SEVAK ARAMAZD, UNCLOSED CIRCLE

The Art of the Impossible

Russian culture, whose peaks have always risen to the sky of “world openness”, has long since appropriated the pearls of Armenian poetry as translated by famous Russian poets.

In 1916, in what was the most tragic time of the genocide of the Armenians, the anthology Armenian Poetry from Ancient Times to Today was published in Moscow, translated by Russian poets and edited with an introduction by W. J. Brjussov. In his contribution at the beginning of the book, he presents Armenian literature to enlightened Russian circles as “Armenia’s valuable contribution to humanity’s general treasure trove” as a “genuine triumph of the Armenian spirit in world history”.

Poetry is a luxury that is not available to everyone. Its treasures are sometimes buried or sunken, yet in some wonderful way they are suddenly discovered and return. Thanks mainly to poet-translators. The language of the Russian translation represents one of the airways to the global reader.

It is wonderful that talented translators are at work today in Armenia translating from the language of Armenian poetry into the language of Russian poetry. In this case, it is the book by Sevak Aramazd that deep and very metaphysical poet.

He is a German scholar and lives and works in Germany, where through intellectual practice his Armenian mentality is naturally involved in the trends of world culture, philosophy and religion. This is a great and difficult practical test of fate, and it is nothing for weak or vain people.

Sevak Aramazd’s poetry thrives on epic motifs, moves in leaps and circles – from poem cycle to poem cycle – bringing forth his lyrical-philosophical myths with their perpetual beings and force fields of magnetic storms, which influence human souls and their fates directly or indirectly. Everything in it is multi-layered, like in the real depth and density of water, and not like on the smooth surface. Each and every step of the way you meet the capitalised terms and essences, which is unusual for the Russian reader (although this is frequently the case in religious poetry) but has always had its place in world poetry.

In foreign translation practice, rhymed poetry is usually reproduced without rhyme. However, the high school of artistic Russian translation acts differently. The translators of Sevak Aramazd’s poems has mastered an incredible task by translating the poems of a great poet who resembles no one and panders to no one. A precondition for reading such poetry is intellectual work.

It is a known fact that translating poetry, with all the intonations and thematic nuances of the poetic words, is impossible in principle. But if, with a touch of humour, I may recall the common idiom that politics is “the art of the possible”, then it must honestly be admitted that poetry represents the art of the impossible.

Sevak Aramazd’s book contains such poetry, is such an art.