Writers Assembled from Around the World in Armenia in October

The first speaker, Peter Sourian from New York, is one of the important representatives of the first generation of American-Armenian writers, who has over the decades played an important role as a literary critic, novelist and short story writer in the United States, while supporting the Armenian- American community. Sourian spoke about how his grandfather Missak Sourian sent his son Zareh to America to learn journalism in order to serve Armenia. Though Zareh did not do this, Peter, his son, felt that perhaps unconsciously he transmitted the same hope to him, to “try to bear humble witness to the ‘incomprehensible destiny’ of the Armenians.” Peter Sourian then read an excerpt of a short story, published in the Spectator (which later turned into the Mirror-Spectator) by his father, who, it turns out, did dabble at least a bit in writing, too. The moral of the story, as interpreted by Peter Sourian, was that one important role of the writer was to bear witness.

Levon Osepyan, vice chairman of the Union of Russian [Armenian] Writers, editor-in-chief of two literary magazines, Aragast and Metsenat I Mir (as well as of the monthly Armyanski Pereulok from 1996 to 2002), and author of six volumes, then spoke about his own literary work, as well as his attempts to represent Armenians, together with Seda Vermisheva, in Russian cultural and intellectual circles. Osipyan also is a photographer and has provided illustrations for various works, including Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” in Russian translation. Osipyan spoke in Russian and his words were translated into Armenian by Lilit Hovsepyan.

Raymond Boghos Kupelian, now of Los Angeles, spoke of the difficulties of his childhood in the Middle East and his experiences in Africa, which he turned into literature. He later began writing about the American-Armenian immigrant experience in Los Angeles, and his son Roger, in turn, became a filmmaker who has attempted a film about Vartanantz. Kupelian, vice president of the Armenian Writers Association of California, has published three novels and a number of collections of short stories.

The fourth speaker, Migirdiç Margosyan, is considered one of the last representatives of Western Armenian literature of the provinces. His works on Dikranagerd in the post-Genocide period show what had been preserved of the past and the price paid to do so, as well as the nature of human relations in Turkey. He has written them in Armenian and Turkish versions, while Kurdish translations of his short stories have also appeared. Margosyan pointed out that the Turkish editions of his works sell many, many more copies and are republished much more frequently than the Armenian versions of the same works. He noted that ironically, though he received a medal last year from the Armenian minister of the diaspora, he is not a diasporan writer, having been born in Western Armenia. However, he did not learn Armenian until he was an adolescent.

That afternoon, Los Angeles-based Lalabekyan’s book of poetry and short stories, Road to Yourself (translated into Armenian by Artem Harutyunyan), was presented to the conference with praise from Ananyan. The author herself spoke about her views on life and then read some samples in Russian from her work, while translator Harutyunyan read some of the Armenian versions.

The following day Davit Muradyan chaired the morning session. Alan Whitehorn of Canada, a grandson of an orphan of the Armenian Genocide, presented his poems as well as his activities in Canada toward the recognition of the Genocide. Whitehorn professionally is a political scientist teaching at the Royal Military College of Canada since 1978, and genocide and human rights are important themes in both his academic work and his poetry.

Raffi Kantian of Germany spoke next. He has published a number of volumes of short stories in Armenian using his family name of Kebabciyan, and one collection of his short stories has been published in Turkish. He declared that his preferred writing style is realism. Born and raised in Istanbul, the September 6-7, 1955 riots had a great effect on him, and he later dealt with them in a short story. Kantian is also the Hanover-based editor of the German-Armenian Society’s literary and research publication Armenisch-Deutsche Korrespondenz (ADK).

Kantian suggested that working groups be created for the future to make presentations on various topics to the conference. Collective translations or other types of workshop activities could be conducted. Also, a website could be used to present the materials that would be discussed at the conference.

Khacher of Iran, an engineer by profession, is a writer by vocation. He primarily writes poetry and prose in Armenian and Persian. He also is engaged in much translation, in order to make Armenian culture better known in Iran. He related that his volume of Zahrad’s poetry translated into Persian garnered much attention in Iranian cultural and literary circles. He helped organize the commemoration of William Saroyan’s centenary in Iran recently, and writes in Iranian newspapers periodically.

Araz Barseghian, a young writer from Iran, then commented about the importance of a variety of other Iranian-Armenian writers. Zoya Pirzad for example has sold millions of copies of her Persian-language novels to Iranians. Barseghian himself is the author of several published works.

Translator and writer Aram Arsenyan’s newly-published translation of Peter Sourian’s Armenian-themed novel The Gate (Darpas) was presented that afternoon at the conference. Arsenyan last year translated a collection of Sourian’s short stories into Armenia, but Darpas is the first of Sourian’s novels to appear in Armenian. Arsenyan’s labors have turned Sourian into part of the corpus of Armenian literature, as well as a senior writer in the American-Armenian literary canon. Arsenyan spoke about how he became acquainted with Sourian’s work.

Olexander Bozhko, former ambassador of Ukraine to Armenia, then introduced Levon Osepyan’s collection of short stories, Telephone Call, to the audience, and praised it highly. It was translated into Armenian from Russian by Hovhannes Ayvazyan.

Bozhko at one point noted about himself that he had helped create a radio hour in Kiev which both offered folk music like that of Komitas to the Ukrainian public, as well as information about topics such as the Armenian Genocide. He has translated a number of Armenian literary works into Ukrainian and at present is working on a late medieval Armenian work about Kamenets-Podolsk.

After this, various members of the audience presented their own works, especially poetry, to the conference. For example, young Armenian poet and university Prof. Vahe Arsen (son of Aram Arsenyan) read some of his poems, including a piece translated into English recently by Diana Der- Hovanessian.

The assembled group of writers had the opportunity to visit Armenian monasteries and churches in several parts of Armenia and also were pleasantly surprised to be part of the 65^th birthday celebration of Levon Ananyan on October 13. Delegations from various Armenian government ministries, as well as Russia, Georgia and Iran made various presentations on this occasion, and Ananyan was granted the Garegin Nzhdeh Medal from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia. President Serge Sargsian sent Ananyan a special letter.

This was also approximately the 10th anniversary of Ananyan’s active leadership of the Writers Union, and many writers and others congratulated his accomplishments during this period of time.

Perhaps not totally by coincidence, two works of Ananyan were published and presented to him on his birthday — a bilingual Armenian-German children’s book, Anna and Armen, which he prepared with German writer Yurgen Yankovski (with Hermine Navasardyan as translator), and Wild Tulips, a Georgian-language anthology of Ananyan’s works published in Tbilisi.

On October 14, further writers spoke about their works under the chairmanship of Margosyan. Jaklin Çelik of Istanbul (but born in Dikranagerd) presented a paper in translation from Turkish about questions of cultural identity. She examined the relationship of religion, land, nationality belonging and destiny and concluded that in the Armenian case, destiny was the migration of the heart.

Cathy Salibian (Rochester, NY) explained the background of Genocide and immigration which impelled her to travel in search of her ancestors’ homes in Turkey and formed an important foundation of her literary work. Moved, Margosyan on the spot invited her to visit him in Turkey. Mari-Antoinette Varténie Bédanian of France spoke of the sorrow of the internal division and quarreling of Armenians in France over many decades and added that she was forced to publish her own works in non-Armenian publishing houses because Armenians did not want to consider her writings. However, she pointed out that the conferences of foreign-language writers of Armenian origin in Armenia have created new connections and together though they were from so many different countries, the participants managed to serve as a conduit of Armenian culture and heritage that almost was destroyed as a result of the Genocide.

Khosrov Khajavian of Iran spoke about his own writing in Persian, including translations.

Karacashian spoke about her decades of work as a journalist in Romania. She worked 18 years for the newspaper Nor geank. She also is a translator and member of the Romanian Writers Union. Her fourth volume of With the Armenians, About the Armenians was just published a few months ago in Romania. This series, the fruit of her publications in periodicals, serves to better inform Romanians about the Armenians. She has translated both prominent Armenian writers of the past and contemporary Armenian writers into Romanian. The Romanian state fortunately sponsors works by minority nationalities like the Armenians.

That afternoon, Ananyan introduced Aram Arsenyan’s third volume of Contemporary American- Armenian Short Stories, largely based on pieces translated from the printed version of Ararat quarterly. This volume includes works of Peter Najarian, Sourian, Mark Arax, Aris Janigian, Nancy Krikorian, Aram Saroyan, Mary Kandilian-Aslanian, Jack Aslanian, Cathy Salibian, Vonnie Madigan, Michael Minasian, Nancy Agabian and Alan Whitehorn. A number of writers present praised Arsenyan’s efforts.

In the closing session on October 15, Ananyan explained that a chief goal of such conferences has been to unite foreign-language Armenian writers around the idea of the homeland. Professor of philology Davit Gasparyan suggested that in the future, foreign-language Armenian writers join Armenian- language writers in conferences. Ananyan felt the idea was a good one but perhaps the time for it had still not yet come. Margosyan pointed out that previous such conferences have led to useful work such as his Aras Publishing House’s publication of the Turkish translation of Iranian-Armenian writer Zoya Pirzad’s novel, and this year too there no doubt would be similar results. Khosrov Khajavian’s offer to financially support the publication of the presentations of the present conference as a separate book was enthusiastically accepted by the participants.