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Risorse
a disposizione: Biography
by Ara Baliozian * This biography was published in the introduction of THE TRAVELLER & HIS ROAD, a partial English translation of Gosdan Zarian's work by Ara Baliozian, (Copyright Ara Baliozian 1981) *. * Ara Baliozian has given total authorization to Shant Norashkharian for posting any of his works/translations on the Internet/ World Wide Web.* Gosdan Zarian was born in Shemakha, the former capital of Azerbaijan, on February 2, 1885. His father, Christopher Yeghiazarov, was a prosperous general in the Russian Army—"a strong man, profoundly Christian and Armenian"—who spent most of his life fighting in the mountains of the Caucasus. He died when Zarian was four years old. After attending the Russian
Gymnasium of Baku, in 1895, when he was ten, he was sent to the
College of Saint Germain in Asnieres, near Paris. He continued
his studies in Belgium, and, after obtaining a doctorate in literature
and philosophy from the University of Brussels, he spent about
a year writing and publishing verse in both French and Russian,
delivering lectures on Russian literature and drama, and living
a more or less bohemian life among writers and artists. Speaking
of this period in his life, Zarian was to write: "We used
to have cheap food with Lenin in a small restaurant in Geneva,
and today, a syphilitic boozer with his feet on a chair and hand
on revolver is telling me—" 'You counter-revolutionary
fanatic nationalist Armenian intellectuals are in no position
to understand Lenin.' " In addition to Lenin, Zarian also
met and befriended such poets, artists, and political thinkers
as Appolinaire, Picasso, Plekhanov, Ungaretti, Celine, Paul Eluard,
Fernand Leger, and the renowned Belgian poet and literary critic
Emile Verhaeren. It was Verhaeren who advised him to study his
own mother tongue and write in the language of his ancestors if
he wanted to reveal his true self. Heeding his advice, Zarian
studied krapar (classical) and ashkharhapar (vernacular) Armenian
with the Mekhitarists on the island of San Lazarro in Venice (1910-1913),
where he also published THREE SONGS (1916) , a book of poems in
Italian (originally written in French), one of which, titled "La
Primavera" (Spring), was set to music by Ottorino Next we find him in Istanbul, which was then the most important cultural center of the Armenian diaspora, where in 1914, together with Daniel Varoujan, Hagop Oshagan, Kegham Parseghian, and a number of others, he founded the literary periodical Mehian . This constellation of young firebrands became known as the Mehian writers, and like their contemporaries in Europe- the French surrealists, Italian futurists, and German expressionists-they defied the establishment fighting against ossified traditions a preparing the way for the new. "In distant cities people argued and fought around our ideas", wrote Zarian. "Ignorant school principals had banned our periodical. Well-known scholars looked upon us with suspicion. They hated us but did not dare to say anything openly. We were close to victory...." At which point, the proto-fascist Young Turk government decided to exterminate the entire Armenian population of Turkey. The holocaust that followed claimed 1,500,000 victims, among them 200 of the ablest Armenian poets and authors, including most of the Mehian writers. Zarian was one of the very few who survived by escaping to Bulgaria, and thence to Italy, establishing himself in Rome. In 1919, as a special correspondent to an Italian newspaper, he was sent to the Middle East and Armenia. He returned to Istanbul in 1920 and there, together with Vahan Tekeyan, Hagop Oshagan, and a number of other survivors of the holocaust, he founded another literary periodical, PARTSRAVANK (Monastery-on-a-Hill). At this time he also published a second book of poems, THE CROWN OF DAYS (Istanbul, 1922). Following the establishment
of Soviet rule in Armenia, Zarian returned there and for the next
three years taught comparative literature at the State University
of Yerevan. Thoroughly disappointed with the regime, in 1925 he
again went abroad where he conducted a nomadic existence, living
in Paris, (where he founded the French-language periodical LE
TOUR DE BABEL), Rome, Florence, the Greek island of Corfu, the
Italian island of Ischia, and New York. In New York he taught
Armenian culture at Columbia University (1944-46), founded the
English-language periodical THE ARMENIAN QUARTERLY (1946) which,
though it lasted only two issues, published such writers as Sirarpie
Der Nersessian, Henri Gregoire, and Marietta Shaginian. From 1952-54
he taught history of art at the American University of Beirut
(Lebanon). Following an interlude in Los Angeles, he once more
returned to Soviet Armenia in 1961, where he worked at the Charents
Museum of Art and Literature in Yerevan. A bowdlerized edition
of his novel THE SHIP ON THE MOUNTAIN (originally published in
Boston in 1943) appeared in Yerevan in 1963, and shortly thereafter
in a Russian translation in Moscow (1969, reprinted in 1974). In Armenia, Zarian's fame rests on the narrative poem THE BRIDE OF TETRACHOMA (Yerevan, 1965; originally published in Boston, 1930), and the already mentioned censored edition of THE SHIP ON THE MOUNTAIN. The entry on Zarian in the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, volume 3 (Yerevan, 1977), doesn't even mention his THE TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD, which is generally regarded, together with BANCOOP AND THE BONES OF THE MAMMOTH, as one of his greatest achievements. A Short Bibliography "The fact remains
that sooner or later Armenian writers will either swim in his
river or drown in their own cesspool." Writings
by Zarian: Writings
about him: |
