One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth, the city of Aleppo, Syria became a staging ground and refuge for tens of thousands of Armenian Genocide survivors.
by Paylag Khatchadourian (1906-1991)
Քաղաք մըն ես դուն արաբական,
Ծննդավայր իմ պատուական.
Աչքս բացի քեզի տեսայ,
Գիտցայ թէ ա´լ քաղաք չկայ։
Ապրեցանք մենք միշտ միասին
Որպէս եղբայր հայն արապին.
Գործեցինք մենք միշտ միասին,
Որպէս անկեղծ Սուրիայի։
Մօտ է օրը մեր բաժանման,
Իմ մանկութեան լոյսի խորան.
Պիտի յիշենք քեզ տեւական,
Իմ մանկութեան յոյսի խորան։
Էջմիածնայ կոչնակը հնչեց,
Զաւակները իր քովը կանչեց.
Կը բաժնուիմ քեզմէ սիրով
Հալէպ քաղաք մնաս բարով։
Born in Erzerum, Turkey in 1906, Paylag Khatchadourian lost his parents, grandparents, uncle, three sisters and one brother in the Genocide. Barely escaping the atrocities himself, he was placed in the Kalekian Armenian orphanage in Syria. At the age of 18, Khatchadourian was released from the orphanage. He continued his education and subsequently settled with his family in Aleppo.
Written as the author was preparing to emigrate to Armenia along with thousands of others during the great repatriation of 1946, the poem poignantly conveys the tender love of countless Armenian genocide survivors for Aleppo, which became their “precious birthplace” and “second fatherland.” Today, as this historic city lies in ruins, the poem resonates in a new and tragic strain.
The poem was submitted by Dr. Aida Khatchadourian of Orlando, Florida, daughter of the poet, who died in 1991.
Armenian orphans in class on the Mediterranean shore near Antelias in the aftermath of the Genocide. Courtesy of Bared Maronian
This Friday, May 16, Dr. Arda Jebejian will present a lecture at St. Leon Armenian Church, Fair Lawn, New Jersey entitled Challenges and Opportunities to Maintaining an Endangered Language.
A socio-linguist, Dr. Jebejian will explore the experience of other endangered languages and explain why languages die, what is lost and what we can do to avoid extinction. Unlike the physical destruction and other aspects of the genocidal process, the death of Western Armenian is neither inevitable nor irreversible. Simple, practical steps by parents and communities can be taken to maintain Western Armenian and pass it on to subsequent generations.
The lecture is being co-sponsored by St. Leon Armenian Church, the Armenian Studies Department of the Diocese of the Armenian Church (Eastern) and the Zohrab Information Center.
Dr. Jebejian is a lecturer at the University of Nicosia. She holds a Doctor of Applied Linguistics from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. She has authored twenty-two books including four text books for English language instruction with supplemental materials.
The presentation will take place on Friday, May 16 at 7:45PM at the Grace & Charles Pinajian Youth Center of St. Leon Armenian Church, 12-61 Saddle River Road, Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The lecture will be presented in English, and is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
For further information contact gildak@armeniandiocese.org or (212) 686-0710.
In the summer of 1915 Tsolag Dildilian and his family converted to Islam and adopted Turkish identity as a condition for remaining in their hometown of #Marzovan (Merzifon) in north-central Turkey. Like many “hidden Armenians,” they postured as Muslim Turks in public, but never swayed from their Armenian Christian identity at home. In so doing they were able to rescue and hide significant numbers of young Armenian men and women during the Genocide.
The Dildilian family home in Marzovan just prior to the 1915 deportations and Genocide.
Dr. Armen T. Marsoobian, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Southern Connecticut State University, will tell the story of the Dildilian-Der-Haroutiounian families and describe daily life in a Genocide-era Turkish city where the only remaining Armenians were those who had purportedly adopted Turkish identity. Prof. Marsoobian’s presentation is based on extensive family memoirs, letters, oral testimony and scores of historic photographs.
Entitled, Resisting the Darkness: The Story of an “Islamized” Armenian Family in #Marzovan (Armenia) 1915-1919, Marsoobian’s richly illustrated presentation will take place at the Zohrab Center on Thursday, May 29 at 7PM. The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. For further information contact the Zohrab Center at zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org or (212) 686-0710.
The following meditation on Jesus’ crucifixion is by Catholicos Khrimian Hayrig. It has been translated from his book Յիսուսի վերջին շաբաթ. Խաչի ճառ [Jesus’ Last Week: The Discourse on the Cross], published in Constantinople in 1894.
Lord, now you have been lifted up. You said, “When I am lifted up I will draw the whole world to myself” [John 12:32].
“When I am lifted up I will draw the whole world to myself.” [John 12:32 Armenian Version]Lord, I am startled by that inconceivable, impossible miracle. I don’t know how you intend to draw everyone to yourself. Your hands are tied. Your feet are nailed. In a little while you will die and be powerless, and people will carry you to the tomb thinking that you are no different than the dead of this world. Is it really possible for you to draw the world to yourself from the Cross and the Tomb?
Yet I know and I understand, Jesus. What you are saying is clear and profound. Your all-reaching, all-powerful hand is alive and powerful even in death. And you will not draw humanity to yourself by force of the sword like the rulers who reign over this world.
Instead, you will draw them close by your infinite love. By the self-sacrifice of the Cross you will draw them close. By your blameless blood you will draw them close. By your gentle yoke you will draw them close. By your boundless forgiveness you will draw them close. By the liberal proclamation of your Good News you will draw them close.
From this world you will draw living believers close. You will go down to the tomb and from the earth you will draw the dead close. Going farther to the inner prison you will draw the captive spirits close. From the temples of idolatry you will draw the unbelievers close.
And you will deliver them all to the new praetorium, your church, gathering every single person into one flock, bringing them all together under your staff, O Good Shepherd!
On the Thursday before Easter (Աւագ Հինգշաբթի) the Armenian Church commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus, when he established the mystery of his abiding presence among God’s people through Holy Communion of his living Body and Blood in the Divine Liturgy.
Erevan, Matenadaran, MS 316, Gospel, Arts’akh, XIVth century, Last Supper. Photo: Ara Güler.
Jesus, today you sat down with your hungry farmhands gathered around you. With every step you took, you plowed with them the rocky, hardened land of Israel. You were a plowman and a sower of seed and they were your courageous tillers. You sowed fistfuls of the seed of the Word of Life. You, true vine, planted your orchard at the summit of Golgotha.
Behold! Taking into your hands a cup of the fruit of the vine and a loaf of the bread of Good News, you bless. You give thanks. You break. And you say, “Take, eat, believe. That bread appears to be mere bread. But it is really and truly my Body. It is life. It is not the manna from the desert that your fathers ate in their faulty faith and then died. Instead, you, their faithful children, with your resolute faith, eat this Bread of Life and live forever! And drink this cup filled with joy and jubilation. It really is my blood, which I will spill on the Cross, breaking the cup of my body.”
For three years you proclaimed unceasingly, “I am the living bread that has come down from heaven.” Obstinate ones did not want to understand this mystical message of yours. Perplexed, they became indignant and murmured, “How can he give us his body to eat?”
Yet today, behold! You unveil in plain sight the mystery of Communion. Blessing ordinary bread and wine, you sanctify them and with your hands you distribute them, saying, “Here you are! This is my Body and my Blood.”
Lord, we believe that through the example of the Bread, you join your life with our life. You fuse your immortality with our mortality, so that through your life, humanity’s life may be immortalized. That is why you constantly repeated, “Truly, truly, I say to you: If you do not eat the Body of the Son of Man or drink his Blood, you have no life in you.” Yes, Lord, your Body is real food and your Blood is real drink. Blessed are they who eat this meal with faith.
Catholicos Mkrtich I Khrimian (1820-1907), popularly and lovingly referred to as Khrimian Hayrig, is surely one of the greatest leaders of the Armenian Church in modern times. Passionately concerned for the welfare of the Armenians in the waning days of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, he is best remembered as an outspoken advocate for the right of self-determination for his people. To that end he led the Armenian delegation at the Conference of Berlin in 1878. The blessed Catholicos was also–perhaps even more so–a devout and inspired preacher and a man of resolute Christian faith and fervent prayer. This excerpt is translated from his book Յիսուսի վերջին շաբաթ. Խաչի ճառ [Jesus’ Final Week: Discourse on the Cross], published in Constantinople in 1894. A precious copy of this book is housed in the ZIC collection.
The Zohrab Center will host a book presentation by Jennifer Manoukian, whose new, English translation of the autobiography of Zabel Yessayan entitled, The Gardens of Silihdar, has just been published. The event is being co-sponsored by the Armenian Network of America Greater New York Region.
The presentation will take place on Tuesday, May 6 at 2014 at 7PM at the Armenian Diocese, 630 Second Avenue, New York.
Author, educator and social activist Zabel Yessayan (1878-1943) is today recognized as one of the greatest writers in Western Armenian literature. Her poignant 1935 autobiography displays the fierce determination of an Ottoman era Armenian intellectual who refused to accept the restrictions placed on women in Ottoman Turkey, and affords a vivid account of Armenian community life in Constantinople at the end of the nineteenth century.
Jennifer Manoukian, an authority on the writings of Zabel Yessayan, will present her newly-published English translation of Yessayan’s autobiography at the ZIC
At her Zohrab presentation Manoukian will present The Gardens of Silihdar, and introduce the life and work of Zabel Yessayan, a bold, one-of-a-kind figure in Western Armenian literature. The presentation is free and open to the public. A wine and cheese reception will follow, during which attendees may purchase the book.
Theology students from St. Peter’s University, Jersey City, NJ with Prof. Susan Graham, Associate Professor of Theology on “pilgrimage” at the Zohrab Center.
Six students from St. Peter’s University in Jersey City, NJ visited the Zohrab Center yesterday as part of the requirements for a theology course.
The students were accompanied by their teacher, Dr. Susan Graham, Associate Professor of Theology at St. Peter’s. Dr. Graham’s course, entitled Pilgrimage in the City, explores the phenomenon of pilgrimage—travel undertaken to a meaningful destination for religious or sacred purposes—in Christian history, theology and spirituality. The students’ visit to the Zohrab Center and St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral qualified as a pilgrimage destination in its own right, but also afforded the “pilgrims” the opportunity to deepen their appreciation for the unique role of pilgrimage in the history and spirituality of the Armenian Church.
ZIC Director Fr. Daniel Findikyan gave a brief survey of the centrality of Jerusalem and the Holy Land as a cherished destination for Armenian pilgrims since at least the fourth century. He also spoke about the revival of pilgrimage, especially among young people, to sacred shrines within the Republic of Armenia today.
Followers of zohrabcenter.org will enjoy exploring PeopleOfAr, a very informative blog that is also produced in the WordPress platform. ZIC highly recommends it!
The Zohrab Center recently received a dozen early issues of the Armenian periodical Zvartnots. The journal of literature and art was published intermittently in Paris from 1929 to 1964. The precious issues were donated by Mr. and Mrs. Hagop and Sylvia of Boyajian of Wilbraham, Massachusetts.
The Zohrab Center is the only library in the United States to hold these issues.
Zvartnots contains original poems, short stories, essays, literary criticism and articles on aspects of Armenian arts and music by Armenian authors. As well, the reader will discover Armenian translations of noted non-Armenian authors of the day. Among the contributors were some of the giants of twentieth century Armenian literature and art including Vahan Tekeyan, Arshag Chobanyan, Hagop Oshagan, Yeghishe Charents, Shahan Shanhur, Shavarsh Nartuni, Nvart Kalpakian, Nigoghos Sarafian, Gurgen Mahari,and a host of mysterious pen-names.
Alongside marvelous poems and short literary pieces, the inaugural issue features an Armenian translation of an essay by the Austrian philosopher and novelist Stefan Zweig; an article on pre-Christian Armenian architecture by the great historian of architecture Toros Toromanian; and a tribute to Franz Schubert on the hundredth anniversary of his death by a very young Ara Bartevian, who would later become a well-known musician, composer and choral conductor.
Indeed, in the preface to the first issue of Zvartnots, the editor, Hrant Paluian, stresses that the new journal would be “the refuge for those young people who have been held captive to the aged caretakers of our literature.” True to the secularism of the moment, he continues sardonically:
The residents of Zvartnots, with angelic innocence, have been purified of political passions, partisan enmities and ridiculous heresies. They have been purged of religious and moral prejudices. They believe only in Armenian literature and art.
The word Zvartnots derives from the Armenian zvartunk, literally, “vigilant ones,” the angels who serve God joyfully and tirelessly, and who serve as models of the Christian life. The name was given to the famous seventh-century round church in Etchmiadzin, the ruins of which can be seen today.
The Zohrab Center’s new issues of this marvelous testament to Armenian intellectual vitality between the World Wars in Europe have been added to the ZIC online catalogue. Anyone interested in perusing them is welcome to visit the Center or to contact the staff for questions and further assistance.
