Michael Arlen in Ararat
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Writing under his birth name, Dikran Kouyoumdjian, Michael Arlen began his literary career as an essayist and editor for a London-based Armenian periodical Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, and soon after as an essayist, book reviewer, and short story writer, for The New Age, a British weekly review of politics, arts, and literature. Arlen’s first essay, “An Appeal to Sense,” published in Ararat in July 1916, was in fact reproduced only a month later in The New Age in August 1916. Until February 1917, Arlen simultaneously submitted essays to Ararat and The New Age. In February 1917, Arlen definitely stopped writing for Ararat, and continued submitting works to The New Age until May 1919. (Note: for Arlen’s writings in The New Age, please visit Michael Arlen in The New Age.)
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[edit] Writings in Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia
Arlen wrote six essays in total for Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia between July 1916 and February 1917. Arlen’s main concern in most of these essays revolved around his Armenian ethnicity, or nationality, as he called it. Arlen was particularly displeased with the stereotypes and misinformation that the English propagated of the Armenians. In a great part of these essays, Arlen tried to correct the English view of the Armenians with his own beliefs of what an Armenian was. Arlen was moreover displeased with his own generation of compatriots living in England, because they hid behind their Armenian ethnicity, trying to "pass" as Englishmen. Arlen described his generation as being disinterested in the arts, which was unfortunate, because it is through the arts that Armenians might collectively be able to help relieve the English of their ignorance of Armenians. In his third essay, "The Very Serious Armenian," Arlen writes: "an Armenian of this generation should be able to write such stories of his countrymen as would quite captivate the novel-reading public, and by giving them a little knowledge put an end once and for all to the question whether Armenia is a suburb of Constantinople." For Arlen, literature written by Armenians could serve, in the least, to educate the world, including the English, about Armenians. In the early phase of his literary career, Arlen did exactly that which he wished his compatriots to do as well, namely, to correct misinformation and to educate the English of Armenians.
In Ararat, Arlen also wrote his opinions on nationality, royalty, and the arts.
Arlen’s six essays in Ararat are, in order of publication:
- "An Appeal to Sense" (July, 1916)
- "The Young Armenian" (August, 1916)
- "The Very Serious Armenian" (September, 1916)
- "War and Art" (October, 1916)
- "Sic Semper Tyrannis (In the Manner of a letter from David to Goliath)" (December, 1916)
- "Kings and Queens" (February, 1917)
Below you will find a summary of each of Arlen's six essays published in ‘’Ararat’’ under separate headings.
[edit] "An Appeal to Sense"
Arlen's first essay, "An Appeal to Sense," published in Ararat in July 1916, was primarily intended to clear some of the misinformation and stereotypes that the English had of the Armenians. Arlen was particularly displeased with the popular image of the "starving Armenian" in the West at the time, derived from newsreports on the Armenian Genocide. Instead of being helpless victims, Arlen argued that the Armenian "has in his time been an extremely good, and as effective as possible, guerilla fighter, bandit and rebel," thereby following the general patriotic mood in England at that time. In the remainder of the essay, Arlen shows in seven points how the Armenians should be viewed. His most prominent arguments revolve around the Armenians being self-defenders (rather than sheep taken to the slaughterhouse), independent, capable of self-government, and not so different from the English.
[edit] "The Young Armenian"
In his second essay, "The Young Armenian," published in Ararat in August 1916, Arlen focuses his criticism on the young Armenians of his generation in England. Even though the young Armenian has more ages of wisdom behind him, writes Arlen, he hides behind his nationality, ashamed, and making him therefore ordinary. Arlen considered this attitude of hiding one’s nationality, or ethnicity, and repressing originality out of fear for difference, to be hateful: "this repression of originality, of nationality, this meanness of being frightened to be different of others, is hateful." Arlen stressed that his fellow Armenians may try as hard as they like "to be English or Fijian or whatever happens to attract us most,--but we are Armenians." Arlen ends this essay hoping to inspire his fellow compatriots to stop hiding their ethnicity and start following suit with the English public-school view on patriotism, ending his essay with the words: "he who blows his own trumpet is called a braggart, he who blows his country's trumpet (thus incidentally his own) is called a patriot."
[edit] "The Very Serious Armenian"
In his third essay, "The Very Serious Armenian," published in Ararat in September 1916, Arlen continues his criticism of Armenians, beginning with the myth that Armenians would not have survived had it not been for Christianity. In fact, Arlen argues, Christianity only annoyed the pagan countries around Armenia. If Armenians had remained pagan, Arlen speculates, they would have been the ones to do the conquering and become the conquerors, instead of being the conquered and the oppressed, "which though it might not have been so good [for] our moral welfare, would certainly have given us more prestige," writes Arlen. Arlen then returns to his theme of the ashamed Armenian and analyzes it as being rooted in the psychology of fear, typical of victims and the persecuted. Arlen warns against this hiding, however, arguing that "until the instinct to hide goes from us, it is difficult to see how we can ever hope to be respected as much as we think we should be." Arlen closes the essay with a rather pessimistic view on Armenian readership, unable to imagine an Armenian who would be able to tell another Armenian what he thought of them "in such a way that they would listen to him." Armenians are not readers, Arlen says, as they prefer to make a living in a shipping-office rather than with writing. Yet, Armenians could be writers, Arlen stresses, "with his lack of imagination and idealism an Armenian of this generation should be able to write such stories of his countrymen as would quite captivate the novel-reading public." But Armenians are not writers, nor are they readers, and therefore they will "certainly not get a writer who can rouse the world to an interest in them till they begin to deserve one by wanting one."
[edit] "War and Art"
In his fourth essay, "War and Art," published in Ararat in October 1916, Arlen agrees with George Moore that war and art are very closely linked, and that the greatest art has been produced in a time of war and in a time when nationality, or love of one’s homeland, was at its apex. Arlen furthermore argues that only nations with countries have produced great art, and that countryless nations, such as the Jews and the Armenians, have not. In other words, all great art is national and it must be national in order to be great, as Arlen paraphrases Moore.
[edit] "Sic Semper Tyrannis"
In his fifth essay, "Sic Semper Tyrannis (In the Manner of a Letter from David to Goliath)," published in Ararat in December 1916, Arlen compares Armenians, the Davids, to the English, the Goliaths, essentially saying that while the English have a roof above their house to shout their nationalities from, Armenians do not. Notwithstanding, Arlen writes, he has grown fond of his own house, and would not exchange it. In fact, Arlen rather pities the English, for Arlen’s wisdom, no matter how immature, was won "through an age-long struggle against strength which began even before your Druids began to frighten you." This old, Eastern wisdom brings Arlen to believe that nationality and "the brawls of nations to overcome nations" is a disease, and not "a well-meant (though ill-conceived, if you will) caprice of God." Arlen finishes the essay with a paragraph criticizing nationality, calling it "the bone contention for mediocrity to quarrel over" and a subject to be treated seriously only by fools. Arlen writes that he will not allow himself to be tempted by nationality to leave aside his irony, join discussions over its "merits and demerits, fit subjects for a satirist's pen" and "fall from the heights of a fool’s imagining to depths of your logical creation."
[edit] “Kings and Queens”
In his final essay for Ararat, "Kings and Queens," published in February 1917, Arlen defends the existence of monarchy, saying that he has a tendency to take things as they are and make the best use of them. He is not arguing that monarchy, for instance in England, should remain as it is, without needing improvement. Naturally it needs to change, but so do people with their mentality of criticism and disrespect for the monarchy. Arlen would rather see modern monarchy return to its old self, when the king was an actor, respected and dignified, and gorgeous with all its "apparel of kingship, with its long train of peers of realm as ministers to its wants, varlets to the king as men are varlets to them; in short, with all that unnatural artifice and splendour which places a king beyond a common mortal's envy."
[edit] Bibliography
- Dikran Kouyoumdjian, "An Appeal to Sense," Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, 4:37 (London: July, 1916), pp. 18-23.
- Dikran Kouyoumdjian, "The Young Armenian," Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, 4:38 (London: August, 1916), pp. 89-91.
- Dikran Kouyoumdjian, "The Very Serious Armenian," Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, 4:39 (London: September, 1916), pp. 141-42.
- Dikran Kouyoumdjian, "War and Art," Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, 4:40 (London: October, 1916), pp. 187-89.
- Dikran Kouyoumdjian, "Sic Semper Tyrannis (In the Manner of a letter from David to Goliath)," Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, 4:42 (London: December, 1916), pp. 277-78.
- Dikran Kouyoumdjian, "Kings and Queens," Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia, 4:44 (London: February, 1917), pp. 374-77.
