Remembering the Armenian Genocide through Siamanto's poetry

[Tanuki]

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2015/4/24/1380101/-Remembering-the-Armenian-Genocide-thru-Siamanto-s-Poetry

"Today is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
On April 24, 1915, Ottoman police began arresting hundreds of Armenian intellectuals.
Among these was Siamanto, a gifted, young Armenian poet.
Neither he nor the vast majority of those arrested that day survived.
And within five years, more than a million Armenians had been murdered.

Turkey refuses to admit that these actions constituted genocide.
Many western nations, including the U.S., dare not challenge Turkey.
But the voices of those murdered in the Armenian Genocide continue to demand justice.
And do so in the words of Siamanto's poetry.

The Dance
Siamanto, Adom Yarjanian

In the town of Bardez where Armenians
were still dying,
a German woman, trying not to cry
told me the horror she witnessed:

"This thing I'm telling you about,
I saw with my own eyes.
Behind my window of hell
I clenched my teeth
and watched with my pitiless eyes:
the town of Bardez turned
into a heap of ashes.
Corpses piled high as trees.
From the waters, from the springs,
from the streams and the road,
the stubborn murmur of your blood
still revenges my ear.

Don't be afraid. I must tell you what I saw,
so people will understand
the crimes men do to men.
For two days, by the road to the graveyard . . .
Let the hearts of the whole world understand.
It was Sunday morning,
the first useless Sunday dawning on the corpses.
From dusk to dawn in my room,
with a stabbed woman,
my tears wetting her death.
Suddenly I heard from afar
a dark crowd standing in a vineyard
lashing twenty brides
and singing dirty songs.

Leaving the half-dead girl on the straw mattress,
I went to the balcony on my window
and the crowd seemed to thicken like a clump of trees.
An animal of a man shouted, "you must dance,
dance when our drum beats."
With fury whips cracked
on the flesh of these women.
Hand in hand the brides began their circle dance.
Now, I envied my wounded neighbor
because with a calm snore
she cursed the universe
and gave her soul up to the stars . . .

In vain I shook my fists at the crowd.
'Dance,' they raved,
'dance till you die, infidel beauties.
With your flapping tits, dance!
Smile for us.
You're abandoned now, you're naked slaves,
so dance like a bunch of fuckin' sluts.
We're hot for you all.'
Twenty graceful brides collapsed.
'Get up,' the crowd roared,
brandishing their swords.
Then someone brought a jug of kerosene.
Human justice, I spit in your face.
The brides were anointed.
'Dance,' they thundered -
here's a fragrance you can't get in Arabia.'
With a torch, they set
the naked brides on fire.
And the charred bodies rolled
and tumbled to their deaths . . .
I slammed the shutters
of my windows,
and went over to the dead girl
and asked: 'How can I dig out my eyes?"

Translation - Peter Balakian"

[Tanuki]

1. More about Siamanto:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamanto

..."Siamanto was a pioneer in Armenian poetry. His style was new and unique, and the methodology was exceptional. His themes were very dark and dealt extensively with death, torture, loss, misery, and sorrow. He recounted scenes of massacres, executions by hanging, bloody streets, pillaged villages, etc.; in other words, they dealt with the slaughter of Armenian men and women. The suffering of the people was continually tormenting him in turn.[2] He spent many sleepless nights thinking about those who perished. Writing about their fate was his way of coping with the pain and making sure they were not killed in silence. Life for the Armenians was bleak under Ottoman rule and Siamanto’s works described that fact of life very well.

However, his poems and writings go beyond the pain. He wrote about hope, freedom from oppression, and the possibility of a better future. His ideas also went to revolutionary themes and revenge for the murdered. Siamanto had two sides to his writing: one of lamentation, and the other of resistance.[2] It is from this ideology of resistance that his revolutionary beliefs grew. He was convinced that the road to salvation for his people was through armed struggle. He was hoping to ignite the revolutionary spirit in the younger generation of Armenians and to make them understand that indifference and inaction was not going to save them. He was so gripped with these troubles that he seldom wrote about himself, his personal life, love, or joy.

Siamanto had a very vivid imagination. The images he created can sometimes even feel a little out of the ordinary at times. He used many aspects from the symbolic school of thought in his works. He did not know modesty; we went to extremes both while writing about desperation or about hope. His consistency in his chosen themes went to show how passionately he felt for his cause. His works give a clear image of the spirit that existed at the time in the minds of many of the Armenian populace.

...
He was one of the Armenian intellectuals tortured and killed by the Ottomans in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide."...(more)

[JudyM]

2. Beyond poignant.

Thanks for posting this.

[Carlitos Brigante]

3. K&R nt