«A PEOPLE WITHOUT CULTURE IS NOTHING»… (Avetis Aharonyan)
«Aharonian gave his whole life to the nation and the homeland to which he belonged, for half a century he sang the suffering of the Armenian people, he suffered and was tormented together with his people, he sacrificed his pen and his mind to the cause of its liberation, and he received this last heavy blow on the road of duty, for the love of Armenian culture.
Aharonian, after Raffi, is the greatest Armenian writer who has known how to deserve the worship of generations and to sow the spark of patriotism in their souls in an undying way. Under his pen of genius the Masises and Aragats, which have become an object of worship for all Armenians, are so marvellously depicted». (Aspet Manjikian)
Below we present some excerpts from the last speech of Avetis Aharonyan, delivered in Marseille in February 1934 — taken from the journal «Varag» published in Boston (1965, April, Special issue 49).
«This last speech, which he delivered with self-forgetful rapture from the stage in Marseille, about the suffering and the hopes of the Armenians, is the «swan song» of Avetis Aharonian.
A crowd of thousands of exiled Armenians was listening to him spellbound, when suddenly the strings of his heart broke and he fell senseless, as if thunderstruck…
«People of Armenia, dear compatriots…
You have moved me deeply. I thank you for all the expressions of your respect»…
«…We are living through days, unprecedented days, evil-tormented and uncertain, when every Armenian individual has stored up hatred and passion in the depth of his soul. To speak to all of you there is one subject, and that is Armenian culture, about which I decided to speak to you.
That subject is common to all – it admits no dispute, no passion, no strain.
It is a beauty from of old, remaining from the centuries, a racial beauty and a racial truth. In its name, like all the other nations, we too must feel ourselves united, must face all kinds of events, because our people without culture is nothing and is condemned to death.
Armenian culture, endowed with racial beauty and with a distinctive stamp, which we must perpetuate.
Do you observe the world, the nations — new-born or old, all have pressed close to one another, each one is setting its house and place in order, is seeking support.
You, Armenian people, instead of thinking of your hearth, of your roof, are seeking passion, are sowing hatred.
The Armenian people has a proverb – «God saw the mountain — and laid the snow on it».
That proverb is true for the whole world — except for us. It is not for us.
The snow on our mountains was heavier than the capacity of our mountains. The snow of our country was too heavy, the pain of our people was heavy, it broke our back and we fell from country – to country. It is time we reflect, understand one another.
Against all this seek peace, people of Armenia, inner peace: you need it as much as your land and your water.
After this little preface I shall pass on to my main subject.
What is culture for the diaspora and what is culture for the homeland?
Culture is something boundless — bound to the sun, the soil, the water, the race of a country and to mankind.
Without soil there is no culture.
Colonial culture is the tail-water of an irrigation channel. Whoever is a villager like me knows well what tail-water is. The villager, after watering his field, cuts off the water, so that another’s field may be watered too. Is it not done by turns? The cut-off water, however, still flows toward the field, and one who sees it may think the water has not yet been cut off. But in reality the remaining water — that tail-water, has no force, has no current behind it.
And so is culture for the Armenian colonies: it is tail-water.
Culture is born from the soil, it is the soil that gives it form, nature and stamp.
Culture gives a people language, beauty, truth. In the course of centuries our people bore and brought into the world inaccessible beauties, sacred and titanic values. With its songs of joy and sorrow it brought our culture out of terrifying and unspeakable storms and carried it all the way here. But we, scattered and dispersed, in which country shall we deposit that treasure — Armenian culture? In the Balkans, or in Syria or America?
No, only and only in the homeland .
Our national culture is deeply bound up with the Sun, which with its rays has entered the depth of our people’s soul. The Sun is infused into our soul and into our language.
One of the young poets of Armenia, in a sudden flash, said a marvellous thing: «I love the sun-flavoured word of my sweet Armenia»…
The wisdom, the depth and the capacity of the centuries are enclosed in that word.
Sun-flavoured…
Tell me please, is there in the languages of other nations a word that is the exact translation of that word?
No. The word «arevaham» has no meaning in another language, but in Armenian it does.
In our culture the Sun is different.
Our words are sun-flavoured in the mouth of our people, the Sun even has a smell. When the Armenian housewife spreads out clothes to dry, she says — «It smells of the Sun».
And our nature?…
Giant mountains, dark gorges, incomparable plains, limpid and clear waters.
From the spirits of our mountains hope, beauty, terror and amazement pour into the souls of men. The mountain ranges of the Armenian world are in themselves the cradle of poetry.
And our plains?…
Ah, Ararat Plain, blessing-bearing and fruitful, on whose boundless expanse earth and horizon become one. A hundred kilometres long and sixty kilometres wide, on which you cannot find even a piece of stone.
Our people say: «Put an egg at one end of the Ararat Plain, and you will see it from the other end».
The rivers of our world, like lions with bristling manes, are fury, are struggle and the spirit of our culture.
And our night… what roaring, what writhing of waves and what a storm…
Our culture is also the measure of our will and impetus, of our strength and effort.
That is how the character of our race was formed.
This is our culture… This is how the spirit, the nature of our race was formed»…
