“Orer” Pan-European magazine is published in the Czech Republic since October 1999. As the editor-in-chief of “Orer” mentions in an interview with “Aravot”, it has been 16 years since they are covering not only the Czech-Armenians but also European-Armenians community life, also Armenia-EU relations, cultural, economic, political and the main Armenian events related to other aspects. “Orer” European independent magazine is distributed in 25 European countries: the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Greece, France, Sweden, Spain, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Belgium and elsewhere. “We pay great attention especially to cultural events, we are trying to find the kind of Armenians in Europe who have achieved some success in their countries.
Over the past 16 years, we have formed the army of our loyal readers who not only read our magazine from different European countries but also are in correspondence. Over the time, we have opened orer.cz and orer.eu websites, which in the beginning was more like a magazine and now it has turned into a news website and the editor-in-chief is my wife, Anna Karapetyan, the former journalist of “Radio Liberty”. We are trying to make the website active with daily news about the European Armenian Communities, while in the magazine, we mostly cover more thematic events. In every issue of the magazine, we cover a European community, we address not only the past and the present of the community, but also pay attention to the youth available in the community and what future expects to these communities in terms of the youth.
To this end, we have already visited the Baltic states, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Germany and so we must continually cover the others. We want the European “Orer” magazine to really fulfill its mission and become a truly European network and platform. Currently, we exist only at the expense of ads and various grants, the subscription is not big, we basically distribute the magazine free but in future, we want to elaborate a new mechanism for the subscription so that the magazine covers a greater range of readers,” said Hakob Asatryan. And is it easy to publish a magazine in Europe, moreover, in Armenian? “It is very difficult, especially in Armenian, if journalism were not our profession, we would have given up a long time ago but as we love our profession very much and are devoted to it, this seems to a job for life for us,” says our interlocutor, adding that the goal of the magazine is the preserving the Armenian identity and keeping the Armenian youth living “abroad” close to their roots.
During our conversation, Hakob Asatryan referred to the orer.am website in Armenia, saying that it misleads their readers, “It was a big surprise for us seeing a website with the same name, especially since our and their policies are not related to each other. Every time, I try to explain to the readers and my colleagues that orer.am has nothing to do with orer.cz or orer.eu. “Orer” magazine and the website with the same name operates in Diaspora for 16 years, hence, it would be better to open a website in Armenia not with this name but something else.” The editor of “Orer” also spoke about the Armenian trace encountered in other countries, “We always rejoice when we come across to an Armenian trace. One of them is related to Gevorg Deodat, who opened the first café in Prague in 1714 and then the second, the third …
It was interesting to me not only discovering the location of the cafe but the fact that we found the works of Gevorg Deodat in the Czech National Library. It appears that he was not only a successful merchant but also a philosopher. His written philosophical and theological works in different languages, including Arabic and German, are preserved in a special fund of the library. Thanks to the efforts of the owner of “MIKO International” Company, Gevorg Avetisyan, these books were electronically produced and sent to the Matenadaran. Next comes the houses where the author of the novel “40 Days of Musa Dagh”, Franz Werfel, has lived in. It is the desire of the Armenian community and the church to erect a statue to Werfel in Prague, in the memory of his works. Armenian traces can be found even in the Spanish Synagogue in Prague. I accidentally noticed a box of matches with Armenian letters. A Jewish manufacturer, in the 20s, along with several languages has written Armenian letters on his produced matches and now it is on display at the Museum of Jewish synagogue. By the way, the Armenian community in the Czech Republic was not big, the Armenian trace is not so obvious, but there were always devoted Armenians, for example, orientalist Nshan Martirosyan, his son – screenwriter – Hayk Martirosyan who still lives and works there. Today, there are a large number of prominent artists, musicians and renowned entrepreneurs.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
Prague-Yerevan
Photo by the author, “Aravot” daily
