Baruyr Sevag (1924-1971)

By Shant Norashkharian

Biography & Works

aruyr Sevag is one of the greatest Armenian poets of this century, and perhaps the most popular among Armenians all over the world. As Gosdan Zarian elevated Armenian prose to a level it had never reached before, a level at which every human being could understand it and relate to it, and as he used it to explore the Armenian identity/psyche/spirit, so did Baruyr Sevag with Armenian poetry on a spiritual/emotional level. Evidence of how deeply he touched the hearts and souls of our people is that when he was murdered, there were more people following his coffin than at any other time in recent history. The official explanation of his death was "car accident", but being the anti-establishment writer who defied and criticized the corrupt Communist system of his time, few Armenians believe that he was not murdered. Phillip Marsden writes in THE CROSSING PLACE: "Looking at the road, I could understand the suspicion surrounding Sevag's death. There were no obstacles or bends; it was a straight, wide-open bit of road, an empty place. I don't suppose the truth of Sevag's death will ever be known." What he may have created in the prime of his life will tragically never be known.

Baruyr Sevag was born in 1924, in the village of Sovedashen, near Mount Ararat, with the name Baruyr Rafaeli Ghazarian. After attending the local secondary school, he graduated in 1945 from the Philological Faculty of the Yerevan State University. After working as a member of the editorial staff of local Armenian papers, he attended in 1951 The International Literature Institute in Moscow, where he graduated and worked as lecturer. From 1963 until his death in 1971 he was a senior researcher for The Literature Institute of the Academy Of Sciences, and in 1966 he was elected as the secretary of the Writers Union Of Armenia.

His poetry books, in chronological order, are the following: THE IMMORTALS ARE COMMANDING, 1948; UNRECONCILED INTIMACY, 1953; THE WAY OF LOVE, 1954; AGAIN WITH YOU, 1957; THE UNSILENCEABLE BELLHOUSE, 1959; THE MAN IN THE PALM, 1962; LET THERE BE LIGHT, 1971; and YOUR ACQUAINTANCES, 1971. Several volumes of his collected works were published in Yerevan by "Sovedagan Krogh" in 1983. In addition to these works, he is the author of many writings which still remain unpublished.

Baruyr Sevag has been translated to Russian, Hungarian, English, German, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Estonian and Georgian.

English translation by Shant Norashkharian

Hayasdan

Your name so sweet,
Your name so high,
My tormented,
Yet glorious one!
Among old ones, you are gray-haired,
Among new ones, new and youthful;
You, the vineyard of rows of grapes,
You, sand yet with water sorrows;
You, a willow of many leaves,
Oleaster spread on the brook,
You, half-ruined fortress, castle,
You, paper of old manuscripts;
You, Zvartnots, ruined temple,
Apricot tree of Gomidas;
You, watermill in deep valley,
You, also sweet and running well,
Gleam of plough and silver coulter;
You, bow, arrow, and a crude lance,
You, the smoke of our homes' chimneys,
You, unwritten novel and you, a devious one out of Sassoon...!

My glorious one,
My tormented,
Your name so high,
Your name so sweet!
You, the storehouse of many fruits,
You, cellar of gold-flowing wine,
You, velvet peach, you bubbling bread,
You, black-eyed grapes from Ardashad;
You, Lake Sevan's shining billow,
You, chapiter and the pillar of Yerevan;
You, an abode, calling lighthouse,
You, Armenian banner and flag,
Speaking witness of genocide,
And clear eye of weeping which dried;
Formidable court of justice,
The sheath of sword,
The book of love -
Always ancient and yet always new Hayasdan.

To My Son

Whether with me, or without me, my dearest one, you will still grow,
With my help or without my help, you will someday still understand,
The way one must live in this life, the way one must look at this life,
The things that are cheap in this world, and the priceless things of this world.
Neither do I tolerate nor respect those who lecture to me,
I have always abhorred, my son, the flat sermons or the sharp ones.
But if I am, my dearest one, now reading a lecture to you,
It is only because often, very often in a man's life,
If time itself has a large share, the century has a large share,
The way he has chosen himself, has no little effect as well.
Perhaps like me you will also be surrounded often with this:
Often as I looked around me, I felt envy for those people,
Whose life passes so easily - as if it were a gravel way,
Without any barrier or wall, like a ruler so flat and straight,
School and then - soon a Pooh-Bah, influential big bell ringer, 
And his warm place is then secured...You cannot live in this manner!
I would not want, that your life be like that a flat gravel way.
Don't pass over the asphalt road, you must prefer to build a road!

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 Translation Copyright 1996 by Shant Norashkharian