Varoujan

In 1914, Taniel Varoujan established the "Mehian" literary group and magazine with Gosdan Zarian, Hagop Oshagan, Aharon and Kegham Parseghian. The purpose of this movement was to start an Armenian Renaissance, to wake the nation up from centuries of slavery and darkness, to reconnect it to its great Pre-Christian past ("Mehian" means temple), and to encourage it to stand up on its own feet and not tolerate any tyranny, whether from its own corrupt leadership or the Turkish government. The fundamental ideology of Mehian was expressed as:

"We announce the worship and the expression of the Armenian spirit, because the Armenian spirit is alive, but appears occasionally. We say: Without the Armenian spirit there is no Armenian literature and Armenian artist. Every true artist expresses only his own race's spirit...We say: External factors, acquired customs, foreign influences, diverted and deformed emotions have dominated the Armenian spirit, but were unable to assimilate it."

Varoujan has produced four great volumes of poetry: SHIVERS (1906), THE HEART OF THE RACE (1909), PAGAN SONGS (1912), and THE SONG OF THE BREAD (1921). The last book is an unfinished manuscript which was saved by bribing Turkish officials.

An eyewitness[[*]] has narrated the torture and martyrdom of Taniel Varoujan, Roupen Sevag (another great Armenian writer), and three others. After being arrested and jailed, they were told that they were being taken to a village. On the way, a Turkish official and his assistant, accompanied by five "policemen" who were armed to the teeth, stopped the convoy. After robbing the five prisoners, the first two who were in charge left and ordered the other five to take them away. After taking them to the woods, they attacked the prisoners, took off their clothes until all of them were completely naked. Then they tied them one by one to the trees and started cutting them slowly with their knives. Their screams could be heard from a long distance where this eyewitness was hiding.

*A coachman named Hassan (from Modern Armenian Literature, Volume C, 1900-1915 [Beirut: Hamazkayin Publishing House, 1992]).

THE SOWING

By Taniel Varoujan

* Translated from Armenian by Shant Norashkharian *

It's the sower. He is standing tall and stout

In the sunset's rays which are like flowing gold;

Before his feet are the fields of the fatherland

Spreading their unlimited nakedness.

His deep apron, full of wheat seeds like stars

Is wholly full. The thirsty ploughs of last year

Now are waiting for his wide fist, and that fist

Is opening upon the fields like a dawn.

Sower, sow in the name of your home's table,

Let the movement of your arms be unbounded;

Tomorrow those wheat seeds you've thrown, like blessings,

Will be pouring on heads of your grandchildren.

Sower, sow in the name of the hungry poor

Never let your palm be half-full from your apron;

A poor today in the temple's lantern put

The last oil for your harvest of tomorrow.

Sower, sow in the name of Lord's sacrament,

Let luminous seeds overflow your fingers;

Tomorrow in each and every milky plant

A portion of Jesus's body will ripen.

Sow and sow yet even beyond the border,

Sow like the stars and also sow like the waves.

Don't worry if birds plunder all your seeds,

Tomorrow God will in their place sow you pearls.

Fill the furrows, let fertile ploughs overflow,

Let golden lights flow out of soil's bosom.

As the day turns to evening your arm's shadow

Stretches long to the starry horizons.

LETTER OF LONGING (GAROD)

By Taniel Varoujan

* Translated from Armenian by Shant Norashkharian *

My mother writes: "O, my little emigrant son,

Until when will you remain under foreign moon?

Your days go by, until when will I not squeeze

Your unlucky head in my warm lap?

Enough that your feet, which one day I warmed in my palms,

Rise up foreign steps;

Enough that your heart, where I have emptied my breasts,

Perish away from my empty heart.

My working arms have become weary of the weaver;

I am now weaving my shroud from my white hair;

Oh, let my eyes see you once and then be closed

And let them close my soul under them as well.

I always sit in front of my door full of sorrow,

From every crane which passes I ask for your news,

That willow tree which you planted with your own hands,

Now shades me and shelters me.

In the evenings I wait for your return in vain,

All the brave men of the village come and pass by me,

The sower passes, also the noble shepherd,

But I remain alone with the moon!

In the ruined house I am abandoned,

At times thirsty for my tomb, always thirsty for our home,

Like a turtle whose broken intestine

Still sticks to its shell.

Come, my son, revive your father's home,

They have broken the door and emptied its cellar entirely,

All spring swallows enter

Through its crushed window.

From that numerous herd, alas,

Only a brave ram has remained in the staple,

Whose mother - remember, son - still a lamb,

Ate barley from your hand.

With superb rice flakes and the brook,

I nourish its gorgeous tail;

With boxwood brush I comb its tender wool,

It is a precious sacrifice.

On your return, I shall adorn its head completely with roses,

I shall slaughter it for your youthful life,

And in its blood I shall wash, sweet son,

Your tired emigrant's feet."

Taniel Varoujan was one of the greatest Armenian poets of this century. At the age of 31, when he was blossoming to become a poet of international stature, he was brutally murdered (see below) by the government of "The Young Turks", like Siamanto, Zohrab and many others, as part of the officially planned and executed Genocide of the whole Armenian nation.

Varoujan was born in the Prknig village of Sivas, Turkey. After attending the local school, he was sent in 1896, the year of the Hamidian massacres, to Istanbul, where he attended the Mkhitarian school. He then continued his education at Mourad-Rafaelian school of Venice, and in 1905 entered the university of Ghent in Belgium, where he followed courses in literature, sociology and economics. In 1909 he returned to his village where he taught for three years. After his marriage in 1912, he became the principal of St. Gregory The Illuminator School in Istanbul.