Vahe Vahian
| Vahe-Vahian | |
|---|---|
Vahe-Vahian (1980)
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| Born | Sarkis Abdalian 1908 Gürün, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 1998 |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | Armenian - Lebanese |
| Education | American University of Beirut (1930) |
| Notable awards | "The order of Saint Mesrop Mashtots" by Armenia's Cultural Ministry 1981 |
Vahe-Vahian (Armenian: Վահէ-Վահեան), born Sarkis Abdalian (22 December 1908, Gürün Turkey, died in 1998, Beirut, Lebanon), was an Armenian poet, writer, editor, pedagogue and orator.
Vahe-Vahian was the fifth son of his parents; Hagop Abdalian, a merchant, and Azniv Vartabedian, who, with his two elder sisters and mother survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915. As a kid, Vahe-Vahian had been the ocular witness of the assassination of his two brothers and father, and those atrocious scenes haunted him the rest of his life. After the many vicissitudes of his life, he completed his tertiary studies in 1930, with a BSc in Structural Engineering from the American University of Beirut. The next four years he taught physics and mathematics to the upper classes in Broumana High School, and then, in 1935 he was invited to Melkonian Institute of Education in Nicosia, Cyprus, as lecturer of Armenian language and literature.
In 1936, in Melkonian, Vahe-Vahian met Ashkhen Shadan, a fellow teacher, and got married in 1938. They had three children, Tsolak, Vahram and Shogher.
The death of Ashkhen in 1955 left her husband consumed. Vahe-Vahian, besides his daily occupation as a teacher to meet the needs of his family, was struggling at the time with the publication of Ani, an Armenian monthly of Literature and Art, which was interrupted for a while. In 1968, Vahe-Vahian published a series of poems dedicated to his departed wife under the title of Մատեան Սիրոյ եւ Մորմոքի (Book of Love and Grief).
In 1957 Vahe-Vahian remarried to Anahid Topjian, and they had a daughter Sheila (1958). His book of poems, Ղօղանջ ու Մրմունջ Վերջալուսային (Twilight Chime and Murmur) (1990) is dedicated to Anahid for her affactionate and coddling support.
In 1976, Vahe-Vahian, for a second time, was devastated by the death of Vahram in a car-crash, and described his shock and grief in a book of 29 poems, Յուշարձան Վահրամիս (Monument in Memory to Vahram) (1977). He first learned about the death of his son, when he was travelling around the United States and Canada on a fund raising mission for bereaved Armenians in Lebanon.
In his twenties, Vahe-Vahian had an emotionally intense sentimental life, appropriate to his young age. In the third section “Intimate letters” of the book Բանաստեղծին Սիրտը (The Heart of the Poet) (2012), we encounter his first platonic love letter to Mrs. Lucie Potoukian (Tosbath), written at the age of 24. Later, he, with a greater out-pouring of emotions, corresponds with the elder sister of Lucie, Siran Seza, a prose writer and the editor of newly publishedYeridasart Hayouhi Երիտասարդ Հայուհի (The Young Armenian), and with Alice Sinanian. Chronologically, from the first and to the last letter addressed to Siran Seza (11 September 1935), these love letters demonstrate the noble, sincere and genuine sentiments of the author, written in the sweet resonance and the magnificent architecture of the Western Armenian language, different from the language of his other letters, and which can certainly be considered as a literary tour de force by itself. From 1946 onwards to his death in 1998, Vahe-Vahian took the decision to live and stay in Lebanon, despite the continuous civil war in the area from 1975 to 1990, with the strong conviction that the dismantling of the Armenian Community in Lebanon would be the last blow of mercy to the Armenian Diaspora.
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