BY KARINE DERKEVORKIAN
Translated by Herand Markarian
Library: Armenian script and literature, printed in Diaspora and the Homeland, in Western and Eastern Armenian dialects, in foreign languages; documents, works of art, antiquities with a history of centuries; handicrafts and various other relics. And all that in today’s reality. On one hand, clothes and necessities are being collected to be sent to our migrants arriving Armenia. On the other hand, the library of the Armenian culture center is being established.
And thus, the long-standing project of Lark Musical Society, i.e., the establishment of the center-library of Armenian culture, becomes a reality. When crying and mourning transform into a constructive mission supporting the survival of the nation, when you push aside the veil of grief and look ahead, you find a way out of the abyss, then you have inadvertently defeated the enemy.
This is our destiny that emerges out of the fire and continues living.
The preface was long, but in the last days the thoughts were gathered.
Back to our library.
Aris Sevag
In 2007, Lark Musical Society appeared in the Armenian press with a message. “Dear compatriots, dear people, at all times, we have been affected by urgent national issues: historical, political, cultural and others. Our country and people have often had transitional periods connected with changes in both internal and external world…
The Lark Musical Society has a Library-Museum program, the implementation of which will give an opportunity to the culture-loving society to gather, meet, learn and discuss issues that interest us. The future library already has several thousand names of literature from different people…
Taking on new moral and material obligations, the Lark Musical Society welcomes those who support the program and continues its mission.
Sixteen years had passed, those who believed in the program continued to donate to the library. Belatedly, however, the bookcases were ready, and sorting work had begun with the support of officials and volunteers. Suddenly, news is received that one of the main donors of the library is coming from Philadelphia and wants to visit Lark. Sorting works are speeding up as much as possible, and the library staff welcomes the donor Asdghig Sevag, the wife of the late Aris Sevag, whose voluminous library she had donated to the library.
Asdghig says, “When I entered the library, I felt Aris’s presence, his breath, I thought his soul was here. In vain, Aris would say that these books will be thrown into the garbage after my death. It was a miracle that Lark took care of Aris’s library, transported them from New York to Glendale, California (some 5,700 books, 80 boxes). Very few books were left with me as a memory and security cover. I am sure my daughters would not have been able to take care of these books either. Day and night, I will pray for the Barsoumians for this great sacrifice they made. Vache is the first person I have seen after Aris who does such selfless work for the Armenian nation.”
Mrs. Asdghig says that Mr. and Mrs. Hagop and Marie-Louise Balian were friends both of Aris Sevag and the Barsoumian families, and through their intervention this donation and transfer was made possible after Aris’s passing.
We were interested to know more about Aris Sevag’s literary and translation activity. We had read H. Balian’s article, entitled “Aris Sevak, the Armenian by origin and the anti-fact of…”, where the author had noted the points that define this great intellectual that Aris was. Here is one quote: “In the multifaceted sorrows of the Diaspora, wild flowers grow that do not follow the general rule, and which give color and hue to defeat we call realism”.
We learned about Aris, this unusual person, from his wife, Asdghig. “His father was a Dashnag party sympathizer, but was not a party member. Aris had been the editor of the “Ararat” periodical (New York), as well as the editor of the “Armenian Reporter” weekly for more than 20 years. During the last five years of his life, he worked as a translator in the AGBU New York office. In the early years of his career, he worked as an Armenian teacher at the National Ferahian High School in California.
One son and three daughters from successive marriages and an immeasurable fruitful work to serve the culture of his people – this is the tangible legacy left by Aris Sevag, as well as the library that is now gloriously located in the complex of the Lark Musical Society.
Asdghig says, “He was absolutely not interested in material reward. it was important for him that materials about our Genocide be translated into English and be presented to the public. Many, many people would come to him bringing pages, books, papers, saying, “it was left by my grandfather, or grandmother, or, saying I found it in our closet”. Aris would translate everything with love and elation to add more pages to documentation of the Genocide.
In 2001, responding to a request from Lark, Aris Sevag had translated Tahmizian’s two volume “The life and work of Tigran Choukhajian” published by “Drazark” publishing house in Pasadena.
In 2010, Rev. Grigoris Balakian’s two-volume English memoir entitled “Armenian Calvary” was published, the main translator of the Armenian text was Aris Sevag in collaboration with Peter Balakian. On the international literature website Words Without Borders, it is valued as a “comprehensive and sensational English translation of a document.”
Posthumously, in 2020, Bedros Gelgik’s Armenian-American Sketches, containing 29 stories was published, of which 20 stories were translated by the “late prolific translator” Ais Sevag. In addition to our conversation with Asdghig, we had benefitted from the Internet as well.
We were interested to know if there are any unpublished works by Aris Sevag. It turns out there are. Sevag had written, in English, the history of the Achabahian princely dynasty of Sis in Cilician Armenia, which had inherited the Holy Rights, considered the symbols of the Catholicosate power. Aris Sevag had spent 10 years on this work. His family however considered this very personal and did not want to have it published. After his passing, Asdghig had gathered the writings and handed them over to Greta Avedisian, a family member, who has decided to have them published.
Aris Sevag also had a plan to translate the literary-historical heritage left by his father professor Manase Sevag, a Genocide survivor, an American-Armenian scientist, member of the Armenian and American Academy of Sciences was born in Sis, Cilicia migrated to the United States in 1920 and died in 1967 in New York. He had written stories and poems about our massacres. Manase Sevag’s writings published in the press can be read on the Internet. However, Aris did not finish the plan; premature death had left this translation work unfinished.
Asdghig Sevag has handed those archives to the Prelacy of Armenian Churches of Eastern USA where historian Vartan Matteosian will work on those works.
Asdghig is now reflecting on what a great work the Armenia-loving intellectual has done. “I had no idea that it would be possible to do so many translations. A person should have lived another century to do so much.”
In 2007, during the tribute by Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society of New York to Aris Sevag, on the occasion of the 40th year of translational life, Dr. Herand Markarian labeled Aris as “The All-Armenian Translator”.
Asdghig Sevag has been an active member of Hamazkayin of New York chapter and the Chairperson of the Parents’ Committee of St. Illuminator’s Day School she is still trying to place her beloved husband’s literary merit in a worthy way, as a legacy to the next generations, because that was Aris Sevag’s wish and message that our history must be passed on to those who continue our march.
BY KARINE DERKEVORKIAN
Translated by Herand Markarian
Library: Armenian script and literature, printed in Diaspora and the Homeland, in Western and Eastern Armenian dialects, in foreign languages; documents, works of art, antiquities with a history of centuries; handicrafts and various other relics. And all that in today’s reality. On one hand, clothes and necessities are being collected to be sent to our migrants arriving Armenia. On the other hand, the library of the Armenian culture center is being established.
And thus, the long-standing project of Lark Musical Society, i.e., the establishment of the center-library of Armenian culture, becomes a reality. When crying and mourning transform into a constructive mission supporting the survival of the nation, when you push aside the veil of grief and look ahead, you find a way out of the abyss, then you have inadvertently defeated the enemy.
This is our destiny that emerges out of the fire and continues living.
The preface was long, but in the last days the thoughts were gathered.
Back to our library.
In 2007, Lark Musical Society appeared in the Armenian press with a message. “Dear compatriots, dear people, at all times, we have been affected by urgent national issues: historical, political, cultural and others. Our country and people have often had transitional periods connected with changes in both internal and external world…
The Lark Musical Society has a Library-Museum program, the implementation of which will give an opportunity to the culture-loving society to gather, meet, learn and discuss issues that interest us. The future library already has several thousand names of literature from different people…
Taking on new moral and material obligations, the Lark Musical Society welcomes those who support the program and continues its mission.
Sixteen years had passed, those who believed in the program continued to donate to the library. Belatedly, however, the bookcases were ready, and sorting work had begun with the support of officials and volunteers. Suddenly, news is received that one of the main donors of the library is coming from Philadelphia and wants to visit Lark. Sorting works are speeding up as much as possible, and the library staff welcomes the donor Asdghig Sevag, the wife of the late Aris Sevag, whose voluminous library she had donated to the library.
Asdghig says, “When I entered the library, I felt Aris’s presence, his breath, I thought his soul was here. In vain, Aris would say that these books will be thrown into the garbage after my death. It was a miracle that Lark took care of Aris’s library, transported them from New York to Glendale, California (some 5,700 books, 80 boxes). Very few books were left with me as a memory and security cover. I am sure my daughters would not have been able to take care of these books either. Day and night, I will pray for the Barsoumians for this great sacrifice they made. Vache is the first person I have seen after Aris who does such selfless work for the Armenian nation.”
Mrs. Asdghig says that Mr. and Mrs. Hagop and Marie-Louise Balian were friends both of Aris Sevag and the Barsoumian families, and through their intervention this donation and transfer was made possible after Aris’s passing.
We were interested to know more about Aris Sevag’s literary and translation activity. We had read H. Balian’s article, entitled “Aris Sevak, the Armenian by origin and the anti-fact of…”, where the author had noted the points that define this great intellectual that Aris was. Here is one quote: “In the multifaceted sorrows of the Diaspora, wild flowers grow that do not follow the general rule, and which give color and hue to defeat we call realism”.
We learned about Aris, this unusual person, from his wife, Asdghig. “His father was a Dashnag party sympathizer, but was not a party member. Aris had been the editor of the “Ararat” periodical (New York), as well as the editor of the “Armenian Reporter” weekly for more than 20 years. During the last five years of his life, he worked as a translator in the AGBU New York office. In the early years of his career, he worked as an Armenian teacher at the National Ferahian High School in California.
One son and three daughters from successive marriages and an immeasurable fruitful work to serve the culture of his people – this is the tangible legacy left by Aris Sevag, as well as the library that is now gloriously located in the complex of the Lark Musical Society.
Asdghig says, “He was absolutely not interested in material reward. it was important for him that materials about our Genocide be translated into English and be presented to the public. Many, many people would come to him bringing pages, books, papers, saying, “it was left by my grandfather, or grandmother, or, saying I found it in our closet”. Aris would translate everything with love and elation to add more pages to documentation of the Genocide.
In 2001, responding to a request from Lark, Aris Sevag had translated Tahmizian’s two volume “The life and work of Tigran Choukhajian” published by “Drazark” publishing house in Pasadena.
In 2010, Rev. Grigoris Balakian’s two-volume English memoir entitled “Armenian Calvary” was published, the main translator of the Armenian text was Aris Sevag in collaboration with Peter Balakian. On the international literature website Words Without Borders, it is valued as a “comprehensive and sensational English translation of a document.”
Posthumously, in 2020, Bedros Gelgik’s Armenian-American Sketches, containing 29 stories was published, of which 20 stories were translated by the “late prolific translator” Ais Sevag. In addition to our conversation with Asdghig, we had benefitted from the Internet as well.
We were interested to know if there are any unpublished works by Aris Sevag. It turns out there are. Sevag had written, in English, the history of the Achabahian princely dynasty of Sis in Cilician Armenia, which had inherited the Holy Rights, considered the symbols of the Catholicosate power. Aris Sevag had spent 10 years on this work. His family however considered this very personal and did not want to have it published. After his passing, Asdghig had gathered the writings and handed them over to Greta Avedisian, a family member, who has decided to have them published.
Aris Sevag also had a plan to translate the literary-historical heritage left by his father professor Manase Sevag, a Genocide survivor, an American-Armenian scientist, member of the Armenian and American Academy of Sciences was born in Sis, Cilicia migrated to the United States in 1920 and died in 1967 in New York. He had written stories and poems about our massacres. Manase Sevag’s writings published in the press can be read on the Internet. However, Aris did not finish the plan; premature death had left this translation work unfinished.
Asdghig Sevag has handed those archives to the Prelacy of Armenian Churches of Eastern USA where historian Vartan Matteosian will work on those works.
Asdghig is now reflecting on what a great work the Armenia-loving intellectual has done. “I had no idea that it would be possible to do so many translations. A person should have lived another century to do so much.”
In 2007, during the tribute by Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society of New York to Aris Sevag, on the occasion of the 40th year of translational life, Dr. Herand Markarian labeled Aris as “The All-Armenian Translator”.
Asdghig Sevag has been an active member of Hamazkayin of New York chapter and the Chairperson of the Parents’ Committee of St. Illuminator’s Day School she is still trying to place her beloved husband’s literary merit in a worthy way, as a legacy to the next generations, because that was Aris Sevag’s wish and message that our history must be passed on to those who continue our march.