Rebirth

Dear Friend, 

A boy was born on this day in 1932. 

He was named Richard and sent to the vines. He spent his days pulling weeds, picking grapes, packing raisins. It was an ordinary childhood, except for the screams in the middle of the night. 

Richard’s father never talked about his nightmares, but the boy guessed they had something to do with Armenia. This is where his family was from, as were all their neighbors in this immigrant farming community of California's San Joaquin Valley. So the boy went searching for this country in the atlas of his school. 

The boy was confused to find that Armenia wasn’t on the map. And now he became even more curious about this country he was from but which didn’t exist. Hidden among the vines, he lay down on his back and watched the clouds make patterns. 

Over time the boy became a man, the man became a professor, and the professor became a pioneer – only the lands he discovered were not vineyards. They were the fields of modern Armenian history, starting with its most famous event: the nightmare where his father’s screams came from. 

A republic died on this day in 2020. 

It was another one of those invisible places – unrecognized by any country of the world – and yet a population of Christian Armenians had lived there for thousands of years. The fact that the Republic of Artsakh was invisible helped its enemies, of course. With the support of Turkey, Azerbaijan came in with mercenaries and drones, and got control of it with no trouble at all. A couple years later, a blockade was made to trap and starve the Armenians. Finally, in 2023, the genocide was properly carried out.

Hardly anybody noticed the genocide. And those who did simply stood by as the Armenians of Artsakh were killed and deported from this ancient and mountainous land bursting with castles and churches. The scenes of our national nightmare always seem to take this form – caravans pressing through the mountains.

The professor knew these scenes well. He discovered the original pattern of it – and wrote it down for all to see. For half a century, he taught the world about the Armenian Genocide of 1915: the Turkish government’s deportation and slaughter of a million and a half Armenians and the destruction of Western Armenia. When he died earlier this year, Richard G. Hovannisian was mostly remembered in this way – as the professor of our national nightmare. 

This is not how my grandfather saw himself, however. It was an altogether different mission he was on. Because a long time ago, deep in the archives of the world, the professor had stumbled upon a secret treasure. He had blown off its dust. And found the alternative history. 

It turned out that the story of the Armenian people hadn’t ended in 1915, as some had planned. Only three years after the Armenian Genocide, a small group of orphans, mavericks, and dreamers had gathered upon the ashes of history and performed a miracle. On a sliver of land caught between Turkish and Russian empires, they had raised a red, blue, and orange flag, and declared the Republic of Armenia. 

It was this story that my grandfather was destined to tell. He wasn’t the historian of our national nightmare. He was, first and foremost, the historian of our national rebirth. Richard G. Hovannisian’s four-volume masterpiece The Republic of Armenia is a parable of a people’s triumph against the great designs of history. 

The Republic of Armenia did not last. Only two years later, it collapsed into the Soviet Empire. Already shredded down, yet another shred of it – the historical lands of Artsakh – were awarded by Josef Stalin to Soviet Azerbaijan. The Armenian tricolor was banned. Those who hoped for independence vanished in the night. The dream of Armenia died. 

Of course the boy had seen it all before. As he wandered the labyrinth of mirrored histories, he had seen that special way the centuries flashed: catastrophes reflecting coronations – dreams and nightmares twinned – the recreation of faces across time and populations across space – and all of us repeating as beggars, fighters, statesmen, hostages, kings – a tribe pressing through the mountains – refracted, reflected, returned. 

It was only a matter of time, my grandfather knew – time and blood and sweat and tears – that a group of men would gather again upon the ashes of history. Artsakh would be liberated. The homeland would be regained. He wrote it all with his own hands then saw it all with his own eyes: the parable he had written – the mirrors of history flashing again – the old heroes reborn as new ones – and it was his own son raising the red, blue, and orange flag and declaring the Republic of Armenia. 

“We have learned,” the professor said, concluding one of his last public lectures, “in the long history of the Armenian people, that we shall remain.” 

Through a half century of hard labor, Professor Richard G. Hovannisian planted the fields of Armenian Studies in the United States and across the world. He watered its vines. He choked out its weeds. And, as a good farmer, he taught us how to do it too. Today Armenian history, language, and culture are taught everywhere. Armenia is on the map. 

And yet, searching his school atlas, some long lost boy is confused to see that Artsakh is not. Stirred by a scream he does not yet understand, the boy wanders all alone and finds a hiding place among the vines. He lies down on his back and looks up to the sky – watching the clouds make patterns. For now – for a while – it is only this. 

But he keeps the pattern clear in his mind. He refuses to explain it away. Instead he sets out on a great mission to make it real. Where nobody else dares to look, he finds the secret treasure. He blows off its dust. He picks up his heroes – and my grandfather is now one of them. It is by the power of their friendship that we will be born again.

Sincerely, 

Garin