by Artsvi Bakhchinyan
YEREVAN/GENEVA — The Beirut-born Vicken Bayramian is an international business lawyer and serial entrepreneur. He holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Business, Trade, and Tax Law from Sorbonne University in Paris and Suffolk Law School in Boston.
Bayramian served as General Counsel for over 15 years at Metinvest, an international steel and mining company. Since 2015, he has been the founding partner of Field Solutions in Geneva, specializing in international commodities trading law and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Bayramian has served as a sole arbitrator or part of arbitration tribunals in several cases related to commodities trading and shipping, primarily in steel, iron ore and coal. He is the co-founder of Cryptolex, a pioneer in blockchain technology.
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In 2024, Bayramian published his first book, Michel’s Certainties, originally written in French, which was later translated into English and Armenian (translated by Elen Ohanjanyan). As a child of war, the author has decided to allocate the proceeds from the book’s sales to support vulnerable families displaced from Artsakh.
Dear Vicken, first of all I would like to congratulate on your first novel which I read with great enjoyment! The protagonist of your novel (obviously, a semi-autobiographical) is an Armenian teenager from Beirut, whom you describe as “a child of war.” After so many years of a successful career as a lawyer and entrepreneur, what inspired you to decide to write? And how was your work received by critics and readers?
I always had a very profound passion towards literature and philosophy. I started writing very early in my life (in Arabic), but never published. I started writing Michel’s Certainties in 2015 but never aimed to publish. The way the novel was crafted over time made me believe that Michel’s Certainties could bring some input if published, especially that the illusion of war started breaking again not only in Armenia but also in the Middle East as well as other parts of the world. By the way, Charles Aznavour, learning about my writing the book, told me: “Keep on writing and never care about critics.”
The work was received in an unexpectedly positive way. The most astonishing part was that several readers were able to grasp the messages that the book was trying to transmit without even knowing me and this was really a revelation. A French reader from Marseille left following comment on Amazon: “A remarkable book that stays with you long after you’ve finished it. A beautiful invitation to personal reflection, where there are more questions than answers, but “The beauty of unanswered questions replaces this obsessive and sterile quest to find answers to all questions.”
Your hero Michel carries the burden of being part of a migrant people, a “minority,” throughout his life. Do you still feel this way?
I did and will always do but over time being a minority could provide some value-added and this is what Michel is trying to show throughout his adventures surfing between illusions and certainties.
Nietzsche is the mentor of your protagonist — philosophy seems to have a significant role in your worldview.
Yes absolutely. I discovered Nietzsche when I was 15 and he literally saved me from the war by daring to go beyond good and evil.
Sexuality takes an important place in the life of teenagerhood, so your novel also concerns the subject. For my generation the situation was even worse in Soviet Armenia. I believe this topic deserves a separate exploration in literature.
It is not sexuality per se but the perception anchored in sterile dogmas and absolutist statements that is affecting Michel in his adventures. The statement in the book that “what was forbidden became mandatory” is a blatant illustration.
When French writer of Armenian descent Vahé Katcha learned his works were being translated into Armenian, he admitted feeling slightly offended, explaining that while his works were written in French, they were conceived in Armenian. How does this resonate with your own experience?
I did not feel offended at all when I was listening to excerpts of my book read in Armenian during the book presentation event. It was a particularly emotional moment and I imagined how my Mayrig (mama) would have felt if she was still with us listening to these words in the language of Mashtots. The quality of the translation into Armenian is really very good since the translator was able to dive deep into the soul of the text (l’esprit du texte in French) and I really hope that readers of the Armenian version will shiver the same way as the readers in the original French version.
Lebanese Armenians typically receive a national education, yet you did not. However, since you mentioned Hagop Baronian in your novel, you must somehow be aware on Armenian literature and culture.
Not as much as I wanted to even if my Mayrig was a big reader of Armenian novels and poems and she kept on repeating to me several quotes of great Armenian writers and poets. I am a very big fan of Baronian since he really was a “flâneur” who clearly depicted the human comedy played at his time with a rather big dose of certainties transformed into illusions and vice-versa.
Multilingualism is a subject I find fascinating, and I know you speak nine languages. Certain languages seem to lend themselves better to specific functions. Could you share your experience with this?
Every language is really a key to several new horizons. I take particular pleasure praying in Armenian, writing poems in Arabic with such a rich vocabulary, crafting novels in French, negotiating deals in English, etc. Those are just tentative links and they are not static but very dynamic since they evolve with several factors. The key here is to control your mind and avoid translation in order to travel with each word of each language to the new horizons I was talking about earlier.
What was your experience like when you explored your ancestors’ homeland a few years ago?
When I visited Mush back in 2012 and was able to find the land of my ancestors — Goghp village (currently – Sheikh Yacoub) — the stones were really talkative. I even wrote several poems during my time there since the energy of these stones and of this land was highly inspiring and I felt the need to communicate with my ancestors who worked on their own stones in this trip called life. Some can deny the existence of the Armenians on these lands but the energy you feel when you are there cannot be denied and this is a bullet-proof exhibit.
You described Lebanon as a “society of illusions.” Don’t you think that the same applies to Armenia?
The main characteristic of illusion is the fact that it is very “sexy.” Humans need illusions to feed their perception of reality. Certainty on the other side could well become an illusion whilst maturing over time. Voltaire used to say: “If doubting is difficult, certainty is ridiculous.” I full subscribe to this statement. Beirut is a city of contradictions on several levels. These contradictions were well hidden over time creating the most dangerous illusion of stability. Illusions could reveal very dangerous especially when they are confronted to certain reality checks. As an Armenian from the diaspora, I am still unable to fully grasp the several contradictions in the Republic of Armenia. I must say that learning Russian in early 2000 made me grasp more and more specially with local expressions which are key in understanding some layers of the local mentality. I do not think that either Lebanon nor Armenia would be capable of fully embracing disillusionment since Armenia is still drunk with the so-called glory of the past and Lebanon started believing its own lies that it is a genuine nation.
Your two countries, Lebanon and Armenia, are once again facing instability, as are unfortunately many other countries around the world today. As we conclude our conversation, let us wish for peace and stability for our countries and for the world, hoping that no more books about children of war will ever be written.
Victors of war throughout history represent a very solid reflection of human illusions. I share your hope but, being a child of war, I gave up on ideas of justice very early in my life. A lawyer who does not believe in justice is a very interesting combination, don’t you think?
