Hovhannes Shiraz "Monument For My Mother

Hovhannes Shiraz is one of my favourite poets. i decided to arrange lesson-presentantion based on his famous book " Հուշարձան մայրիկիս՚՚, all the poems are translated by me.

Հնչումէհանդարտ

P.   Passer stop, incline your head

 Here sleeps, the universe I had.

 

 Էկրանին երևում են մի քանի նկարներ,

 

P.  Hovhannes (Onik) TadevosKarapetyan, was born in 1914 April 27, in Alexandrapol, now it is called Gyumri. His father died during Armenian Genocide.

P.  His mother Astghik, was a poor woman. During the Genocide she lost her daughter, and little Hovhannes. After several years she found him in a bazar. Later Shiraz will write his favorite <<ԳՏԱ>>.

P.     I’ve found

I was little orphan

And remember cruel things,

And one day deep at night,

I run away from orphanage.

I was dreaming of my mother,

And my home and my father,

I found only my yard, a poplar

And a house ruined by asker.

 

Oh my cruel memories,

My destroyed house,

My unburied father,

 And my lost sister,

But where were my mother

Where was she?

I remembered her eyes,

Full of tears and smile.

My sad unhappy memories

They can witness

I became a vermin

And one day

I saw a woman very old

She was walking, praying Lord,

She was carrying in her hand

Bread! Oh my foolish head.

 

I approached and suddenly

Wanted to rob the bread only,

She looked at me stared at me

And cried out with all her heart

She pulled me cried and cried

Calling my name, my name she cried.

 

She was holding, she was kissing

She was crying, she was pulling.

My brow, my ears, my eyes

My cheeks, and my grimy hands.

And was calling: “my mad my mad”

Crying again and again

The people gathered, around us,

They were astonished seeing us.

 

I was not hearing what said she

I was not asking who was  she,

I was just feeling warmly hug

Which I was missing all my life.

I did not see who was here

Or what  they say, or what they feel,

I was just feeling warmly hug

Which I was dreaming all my life.

 

She was loving, she was holding,

She was kissing, she was praying

She found me, and I found mom…

Oh, she was Astghik my lovely mom

She took me home, and lovely son.

 

 

P. He loved his mother so deep, so purely, he wrote a book for her mother’s sake, called “Monument to My Mother” published in 1968.

 

I didn’t see the passed

I remember nothing

I never saw it

In all my dreamings,

But when I looked

Into my mom’s eyes

I saw hidden tears,

Of her heavy life.

I didn’t see the passed

And remember nothing

I feel the painful tears

Deep in my mom’s eyes.

 

Music

Like three big stars

Like three huge stars

I have three loves in my heart

I said to my girl beloved

Became she angry and sad so.

“Oh”, I said, “don’t, you are mu life,

Three of stars are you, my mom,

And my lovely Hayastan”.

 

P.  Shiraz was always happy to see his mom with his children. And always felt warm touch and feelings when his mother had his child in her arms.

 

Mother took  my child

And kissed lovely

And I felt like winter

Became spring truly.

That is why this world

Is always a child.

 

Music

P.   Shiraz studied in Yerevan State University and later in Moscow Literature Institute after Maxim Gorky.

 

I looked at my mother and stared at myself

As a poet, and was thinking myself

My mom is so pure small

How I am so mad, high and tall.

Andrey Dimitrev, who translated poems of Shiraz, wrote: “ Hovhannes Shiraz, like Sergey Yesenin uses many metaphors, so it is very hard to translate his poetry.

 

Music

 

My mother doesn’t know

How to read and write

But if she does

She damn you, she does.

My mom doesn’t know

And let her not to know

She would read my poems

My pain she would know.

 

Music

 

P.    Shiraz mostly wrote and published poetry, he is  an author of about 40 poetry books and translations

 

What kind of heart do you have,

My mother, my beauty, my pride.

I am your mad son, I’ve hurt you so much

But again you are here, with me by my side

 

Video with H. Sh.

 

P.     H. Shiraz was religious, but every time in his poems he put his lovely mother equal to God equal to Lord.

 

When my mom was born

The Lord thought. “I am useless”

And from that very days

Our moms are like gods.

 

Short music

 

I won’t change my mom

Or even her hair cut,

Oh if there is Mom

Who needs you God.

 

Music

 

P.  H. Shiraz  took his pen name from city Shiraz in Iran, famous for its roses and poets.

Another version of his pen name is Shirak-azn,  that is a child of  Shirak, a region he was born.

 

Music

 

I gave my pain to the braze

It turned it back.

I gave my pain to the seas,

The seas gave it back.

 

I gave my pain to my friend

Again he turned it back,

I gave my pain to my lovely woman

She turned it back, oh, unlucky I am.

I gave my pain to the stones

I gave my pain to the hills.

Stones gave it back

And the same did hills.

 

I gave my pain to my sister

She didn’t take it.

To give my pain to my mom, I tried.

She took it away, bewailed and vanished.

 

P.  The famous  poem “my mother” is loved by every Armenian all over the world.

 

1.

She is my hope,

She is my chapel,

She is my cradle,

She is my castle,

She is my mom and dad

She is my slave,

And Lord instead.

2.

She is homeless,

And my nest.

She is my servant,

She is my best

She is a crown

She is my taste.

 

3

She is elixir, and water

She is my thirsty sister

She is always sleepless

Sometimes is hopeless.

4

She is a quiet slumber

She is energy and fire,

And a peaceful prier.

She is my peace

She is my goddess,

She is my bread and water,

She is my mother.

 

P.   H. Shiraz was dead in 1984 March 24 in Yerevan. He was buried  at  Pantheon after Komitas.

 

 

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