Azat Gasparyan: Veteran Armenian Actor and Reciter

Gasparyan performed on Georgian television occasionally as well as Armenian, and participated in festivals in different parts of the Soviet Union. He almost always acted in Armenian, though he did speak in Russian in one or two films He feels very comfortable using Western Armenian. This is partly because his family on his father’s side migrated from Moush to the Caucasus after the Hamidian massacres, while his mother’s side immigrated from Van. He also went to school with some repatriates who spoke Western Armenian in Artik, and read a limited number of Western Armenian writers in class.

For actors, Gasparyan thought that even in the Soviet period, there was little punishment for crossing the line. It was the writer who was held responsible, so there was a little more freedom for actors, musicians and artists. By the 1980s, the situation became much milder. Gasparyan related, “For example, there would be a concert at which government officials would sit in the front row. The contents of the program would be examined when the script was to be practiced, and things would be allowed or removed.” At one event in the mid-1980s, when officials took out a poem dedicated to Aksel Bakunts and also a Charents poem, Gasparyan just withdrew his participation. He pointed out that he was able to do this because by that point he had already won various state honors and had a certain status in society.

At the present time, Gasparyan primarily acts in theater and gives recitations. He has released several CDs in which he presents the works of great Armenian writers like Yeghishe Charents, Paroyr Sevak, Siamanto and Dashtents. He served for five years as the president of a recitation contest for Armenian schools and there are contests dedicated to the works of specific writers, like Siamanto or Charents. In the latter case, the Charents Museum and the Armenian Writers Union cosponsored the competition, which has several stages. Gasparyan feels recitation is extremely important: “It teaches students how to speak, how to master emotions, and how to give direction to their thoughts.” In the Soviet period there were various types of groups or clubs teaching recitation, but now only the schools are left, and teachers themselves do not have the necessary preparation. Consequently, their students memorize, but their delivery is not good. Since the “great countries” of the world no longer require recitation, Armenia’s leadership has followed their lead and also deemphasizes it.

For two years Gasparyan served as a member of a four-man jury on Shant TV choosing for each program from 14 youth singers of folk and minstrel songs. He happily declared, “For me, Komitas is indispensable, more than bread and water today.”

Culturally, Gasparyan finds that post-independence Armenia has regressed. He says, “If you compare Soviet and present-day cinema and TV, it is tragic. Opportunities are much less. Everything was much more advanced then. The quality and number of Armenian programs and educational and cultural ones in particular were of greater quality and number, though there are so many more TV channels now. There is also advertising, while in the Soviet period the state would only put slogans on TV, and similar such things. Films and TV are much more reduced in number in the present period.” Furthermore, the classical arts have largely stopped. Armenians, Gasparyan felt, were now pushing untalented people forward, and also had an excessive admiration for all things non-Armenian, which had become a sickness that must be treated.

For the last three years, no Armenian playwright’s work has been produced in the Sundukian Theater, though periodically there are performances of Armenian classics in Yerevan and the provinces. During the last two years, productions depended on invitations from outside, and they all were for translations of works into Armenian. Only one, Franz Werfel’s work on Musa Dagh, even had any Armenian content. Furthermore, Gasparyan said, “the relationship between the theater and the audience has been broken. It is the fault of the theater. There is a fear that the theatergoer won’t approve or like something. No — he will want whatever you give him. Without tasting, he won’t want anything. If he resists afterwards, no problem. Nobody wants to give poisonous mushrooms to his child. We know they are more beautiful than regular mushrooms, but would you give it to your child? Right now, what we are giving to the audience is poisonous mushrooms, with color and noise.”

Yet, the future of the Armenian state and nation is inextricably connected with art, and intellectuals are the true leaders of a nation. That is why, said Gasparyan, the intellectuals were the first ones rounded up during the Armenian Genocide. He continued, “The best way to achieve anything is through the language of art. Art is a great form of information and propaganda. If our government leaders would only understand this, it would be great. The idea of the nation would easily spread through the population.”

Gasparyan saw the great sacrifices made by actors living in Queens going after the end of their official workday to New Jersey for practices, for the sake of Armenian culture, and appreciated their efforts. However, Gasparyan was concerned about the general level of Armenian culture in the diaspora: “I think those who come from Armenia have done something very bad for Armenian culture. Most who travel give jokes or songs, not cultural or spiritual values. They spread light or frivolous types of culture, and this has become the standard. But this is not what is necessary for us. We need to give direction to the youth on how to understand the beautiful [he means this in the deeper classical sense, as with the ancient Greeks].” Indifference too is a great danger.

In these difficult times for Armenian culture, Gasparyan wished that Armenian Americans with money might provide some redress. He wondered, “Why don’t Armenians in the US donate money for culture, for Armenian plays? When will the rich here understand that their money is not just theirs, but also their nation’s. If they want their names to remain on this earth and be remembered, they will remain only through great acts. They will be remembered not in American history but in Armenian history. Only Armenians remember, for example, that it was Seropian who invented the green color of paper money for the United States.” He added that “the great are those who don’t want their names written down,” whether they are donors or creators.

Gasparyan thanked those Armenians who continued to support Armenia through various ways like the Armenia Fund Telethon despite their difficult lives abroad. He also hoped that factories would be built by diasporans to provide jobs in Armenia, and libraries and schools to maintain the educational level of the populace. What is built in Armenia stays there, whereas the fate of Armenian institutions abroad is always uncertain.

What will happen in Beirut or Tbilisi in the future? Many of Gasparyan’s ideas and stories about the Armenian film industry can be found in his 1999 book Im lezvis tak push chka [There Is No Thorn under My Tongue].