Even when in despair over his failure to repel “the dark and the ugly” with his singing and wondering why he has not heard from his dreams, the only balm in “ruthless, ruinous old age,” Vahe-Vahian’s gaze is always ahead. “I am the bird reborn from its own ashes,” writes the poet in “Immortality,” a piece in the collection of some thirty poems — written for the most part in the years 1990-1993 when the poet was in his 80s — published posthumously under the title Farewell Poems by Aram Sepetjian in 2009, in Beirut, Lebanon (Sipan Printing & Co). While the poet never ceases to highlight the “ashes and the tears” of a history of shared suffering, his vision is, at all times, of a sunny tomorrow. The vulnerable position of our homeland today, with the ongoing threats to its territorial integrity and the relentless demands on its sovereignty, gives the poet’s words a unique relevance.
There is indeed much to be dismayed about. Lies and false claims abound. Most egregious is the recent conference organized by Baku, titled “Christianity in Azerbaijan: History and Modernity,” held at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome with the involvement of senior Vatican officials. A conference that attempts to distort the millennia-long legacy of the Armenian Church in Artsakh, now occupied by Azerbaijan, is a betrayal of the spiritual and historical bond that exists between two quintessentially Christian entities — the Vatican as the symbolic focus of Christianity and Armenia as the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion, evidenced by the countless churches, monasteries and cultural monuments on its soil. Even in the context of the total abandonment of ethical and moral principles by the international community, the choice of venue is alarming.
Equally offensive is the last-minute cancellation at the University of California, Berkeley, of the screening of My Sweet Land, a documentary depicting the disruptions caused by war to the peaceful lives of the inhabitants of a village in Artsakh. While Azerbaijan celebrated the cancellation as “a political triumph,” it took UC Berkeley, the notorious champion of human rights, over a month to respond to the protests to the recall, only to claim that “it was not pressured by Azerbaijan.”
Rather than focus on the aberrations, however, it would perhaps be more useful to concentrate on “the genius of our people,” to borrow the poet’s words, its rich history, its artistic and cultural heritage and creativity. The signs of survival and of progress are many. Most exciting is the adoption by pioneering young historians of inclusive, non-hierarchical approaches to the research and the documentation of our past. Talin Suciyan, Bedros Der Matossian, Vahe Tashjian, among others, peer into the family archives of ordinary people to draw conclusions about the approaching 1915 catastrophe. These scholars highlight the importance of first-hand accounts, of letters, postcards, diaries etc. — thus far untapped sources — in making revelations that cannot be made through official archives. The recent publication of the letters written by peasants to their spiritual leader Catholicos Khrimian Hayrig are powerful testimonies of the cruel circumstances — the kidnappings, the high taxation, the lack of food and shelter etc. — that existed during the 1894-1896 Hamidian Massacres. Witnessing what the people endure on a daily basis gives us insight into the repercussions of oppressive policies so we are vigilant of upcoming catastrophes, notes Suciyan.
Equally heartening is the proliferation of programs, webinars, lectures — hybrid and in-person — events in dance, music and theatre that highlight the role our Armenian heritage plays in preserving our identity. There is an unprecedented effort to revive Western Armenian — listed as an endangered language — to raise a new generation of Western Armenian speakers. We also have numerous community-centered health initiatives and Camps that help children recover from the trauma of loss and displacement of the recent Artsakh Wars.
The determination to survive culturally, seemingly oblivious of the “imminent” doom — for some have forecast the “liquidation” of the Republic of Armenia — must be paying off. The April 2025 issue of AGBU Magazine — full of stories of the individual successes of composers, actors, outstanding leaders — and the countless award-winning musicians, photographers, filmmakers are a tribute to our enduring beauty. Most astonishing is the tremendous success of fundraising galas to expand our schools. In the words of principal Lena Garabedian, the sixtieth anniversary banquet of the Armenian Mesrobian School, the first elementary day school in the United States, “was not just a celebration of our past — it was a declaration of our future.”
