People are right saying that happy is the man whose profession enables to get acquainted and communicate with wonderful people. I do not know how the rest of the journalists, but I have this very feeling, because I am looking for such people and finding them and I want first of all to tell this kind of stories. Sometimes I fail and our stories sound pretty sad. But thereby giving the reader a shock should not be an end in itself. I am fascinated by the established, successful and “integral” people’s examples. I visualize the “integrity” in the following way: when a person voices an estimate in my presence, I am confident that he voices this same estimate in other environments. In short, he will not simulate under any circumstances.
Recently, I had the good fortune to become acquainted with folk artist Zulum Grigoryan. His life is an epos, just manage to write down his stories about different periods. His work is a poem about an Armenian man, here, the art critics should tell their word. But now, I want to say something else, a thing that is related to these days. He was able to find the “right intonation” for introducing the Armenian genocide. There is no tearfulness and “ever-mourning” in his paintings dedicated to this subject, Armenians here are firm, dignified and resisting the temptations. Unfortunately, we are seldom successful to find this “intonation” in the art, social and public levels.
In early 70s, my parents and I went to the Genocide Memorial on April 24, and there, at the eternal flame, I saw a famous intellectual who was crying. This demonstrative performance of the feelings seemed artificial to me. Now, it seems to me that it was like the Pharisees’ public prayers, which are written about in the Bible. At the time, I did not know that much, but the schoolchild of the 3-4th grade feels the fabrication better than the grown-up does.
One more memory associated with this day. On April 24, 1987, the USSR Central Television broadcast showed our program about the Abovyan Street. I say “our”, although my role was extremely modest, the report was prepared by a group of talented journalists, producers and cameramen, headed by Monica Ter-Poghosyan who passed away recently. We did not know that the program will be on air on April 24, at the last moment it appeared that such a “pleasant surprise” was decided to deliver to Armenians by Moscow. In the program, however, Gevorg Emin was talking about Genocide too restrained and dignified. When the program went on air, the “rabiz ‘intellectuals raised a noise about why we have not presented the long-suffering of the Armenian people with full of our strength. We constantly deviate on the “wrong intonation”.
Read also
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
