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ONCE THERE WAS AND WAS NOT
Posted January 28th, 2013
Snipp Snapp Snute column on Children's Literature Network
http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/blog/sss/?p=1952
All human beings, especially children, want to be seen. To be seen
means you are valued. And when we share stories from the various
cultures that American school children come from we are telling them
that their cultural heritage has value, they have value. As we share
more and more stories from different cultures what is so remarkable is
to see how alike we are despite our differences. -Lise Lunge-Larsen
Lucine Kasbarian's Tale from Armenia
La Legende Armenienne de David de Sassoun Armenian folk tales come
from an ancient oral tradition, where values and truisms were
shared around the hearth to entertain and educate. Our national
epic, David of Sassoun, dates back to the 8th century. It narrates
the legendary deeds of Armenian daredevils and gives voice to our
nation's deepest feelings and aspirations. Unlike better-known epics
such as The Odyssey,Gilgamesh and Beowulf, David of Sassoun survived
solely by word of mouth, transmitted from one generation to the next
by poets and troubadours. This epic was first recorded on paper in
1873 by an Armenian bishop who had close contact with the peasantry
in the remotest parts of mountainous Western Armenia. There, life
had not changed for a thousand years, allowing traditions to remain
relatively intact. The Bishop discovered and later cajoled Gurbo,
a village bard from Moush, to recite the tale-an undertaking that
took several days to accomplish. Dear Gurbo, like those before him,
had memorized an epic narrative that, when finally written with all
its variants, was more than 2,500 pages long.
Folktales have a universal quality. They can touch everyone, regardless
of age or social, educational, ethnic or economic status.
They instill certain values and have withstood the test of time
because of their simplicity, humor, wisdom, and understanding of
human attributes. Armenian folk tales incorporate myths, legends,
cautionary tales, absurd humor and proverbial wisdom, often full of
magic, spirits, talking animals and a moral lesson, and show human
virtues and shortcomings.
Armenian tales traditionally begin with "once there was and was
not," meaning that they may have been real or imagined, and end
with a variety of sayings. One is "Three apples fell from heaven:
one for the teller of the tale, one for the listener of the tale,
and one for the child who will one day retell the tale." So here,
we have stories organically containing instructions advising listeners
to pass along the tale when they grow older. I followed that dictum,
translating The Sparrow's Tale into English from the regional
Armenian dialect of Dikranagerd (today's Diyarbakr, Turkey). It is
in that dialect that my father relayed the story to me when I was a
child. He himself learned to recite the tale from his grandmother,
a celebrated storyteller in the Old Country, who would sing and dance
as she narrated. When The Sparrow's Tale was told in the Dikranagerd
dialect-which is an earthy, colorful, humorous language-the wry
humor really shone through. And while I did try to recreate the absurd
spirit of the tale in English, hints and shades were unavoidably lost
in translation.
The Greedy Sparrow In sharing The Sparrow's Tale with me, my
father preserved something very precious: a part of our national
inheritance. Our genocide survivor ancestors did not pass down
family heirlooms such as rare carpets or jewelry. When Armenians
were massacred or sent on death marches, tangible valuables were left
behind, stolen or destroyed and their civilization was wiped out. But
what some survivors held in their memories-such as songs, dances,
and the stories told by their people, what UNESCO calls "intangible
cultural heritage"-endured. Heirlooms of this sort are priceless,
especially when we are talking about endangered cultures.
I think this tale-retold as The Greedy Sparrow (a picture book for
Marshall Cavendish)-resonates with all ages, not only because the
message conveys that manipulation is ultimately not rewarded, but
because it also showcases native Armenians practicing traditional
folkways. Even as my family today lives far from Armenia, those
folkways have tremendous meaning for us. In fact, the bride's attire
inThe Greedy Sparrow bears a strong resemblance to my own folkloric
wedding gown. To repeat an Armenian proverb of exile, "Even in a
golden cage, the nightingale longs for his native land."
____________
Lucine Kasbarian
Writer, folk dancer and syndicated cartoonist Lucine Kasbarian is
the author of the illustrated picture book, The Greedy Sparrow:
An Armenian Tale, which was selected as a 2012 Storytelling World
Awards Honor Book. She is also the author of the middle grade country
book, Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People, which was a 1998
Bank Street Best Books of the Year selection.Visit her website.
This article was first published in The Elephant Rag, a blog about
multicultural literature, written by Terry Farish, who is the
author of The Good Braider, a novel of South Sudan, an SLJ Best
Book for 2012. She is also the literary translator of the bilingual
Nepali-English folktale, The Story of a Pumpkin (2013) by Hari Tiwari.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Posted January 28th, 2013
Snipp Snapp Snute column on Children's Literature Network
http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/blog/sss/?p=1952
All human beings, especially children, want to be seen. To be seen
means you are valued. And when we share stories from the various
cultures that American school children come from we are telling them
that their cultural heritage has value, they have value. As we share
more and more stories from different cultures what is so remarkable is
to see how alike we are despite our differences. -Lise Lunge-Larsen
Lucine Kasbarian's Tale from Armenia
La Legende Armenienne de David de Sassoun Armenian folk tales come
from an ancient oral tradition, where values and truisms were
shared around the hearth to entertain and educate. Our national
epic, David of Sassoun, dates back to the 8th century. It narrates
the legendary deeds of Armenian daredevils and gives voice to our
nation's deepest feelings and aspirations. Unlike better-known epics
such as The Odyssey,Gilgamesh and Beowulf, David of Sassoun survived
solely by word of mouth, transmitted from one generation to the next
by poets and troubadours. This epic was first recorded on paper in
1873 by an Armenian bishop who had close contact with the peasantry
in the remotest parts of mountainous Western Armenia. There, life
had not changed for a thousand years, allowing traditions to remain
relatively intact. The Bishop discovered and later cajoled Gurbo,
a village bard from Moush, to recite the tale-an undertaking that
took several days to accomplish. Dear Gurbo, like those before him,
had memorized an epic narrative that, when finally written with all
its variants, was more than 2,500 pages long.
Folktales have a universal quality. They can touch everyone, regardless
of age or social, educational, ethnic or economic status.
They instill certain values and have withstood the test of time
because of their simplicity, humor, wisdom, and understanding of
human attributes. Armenian folk tales incorporate myths, legends,
cautionary tales, absurd humor and proverbial wisdom, often full of
magic, spirits, talking animals and a moral lesson, and show human
virtues and shortcomings.
Armenian tales traditionally begin with "once there was and was
not," meaning that they may have been real or imagined, and end
with a variety of sayings. One is "Three apples fell from heaven:
one for the teller of the tale, one for the listener of the tale,
and one for the child who will one day retell the tale." So here,
we have stories organically containing instructions advising listeners
to pass along the tale when they grow older. I followed that dictum,
translating The Sparrow's Tale into English from the regional
Armenian dialect of Dikranagerd (today's Diyarbakr, Turkey). It is
in that dialect that my father relayed the story to me when I was a
child. He himself learned to recite the tale from his grandmother,
a celebrated storyteller in the Old Country, who would sing and dance
as she narrated. When The Sparrow's Tale was told in the Dikranagerd
dialect-which is an earthy, colorful, humorous language-the wry
humor really shone through. And while I did try to recreate the absurd
spirit of the tale in English, hints and shades were unavoidably lost
in translation.
The Greedy Sparrow In sharing The Sparrow's Tale with me, my
father preserved something very precious: a part of our national
inheritance. Our genocide survivor ancestors did not pass down
family heirlooms such as rare carpets or jewelry. When Armenians
were massacred or sent on death marches, tangible valuables were left
behind, stolen or destroyed and their civilization was wiped out. But
what some survivors held in their memories-such as songs, dances,
and the stories told by their people, what UNESCO calls "intangible
cultural heritage"-endured. Heirlooms of this sort are priceless,
especially when we are talking about endangered cultures.
I think this tale-retold as The Greedy Sparrow (a picture book for
Marshall Cavendish)-resonates with all ages, not only because the
message conveys that manipulation is ultimately not rewarded, but
because it also showcases native Armenians practicing traditional
folkways. Even as my family today lives far from Armenia, those
folkways have tremendous meaning for us. In fact, the bride's attire
inThe Greedy Sparrow bears a strong resemblance to my own folkloric
wedding gown. To repeat an Armenian proverb of exile, "Even in a
golden cage, the nightingale longs for his native land."
____________
Lucine Kasbarian
Writer, folk dancer and syndicated cartoonist Lucine Kasbarian is
the author of the illustrated picture book, The Greedy Sparrow:
An Armenian Tale, which was selected as a 2012 Storytelling World
Awards Honor Book. She is also the author of the middle grade country
book, Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People, which was a 1998
Bank Street Best Books of the Year selection.Visit her website.
This article was first published in The Elephant Rag, a blog about
multicultural literature, written by Terry Farish, who is the
author of The Good Braider, a novel of South Sudan, an SLJ Best
Book for 2012. She is also the literary translator of the bilingual
Nepali-English folktale, The Story of a Pumpkin (2013) by Hari Tiwari.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress