Eclipse

Armenia’s Ministry of Culture shut down an exhibit entitled ECLIPSE at the Tumanyan House Museum in Yerevan stating that it was ‘politicized’ and would need to be re-curated. The exhibit highlighted the severity of the repressions of the Stalin era in the 1930s known as the Great Purge. It was an era of extreme persecution, oppression and terror. Thousands of Armenians, including writers, artists, clergymen, intellectuals and many others were arrested, exiled and many were killed. Hovhannes Tumanyan, one of Armenia’s most revered writers lost three of his sons to Stalin’s oppression.

Messages, Lessons and Blessings

Maria Titizian

 



Two years before his death in 1921, Hovhannes Tumanian wrote a letter to Avetik Isahakian.

“…I do not want and cannot write long from our country, although you ask this of me. In short, I will say that we have destroyed our country from within and from beyond. Mainly we. I am saying we, and herein lies the truth. Some are unruly scoundrels, others are robbers and thieves, others are incompetent derelicts and there wasn’t a multitude, at the very least a small group, who would uncover the renewed breath or moral capability. Amidst the calamities and the losses, not a single guilty person was revealed, no one was brought to justice and no one answered. And it continues. Now it is the same people on the same journey… And not a single person committed suicide to show that shame and conscience exists among these people.”