#armenian books

[metamorphesque]

do you want to know how one combats the venomous deafness of the world in the face of genocide? read about operation "nemesis"

[erebus0dora]

there's one thing i need to share with IWTV fandom

bc book Armand is originally Andrei, which means nothing in particular (it is 'masculine', end of story), albeit looks like a nod to Andrei Rublev, a painter-who-became-a saint (wiki link if you'd like to know more)

tv show Armand is originally Arun, which is, ok, it's beautiful in Sanskrit

a boy named after the sun, right? RIGHT?

wait for it

practically the same word in Armenian is BLOOD

if it is an Easter egg, it's a brilliant one; if it is a coincidence, it's still amazing

and i am looking at Eric Bogosian rn

i hope the amount of language he can actually understand allows him to know this and privately cackle about this

[upennmanuscripts]

Way back in February, 2023, we took a look at LJS 443, a 15th century Armenian collection of texts on the calendar. From the highlight reel you'll see it's chock full of diagrams and tables, and includes a few pretty colorful headings, too. You can watch the full 30-minute video at the link below, and if you're interested in joining #CoffeeWithACodex in real time check out the schedule and details on our website: https://www.library.upenn.edu/events/coffee-codex

🔗:

[thebeautifulbook]

17th Century Armenian book cover. Tooled leather.

[feral-ballad]

Sayat Nova, from Anthology of Armenian Poetry, ed. & tr. by Diana Der Hovanessian and Marzbed Margossian; "Listen to me"

[harminuya]

Armenian fiction books that I wish had English translations so more foreigners could read them.

1. The Killed Dove by Nar-Dos.

The action takes place in the 1890s in Tiflis (Georgia). The story is written from Mikael's point of view. At midnight, his friend Garegin visits him with the news that he's getting married to a woman named Sara and that he'll be the groomsman. After meeting Sara, he quickly finds out that she is not enthusiastic about being married as her fiance, in fact she acts quite distant from him. After some time, when he has heard nothing from Garegin, another friend of his, Ruben, who dropped out of university and is now writing a book, "The Killed Dove", in which he tells how he went hunting with a girl. During the hunt he kills a dove and the girl starts crying and comparing herself to it. I don't want to give away all the plot points (hopefully you'll read it one day), but the stories of all the characters mentioned are connected. Some time later, Garegin appears and tells Mikael that Sara is obsessed with "revenge".

But what I like about this book is not just the plot, but the way Sara is portrayed, despite being morally ambiguous, she is still tragic and easy to sympathise with. Also, the book actively acknowledges the misogyny in Armenian society.

2. Blooming Barbered Wire/ Barbered Wire in Bloom (not sure which translation is better) by Gurgen Mahari

A book of autobiographical nature that was actually banned in the USSR. G. Mahari is sentenced to 10 years in the gulag and exile. It doesn't have a plot like A to B, but you get to know the life of the prisoners, what they eat, how they try to escape but fail, the love story of a Jewish woman artist with a high education and an average Azeri man. Although the situation is not the happiest, there are still funny references and sarcasm.

3. Unwitting Travelers by Vardges Kalantaryan.

Bunch of boys and girls travelling through woods and have to stay in rocks (its children's literature). I remember it as very adventurous and funny. In the second part, the characters are young adults.

There are actually more but I'm alredy tired.

[leroibobo]

the tomb of esther and mordechai in hamadan, iran. the site is believed by iranian jews and christians to house the bodies of the aformentioned biblical figures, and is an important site of pilgrimage for both. the earliest known account of it was made by the jewish traveller benjamin of tudela in the 11th century.

the interior has been renovated so many times throughout the centuries that the original hebrew inscriptions on the walls have been lost in several paint-overs. what we're left with today is practically gibberish.

[dailymanuscript]

Folio 9 verso, Bodl. MS. Arm. d. 25

[muspeccoll]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by John Henry Adams (@adamslibrarian)

A faculty member asked if we had anything in the Armenian script. One hopeful catalog search later, we found this little beauty, an Armenian liturgy from the 17th century that none of us knew we had! We especially love the funky bird-initials.

[detdeldragons]

Lavash At First Sight, by Taleen Voskuni - Review

I really loved this book! It is so funny and so heartwarming, and I loved reading about Nazeli embrace who she is and how she fits within her culture and family history while falling in love with another Armenian-American girl. I cried, I laughed, I took breaks to snack on some dolmades. It was a wonderful read.

[dougielombax]

Question.

So, how is burning books, killing academics, destroying any and all forms of cultural expression and blowing up schools, houses and places of worship meant to be a form of “self defence”?

What’s that?

Yeah. It isn’t!

It wasn’t self defence during European and Turkish colonial fuckery in Africa! Nor during Turkey’s fuckery in Greece or the Balkans (STFU about Constantinople! Get in the bin with that arrogant, fascist Golden Dawn SHITE!!!!!).

It wasn’t self-defence when the Turks were doing it to Armenians and Assyrians (Sayfo! Look it up) in 1915.

It wasn’t self defence when the Spanish fascists were doing it in the Basque Country in the 1930s.

It wasn’t self-defence when the Japanese were invading the Philippines, China, Korea and other parts of Asia before and during the Second World War.

It wasn’t self-defence when the Nazis were doing it to Jews during the Second World War.

It wasn’t self-defence when pigheaded French settlers (who also collaborated with Nazis!) were doing it to Algerians.

It wasn’t self-defence during Portugal’s bitter, vengeful, putrid withdrawal from Africa in the 1970s.

It wasn’t self-defence during the apartheid period in South Africa.

It wasn’t self-defence when Saddam Hussein’s idiot legions and sycophants in the MEK were doing it to Assyrians and Kurds in the 1990s and 2000s either.

It wasn’t self defence when the Bosnian Serb christofascists were doing it in Srebrenica or Sarajevo in the 1990s.

And it still isn’t when Azerbaijan does the same to Armenians, or when Russia does it in Ukraine or when Turkey does it in Syria.

Stop making excuses and call out this bullshit for what it is.

At the very least.

For fuck’s sake!

[septembergold]

[riversidewings]

On horses, homesickness, intergenerational trauma, and growing up Armenian in the US: A #review of Saroyan's "My Name is Aram," now up for patrons at:

[upennmanuscripts]

LJS 443 is a collection in Armenian of commentaries, treatises, tables and diagrams concerning the calendar, by authors from the 7th to the 15th centuries. Written in Armenia after 1416, it includes a few ornamental headpieces and diagrams.

Online:

[thebeautifulbook]

The silver cover of this manuscript was commissioned in 1675 by Minas Vardapet. The silversmith was Khachatourian Yakop in Tokat.

[kuyelams]

something very annoying in the way ppl say actively avoid reading abt christian persecution