notes and comments

[Anoush]

Re: elegy

Ara, could you please elaborate what you mean by an Ottomanized Armenian?

I hope Ara doesn't mind; but I could answer that for him since I have asked him the same question and here's the answer: "After 600 years of subjection to the turks we have acquired many of their traits - in the same way that after 60 years in america we have been americanized."

[seruven]

Re: elegy

I hope Ara doesn't mind; but I could answer that for him since I have asked him the same question and here's the answer: "After 600 years of subjection to the turks we have acquired many of their traits - in the same way that after 60 years in america we have been americanized."

Thank you, Anoush. So he doesn't make any distinction between "Ottomanized" and "Turkified", right?

[Anoush]

Re: elegy

Thank you, Anoush. So he doesn't make any distinction between "Ottomanized" and "Turkified", right?

You're welcomed. Not that I know of.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

I know of him. His father's name was Vahan Navasartian and the son's name was Beglar Navasartian not Beglarian. They were both extremely intelligent individuals and his father used to write for Housaper Daily from Egypt. His father used to direct every Armenian paper throughout the diaspora as he was very good with his pen and as I said intelligent, brave and demanding. He was my grandfather's friend from Egypt. However I have known of Eddo from his writings in here and I know that he is also a very intelligent and a good person.

my mistake.
i stand corrected.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Monday, July 6, 2009
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BAD HABITS
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It was only in old age that I learned to assume responsibility for my actions. Until then one of my favorite mantras was, “As a result of political, social, and cultural conditions beyond our control...” which translated into dollars and cents simply means, “not my fault.” The longer we postpone kicking a bad habit, the harder it gets doing what must be done.
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A dishonest leadership will spawn a dishonest educational system and dishonest citizens. It is widely known that during the Soviet era everyone engaged in petty larceny. They had no other option if they wanted to survive. There are over a thousand Armenians in California jails today. You may now guess their country of origin. Habits are easier to keep than to give up.
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In the Ottoman Empire we were Ottomanized; in America Americanized; in the Middle East Levantinized; in the USSR sodomized – meant to say Sovietized – not that it makes a difference. It was inevitable. It was as a result of political, social, and cultural conditions, blah, blah, blah!
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At the turn of the last century our political leaders were idealistic intellectuals, daydreaming poets and revolutionaries inexperienced in the ways of international diplomacy. They tried to transplant progressive Western ideas into an essentially Asiatic environment. Today our leaders are shrewd, down-to-earth, practical businessmen and cynical bureaucrats whose defining feature is contempt for ideas. National benefactors are our kings and heroes now. As for our vodanavorjis and mdavoragans: they are no better than contemptible beggars and brown-nosing academics.
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Who in his right mind would choose a corrupt, incompetent, and undemocratic leadership over freely elected honest administrators whose first and most important priority is the welfare of the people?
Next question: When was the last time in our millennial history when we the people were given a choice? Bad habits are easier to keep than to give up.
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Let us now pray!
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[Anoush]

Re: elegy

my mistake.
i stand corrected.

No that's alright Ara. I haven't heard the name Beglar ever since. His story was a very sad one and truly sad for Egypt's Tashnagtsagan community and for Housaper. Beglar was as much a genius as his father was; but unfortunately he married this very bad and a real devilish kind of a woman from the States who was divorced with a child and she was pretty much the cause of his death. Beglar Navasartian had a lot of promise. He followed his father's footsteps and he became the editor of Housaper Daily but only for a very short while, when his new wife dragged him out of his post as an editor of Housaper, she influenced him like a devil to become communist and they both went to Armenia. But when Beglar went to Armenia and found out that the intellegentia in Armenia at the time were not at all communists, he became very disappointed and depressed. As a matter of fact the intellegentia in Armenia hated communism and they were very patriotic. Beglar Navasartian then threw himself out of the balcony of Armenia Hotel and he killed himself out of despair and disappointment. It was very sad for everyone who knew him and knew how much promise he had to give to the Tashnagtsagan community and the Housaper Daily in Egypt. Very sad indeed.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
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ON OUR CELEBRITIES
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As a child I was brought up to brag about Gulbenkian, Saroyan, Mikoyan, Mamoulian and our Byzantine emperors. As an adult I discovered that Mikoyan was so fearful of Stalin's secret police that he slept with a revolver under his pillow planning to kill himself if they came to arrest him in the middle of the night. And when Stalin ordered the purge of “enemies of the people” in Armenia, Mikoyan went about it with the thoroughness of Talaat, with one difference: whereas in Talaat's holocaust Zarian, Oshagan, and Zabel Yessayan survived, by the time Mikoyan was through his purge there were no survivors except for a handful of yes-men like himself.
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It is common knowledge that only 7% of Gulbenkian's vast fortune is earmarked for Armenians. I will not speak of his private life because it is not fit for human consumption.
At no time did Rouben Mamoulian extend a helping hand to Armenian actors, and in this he was not different from his xxxish bosses who were against hiring actors that looked remotely xxxish.
Saroyan's fictional characters are typical Armenians only in the sense that Tevye the Milkman (of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF fame) is a typical xxx. Saroyan “stylized” (his word) Armenians to make them more palatable and harmless to his American audience. But according to his most recent biographer, near the end of his life he was suspicious of all Armenians, including his own children.
As for our Byzantine emperors: their foreign policy was consistently anti-Armenian.
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Raffi once said that “treason and betrayal are in our blood.” What he failed to add is that this is especially true in our “best and brightest.”
Celebrity is an impure concept. To admire some Armenians simply because they achieved fame and fortune in foreign countries and to ignore the achievements of many others, among them Naregatsi, Abovian, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, and Zarian, is to choose the wrong role models for our children and, in doing so, to corrupt our values and to undermine the integrity of the nation.
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[Anoush]

Re: elegy

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
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ON OUR CELEBRITIES
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Raffi once said that “treason and betrayal are in our blood.” What he failed to add is that this is especially true in our “best and brightest.”
Celebrity is an impure concept. To admire some Armenians simply because they achieved fame and fortune in foreign countries and to ignore the achievements of many others, among them Naregatsi, Abovian, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, and Zarian, is to choose the wrong role models for our children and, in doing so, to corrupt our values and to undermine the integrity of the nation.
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I agree with your highlighted statement Ara, you are absolutely right!

Up until today in our Republic, quite unfortunately gems like Papian the opera singer and others will have to get out of the country to be recognized and patted on the back; but first from the international podiums and media; otherwise it doesn't happen and they don't get recognition whatsoever. More so the better and the younger generation of gems that are within the country do not, and why not? Because they haven't been recognized by Europeans, by Americans, by Russians or by the Canadians yet. It's very unfortunate that usually our people do not give credit to their own that are within and amidst them. It's not good and it certainly isn't right.

[Anoush]

Re: elegy

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
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ON OUR CELEBRITIES
*
Raffi once said that “treason and betrayal are in our blood.” What he failed to add is that this is especially true in our “best and brightest.”
Celebrity is an impure concept. To admire some Armenians simply because they achieved fame and fortune in foreign countries and to ignore the achievements of many others, among them Naregatsi, Abovian, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, and Zarian, is to choose the wrong role models for our children and, in doing so, to corrupt our values and to undermine the integrity of the nation.
#

I agree with your highlighted statement Ara, you are absolutely right!

Up until today in our Republic, quite unfortunately gems like Papian the opera singer and others will have to get out of the country to be recognized and patted on the back; but first from international podiums; otherwise it doesn't happen and they don't get recognition whatsoever. More so the better and the younger generation of gems that are within the country do not, and why not? Because they haven't been recognized by Europeans, by Americans, by Russians or by the Canadians yet. It's very unfortunate that usually our people do not give credit to their own that are within and amidst them. It certainly isn't encouraging nor good to our very own.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Wednesday, July 8, 2009
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GRAPHIC PORN
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Finally a book by a distinguished scholar (see below) in which the work of nationalist historians is described as “graphic porn.”
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One reason the Balkans are a vipers' nest of internecine conflicts is that each ethnic group has its own version of the past wherein it represent itself as innocent victim and its neighbors as “guilty bastards.” To combat this trend, a group of multi-ethnic enlightened historians has decided to produce textbooks that are objective, honest, and fair to all sides, and whenever there are two contradictory versions of the same event, to give both sides of the story.
One of these historians, Nenad Seber by name (a British citizen of mixed parentage) is quoted as having said: “Turkish history says the Ottoman Empire was incredibly enlightened, a heaven of religious tolerance, a golden age for the Balkans. According to Greek history books, it was 5 centuries of rape, slavery and butchery. We've moved away from all that. In our Ottoman Empire workbook, for example, we've got a Turkish historian talking openly about the Armenian massacres.”
For more on this subject, see Justin Marozzi's THE WAY OF HERODOTUS: TRAVELS WITH THE MAN WHO INVENTED HISTORY (Philadelphia, PA, 2008).
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