Unlike Feathers: The Poet and The Freedom Fighter

Vahe H. Apelian

There is a French saying that rhymes well. It reads, “qui se ressemble, s'assemble”, which literally means those who resemble, assemble. In English we have come to know the saying as “birds of a feather, flock together”. For all appearances, the eminent poet Taniel Varoujan and the legendary freedom fighter Sepastatsi Murad were not “birds of a feather” but surely their love of their Armenian nation must have coalesced into their mutual admiration if not also friendship. They stood by each other at one of the most auspicious events of their short young lives. Each officiated and enabled the other’s marriage. 

Both hailed from Sepastia. Murad (nee' Khrimian) was born in the village Govdoon in 1874. Taniel Varoujan (ne' Tchboukkiarian) was born in 1884 in the village Pekernik, often spelled as Prknig (Բրքնիկ). 

Both are iconic figures although each had a different upbringing and pursued a different calling. Taniel Varoujan came from a middle-class family. His father worked in Constantinople. After attending the local schools Varujan was sent to Constantinople where he attended Mkhitarian School after which he attended the Mourad-Rafaelian School in Venice and then Ghent University in Belgium. 

Murad, on the other hand, was born to a poor rural family. His biographers do not mention him attending school with any regularity. After working as a shepherd and a farm laborer, he moved to Constantinople to eke out a living when still in his teens, much like many other Armenian teens, some as young as fourteen years old, did. There he worked as a porter but was also drawn by a fervor for social justice. He first joined the ranks the Hnchagian Party and subsequently, the A.R.F. Taniel Varoujan was also driven by social justice and was a humanist.

By the time of the Ottoman Constitution was enacted in 1909 both had made a name for themselves. Murad had also become a legend among the other freedom fighter luminaries. Taniel Varoujan had emerged as a promising poet having authored two books, Shivers (Սարսուռներ, 1906, Venice) and The Heart of the Race  (Ցեղին սիրտը, 1909, Constantinople)

The promise of liberty, equality, and justice promised by the Young Turks had engulfed both. Murad returned to Sebastia in 1909. An amnesty that accompanied the said reforms enabled him to do so. In Sepastia he became active in organizing Armenian schools and participating in charitable and civic organizations where he met a girl named Agapi. Both remained attracted to each other.

The euphoria of the Ottoman Constitution had captivated Taniel Varoujan as well. In 1909 Varoujan also returned to his village and started teaching for a career. To supplement his teacher’s meager salary Varoujan gave private lessons to a young girl named Araxie, the daughter of a wealthy family. As was the local customs at the time, Araxie had been promised in betrothal to the son of another wealthy family when she was still in her crib. That’s why Araxie’s mother always chaperoned her daughter and attended her classes. Yet, the improbable happened. The teacher and the student fell madly in love with each other.

Rumors started flying in greater Sepastia. The classes ended abruptly and Araxie’s parents and the prospective in-laws began hasty plans for an earlier-than-planned wedding, but Araxie remained adamant refusing to comply with her parent’s wishes. Instead of a wealthy husband, she preferred the country teacher of meager means.

The event became the talk of the town among the Armenians in Sepastia. Many regarded the incident scandalous. Some supported Varoujan and wanted the lovers to marry. Others blamed Varoujan for having seduced his young student. The animosity toward him became so great that Varoujan began carrying a stick for defending himself should he be attacked.

Finally, the prominent Armenian freedom fighter, Sepastatsi Murad intervened on behalf of Varoujan. Murad's stature was such that his intervention quelled all gossip. Araxie’s parents relented and the prospective groom’s parents gave up pursuing the understanding they had with Araxie’s parents. Varoujan and Araxie’s were wed in 1912, after which they moved to Istanbul where Varoujan became the principal of St. Gregory The Illuminator School. By 1915, this young couple had three children: Veronica, Haig, and Armen.

Apparently, Murad was hesitant to commit himself having a family of his own. Remaining non-committal was a tacit code of honor among the freedom fighters. When Kevork Chavush broke that code and married in secrecy, he caused so much havoc among the ranks that the A.R.F. Bureau intervened to restore order. In 1910 Murad was already 36 years old, way past the marital age at the times. However, at the urging of his friends, he relented and married Agapi in the St. Nshan Monastery. Taniel Varoujan became their matrimonial godfather, although in some other accounts Taniel Varoujan is listed as being a witness to their marriage. At his wedding, Murad is quoted having said: “By getting married, I am not resigning from my struggle. Anytime, my fatherland calls on me, it is the voice that I will follow, always loyal to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s glorious banner”. By 1915 they had a son whom they named Kevork, presumably after Murad’s comrade-in-arms Kevork Chavush, who was martyred on May 26, 1907.

Unbeknownst to these two families as well as to countless other Armenian families across their ancestral lands, a sinister plan was being put in place for their annihilation. Taniel Varoujan in Constantinople was apprehended on April 24, 1915 and put to the death a few months later. He was 31 years old. His last legacy, the unpublished collection of his poems was somehow salvaged from his captors and published posthumously as The Song of the Bread (Հացին երգը, 1921, Constantinople). His wife and children survived and immigrated to the United States of America.

All along, Murad had remained mistrustful of the promises the Young Turks made. In March 1915 with a group of Sepastatsi compatriots he escaped the deportation order and after a horrific odyssey, they arrived in Tbilisi. In the ensuing mayhem, Murad lost his family and his relatives but he never wavered from his calling in the defense of his people. He participated in the ensuing battles that laid the foundation of the present day Armenia.  He was killed during the Battle of Baku on August 4, 1918.

Literary critics hail Taniel Varoujan as one of the most eminent poets who graced our literature. In the last book he had published, “Pagan Songs” (Pagan Songs (Հեթանոս երգեր, 1912, Constantinople), Varoujan has a long poem titled “Pegasus” (Pegas). He dedicated that poem to "comrade Murad and his horse that runs like a lightening", drawing a resemblance of Murad’s famous horse Asdghig to the mythical winged horse Pegasus. 

The diary Murad kept and the inscriptions he jotted down showed that Murad harbored a poet’s tender heart. Apparently, the poet harbored a rifle in his heart while the freedom fighter harbored poetry, mutually admiring each other and attracting one to the other in an unlikely friendship as two other immortals in our tumultuous history.

Christmas Fairytales from Bourj Hammoud

The attached is my translation of Armenag Yeghiayan's depiction of the Armenian enclave Bourj Hammoud. Բնագիրը կցուած է ներքեւը։  Vahe H. Apelian

Everything that is fairytalelike, is not necessarily a fairytale,

And everything that is a fairytale, is not necessarily fairytalelike.

"In this world, there is a fairytale country that is called Lebanon and in there, there is a unique city (maybe a town) that is called Bourj Hammoud. 

In reality, Bourj Hammoud is unique for many of its characteristics; among them is its demography. During its formative years, sometime between 1933-1934, its population was 99.99% Armenians. Among the 30-40,000 inhabitants, there were a few Arab families, such the mukhtar’s, the priest’s and a few more and that was all.

After the 1946 repatriation to Armenia, Arab fellow countrymen, natives or Palestinian refugees, bought vacant houses left behind. Consequently, its demographic uniqueness gave way to another Armenian inhabitant enclave, Anjar whose birth took place 4-5 years after Bourj Hammoud’s. Anjar continues to maintain unique Armenian features while Bourj Hammoud loses its, day by day. But, that is not what I want to write. I wrote this introduction to write about something else about Bourj Hammoud.

In spite of what I noted above, Bourj Hammoud continues to maintain unique features in different aspects. Among them is the Armenian grasp of the Arab shopkeepers who have settled there. Yes, this is such a unique feature that there is no other place in this whole wide world – save in Armenia of course – non-Armenians learn Armenian in an all too natural way, without ever being asked or expected to do so.

Just imagine that Arab young men mostly from South Lebanon, as well as foreign nationals such as Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Sudanese and others, who have never met a single Armenian in their lives, come to Bourj Hammoud where they open a grocery store or stall, and start selling their produce to Armenians or to non Armenians as well. And because the Armenians have great difficulty learning Arabic, they start leaning Armenian to make a livelihood.

The first month they learn the numbers and the measures ‘Meg kilo” (one kilogram), “meg our ges kilo” (one and one a half kilogram),  “yergoo voski” (two Lebanese pounds),  ‘Chors’ (four), “hink” (five),  ‘yote voski gam dollar” (seven Lebanese pounds or dollars). Then they learn the name of the produce, “narinch” (orange), ‘varounk” (cucumber), ‘hazar” (lettuce), “poghg” (radish).

In the third to the fourth month, they start putting rudimentary sentences together such as “shad lav e” (it's very good), “hamov e” (it's tasty), “tarm e” (it's fresh),  “ajan e” (it's cheap). Or “hema chga) (not available presently), “Meg jamen ge hasni” (it will be here in an hour), also “anoush ella” (enjoy), “noren yegour” (come again) and so forth. By the sixth month or at most before the year is over, they have already started speaking a little bit Armenian about everything.

Slowly, slowly they become Armenians.

I know someone among them.  He is a veritable giant, at least 2 meters tall, weighing 200 kilograms, wearing an Arab or middle eastern wool hat that extends over his eyes. His mustache reaches his earlobes and his beard is mostly unkempt. He would be someone whom our writer Toumanian would have likened to a  rough fellow. But he is a very polite and a likable man who speaks fluent Armenian. It would be impossible to exit his store without having bought something and not wanting to linger a bit longer just to listen him.

I also know someone named Ghassan. He is a self-contained, quiet young man with whom its possible to carry a lengthy conversation (in Armenian). I gladly converse with him about everything. He has mastered the Armenian language so well. I think that he has had a love affair with an Armenian girl, either as a fiancée or girlfriend. He often emotionally alludes to the Armenian girl and to the language she spoke.

At one time, well before I got to know him better, I had asked him why he was named with a “foreign” name. !

He is not an exception.

Another story.

During this past December Christmas celebration, a Catholic friend of mine had invited us and four other families, to Christmas Eve dinner. Those from the other families had come with their Ethiopian servants. As the evening dinner was coming to its close I wanted to end it with a beer. Since their house was very familiar to me and I felt comfortable in their home, I headed towards the kitchen for self-service and what did I see? In the kitchen, sitting around a table, I saw the four Ethiopian servants animated and giggling in an impeccable Armenian!

There also is the other astonishing thing, the Armenian learned by these foreigners is devoid of the blemishes commonplace with our Armenian editors, intellectuals, teachers and ecclesiastical fathers against whom for long I have been waging a losing battle without succeeding in correcting them. I have not heard from these foreigners the wrong use of the commonplace Armenian words whose wrong uses seem to have become the daily bread for those of our own.

“well”, you might say, “who are their teachers?” So that they can also visit the classrooms in our schools, our homes, offices, far away prelacies and the editorial boards of our newspapers (without forgetting “Armenpress in Yerevan) to teach them also the proper use of the Armenian language. 

Do not ask me who their teachers are because I do not know who  they are.

Many years ago, I used to take care of a patient with whom I also had become intimate, as it customarily happens with long-term faithful clients. I had served him for some 20-25 years when he asked for an appointment for his wife. After a few days, he came to my office with her.

As if a bucket of cold water was splashed over me when I set my sight on her for the very first time. She was wearing a head-to-toe black coverall. She was a veritable Muslim woman. I got confused and felt disoriented at the sight but tried to regain my composure. I asked her to take the seat and I positioned myself next to her and started doing what needed to be done as her husband remained seated in the room following silently to all that was taking place.

It suddenly dawned on me that the bond of our long amity had suddenly snapped. An oppressing silence, at least for me, seemed to have descended in the clinic. Every now and then I tried to find a topic to reaffirm our bond, but I did not succeed. At the very last, a bit clumsily and surely wrongly, if not unjustly, I asked him as if I were a judge.

- “You have married a Muslim”, I said.

- “What?.” He responded as if not grasping my question.

- “Why have you married a Muslim”. I repeated, this time around with the tone of someone who has been unjustly robbed.

- “What are you talking about?” He said, shifting his position as if he was seated on a bed of thorns.

- “Brother, what is that is so incomprehensible to you? Why did you marry a Muslim?”

- “But, hakim (doctor), I also am a Muslim”, he said. This time around it became my turn to attempt free myself from the thorns bothering me.

- “Friend, thus far you were a clean Armenian. Is it now that you are playing a Muslim game?” I said

It was then, with a broad smile on his face and calmly he told me his story. As a young teenager, he had become an Armenian tailor’s apprentice and had learned the trade. Over the passing decades the business had grown up and he had become a manager in the firm supervising many Armenian workers. Speaking Armenian and dealing with Armenians had become second nature to him.

Yes, that is the way it is in the fairytale Bourj Hammoud."

Note: The Original: http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2022/12/blog-post_18.html

Armenag Yeghiayan was my chemistry teacher in Sourp Nshan School in Beirut, when he was studying dentistry. He has also emerged a Western Armenian linguist and a critic safeguarding the proper use of the Armenian language.   

“Ani” Armenian Evangelical College History Club Periodical (1965-2017)

“Ani” Armenian Evangelical College History Club Periodical

 (1965-2017)

Dr. Zaven Messerlian

Translated by: Vahe H. Apelian

Recently I received the latest and mostly likely the last copy of the Armenian Evangelical College (AEC) History Club’s periodical “Ani”, which may very well be the only Armenian high school student history publication of such longevity. It has been published in its original cover design since it came about in 1965, at the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. It was the year I graduated from the high school. The attached is my translation of an article Dr. Zaven Messerlian wrote about the periodical "Ani" in that latest issue.

“Ani” is the publication of the Armenian Evangelical College History Club. Its founder and the advisor has been Dr. Zaven Messerlian, who also was the founder and the advisor of the history club from October 1964 to June 2017.

The first issue of the “Ani” Periodical appeared in February 1965 and the second issue of the first year appeared in June 1965.  Henceforth it was published once a year.

Herewith we note the student editor of the year and the month the periodical was published.

1st Year	February	1965	Vahe H. Apelian
	June	1965	Vahe H. Apelian
2nd Year	May	1966	Vehanoush Tekian
3rd Year	December	1967	Artoun Hamalian
4th Year	March	1969	Sona Hamalian
5th Year	March	1970	Ara Tekian
6th Year	March	1971	Ara Tekian
7th Year	March	1972	Vache Minassian
8th Year	April	1973	Vache Minassian
9th Year	April	1974	Viken Gulvartian
10th Year	May	1975	Viken Gulvartian
11th Year	May	1978	Hagop Sulahian
12th Year	May	1980	Khatchig Dedeyan
13th Year	June	1981	Khatchig Dedeyan
14th Year	April	1982	Nerva Fereshetian
15th Year	June	1983	Hrair Koutnouyan
16th Year	June	1985	Hilda Kuredjian
17th Year	June	1986	Heghnar Zeitlian
18th Year	June	1987	Zaven Kouyoumdjian
19th Year	June	1988	Lenda Soghomonian
20th Year	May	1990	Maria Sekilian
21st Year	June	1991	Yoland Nalbandian
22nd Year	June	1992	Maya Hosri
23rd Year	May	1994	Yeghig Torossian
24th Year	June	1995	Yeghig Torossian
25th Year	June	1996	Rita Lao
26th Year	June	1997	Elda Degirmenjian
27th Year	May	1998	Shaghig Doulian

After 1999, “Ani” Periodical did not have student editors. Henceforth the advisor of the history club Dr. Zaven Messerlian edited the writings of the 11th grade Armenian history students focusing on a subject.  Herewith is the listing of the year, the month “Ani” henceforth was published and the subject matter of the year’s issue.

28th Year	May	1999	Artsakh
29th Year	June	2001	Armenian contributions to civilization
30th Year	June	2002	Armenian Kingdoms
31st year	June	2003	Important Armenian historical milestones
32nd Year	June	2004	Armenian history subjects
33rd Year	June	2005	Armenian history subjects
34th Year	June	2006	Celebrated Armenian historical figures
35th Year	June	2007	Armenian Diaspora communities
36th Year	June	2008	Famous battles in Armenian history
37th Year	July	2009	The Armenian Genocide
38th Year	June	2010	Notable Armenian kings
39th Year	June	2011	Important treaties in Armenian history
40th Year	June	2012	Armenian cities in Western Armenia and Cilicia
41st Year	June	2013	Celebrated Armenian women
42nd Year	July	2014	Important dates in Armenian history
43rd Year	June	2015	Armenian Genocide
44th Year	May	2016	The course of Armenian history from 2492 B.C. to 2017 A.D.
45th Year	March	2017	Brief biographies of Armenian kings, prime ministers and presidents.

When we view the names of the past student editors of “Ani” periodical, we realize that many of them brought noteworthy contributions to Armenian life. We mention those familiar to us in chronological order as the editor of “Ani” periodical.

Dr. Vahe H. Apelian – A pharmaceutical scientist by career, editor of books and the author of three volumes sequel “The Way We Were”.

Vehanous Tekian – A renowned Armenian poetess and author of many books.

Artoun Hamalian – A pedagogue, former principal of schools, presently the director of the Education Department of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU).

Sona Hamalian – An activist who has held important civic positions both in Diaspora and in Armenia.

Dr. Ara Tekian – An internationally acclaimed scholar and leader in health professions education and recipient of Ellis Island Award.

Dr. Viken Gulvartian (1956-2016) - A pharmacist by profession and a long time Board Member of AGBU Manougian-Demirjian school. He was instrumental in establishment of a modern Visual Arts Department with its drama, dance, at and music sections.

Hagop Sulahian – An architect and an award-winning artist.

Khatchig Dedeyan – A poet and author of books. For the past many years he is the chancellor at the Armenian Catholicosate of Great House of Cilicia.

Nerses Fereshetian (Kazanjian) – An architect.

Hrair Koutnouyan, MD – A medical doctor.

Hilda Kuredjian Hartounian – The chairwoman of the Tekeyan Cultural Association in New Jersey.

Zaven Kouyoumjian – A well-known Lebanese talk show host, producer, and television personality and author of several books.

Linda Soghomonian Gedinian – A fashion promoter and marketer.

Maria Sekilian – A nurse and a candidate for doctor in nursing.

Yoland Nalbandian – A film director

Maya Hosri – A pedagogue

Yeghig Torossian – The chairman of the West Beirut A.R.F.

Rita Lao (Manjilikian) – A social worker in Lebanon and in Armenia where she currently resides.

Elda Degirmenjian – A pianist and a teacher of piano.

Shaghig Doulian (Titizian) – An employee of a pharmaceutical company.

Dr. Zaven Messerlian, Honorary Principal.

P.S.:    

Heghnar Zeitlian - Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh is professor of Art History at the the University of California, Davis. She is an award-winning author.