Georgiy Saakov: Going with the Will (On Armenians of Uzbekistan)

At the same time, I continued independently taking further steps in learning Armenian. For the first time, I read in Russian the poetry of Silva Kaputikyan, Hovhannes Shiraz and Avetik Isahakyan; the novel Vardanank by Derenik Demirchyan; the works of Hrant Matevosyan and William Saroyan; as well as Seven Songs by Gevorg Emin.

My generation, as well as the generation before us, often resolved questions of identity through reading Armenian literature translated into Russian, the language of interethnic communication. The Soviet Union had an outstanding school of literary translation.

My list of favorite Armenian authors has remained unchanged, while Saroyan and Emin have become even dearer to me over time. Emin is especially close to me, as we share the same profession — hydraulic engineering. Years later, in 2015, I was awarded the William Saroyan Medal from the Ministry of Diaspora of Armenia.

Please tell us about your personal experience of living as an Armenian in Uzbekistan.

The fact that the Republic of Uzbekistan remains a multinational country, where representatives of more than one hundred nationalities continue to live with legal protection, reflects not only the natural qualities of the Uzbek people — openness, wisdom, flexibility, and respect for individuals of all origins and faiths.

This remarkable nation demonstrated a vivid example of humanism during World War II, when hundreds of factories were evacuated to Uzbekistan from the German-occupied regions of the Soviet Union, and hundreds of thousands of people found shelter there.

What kind of changes happened within community after Uzbekistan’s independence? What element is the main motivator for the national identity and in the return to your roots?

It is a difficult question, but perhaps it is characteristic not only for Armenians in the Spyurk (Diaspora), but also for other ethnic groups, because in the late 1980s everyone rushed to their roots with sincere desire. In 1989, at the ending of the Soviet Union, Armenian Cultural Centers appeared in Tashkent, Samarkand, and Andijan. At the starting point of the rebirth of the Armenian community in Uzbekistan stood People’s Artist of the USSR Tamara Khanum-Petrosyan. Our outstanding compatriot wished so that the capital’s cultural center would find its home under the roof of the recently opened memorial museum dedicated to the actress.

Honestly, the community was born not only under inspiring slogans, but also through real hard working. Most of the founders of the newly opened up Cultural Center were once members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; they were habitually passionately arguing over every detail of the national tradition which had already been forgotten. That was probably a reasonable process. Six decades passed since the Soviet authorities had banned the communities of widely developed national culture. That had really had a negative effect on the national spirit of several generations of Armenians in the diaspora. People had simply forgotten how to live together in their common national interests.

While realizing that the process could drag on for a long time, I decided not to lose time. I gathered two groups of students and without waiting for a native-speaking teacher to appear began teaching them the Armenian alphabet and language. Those were wonderful years not only of returning to our common roots but also of understanding myself.

In 1993, our Armenian Sunday School was established and quickly attracted a large number of children and adults eager to study their mother language and traditions. Samarkand Armenians of all ages from children to elderly people took part in restoring the building of the Armenian Church of the Holy Virgin, which was built in 1905 and had been closed by decision of the Soviet authorities. In 1995, after decades of forbidding and after reconstruction it opened its doors to parishioners for the first time in modern Central Asia. In 2007, an Armenian Church was also opened in the capital city. Every year the Church of the Holy Virgin in Samarkand and the Church of Saint Philip in Tashkent used to hold celebrations of Christmas, Trndez, Easter, Vardavar, the Blessing of the Grapes and the Day of the Holy Translators.

Some years later, at first sight, the picture seems to present an ideal canvas, charming in its colors. Although the state of Uzbekistan and its government provide not only moral support but also financial assistance, and do a great deal for us and for other ethnic communities operating in the country, it must nevertheless be observed that there is no genuine revival visible on the so-called “road to the temple” in its broader sense. The Sunday school is no longer filled with students, and the Church is overcrowded only during the major holidays of Christmas and Easter. On ordinary days, only about one percent of the fifty thousand Armenians in Uzbekistan remain active members of the community.

What infrastructure and projects does the community maintain?

Since the opening of the Armenian Sunday School in 1993, it has remained a vital component of community life. Many successful projects of the Cultural Center were born there, including the dance studio, the Arvest (“Art”) studio, and even the Tashkent Armenians Comedy team, which became the champion of Uzbekistan in 2003.

In addition to teaching at the school, I initiated a number of projects, including the amateur theater Dar (“Century”). Together with our young people, we staged performances based on the tales of Hovhannes Tumanyan, works dedicated to Gregory of Narek, as well as our own musical play inspired by the stories of Pele-Pughi and the songs of Arno Babajanian.

A youth discussion club was also established there, while at the Mer Odjakh (“Our Home”) club we organized meetings for readers of the magazine Depi Apaga, a periodical of the Armenians of Uzbekistan. These gatherings were held at the Tamara Khanum Memorial Museum.

The magazine Depi Apaga, which I have edited since 2008 and which is intended for a broad readership, covers community life and projects in various fields of activity, while also highlighting the strengthening of ties within Uzbekistan’s interethnic space and the Armenia–Diaspora connection.

It is worth mentioning that Charles Aznavour inspired our magazine. In 2005, the President invited our distinguished compatriot and renowned chansonnier to Samarkand as a jury member for the famous international folklore festival Sharq Taronalari (“Melodies of the East”).

What is the main thing you have recognized over the past more than thirty-five years?

It is that a community is a living organism. The community experiences both rises, surges and jolts, declines in activity, and even malady and weakness, confirming the entire physiology of the process and leaving the individual, staying in their own time, alone with their thoughts and attitudes.

Time creates new preferences, leaving by the roadside what seemed most important yesterday and bringing to the foreground things that would once have appeared impossible to classify as eternal national values.

Once, about fifteen years ago, I met an elderly Armenian woman. She was over eighty and brought her home library of Armenian authors to the Center. Why would a person who had lived in “the most reading nation” decide to part with her books? That is a separate sorrow. The Armenian book, in its collective meaning, has survived wars, revolutions, persecutions, and violence. More than once, it has found itself at the very edge of fate, yet it has always remained one of the nation’s sacred symbols. However, over time the call of the crane has become barely audible, and people have stopped reading the books of our metser (“great ones” or “masters”) who have passed away. The authors of the new mainstream no longer attain the lofty status of “rulers of minds,” even though the writer’s word is urgently needed.

During our conversation, I asked that woman in Armenian whether she spoke the language. She replied in Russian that she did not. Before answering, she paused for a long moment, and I felt a crushing emotional blow: an Armenian grandmother who did not speak Armenian.

I remembered how, some twenty years earlier, while observing the process of native language loss in the diaspora, I had written an article entitled “Looking for the Grandmother,” paying tribute not only to the true guide to the mother tongue but also to the guardian of the traditional hearth and strong family home.

And now that grandmother is absent from the family, and there is no one left to teach the household how to remain Armenian. This is a tuning fork of identity, reflecting many dimensions of national life at once. It is pointless to search for the guilty party, since a tuning fork does not identify culprits, but it does compel one to reflect on many things.

Once, the Paris-based professor of mathematics and doctor of history Claude Mutafian formulated a highly accurate and difficult-to-dispute principle for our time: “To be Armenian is a choice.” He was referring to the younger generation of the diaspora, burdened by doubts, reluctant to public self-revelation, and possessing a worn or fragile identity, yet still privately asking themselves: Who am I?

Some willingly join flash mobs under slogans such as “Let us dance Kochari.” A memorable nationwide gathering of this kind took place in 2015. Others, with less demanding tastes, eagerly attend concerts of popular Armenian music often labeled rabiz. As one writer once observed, “In dance reside the character and soul of a people.” Dance requires no language, while song merely touches the ear.

It must be admitted that in transitional societies, where national stereotypes and markers of belonging become highly flexible, the unconditional primacy of the native language as the principal factor of identity — and as the “most important of the arts” — no longer proves fully effective. And yet, it should.

“We are not given to foresee How our word will respond” the good Russian poet Tyutchev exclaimed and then continued, “If we are not given it, then let us live…” And the matter in all its drama remains with someone. Having passed through centuries and the trials of a slipping identity, this someone continues to study his native language as a foreign one, has already learned survival skills, but still doesn’t know how to live after losing important foundational meanings and feeling as a dissatisfied single person. In the current turning-point era with its “fast food and poor digestion” genetics seems a weak helper. But how, after all, can one “recognize you, understand you, embrace you with love?”

Child of gorges and ravines,

O homeless Armenian,

O strange, strange Armenian,

O strange…

These lines by my beloved Gevorg Emin draw a line under my thoughts. It turns out that all that remains is to rely on the living environment in all its warm and careful diversity — the family, the church, the Sunday school, and the community with its meaningful cultural projects. We are all eventually shaped by what we keep before our eyes.

And also, on one’s own considerable efforts and decisions. It is a difficult task. A very difficult one. But everything is in our power, in our will, if only there is desire.