Literary Lights: American Wildflowers by Susan Barba in conversation with Jesse Arlen

Our next Literary Lights event features poet Susan Barba, editor of American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide (Abrams Books, 2022) in conversation with Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse S. Arlen. The event will take place on May 17, 2023 at 7:30 PM Eastern, at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) in Belmont, Massachusetts (No registration required).

Literary Lights is a monthly reading series organized by the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA), NAASR, and the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center. The series, which launched in February 2023, will be held until November in a mixed online and in-person format. You are invited to read along with the series!

American Wildflowers, edited by Susan Barba and illustrated by Leanne Shapton, is a literary anthology filled with classic and contemporary poems, essays, and letters inspired by wildflowers—perfect for writers, artists, and botanists alike.

Zoom Lecture Series on Medieval Armenian Poetry

Zohrab Info Center director Dr. Jesse S. Arlen will deliver the final two lectures in the St. Nersess Armenian Seminary 2023 Spring Public Lecture Series.

Thursday, March 9th: “Nahapet Kuchak and the Hayren”
Thursday, March 16th: “Sayat Nova and the Ashugh Tradition”

For ZOOM registration, click here. To learn more about the series, click here. To watch the recordings of previous sessions in this series, click here.

Mkrtich Naghash: A Medieval Poet for Our Times

Watch “Mkrtich Naghash: A Medieval Poet for Our Times,” a lecture by Dr. Jesse S. Arlen, to learn about the life and context of Mkrtich Naghash and get a taste of his verse in English and Armenian, to enhance your appreciation for the works of this great 15th century Armenian poet, bishop, and manuscript illuminator before the North American debut tour of The Naghash Ensemble.

Experience the Poetry of Mkrtich Naghash | Lecture & Performances

On Thursday, February 23rd at 7:00pm by ZOOM, Zohrab Information Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen’s lecture series on Medieval Armenian Poetry continues with a lecture devoted to the poetry of 15th-century poet and priest, Mkrtich Naghash.

This lecture coincides with the start of the North American debut tour of The Naghash Ensemble, a musical group that performs the poetry of Mkrtich Naghash in original compositions arranged by John Hodian.

The lecture and performances offer a one-of-a-kind opportunity to delve into the life, context, and works of this little known but very talented and profound poet of the fifteenth century and experience medieval poetry alive today in the twenty-first century.

To register for the lecture, offered through the St. Nersess Armenian Seminary Spring Public Lecture series, visit: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkd-CuqD0qHtT36Lp4Zb8sodm9jmFR8q3W

For a list of tour dates and to purchase tickets, visit: https://www.naghashensemble.com/tours

On March 11th, the Naghash Ensemble performs at Carnegie Hall in NYC: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/03/11/The-Naghash-Ensemble-of-Armenia-Songs-of-Exile-0730PM

To read an article about the Naghash Ensemble, click here: https://asbarez.com/the-resurrection-of-naghash-and-hovhannes/

Literary Lights: A Reading Series Featuring New Works by Armenian Authors

The Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center along with the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA), and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will host Literary Lights, a monthly reading series in 2023 featuring new works of literature by Armenian authors. Each event—held from February to December in a mixed online and in-person format—will feature a writer, editor or translator reading from their work, followed by a discussion with an interviewer and audience members. Audience members are invited to read along with the series.

FEBRUARYSorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni

The reading series will begin with a virtual event on Taleen Voskuni’s Sorry, Bro, a queer romantic comedy in which an Armenian-American woman rediscovers her roots and embraces who she really is. Voskuni, an Armenian-American writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, will be in discussion with JP Der Boghossian, writer, founder of the Queer Armenian Library, and host of This Queer Book Saved My Life. Click here for more information.

MARCH: A Book, Untitled by Shushan Avagyan, translated by Deanna Cachoian-Schanz

In March, we’ll host an in-person event at the Zohrab Information Center in New York on A Book, Untitled by Shushan Avagyan, translated by Deanna Cachoian-Schanz. The book is about an imagined encounter between two early twentieth-century feminist writers, Zabel Yesayan and Shushanik Kurghinian, juxtaposed with a conversation between the author and a friend. Avagyan is a translator, author, and the co-founder of the queer-fem Queering Yerevan Collective in Armenia’s capital. Deanna Cachoian-Schanz is a translator working in the geographies of Armenia, Turkey, and their diasporas, at the intersection of critical, feminist and queer theory, archive and critical race studies. Cachoian-Schanz and Avagyan will engage in conversation with  translator, scholar, and teacher of the Armenian language, Lisa Gulesserian (Cover design by Cinzia D’Emidio).

APRIL: We Are All Armenian edited by Aram Mrjoian

In April, the series will highlight We Are All Armenian: Voices from the Diaspora edited by Aram Mrjoian, with both in-person and virtual events. We Are All Armenian is a groundbreaking collection of personal essays exploring the multilayered realities of life in the Armenian diaspora. Mrjoian, who will moderate both events, is an author, editor-at-large at the Chicago Review of Books, and an associate fiction editor at Guernica. Click here for more information.

MAY: American Wildflowers edited by Susan Barba

In May, we will host Susan Barba, editor of American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide. This anthology is filled with classic and contemporary poems and essays inspired by wildflowers—perfect for writers, artists, and botanists alike. Barba is the author of the poetry collections Fair Sun (2017) and geode (2020), and an editor at New York Review Books based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Barba will discuss the anthology with Jesse Arlen, a writer, researcher and Director of the Zohrab Center. Click here for more information.

JUNE: The Book of Redacted Paintings by Arthur Kayzakian

In June, we present Arthur Kayzakian’s The Book of Redacted Paintingserasure-ekphrasis poems about a boy in search of his father’s painting, which may or may not exist. The collection won the inaugural 2021 Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series award and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Kayzakian will also discuss his forthcoming chapbook, My Burning City, which integrates the author’s personal history during the Iranian Revolution, his family’s migration to the United States, and the state of living in America as a displaced, bilingual Iranian-Armenian. Kayzakian is an author, teacher, IALA Poetry Chair and Board Member, and a Contributing Editor at Poetry International.

SEPTEMBER: The Fear of Large and Small Nations by Nancy Agabian

The Fear of Large and Small Nations

The series will resume with an event on Nancy Agabian’s The Fear of Large and Small Nations, a contemporary story of an abusive relationship between a queer couple, set between the Armenian homeland and diaspora. The novel was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. An activist, teacher and IALA Board Member, Agabian is the author of Princess Freak (2000), the first collection of poems and performance texts by a bisexual Armenian-American, and Me as Her Again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter (2008), finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Nonfiction and shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize.

OCTOBER: The Institute for Other Intelligences by Mashinka Firunts Hakopian

The reading series will conclude with an event on Mashinka Firunts Hakopian’s The Institute for Other Intelligences, which chronicles the transcription of a symposium at a fictive institute where machine intelligences convene annually for lectures and training on algorithmic justice.  Hakopian is a Yerevan-born, Glendale-based writer, artist, researcher, teacher, IALA Advisory Board Member, and a Contributing Editor for Art Papers and ASAP/J. Click here for more information.

Dr. Jesse Arlen’s Medieval Armenian Poetry Lecture Series on YouTube

Zohrab postdoctoral fellow and director Dr. Jesse Arlen’s medieval Armenian poetry lectures, offered through the St. Nersess Armenian Seminary Fall public lecture series, are available to stream on YouTube.

Part 1 consisted of six lectures, and included material on sharagans (hymns), taghs (odes), and other genres of sacred liturgical song, biblical epic, penitential poetry, and laments over the capture of cities.

A bibliography accompanying the series is available here.

The videos are available below:

Lecture 1 – The Lay of the Land
Lecture 2: The Sharakan and the Origin of Sacred Poetry
Lecture 3 – Sacred Song at Narek Monastery: Gandz, Tagh, and Meghedi
Lecture 4 – Penitential Poetry: Narek and its Heirs
Lecture 5 – Biblical Epic: Grigor Magistros, Nersēs Shnorhali, and Aṛakʿel of Siwnik
Lecture 6 – Laments for the Fall of Cities and Other Calamities

Part 2 of this lecture series will continue as part of the St. Nersess Spring Public Lecture series.

Check their website for upcoming dates, details, and a Zoom link: https://stnersess.edu/global-classroom/live-presentations/

First Volume in a New Publication Series: An Early-Eighteenth-Century Hmayil (Armenian Prayer Scroll)

The Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center is pleased to announce the release of the first volume in a new publication series, entitled Sources from the Armenian Christian Tradition, which provides the Krapar text and English translation of Armenian Christian sources in an attractive digital e-book format.

The inaugural volume in this series is: An Early-Eighteenth-Century Hmayil (Armenian Prayer Scroll): Introduction, Facsimile, Transcription and Annotated Translation by Matthew J. Sarkisian, edited and with a foreword by Jesse S. Arlen (New York, NY: Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center, 2022).

Over a year and a half in the making, this volume brings to life a fascinating artifact from the early modern period: a talismanic prayer scroll known as a hmayil, which was a popular and widespread medium in use among Armenians from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries.

This new e-book offers the reader the opportunity to digitally “unroll” this mesmerizing prayer scroll from beginning to end, thereby discovering a rich panoply of prayers, Scriptural passages, incantations, and illuminations.

Tolle lege! Ա՛ռ ընթերցի՛ր։

Sources from the Armenian Christian Tradition

Summer Poetry Reading Group: Tenny Arlen’s “To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here?”

The Zohrab Center is hosting a dual language summer reading group around Tenny Arlen’s newly published volume of poetry To Say With Passion: Why Am I Here? (Կիրքով ըսելու՝ ինչո՞ւ հոս եմ, Yerevan: ARI Literature Foundation, 2021), which will meet by Zoom on the five Thursday evenings between June 23–July 21 at 7:00pm ET. Each session will be led by a different facilitator, around a cluster of poems from the volume. Readings and discussion will take place in both Armenian and English. The schedule and reading list is below.

To register for all the Zoom sessions, please click here.

With no prior knowledge of Armenian, Tenny began taking Western Armenian classes in 2011 at UCLA with Prof. Hagop Kouloujian. Over the next two years, she began to compose her own poetry in the classes, and with Prof. Kouloujian’s assistance was preparing a book of verse, before her untimely death in a car accident in 2015 at age 24, just before beginning her doctoral program in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan.

The posthumous book release event, which took place at UCLA on May 20th, can be viewed here. An article about the event can be read here.

The book is available for purchase here. Or, be in touch directly with Jesse Arlen to arrange payment and shipping (zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org)

PDFs of the book in Armenian and English translation are available below.

ZOOM REGISTRATION

Session 1: Thursday, June 23 with Prof. Hagop Kouloujian (Professor of Western Armenian Language and Literature, UCLA)
Reading List:
Յետգրութիւն այս գիրքի մասին (էջ 107–118) | Afterword about this book (p. 54–61)
Գիշեր (էջ 7) | Night (p. 1)
Բանաստեղծութիւն (էջ 8–9) | Poetry (p. 2)
Պատումը (էջ 10–11) | The Narration (p. 3)


Session 2: Thursday, June 30 with Dr. Jesse S. Arlen (Director, Zohrab Information Center; Postdoctoral Fellow, Fordham University)
Reading List:
Բառեր (էջ 12–13) | Words (p. 4–5)
Արծաթէ սանդուխը (էջ 14–15) | The Silver Staircase (p. 6)
Զարթնում (էջ 20–21) | Awaking (p. 9)
Մեծ քաղաքը (էջ 32–33) | The Big City (p. 15)
Մշուշ (էջ 36–37) | Mist (p. 17)
Երազ (էջ 56–57) | Dream (p. 28)
Պատուհան (էջ 62–63) | Window (p. 31)


Session 3: Thursday, July 7 with Dr. Christopher Sheklian (Postdoctoral Fellow, Radboud University)
Reading List:
Հայ լեզուի խնդիրը (էջ 19) | The Problem of the Armenian Language (p. 8)
Տեղատուութիւն եւ մակընթացութիւն (էջ 22–23) | Ebb and Flow (p. 10)
Մտմտալով (էջ 38–39) | Musing (p. 18)
Հին ու նոր (էջ 48–49) | Old and New (p. 24)
Լոյս (էջ 58–59) | Light (p. 29)
Յուշագրութիւններ (էջ 71–79) | Memoirs (p. 36–40)
Մեռելածին (էջ 82–88) | Stillborn (p. 43–46)


Session 4: Thursday, July 14 with Dn. Yervant Kutchukian (PhD Candidate, Oxford University)
Reading List:
Անվերջ սկիզբ (էջ 18) | Endless Beginning (p. 8)
Գիշեր (էջ 24–25) | Night (p. 11)
Գնացք (էջ 26–27) | Journey (p. 12)
Լուսանկարներ (էջ 30–31) | Photographs (p. 14)
Ըսել (էջ 40–42) | To say (p. 19)
Հիւանդանոց (էջ 43) | Hospital (p. 20)
Մինչեւ (էջ 44) | Until (p. 21)
Լուսանցք (էջ 64–65) | Margin (p. 32)
Աստ անդ (էջ 68–70) | Here there (p. 34–35)


Session 5: Thursday, July 21 with Alexia Hatun (PhD Student, UCLA)
Reading List:
Միտքս (էջ 16–17) | My Mind (p. 7)
Ես ու ես (էջ 28–29) I and I (p. 13)
Մենք (էջ 34) We (p. 16)
Անաւարտ (էջ 45) | Unfinished (p. 22)
Եղար (էջ 46–47) | You were (p. 23)
Կարապներ (էջ 50–53) | Swans (p. 25–26)
Ծաղիկ (էջ 54–55) | Flower (p. 27)
Երկուք (էջ 66–67) | Two (p. 33)
Գեղեցկութիւն (էջ 80–81) | Beauty (p. 41–42)

Sonia Tashjian’s personal library finds a home at the Zohrab Information Center

Sonia Tashjian (née Ekizian) was born in Jounieh, Lebanon in 1929 to parents Hampartzoum and Haigouhi (née Karagosian) Ekizian who hailed from Chomachlou and Yozgat, Turkey, respectively.  Her father had emigrated to New York prior to World War I to earn money for his family.  Her mother survived the Armenian Genocide by walking in constant peril through the Syrian desert before reaching a refugee camp in Aleppo, Syria, where Hampartzoum had rescued his two surviving children, Garabed and Turvandah.  He married Haigouhi and together they had four children, Margaret, Youghaper, Sonia, and Hagop.  

Sonia Tashjian (middle back) with her father, mother, and three siblings

Sonia emigrated to New York in 1937 at the age of eight with her parents and siblings.  She graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx, NY.  She married Martin Sonny Tashjian, in 1951, shortly before Sonny was deployed to Korea.  They had four sons: Douglas, Glenn, Craig, and Roger.  Sonny died in 1981 from Leukemia.  With her well known strong will and determination, Sonia re-entered the workforce and still managed to send her two youngest sons to Lehigh University.  

Sonia Tashjian in 1950

Sonny and Sonia were among the founding families of St. Thomas Armenian Church in Tenafly, NJ.  She later became an active member of St. Leon Armenian Church in Fair Lawn, NJ, where she was a member of the women’s guild for 30 years.  Sonia’s faith in God and never-give-up spirit got her through several illnesses, including her final battle with COVID-19 and its aftermath.  She died peacefully on the morning of July 29th, 2020.   

Sonia Tashjian later in life

Sonia was an exceptional bibliophile, as evidenced by her collection of over a hundred Armenian-related books that were donated by her son Douglas to the Zohrab Information Center in 2021.  Several titles were original contributions to the Center’s library, e.g., The Adventures of Wesley Jackson by William Saroyan, and Source Records of the Great War, Volume III (an anthology of official documents for the year 1915, with a chapter dedicated to the Armenian Genocide).  

Title page of The Adventures of Wesley Jackson by William Saroyan, from the Sonia Tashjian Collection

Many other titles were in better condition than the Center’s copies, such as George M. Mardikian’s autobiography, Song of America, which also included the original 1956 dust jacket.  

Front cover of Song of America by George Mardikian, from the Sonia Tashjian Collection

Others were earlier editions than books in the Center’s collection, such as the two-volume travelogue Armenia: Travels and Studies by H. F. B. Lynch. Sonia had the first edition from 1901, while the Center had previously only held later editions.  

Front cover of Armenia: Travels and Studies, vol. 1 by H. F. B. Lynch from the Sonia Tashjian Collection
Title page of Armenia: Travels and Studies, vol. 2 by H. F. B. Lynch from the Sonia Tashjian Collection

One of the most intriguing dimensions of Sonia’s collection was the compilation of book-related ephemera: book catalogues of bygone decades, correspondence, and order receipts with Armenian book dealers spanning from 1961-1982, notably seller Mark Armen Kalustian in Arlington, Massachusetts, with whom Sonia exchanged extensive correspondence and was a loyal customer of many years.  

Sonia Tashjian correspondence with bookseller Mark Kalustian
Sonia Tashjian correspondence with bookseller Mark Kalustian
Bookseller Mark Kalustian order form and correspondence with Sonia Tashjian
Bookseller Mark Kalustian order form and correspondence with Sonia Tashjian

Sonia’s collection, both the books and the ephemera, are a magnificent testament not only to the strength of life pulsating through the 20th century Armenian-American community, but also to the love and care of one extraordinary woman toward that community and its literary heritage. Her personal library of Armenian books, collected over a lifetime, has now found a permanent home in the Zohrab Information Center’s research library.