Re: elegy
April 22, 2010
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FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE
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Herbert von Karajan's biographers (and there are several of them) tell us he was of Greek descent (real name Karayannis = Blackjohn), but there are Armenians today who believe he was Armenian. The evidence? The last syllable of his surname, of course. What other evidence does anyone need?
An Armenian writer (may he rest in peace) who is accorded an entry in the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, in an angry letter to me: “I have published a book on Armenian celebrities and Karajan is in it!”
What could be more irrefutable than that?
It is common knowledge (but only among Armenians) that many Hollywood stars, among them, Gregory Peck, Jack Palance, and Elizabeth Taylor (Ipekian, Palanjian, and Tertsakian respectively) are of Armenian descent.
“Jesus may have been a xxx,” I was once told by an Armenian with a college degree, “but he was Armenian in spirit because Armenians were the first nation to convert to Christianity.”
More recently I was told, if 40% of Armenian words have Iranian roots, it is the Iranians who borrowed from us and not the other way around. The evidence? To make a long story short, we are “the cradle of civilization.”
If true, I wonder why is it that no historian has so far bothered to write a history of our decline and fall? Is it because the roots of our decline and fall are within us? -- and more particularly in our tribalism, ignorance, prejudice, arrogance, and megalomania – and more particularly, the kind of megalomania that allows us to believe anything that flatters our collective ego?
Or is it because, in the words of our own Raffi:
“We are Armenians and we bear God's curse on our foreheads. We demolish our house with our own hands. Mutual intolerance, divisiveness, envy, betrayal, and a thousand other vices have built permanent nests in our hearts.”
Elsewhere:
“If you examine carefully our national misfortunes and the acts of barbarism perpetrated against us by our enemies, you will invariably find an Armenian. Where Armenian blood flows look for for an Armenian hatchet. After digging the foundations and carefully raising his house, an Armenian will tear it down again with his own hands.”
Is this why the cradle has become the grave?
#
April 22, 2010
************************************************** *
FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE
**************************************
Herbert von Karajan's biographers (and there are several of them) tell us he was of Greek descent (real name Karayannis = Blackjohn), but there are Armenians today who believe he was Armenian. The evidence? The last syllable of his surname, of course. What other evidence does anyone need?
An Armenian writer (may he rest in peace) who is accorded an entry in the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, in an angry letter to me: “I have published a book on Armenian celebrities and Karajan is in it!”
What could be more irrefutable than that?
It is common knowledge (but only among Armenians) that many Hollywood stars, among them, Gregory Peck, Jack Palance, and Elizabeth Taylor (Ipekian, Palanjian, and Tertsakian respectively) are of Armenian descent.
“Jesus may have been a xxx,” I was once told by an Armenian with a college degree, “but he was Armenian in spirit because Armenians were the first nation to convert to Christianity.”
More recently I was told, if 40% of Armenian words have Iranian roots, it is the Iranians who borrowed from us and not the other way around. The evidence? To make a long story short, we are “the cradle of civilization.”
If true, I wonder why is it that no historian has so far bothered to write a history of our decline and fall? Is it because the roots of our decline and fall are within us? -- and more particularly in our tribalism, ignorance, prejudice, arrogance, and megalomania – and more particularly, the kind of megalomania that allows us to believe anything that flatters our collective ego?
Or is it because, in the words of our own Raffi:
“We are Armenians and we bear God's curse on our foreheads. We demolish our house with our own hands. Mutual intolerance, divisiveness, envy, betrayal, and a thousand other vices have built permanent nests in our hearts.”
Elsewhere:
“If you examine carefully our national misfortunes and the acts of barbarism perpetrated against us by our enemies, you will invariably find an Armenian. Where Armenian blood flows look for for an Armenian hatchet. After digging the foundations and carefully raising his house, an Armenian will tear it down again with his own hands.”
Is this why the cradle has become the grave?
#
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