`Did You Know’
Compiled by Jirair Tutunjian from Leo Hamalian’s `As Others See Us’.
The opening act of `A King and No King’ (1611), one of the most
popular plays of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, takes place on
the frontiers of Armenia. Tigranes, the conquered king of Armenia, is
unhappy with Arbaces plan to marry him to his sister. When he resists
the king of Iberia’s offer of this `rich treasure for the conquered,’
he gains his conqueror’s esteem. Says Arbaces of the Armenian king:
`This prince, Mardonius/ Is full of wisdom, valour, all the graces/
Man can receive.’ At the conclusion of the play, Tigranes is reunited
with his beloved Armenian beauty, Spaconia, proving that integrity
pays at least in the realm of literature.
The tragic play by Pierre Corneille which used to be required reading
for Armenian students in Lebanon, Polyeucte (1641), is set in Armenia
under Roman rule. The noble Polyeucte converts to Christianity and is
for that reason executed by his pagan father-in-law, Felix, the
weakling governor of Armenian. Polyeucte’s martyrdom provokes the
conversion of his wife Pauline and her father Felix. Apparently the
great French tragedian believed the claim that the Armenians were the
first people to accept Christianity as a national faith.
Paul Scarron’s comedy, Don Japhet d’Armenie was produced in 1652 with
great success (about a crazy countryman whose follies divert Emperor
Charles V).
The German composer Reinhart Kaiser (1674-1739) composed an opera
called `An Armenian in Copenhagen’, and in 1773, William Duff wrote an
ornate romance called `The History of Rhedi, the Hermit of Mount
Ararat’. Born of nobility, the young Rhedi is sent on a Turkish ship
to Europe for his education, than on a wearying journey through
Europe. He returns to the Near East and travels through Armenia and
Georgia and meets Selima, who he loves but who is whisked away into a
harem. She is rescued by two men who don the habit of Armenian
merchants.
Five Armenian warriors play prominent parts in Robert Graves’ `Count
Belisarius’ (1938), one of his fine historical novels, this about the
Roman general who tried to keep the Roman Empire in the west from
falling to the onslaught of the Franks and Goths. The first is a
childhood companion in his native Thrace, `John, the bailiff’s son, an
Armenian boy of his own age who had played the part of Belisarius’
lieutenant in the small private army he enrolled from the children
playing on the estate.’ Armenian John continues to serve in that
capacity after his friend takes command of the Roman legions sent
against Carthage and distinguishes himself in that campaign…Under
Armenian John’s skilled direction the Romans turn the battle into a
rout.
In Leo Tolstoy’s short novel, Hadji Murad, there is an affectionate
and laudatory portrait of General Loris-Melikoff, who held important
military and civil position in the government of the czars and who
framed the liberal ukase which was signed by Alexander II on the day
that he was assassinated. Loris-Melikoff becomes the confidant of
Hadji Murad, who explains to him his opposition to the Russians in the
Caucasus. Loris-Melikoff’s qualities as a warrior are matched by his
skill as a statesman and his commitment to human rights.
In `War and Peace’, one of the generals whom Prince Alexei respects
most deeply as a man and a military leader is Prince Bagration, a
descendant of the Bagration family which once held power in both
Georgia and Armenia. [Georgian Bagrations were descended from the
Armenian Pakradunis.]
We find another guru-like Armenian in Gore Vidal’s splendid and
overlooked novel `Julian’ (1962), the life of the Roman emperor who
attempted to stop Christianity and revive Hellenism. As a young man in
Constantinople, Julian has an Armenian tutor who is preparing him for
the throne he will some day assume. [Julian says]: `I like the
Armenian eunuch Eutherius, as much as I dislike Nicoles. Eutherius
taught me court ceremony three times a week. He was a grave man of
natural dignity who did not look or sound like a eunuch. His beard was
normal. His voice was low.’ Eutherius later plays a major role in
Julian’s decision to rebel against his uncle Constantius. As the most
trustworthy advisor of Julian, he is asked to convey this decision to
the emperor and to act as ambassador to the court.
Richard Davy in `The Sultan and His Subjects’ (1907) felt impelled to
say: `Of all the peoples who inhabit those regions, the Armenians are
certainly the most remarkable. When all the surrounding tribes were
lost in the intellectual sloth of barbarism, the Armenians possessed a
literature.’
In the first part of Arthur Koestler’s `The Age of Longing’ (1951),
the dominant character is an extraordinary Armenian cobbler called
`Grandfather Arin,’ who though illiterate, is an active member of the
Hunchagist, the secret society which aimed at the resurrection of a
free, independent Armenia.’ Koestler describes his tragic past:
One Christmas Day,
anno domini 1895, twelve hundred Armenians, men, women, and children,
were burnt alive in the Cathedral of Urfa. Grandfather Arin escaped by
a miracle, but his wife and six children died in the flames. A burning
beam crashed down on him and broke his back. But to kill Arin, at
least the whole dome would have had to fall on top of him. His body
remained slightly bent from the hip upward for the rest of his life,
like a tree struck by lightning, but he was not a cripple. He was very
tall, and the angle which the upper part of his body formed with the
lower gave him a peculiar air of distinction, as if he were bending
out of sheer courtesy, toward the people to whom he talked.’
In `The Invisible Writing’ (1957), the second volume of his political
memoirs, Koestler devotes an entire chapter to his impressions of the
Armenians. He calls the massacre of the Armenians during World War I
`probably the greatest organized crime in history before the Nazis
beat the record by killing six million Jews.’ Koestler also refers
frequently and sympathetically to the Armenians in `The Thirteenth
Tribe’ (1971), his controversial history of the Khazars.
In one of Herman Wouk’s novels, `Youngblood Hawke’ (1962), the major
character is the aspiring playwright named Carmina, who seems to be
based on Michael Arlen. Here is how he looks: `He had a mass of wavy
black hair, manly features like a statue’s, healthy brown skin, a
small waist, a stomach flat as a wall, and perfectly cut clothes:
fawn-colored jacket, dove-colored slacks, grew suede shoes, and the
thick doubled cuffs of his white shirt were fastened with huge black
stone links.’
In Ian Fleming’s `From Russia With Love’ (1957), James Bond and his
Turkish cohort spy on the Russian embassy in Istanbul from a tunnel
beneath it, using a periscope. Among the members of the intelligence
staff there is a man from Persia `who had a shiftly Armenian face with
a clever bright almond eyes. He was talking now. His face wore a
falsely humble look. Gold glinted in his mouth.’ Later, the `shifty
Armenian’ trails Bond on the Simplon Express under the alias of `Kurt
Goldfarb, a construction engineer.’ He is unmasked by the Turkish
polish and removed from the train before he can bother Bond.’
Johannes Simmel, the most popular spy novelist in Europe, has
succumbed to the vogue of the Armenian undercover man. In `Monte
Cristo Coverup’ (published in cloth as `It Can’t Always Be Caviar’, an
international operator named Thomas Lieven employs a double-agent
named Reuben Achazarian to help him hatch a plot that will ruin of the
Europe’s most important financiers. After the plot succeeds, they form
a private firm under Achazarian’s name and make huge profits by
selling large quantities of merchandise including atabrine tablets
stolen from the German Army, imitation machine-guns and ammunition
without powder. Lieven is arrested by the Swiss police on information
from Interpol provided by Achazarian. At the end, Lieven muses over
his misplaced trust in the Armenian spy: `So I did in the end make a
mistake. But really the Reuben Achazarian was an awfully nice sort of
Armenian.’
Alex Belorian in `The Mule on the Minaret’ (1965) by Alec Waugh is a
man-of-the-world who puts his talent for intrigue up for sale to the
highest bidder – with one condition, as he explain to a Turkish students
working for the Allies during World War II: `I don’t care who wins the
war or loses it as long as it doesn’t involve another Armenian
massacre.’ He is recruited for the Allied cause by an English officer
and by a Turkish agent named Abdul Hamid. Here is the English
officer’s report on Belorian: `He is certainly an amusing creature,
with a cosmopolitan attitude. He is noticeably but not ostentatiously
well-dressed. He is slight, slim, moustached, with a pale complexion.
His hair is thick and has a wave in it. He gesticulates as he talks.
He has a highly masculine manner. He talks a lot but is prepared to
listen. I asked him about the Dashnaks, a secret society organized to
establish an Armenian state. I told him that I had read a reference to
in one of Michael Arlen’s stories and also in one of William
Saroyan’s. He laughed.
One of Anton Chekov’s most evocative and lyrical stories is `The
Beauties’ (1888). It is a paean of praise to that special, brief, and
haunting beauty – first seen by a boy, then as seen by a man – that one
encounters, here and there, very rarely, and only in a young and quite
unspoiled girl. The subject of this paean is an Armenian girl of
sixteen, whom the narrator meets while travelling with his father in
the province of Don. They stop in an Armenian village called Bakchi
Kalakh to feed the horses in the home of a wealthy Armenian, a family
acquaintance. The Armenian himself is `grotesque in appearance,’ but
conducts himself with `real Armenian dignity – never smiling, eyes
goggling, and endeavoring to pay as little, attention to his guests as
possible.’
In `Through Armenia on Horseback’ (1898), George Hepworth remarks: `In
some respects the Armenians are the most interesting people in Asia
Minor. They are a physically fine race. The men are usually tall, well
built and powerful. The women have a healthy look about them, which
suggests good motherhood.
In James Jones’ `Some Came Running’ (1957) – [made into a Frank Sinatra
movie], an ambitious novel about failure of life in a Midwestern town,
there is a highly promising writer named Kenny McKean who commits
suicide over a disastrous love affair with an Armenian nightclub
dancer. An aspiring writer in the same book says: `In the Thirties we
all copied Saroyan on the West Coast. In the East it was Thomas
Wolfe.’ In the film, `Shoot the Piano Player’, Truffaut pays homage to
Saroyan by changing the original name of the protagonist to Saroyan.
In John Fowles’ revised version of `The Magus’ (1978), at the `trial’
of Nicholas Urfe, there is present, ostensibly, a `Doctor Annette
Azania…the gifted investigator of the effects of wartime trauma on
refugee children.’ She is further identified as the wife of The Magus,
Maurice Conchis, masquerading as the maid Maria. Finally we are left
to wonder whether she, like the other members of the jury, exists at
all.
J. Tournefort in `A Voyage into the Levant’ (1741) has a long section
in Volume II on the manners and customs of the Armenians in his
letters to King Louis XIV while travelling through Turkey about 1680.
Tournefort, who as the king’s chief physician, went into Armenia in
search of rare plants for his majesty’s gardens, and he observes the
manners and morals of the countrymen with a very sharp eye.
Perhaps the most important and perceptive book of the time,
`Impressions of Turkey’ by Sir William Ramsay (1897), summarizes the
impressions of other English travelers on the Armenians and anlayzes
the causes for the generalizations that these travelers invent. Ramsay
spent thirty years travelling around Turkey, much of the time in the
interior among Armenians. He is refreshingly sympathetic and
understanding, and gives the reader a clear picture of the Armenian’s
plight while isolated among the devotees of Islam. A second book, `The
Revolution in Constantinople and Turkey’ (1912) is a diary of the
experiences day by day of three travelers bound for the inner regions
of Turkey after the victory of the Young Turks in 1908 and 1909.
Ramsay is particularly interested in the dilemma of the Christians in
Turkey, who had about the same freedom of movement `as a rat in a
trap.’ He hears disturbing reports that twenty-two Armenian pastors
have been attacked and killed during the annual congress of the
Protestant Armenian Church taking place in Adana – only the beginning of
the massacres there.
Saul Bellow in `To Jerusalem and Back’ (1976) writes that he was taken
to dinner with the Armenian Archbishop in the Old City. Substantial
passages from the second chapter are worth repeating here: `One the
rooftop patio of the opulent apartment are tubs of fragrant flowers.
The moon is nearly full. Below is the church, portions of which go
back to the fourth century…In the Archbishop’s drawing room are golden
icons. In illuminated cases are ancient objects…Middle-aged Armenians
serve drink and wait on us. They wear extremely loud shirts, blue
-green sprigged with red berries, but they strike me as good fellows
and are neat and nimble about the table. The conversation is quick and
superknowledgeable. In French, In English, in Hebrews, and
occasionally in Russian… The Archbishop is really very handsome, with
his full cheeks, his long clear dark-green yes, and the short strong
beard. His church is venerable, rich, and beautiful. It contains the
head of Saint James, the brother of John, and many relics…The church’s
manuscript collection is the largest outside Soviet Armenia. The
antique tiles are gorgeous.’
T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), looking back on his life,
commented to [writer] Robert Graves, `I think Frederic Manning, and an
Armenian, called Altounyan, and E.M. Forster are the three most I care
for, since Hogarth died.’ He was referring to Dr. Ernest Altounyan,
whom he met in Aleppo.
In James Michener’s `The Source’ (1965), a Crusader asks a Damascene
traveler, `I’ve been thinking of getting married. Tell me, as those
Armenian princesses from Edessa as pretty as ever?’ The merchant
replies, `Your Baldwin married one and when I saw them in Edessa, she
seemed a fine lady.’
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