“What is necessary is to rectify names” — Confucius, Analects, 13.3
PRELUDE
To this nation which lives without care or cause,
I wish to one day reform by laying down laws.
But that day is not and cannot be today
Because much must be done first to clear the way.
E.g., we need names that are fitting and proper,
Which is a task best suited for a philosopher.
But because we’re a profoundly unphilosophical race,
You’ll have to settle for this poem in its place…
Of Armenian types there are thought to be three:
“Parskahye”, “Western Armenian”, and “Hayastantsi”—
But only the first is a term that is right on
Since, indeed, these are Armenians from Iran,
Having been taken captive and imported en masse
Some four-hundred years ago by Shah Abbas.
The other two are misnomers to say the least,
As is dividing the three into “West” and “East”.
“WESTERN ARMENIAN”
So let us begin and first attempt to discern
The right name for Armenians called “western”.
Contrary to the lies Vovayi vomits without tact,
Western Armenia is a historical fact,
Unlike “Western Azerbaijan”, a double fabrication,
A made up region of a made up nation.
However, for an unbroken nine century run,
Turkic tribes had Armenia’s west overrun.
(That’s the U.S.’s entire existence times three,
Plus one long-lived turtle at the bottom of the sea.)
Thus, a millennium under the rule of the Turk
Was, unfortunately, neither quick nor a quirk;
And so, while the orientation is indeed “west”,
This leaves the relevant influence unexpressed.
It takes Turkey’s own ostrich skills to deny
That the only fitting name here is Trkahye.
This was the term they themselves employed,
But, after 1915, understandably began to avoid.
Nonetheless, in both last names and dialect,
The correlation could not be more direct.
Topal, Chirkin, Karagoz, Dilsiz, Boyaji:
What else would one with such a surname be?
And the dialect’s redundant double consonants
Are not the result of Mesrop’s incompetence;
For he did not make multiple duplicate sounds
With which “western” Armenian somehow abounds.
He didn’t make two identical P’s, K’s and T’s
When creating Armenian’s original ABG’s.
Thus, the dialect whose loss they work to prevent
Is really just Armenian with an Altai accent.
By all means, work to preserve it all you wish
So long as you know it’s Armeno-Turkish.
While wisely they don’t use Turkish anymore,
In conversation, one still hears many a gor…
And so one must be an ostrich or turkey to deny
That the right name here is, indeed, Trkahye.
Being Trkahye not only affected how they speak,
But also their manners which are mild and meek;
For, long accustomed to being second-class citizens,
They are overawed by authority like good Ottomans,
Or, as they were dishonorably known, the “loyal millet”,
A degrading title that could only please a lowly helot.
Even in the face of brutal, barbaric hostility,
They shocked even their butchers with their docility.
The following remark from 1241 is apropos,
Regarding “western” Armenians by Marco Polo.
He says they were once war-like and full of spunk,
But were now known for cowardice and being drunk.
In fact, Baronian, the chronicler of Trkahye vice,
Frequently harps on heavy drinking and cowardice…
Thus, they are indeed law-abiding—yes, it’s true,
But from fear of punishment rather than virtue!
“HAYASTANTSI”
Moving from west to east, on the other hand,
Are the Hyes born and bred in the motherland.
Thus “Hayastantsi”, or, a Hye in his natural habitat,
Requiring no further qualification or caveat.
Unlike French-Armenian or Armenian-American,
Hayastantsis are Hye with no need for a hyphen.
Because on Armenian soil Hayastantsis subsist,
They must be of Armenians the Armenianest;
Where Hye identity and language are a fixture
And, uncompounded, admits of no admixture…
At least that’s what the nomenclature implies,
Contradicting the very evidence of our eyes;
For, it requires neither debate nor discussion
That these Hyes should be referred to as Russian.
Again, they called themselves the name Russahye
Already in the time of the first czar Nikolai,
Who acquired Eastern Armenia in 1828
And laid the foundation of the modern Armenian state.
Thus began Russification, and Russify they did,
Bringing forth a hyphenated Armeno-Russian hybrid.
Despite Church restrictions and some hurtful words,
Russahyes weren’t being chased around by Kurds
Unlike their countrymen on the Ottoman side,
Who lived in fear of massacre and genocide.
Thus, growing prosperous, educated and prolific,
Most Russahyes grew ardently Russophilic,
Seeing them as saviors who were also Christian
And, let’s be honest, having also seen Russian women…
Soon, Armenians constituted a wealthy bourgeoisie
In Russian controlled cities like Baku and Tbilisi.
Indeed, some resisted intensifying Russification
But, then again, have you seen Russian women…?
Russahyes had already been Russified aplenty
When Bolshevization commenced in 1920.
The obnoxious Polozhenie of Orthodox Tsars
Was now replaced with Marxist terrorist commissars
Who didn’t seek to control the Church like the Tsars might,
But rather to blow up churches with dynamite.
What followed was 70 years of radical foreign tyranny,
Beginning with the deformation of the orthography.
Disregard what any Russahayastantsi says,
Their language is the result of the Russian likbez,
Or, the LIKVIDATSIYA BEZGRAMOTNOSTI,
The Bolshevik push to “liquidate illiteracy”,
A Soviet-wide effort to teach one-and-all to read,
All the better to misinform, mesmerize and mislead.
The Medici also spread literacy in the Florentine ranks
Because they needed literate slaves to work in their banks.
The Bolsheviks were just lovers of literature, da?
Nyet—they wanted readers of their bullshit Pravda…
Yes, the orthography is unorthodox and broken,
But so is the diction of the dialect spoken:
A pastiche, a potpourri, a protean parole
Best described as a Russian-Armenian creole;
A super Slavic, Transcaucasian phantasmagoria
Perpetually in the PROTSESS of EVOLUTSIYA…
Russahyes believe for a language to develop and grow,
It must forever run into debt and constantly borrow.
But this approach is far from the only option:
It’s neither French nor Japanese, but is itself Russian.
The Russ, a recent nation with no ancient pedigree,
Borrowed everything from France and Germany,
Viewing it as the fastest means to modernize,
A view later adopted by Russophilic Russahyes,
Who saw Russia as a gateway to Europe in turn,
Preferring Western and Christian to Islamic and Eastern.
“The Third Rome”: that’s what Russia sees itself as
After the fall of Rome’s western and eastern halves.
But what might be appropriate for Rome part III
Is absurd for the nation that vied with Pompey!
But advocates of impure language will object hereupon
“But even classical Armenian borrowed from Iran!”
Yes, the Iranians are our biggest creditors by far,
Whose vocabulary appears frequently in our grabar;
But how do Parthian loanwords from long ago
Necessitate borrowing again and again from Moscow?
You borrow to have, and, once you have, don’t borrow more…
Borrowing doesn’t make you rich, it leaves you poor!
Thus, from 1828 to 1991, there was a second Great Deluge
From which even Ararat’s peak could offer no refuge…
But even after the iron shower-curtain came down,
In Russian words the language continued to drown.
E.g., the country’s top Russophobic politician
Speaks, breathes and acts like a Soviet Russian.
All three of his names, first, middle and last,
Are as Russian as borscht from an oblast.
His slogan, DUХOV, is as Russky as it gets,
And his fans Slav squat while smoking cigarettes.
Replace Russky words with English Rosetta Stone,
Fine—but the influence isn’t merely loanwords alone.
Washing blinchiks down with an ice cold Coke
Won’t break the culture from its Russoviet yoke.
Half a generation of blue jeans and rock’n’roll
Isn’t enough to scrub the Soviet from your soul…
They are the East Germans and North Koreans
To other Hyes’ South Koreans and West Germans,
I.e., those whose character has the tell-tale marks
Of having been dehumanized by Karl Marx.
For them, God was a holy lie men had to invent
And all laws were mere obstacles to circumvent.
For life in a civil polity they are yet unequipped
Having had their soul’s inward wings completely clipped.
They neither desire nor are at all fit to be free,
But rather love and desperately crave a tyranny.
“Look! His criticisms of Hayastantsis are twice as long;
He’s clearly biased and his criticisms, therefore, wrong!”
It’s twice as long since of their nativity they love to brag
And are, in a very literal sense, bearers of the flag.
To their Erebuni autochthony they frequently appeal
And live in the Armenia that is supposedly “Real”…
Yet, everyone with a modicum of honesty will confess
They are an internal diaspora, but a diaspora no less…
PARSKAHYE
So much for Armenia’s Turkish and Russian versions,
Leaving only those Armenians influenced by Persians,
I.e., Parskahyes, or Hyes who lived among Parsees
(Known today as “Farsi” since Arabs couldn’t pronounce P’s).
For sure, these too have absorbed the culture there,
By drinking its water and breathing its air.
E.g., Greek legends about Amazonian warrior women
Are believed to be based on ladies from this region,
And Persian women, even today under the penalties of Arabia,
Still retain some of the fierceness of a Penthesilea.
Accordingly, Parskahye women are bold and forward,
Submitting to men neither in deed nor in word.
Though they’re from the land of the barbarienne,
Like Spartan women, are capable of governing men.
(With this fact, Parskahye men are quite comfortable,
For, they’re an easy-going bunch and rather governable.)
Yes, they have absorbed the culture to a large degree,
But have preserved the language and its orthography,
To the point that Parskahyes—they and only they—
Can claim to speak and write in the right way.
They escaped Russification and Turkification too,
And deprived of old Julfa, they made Julfa anew.
Sure, they had a global trade network of silk I guess,
But already in 1636 had a significant printing press.
Thus, in heart and spirit they stayed truly Mesropian
And are the model Hye community in my opinion.
Unlike the others, they’ve suffered no great cultural breach
Besides eating ghormeh sabzi and singsong speech.
EPILOGUE
All that being said, I confess that I am not aware
If there’s a single Armenian-Armenian anywhere…
If it will be found one day, it will no doubt be
In a code of laws and, at long last, a philosophy!
For what in God’s name do we even mean by Hye?
Even this name is necessary to rectify…
