From Siamanto to the Star-Spangled Banner
Siamanto (Adom Yarjanian, 1878-1915), one of the names of the greatest generation of Armenian modern literature victim of the genocide, was the author of a stirring poem written in memory of his birthplace, Akn. “A Handful of Ash, Paternal Home” was published in his collection Torches of Agony and Hope (1907). It has been a poem of choice for many years in Genocide commemorations.
Siamanto’s impressive command of the Armenian language led him to resurrect little-used words and to introduce neologisms. One of them, asdghadzoran (աստղածորան), appears in the first stanza of the poem:
Աւա՜ղ, ապարանքի մը պէս մեծ էիր եւ շքեղ,
Ու ես երդիքներուդ սպիտակ կատարէն,
Աստղածորան գիշերներու յոյսին հետ,
Վարէն, ահեղավազ Եփրատին կ’ունկնդրէի…։
Alas, you were as grand and splendid as a palace,
And from the white summit of your rooftop,
With the hope of star-flowing nights,
I listened below to the torrential Euphrates…
The word in question, translated as “star-flowing,” derives from asdgh (star) and dzoril (to flow). Incidentally, the root dzor is the source for “tap” (dzorag / ծորակ), as in “tap water.”
Siamanto could have used the common adjective asdghazart (աստղազարդ “star-spangled”), but metrics reasons prevented it.
While the word asdeghazart (աստեղազարդ), a variant of asdghazart appears in an anonymous translation of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” published in a songbook of 1908 by Hairenik Press, it is interesting that Khosrov Nersesian (1917-1989), a regular columnist of the former Hairenik daily (now weekly) of Boston/Watertown between the 1950s and the 1980s, had a different take. He used Աստղածորան Դրօշ as the translation for “Star-Spangled Banner” in one of his short commentaries under the rubric of “Short Letters” (Տոմսեր/Domser), written in 1960.
The word asdghadzoran has appeared here and there in Armenian poetry: a Google search yielded poems written by Vahan Totovents (1889-1938) in 1917 and Mateos Zarifian (1894-1924) in 1920. It is also found in contemporary articles and essays, as well as newer poetry by writers who have borrowed some vocabulary from Siamanto’s popular poem.
To be fair, asdghadzoran is not a word commonly used. But neither is “(star)-spangled.”