաճեան)5 and Boghos (Snabian – Պօղոս Սնապեան).6
It should not have happened, but it happened.
Nigoghos Sarafian was a real poet. He had a super sensitive soul and was a good man. He is no less poetic in his prose than in his poetry. Aghpalian was dismissive to some of his early works but over time he matured. He contributed to the “Nayiri” monthly what might be considered his literary opus, “The Woods of Vincennes» – «Վէնսինի Անտառը»։
I have now in front of me his letters, written in a small script and crowding the page. I compare his to the letters from Nshan Beshigtashlian written in large legible scripts. In these letters as well, they are fundamentally different from each other, much like they were in person, in character and in their perception of life.
Beshigtashlian and Sarafian; both will remain in our literature with the best of their literary works. As the saying goes – “the wind will blow away the lighter chaff and leave the grain”; and the lighter chaff will go in the abyss of the time much like they went to the bosom of the earth but their literary works will remain.
They were, are no more.
Notes:
1. Nigoghos Sarafian (Նիկողոս Սարաֆեան), March 30, 1902, Varna Bulgarian – 1972, Paris, France. He was an Armenian writer, poet, editor, and journalist.
2. Nshan Beshigtashlian (Նշան Պէշիկթաշլեան), 1898, Constantinople, Ottoma Empmre – 1972, Paris, France. He was an Armenian poet, writer, satirist, and novelist.
3. Arpik Alice Missakian - Միսաքեան Արփիկ Միսաքեան, 1926 – June 19, 2015, France. She was an Armenian journalist, editor-in-chief “Haratch” (1957 - 2009). She was the daughter of the journalist and founder of the journal, Chavarche Missakian. Arpik acquired the practical experience of the problems posed by the printing, distribution and financial management of a daily newspaper from her father. In addition, she learned Western Armenian in the family circle as well as by being with Armenian intellectuals settled or passing through Paris.
After the death of her father in 1957, Arpik Missakian took over the newspaper and vowed to continue it as an independent Armenian journal. She launched the monthly literary and artistic supplement entitled “Midk yèv Arvest” (in Armenian Միտք եւ արուեստ, literally “Thought and Art”
From 1984 she was supported by another journalist, Arpi Totoyan, born in 1945 in Istanbul and speaker of Western Armenian and Turkish, Arpik Missakian kept the newspaper until 2009.
She died on June 19, 2015, in Paris at the age of 89. She was buried in the family vault in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (88th division) on June 25. Her death was deplored by the Armenian community in France, because Arpik Missakian was an undeniable pillar.
Her death marked an end to the era of the pioneers of the Armenian press in France.
4. Nayiri (Armenian: Նայիրի), 1941-1989. It was a prominent, long-running Armenian language literary, cultural and social publication established by the Armenian literary figure Antranig Dzarugian. It was published in various frequencies as a weekly, biweekly and monthly in Aleppo, Syria and later on in Beirut, Lebanon.
5. Yetvart (Boyajian – Եդուարդ Պոյաճեան), 1915, Khdr Bek, Musa Dagh – 1966, Beirut, Lebanon. He was an Armenian writer, editor, a founder of the literary magazine “Pakin” and a teacher.
6 Boghos (Snabian – Պօղոս Սնապեան), August 11, 1927 Bitias, Musa Dagh – June 14, 2014, Beirut, Lebanon. He was an Armenian writer, editor, a founder of the literary magazine “Pakin” and a teacher.
