Incomprehensible Poem Armenians Love
By Jirair Tutunjian
Most Armenians are familiar with William Saroyan’s poem about their nation. I’ve always found the wrong-headed poem’s popularity embarrassing and incomprehensible.
Let’s read the first stanza:
“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered.”
We are not a race. We are a nation. Besides, in the past 2,800 years we have merged with or absorbed at least half-a-dozen nations.
“Small tribe.” Nine million people are not small. They have a greater number than dozens of UN member countries.
“unimportant people.” Anyone who studies the achievements of Armenians practically in every branch of the arts and the sciences would think twice before calling us “unimportant.”
“whose wars have all been fought and lost”
We have had many victories in the past 2,800 years. Our badly-armed civil resistance groups in Urfa, Sasun, Van…put upheroic fights against the Turkish armies who were backed by the Germans and against Kurdish marauders during WWI. A small group of Armenian volunteers vanquished the Turkish army in Arara, Palestine in 1917 thus facilitating the withdrawal of the Turks from Palestine. Let’s not forget the victorious battle of Sardarabad. After the Russians and the Ukrainians, tiny Armenia gave more heroes in WWII than any other Soviet republic. In recent times, the badly-armed Armenian defense forces in Beirut succeeded in defending Armenian neighborhoods against superior and multiple forces. The people of Artsakh were initially victorious against the Azeri forces when the latter tried to squelch the movement for Artsakh independence.
“whose structures have crumbled.”
Partially true. Mostly because Turkish-Azeri depredation and earthquakes.
“literature is unread.”
Untrue in Armenia. Admittedly not literature, the Diaspora continues to support dozens of publications in Armenian.
“music is unheard.”
What about the popularity of Aram Khachat
“prayers are no more heard.”
It assumes there is a God who eons ago God listened to our prayers. If God listened to our prayers, how come we have lost every battle and war, according to the “poem”?
“Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you can do it.”
Yes, Armenians are like cockroaches: they can survive evennuclear war. Some compliment.
“Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again.”
Laugh? Sing? Pray? Yes, we organize festivals in the Syrian Desert, congratulate one other for evading the Turk’s yataghan, and sing Va, pensiero from Verdi’s Nabucco.
“For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”
True, but when their number increases, they form three competing political parties.
Framed reproductions of the above often hang in Armenian living rooms, next to a framed photo of the two-peaked Ararat.
What makes the above rendition of “Saroyan’s words” even more objectionable is that Saroyan didn’t write them. It’s a selective quote from the original by unknown “editors” who trimmed and twisted the original most probably without obtaining Saroyan’s permission. On that count alone, the “poem” should be tossed into the dustbin. Those interested in the original version can find it on the Internet.
It’s time Saroyan’s truncated and so-called poem came down from Armenian living room walls.
