Below are excerpts from the book Raffi: The Prophet from Payajuk by Murad Meneshian.
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Raffi (Hakob Melik-Hakobian) embarked on his writing career solely to enlighten his people and liberate them from cultural and spiritual stagnation. He began his chosen path at an early age. At the gymnasium in Tiflis he wrote several poems and began writin
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Mourad Meneshian is to be commended for this magnificent, scholarly study depicting the revolutionary and humanitarian literary work of one of our nation’s foremost intellectual, Raffi. As his Arabic-Persian nom-de-plume indicates he was an “Elevator” of Armenians’ spirit and ethnic-national awareness.
Raffi in his financial poverty was a mental giant, and Mourad has been able to successfully transfer all that to the reader in his 300 page hardcover entitled “Raffi”. It is a must read!
The United States and one lone state in Australia are the only parts of the industrialized world that allow students as young as FOUR to be hit with a wooden paddle in schools. (Corporal punishment may have been abolished in 30 states, but it’s still legal in 20 states, routinely practiced in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas and Tennessee.) This is one thoroughly shameful and shaming practice. It’s an egregious form of adult bullying. And we call it discipline.
20 states school disciplinary practices promote violence and sexual abuse of children. Physical/Corporal Punishment is especially disturbing as today it is legal for teachers to hit school children with wooden paddles to deliberately inflict physical pain and suffering as punishment in schools in 20 U.S. states, (these actions constitute sexual assault when done to a non-consenting adult),when the practice is already illegal in schools in 30 states and prohibited by Federal law in prisons and juvenile detention centers. An Enfield, Conn. High School Teacher is facing sexual assault charges after being accused of spanking a female student in class in stark contrast to a recent incident where over a dozen high school girls in Alabama received “Spankings” for prom dresses that were too revealing. Note the disparity.
For a real education of what is really happening to our children in our tax-payer funded schools simply type “A Violent Education” and “School is Not Supposed to Hurt” into an internet search engine to review recent shocking reports.
Please don’t allow our children’s fundamental human rights to be Politicized.
Please urge your U.S. Congress Rep. to Co-Sponsor/Support H.R. 5628 “Ending Physical/Corporal Punishment in Schools Act”
Until Congress forces states to stop this practice, kids will still be subjected to beatings in many schools in this country.
Hye, the original book of the English translation of THE FOOL (KHENT), Baikar Press, Boston, Mass. 1950 – Translated from the Armenian by J.S. Wingate.
AN INTRODUCTION By K.A. Sarafian, Head, Department of Education, La Verne College
Visiting Prof. of Education, U. of So. Calif., Summer Sessions).
Sarafian writes: Mrs. Jane S.Wingate, daughter of Reverend John F. Smith, missionary under the American Board of Foreign Missions at Marsovan (Merizifoun) Turkey. Knowing
Armenian from childhood upon graduation from the Girls Boarding School she came to the United States studied and graduated from Monticello College at Alton, Illinois, 1885.
After teaching a year or two in Wisconsin she was invited to teach in her former school in Marsovan; six years later married Reverend Henry Knowles Wingate together went to Caesarea,Turkey, to build up a boys’ school in that city, which later moved to Talas.
While living in a Turkish speaking community,she felt the need of preserving and improving her knowledge of Armenian, devoted herself to study of Armenian literature, ancient and modern commenced translating folklore which she sent to the Folklore Society of England, of which she was a member. Several of these translations were then
published in their magazine FOLKLORE in 1911 and 1912. This scroll in the possession of The Union Theoloical Seminary in New York City. She was honored by Armenian clergy for her interest in Armenian literature. Before leaving Turkey in 1917 she had translated a portion of the Armenian Church Liturgy and Raffi’s THE FOOL. Some learned scholars
from whom she received aid: Minas Tcheraz, Frederic Macler and Basmadjian, and last but not least Dr.K. H. Mallarian of Fargo, North Dakota, without whose assistance the translation of the twelfth century prayer poem “Jesus Son” written by Nerses Shnorhali would never have been completed, published by Delphic Press years ago.
We take this opportunity to extend the heartfelt gratitude of the Armenian people to
Mrs. Wingate for devoting her life to this noble task, to bring to light some of the priceless jewels of Armenian literature by translating them into English for the benefit of a vastly greater reading public, for the connoisseurs of art inthe English speaking world,
who, I am confident, will deeply appreciate her fine translation of this thought-provoking
novel by Raffi.
“The fool rolled a stone into a pit; a hundred wise men came to the rescue but they could not draw it out.”
“While the prudent man is considering the fool is across the river and away.”
“The replies of the fool become the proverbs of the people.”
CHAPTER I…
Bayazid was besieged.
Turks, Kurds, gypsies, vagabonds, and more then twenty thousand lawless freebooters, together with the regular Turkish army, surrounded the half-ruined city. Its firest smoked like a widespreading hearth. The houses of the Armenians seemed deserted. Some of the inhabitants had been put to the sword, and some had been taken captive. Only a small number had escaped, having been warned in time to enable them to flee across the frontier, into Persian territory, toward Macou.
The citadel of BAyazid still remained impregnable.
A few Russian soldiers, together with the Turkish and Armenian militia we entrenched there and were awaiting their doom, with the fortitude of…
(end of first page)
Manooshag… Ashot, having read KHENT in Armenian tells me that the ‘fool’ pretending to be a ‘fool’ was able to move about… learning much… I think KHENT means ‘crazy’.M.