Tweet
IN MEMORIAM: ARIS SEVAG -- MAKING A GREAT CITY GREATER
Christopher Atamian
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-atamian/in-memoriam-aris-sevagmak_b_1527798.html
05/18/2012 2:05 pm
Writer, director, producer and translator
A dear friend to many and an unsung hero of New York's unique immigrant
experience and culture passed away on April 28th from cancer. Like
other immigrants from around the world, Sevag's family came to the
United States to escape persecution and experience the freedom and
relative prosperity that America offered diligent newcomers. From
Everek in Western Armenia, they settled in Philadelphia where Aris was
born and eventually made the short trip northward to make his home
in New York. Over the years, Aris was the most humble of voices as
he penned numerous articles, translations, commentaries and essays --
many devoted specifically to the lives of Armenian-Americans or their
forefathers in the Ottoman Empire.
Aris was a gentle giant, a tall hulk of a man and an autodidact who
learned Western Armenian as an adult. This did not stop him from
making enormous contributions to Armenian culture. He worked for
over twenty years as a respected and avuncular editor at The Armenian
Reporter, one of the area's leading ethnic publications. In 2009, he
took over as editor of the venerable publication Ararat magazine. For
generations Ararat was the lifeblood of the Armenian-American literary
scene, publishing works by upcoming and already famous writers such as
William Saroyan and Michael Arlen, as well as leading historians and
political scientists. Under Aris' tutelage, the magazine continued to
publish a wide range of writers and historians, delivering a balanced
selection of old and new.
In the three years that I turned in essays, short stories, reviews and
translations to Aris, he was an exemplary editor, always constructive
in his criticism and never uttering a harsh word to his writers. He
gave me free reign as well to write on any topic that I chose, and
only inserted an editor's comment or note when it was absolutely
necessary. On one occasion, I handed in a short story to him, a tale
partly inspired by Avetik Issahakian's orientalist tale Sahadi's Last
Spring. Aris sat on it for a few weeks. After I had sent him several
gentle reminders, he wrote back with two questions about the piece's
plot and style. As with any other overly-sensitive writer, I was
incensed: "How dare he?" I thought. "He just doesn't get it!" After
a few weeks, I re-read his comments and decided to make the two
changes that he had suggested -- both were innocuous and in truth,
quite perceptive. A week later, I received an email from Aris: "Your
piece, 'Mrs Zildjian and the Muslim Pendant,' is up!" I was elated,
of course. It was typical Aris: no fuss, no muss.
Aris' contributions went far beyond the hundreds of articles that he
contributed over the years. As a translator, he brought the world
the English translation of Reverend Grigoris Balakian's harrowing
Armenian Golgotha, a first-hand account of the infamous deportations
which began on the night of April 24th, 1915 and marked the beginning
of the Armenian genocide. Balakian was one of the 250 Armenian
intellectuals who were rounded up in Constantinople and driven to
Ayash, a concentration camp inland. Balakian miraculously escaped. His
descriptions of what he witnessed will leave the reader shocked and
dismayed; Aris' translation perfectly captures the victims' despair
as well as the literary quality of the original Armenian.
Yet it is perhaps Aris' translations of Bedros Keljik's
Armenian-American Sketches which I love the most and through which
he may justifiably lay claim to being a true intellectual son of New
York. These touching, colorful sketches of early 20th century immigrant
life deserve their place, for example, next to Abraham Cahan's The
Rise of David Levinsky (1917), and Heny Roth's 1934 masterpiece Call
it Sleep. Keljik's sketches were being serialized by Aris in the pages
of Ararat since 2010. As his life neared its end, he never mentioned
his illness or complained about his predicament: he kept on working as
always and he was able to publish seven of the 21 short stories in the
collection, seven precious gifts to old friends and new readers alike.
Read the first of Aris Sevag's translations of Bedros
Keljik's "Armenian-American Sketches" in Ararat Magazine:
http://araratmagazine.org/2010/06/arm-american-sketches-1/
From: A. Papazian
Christopher Atamian
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-atamian/in-memoriam-aris-sevagmak_b_1527798.html
05/18/2012 2:05 pm
Writer, director, producer and translator
A dear friend to many and an unsung hero of New York's unique immigrant
experience and culture passed away on April 28th from cancer. Like
other immigrants from around the world, Sevag's family came to the
United States to escape persecution and experience the freedom and
relative prosperity that America offered diligent newcomers. From
Everek in Western Armenia, they settled in Philadelphia where Aris was
born and eventually made the short trip northward to make his home
in New York. Over the years, Aris was the most humble of voices as
he penned numerous articles, translations, commentaries and essays --
many devoted specifically to the lives of Armenian-Americans or their
forefathers in the Ottoman Empire.
Aris was a gentle giant, a tall hulk of a man and an autodidact who
learned Western Armenian as an adult. This did not stop him from
making enormous contributions to Armenian culture. He worked for
over twenty years as a respected and avuncular editor at The Armenian
Reporter, one of the area's leading ethnic publications. In 2009, he
took over as editor of the venerable publication Ararat magazine. For
generations Ararat was the lifeblood of the Armenian-American literary
scene, publishing works by upcoming and already famous writers such as
William Saroyan and Michael Arlen, as well as leading historians and
political scientists. Under Aris' tutelage, the magazine continued to
publish a wide range of writers and historians, delivering a balanced
selection of old and new.
In the three years that I turned in essays, short stories, reviews and
translations to Aris, he was an exemplary editor, always constructive
in his criticism and never uttering a harsh word to his writers. He
gave me free reign as well to write on any topic that I chose, and
only inserted an editor's comment or note when it was absolutely
necessary. On one occasion, I handed in a short story to him, a tale
partly inspired by Avetik Issahakian's orientalist tale Sahadi's Last
Spring. Aris sat on it for a few weeks. After I had sent him several
gentle reminders, he wrote back with two questions about the piece's
plot and style. As with any other overly-sensitive writer, I was
incensed: "How dare he?" I thought. "He just doesn't get it!" After
a few weeks, I re-read his comments and decided to make the two
changes that he had suggested -- both were innocuous and in truth,
quite perceptive. A week later, I received an email from Aris: "Your
piece, 'Mrs Zildjian and the Muslim Pendant,' is up!" I was elated,
of course. It was typical Aris: no fuss, no muss.
Aris' contributions went far beyond the hundreds of articles that he
contributed over the years. As a translator, he brought the world
the English translation of Reverend Grigoris Balakian's harrowing
Armenian Golgotha, a first-hand account of the infamous deportations
which began on the night of April 24th, 1915 and marked the beginning
of the Armenian genocide. Balakian was one of the 250 Armenian
intellectuals who were rounded up in Constantinople and driven to
Ayash, a concentration camp inland. Balakian miraculously escaped. His
descriptions of what he witnessed will leave the reader shocked and
dismayed; Aris' translation perfectly captures the victims' despair
as well as the literary quality of the original Armenian.
Yet it is perhaps Aris' translations of Bedros Keljik's
Armenian-American Sketches which I love the most and through which
he may justifiably lay claim to being a true intellectual son of New
York. These touching, colorful sketches of early 20th century immigrant
life deserve their place, for example, next to Abraham Cahan's The
Rise of David Levinsky (1917), and Heny Roth's 1934 masterpiece Call
it Sleep. Keljik's sketches were being serialized by Aris in the pages
of Ararat since 2010. As his life neared its end, he never mentioned
his illness or complained about his predicament: he kept on working as
always and he was able to publish seven of the 21 short stories in the
collection, seven precious gifts to old friends and new readers alike.
Read the first of Aris Sevag's translations of Bedros
Keljik's "Armenian-American Sketches" in Ararat Magazine:
http://araratmagazine.org/2010/06/arm-american-sketches-1/
From: A. Papazian