"I had no idea that so many of our famous writers in Soviet Armenia were actually murdered there. They did not teach us that in Armenian school."

Staff Writer, ArmenianCommunityNews (UK)

LONDON, 19 September 2002—If you were looking to be entertained, to hear choice words and phrases that made you "proud to be Armenian", you were in the wrong place. Marc Nichanian’s presentation of his book, Writers of Disaster, was a challenging affair that took a hard look at some key aspects of Armenian literature in the last 80 years through the works of four Armenian authors (Yeghishe Charents, Zabel Esayan, Gurgen Mahari, and Vahan Totovents).

Shifting between historical, literary, and philosophical modes of examination, Nichanian began with a discussion of national consciousness through literature and moved to his four authors. Nichanian talked about how intellectuals construct "space" for the articulation and transmission of new ideas (both in Armenian and in translation). In his case, for example, he stated: "When I read, I am not alone. I am the shadow of former Armenians. . . . I construct for them… I inherited the will to construct the ‘self’. They give me direction and identity . . . with them it is western Armenianhood."

Nichanian’s appraisal, though, was a negative one. He found it disturbing that the greatest writers in modern Armenian, in the last 80 years, are unknown. While a provocative statement—and many in the audience took exception—he had a point. How often does one hear of the works of Nigoghos Sarafian or Vorpuni in the diaspora? The reality is that even Armenian-speaking intellectuals are simply not reading, commenting, and interpreting enough to create a "space" for ideas that reflect on Armenian realities. Some of these critical ideas were, for example, a distinction between "the Catastrophe" (what most of us call the Genocide) and "the Disaster" which goes beyond the calamity of 1915. Similarly Nichanian questioned "the National Revolution" and its impact on thinking about the past even today. Nichanian, however, does not simply raise questions but seeks to answer them. Both "Disaster" and the "National Revolution" figure in the very title of his latest work.

Nichanian examined some of the themes he outlined in the works of his four authors who became intellectual collaborators with the Soviet regime. These authors masked more than they illuminated and, in a sense, they did not create the literary space for national consciousness. They wore the masks of their masters and censored their own writing. When Mahari actually wrote a dissenting work, it was publicly burned in Yerevan, and he submitted to self-censorship. These authors remain in vogue today, thought the compromised nature of their work is still not discussed. Paradoxically, they were all persecuted by their Soviet masters, and all but one was executed.

Perhaps predictably, many tensions surfaced in the discussion that followed Nichanian’s talk. He obviously touched some raw nerves. Some thought otherwise. "He brought me out of my cocoon" said one member of the audience "I now have to think more critically about these matters."

Nichanian obviously made an impact in London and his work, Writers of Disaster, will undoubtedly reverberate as one of the first critical appraisals of modern Armenian literature.

Marc Nichanian is professor of modern Armenian literature at Columbia Univeristy (New York). His latest work, Writers of Disaster, Volume I, The National Revolution was published by the Gomidas Institute (Princeton and London). His London event was held at the Centre for Armenian Information and Advice..

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