Андрей Тихомиров
Vahan Teryan – poet and public figure
Bust of Vahan Teryan in front of the house where he spent the last days of his life (38 Chicherina Street). The illness forced him to get off the train on which Teryan was traveling on a state assignment to Tashkent, then to move to Iran and Turkey. Photo by Tikhomirov A.E.
"Vahan Teryan's poems, filled with high citizenship and sublime tragedy, are in tune with our troubled times. In the first verses of the poet from the cycle "Dreams of Twilight", the motives of sadness and sadness are clearly manifested.
Do you remember – there was a forest and a spring under the hill …
do you remember – silence descended in the night,
You remember – in the far, far past…
the Valley of sorrow, life is full of grief.
"Sentimental Song", 1905. Translation of the Sun. Christmas
Bury me, as soon as the dawn fades
And the sad sun is a tired sunset
It will weaken, the peaks will light up with fire,
And the seas and plains will be silent in the darkness…
Throw faded flowers on my grave:
Let them share the peace of sleep with me.
Bury me without tears, bury me without words…
Silence, silence, silence without end!
"Bury me, only the dawn is fading… ", 1905. Translated by V. Rozhdestvensky
Teryan talks about the "desolate expanse of endless fields", about the "gloomy abysses of endless night", uses phrases like: "The night has spread its mourning wings", "Sobbing, the wind beats in the dark abyss", "My poor heart is squeezed by longing", "I am wandering an endless path", "Forget, forget everything…" etc.
Sobbing endlessly under the windows
The sick song of the wanderer-singer.
I've heard it for a long time and kept it:
It seemed to me that I had folded it myself.
"The Song of the Street", 1909. Translated by S. Botvinnik
It would seem, why such hopeless longing from a twenty-year-old boy, a Moscow student, already a recognized, published poet? Many critics hastened to enroll Vahan in the category of symbolists: they say, the young poet is indulging, he invented for himself a vague, sorrowful symbol and this symbol mourns. Meanwhile, Vahan Teryan had very real reasons for sad thoughts and a heavy mood. The Armenian people, in comparison with others, turned out to be the most persecuted, subject to genocide. The whole history of Armenia is endless wars with invaders, the exodus of crowds of people to a foreign land, the mass extermination of the people. The endless national tragedy could not but affect the peculiarities of the poet's work:
I hear the songs of Armenia again,
Songs that look so much like sobs.
You can't understand them, stranger.
You won't understand them, stranger, neither will you.
Our villages are poor, and everywhere
Swarthy faces with sadness in their eyes,
All our people are in desperate trouble,
Our whole life is a hopeless grief.
"I hear the Song of Armenia again", 1915. Translated by N. Chukovsky
Teryan expresses similar thoughts in his journalism.: "The dominant idea of Armenian literature, its main driving force, is the idea of national existence, national independence. However, this general and dominant idea had its own characteristic and specific coloring, which is almost incomprehensible to a non-Armenian both in its essence and in the form of expression… This idea was some kind of phantom, a force that pushed to heroic martyrdom, to an unimaginable tension of spiritual and material energy; This idea of an independent homeland, a national existence, has become an unattainable, eternally desired, painfully painful lust." (And I. Akinshin. "Sublime tragedy" in the works of V. Teryan in the materials "Armenians in Orenburg region: history and modernity (materials of the scientific and practical conference)". Orenburg: OGAU Publishing Center, 2001. (The series "The Multinational world of Orenburg region", issue 11). Edited by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V.V. Amelin, pp. 92-93).
Armenians in Orenburg region
"In late 1750 – early 1751, I.I. Neplyuev and A.I. Tevkelev developed a project of monopoly trade with Central Asia and eastern countries. They offered to organize a merchant company by getting it to send trade caravans. The company was to include six merchants, among whom was the Armenian V. Makarov. I.I. Neplyuev reported this to the Board of Foreign Affairs in a draft dated January 29, 1751. The company includes the most famous and respected merchants – G. Zhuravlev, A. Khayalin from Orenburg, I. Tverdyshev from Simbirsk, etc.
During the first general population census of the Russian Empire in 1897, seven Armenians were recorded in Orenburg, and one in Orsk district.
Documentary materials about Armenians dating back to the twentieth century are of undoubted interest. The history of the Orenburg arboretum attracts attention. In 1904, Z.S. Avetisyan, a student of the St. Petersburg Forestry Institute, was exiled to Orenburg for his participation in the revolutionary movement. One and a half kilometers from the village of Podgorodnaya Pokrovka, forester Avetisyan laid an arboretum on an area of three hectares, numbering 70 species of trees and shrubs. One of its attractions is a beautiful alley of Siberian spruce. According to experts, the age of the trees is 90 years. Two fir trees planted at Avetisyan's suggestion were planted on the territory of the Orenburg recreation center and have survived to the present day.
At the beginning of the 20th century, expulsion as a form of punishment was widely practiced by the authorities. Some of the exiles were transferred to live in remote provinces, including Orenburg. Among the Armenians exiled to the Southern Urals are representatives of various strata: peasants, burghers, clergymen, intellectuals, etc.
The vicar of the Armenian-Gregorian Diocese of Erivan, Archbishop Sukias Parziants, was described in the documents of the Police Department as the main leader of the Armenian clergy, who provided "opposition to the government." The Armenian archbishop lived for about two years on Telegraphnaya Street in the house of Agarkov. In September 1905, the Minister of Internal Affairs personally reported on his case to the emperor, and the tsar allowed Parziants to leave Orenburg.
