In 1973 I was at Camp Pendleton waiting to get out of the Marine Corps. The days had no shape left in them. I walked into the base library because it was quiet and because I needed something to do. On the shelf was a book I had no reason to pick up: “Armenian Freedom Fighters: The Memoirs of Rouben Der Minasian,” translated and edited by James G. Mandalian, Hairenik Association, Boston, 1963. I checked it out and took it back to the barracks.
I read it on my bunk. The text came later. What stopped me were the photographs.
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I have my not so impactful, but appreciative anecdote about this book I have also read. A few years ago, for a new-year gift, our khnami Gary Arvanigian gifted a copy of this book to me. The book is out of print. He had to go to go on a search to find a copy of the book. The copy I have is signed by Mandalian and is personalized to a friend. There is another unique group picture in that book that depicts the author of the memoir James translated, Rouben Der Minassian as an enthusiastic young man kneeling, posing as if he is about to toss a hand grenade. I was left with the impression that Rouben Der Minassian had his baptismal of fire, as they alluded to their first encounter under fire, under the leadership of the legendary fedayee Nikol Duman. But the caption makes no such reference about the group Roupen Der Minassian is picture with. Nikol Duman’s ancestral house, turned into a museum, remained back in Artsakh.