In the Soviet era, Armenia, like other SSRs, had its own coat of arms. The Armenian Coat of Arms had an image of Ararat wreathed in two stalks of wheat with a red star and hammer and sickle above the two peaks. In the 1950s, Turkey complained to the USSR about using ‘its’ mountain on the Armenian SSR Coat of Arms. It was concerned that the USSR might have designs on taking Turkish territory. Per his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev retorted, “Why do you have a moon depicted on your flag? After all, the moon doesn’t belong to Turkey, not even half the moon. Do you want to take over the whole universe?” I distinctly recall reading, years ago, that Armenian Communist Anastas Mikoyan had a similar exchange with a senior Turkish official, who asked, “Who gave you permission to use our mountain on your Coat of Arms?” Mikoyan supposedly answered, “Who gave you permission to use the moon on yours?” (I say supposedly because I have been unable to verify Mikoyan’s version.)
The Turks have raised the issue of Ararat on official Armenian symbols again this year. They object to the use of Ararat on the current Armenian Coat of Arms and the word ‘enemy’ in the Armenian National Anthem. How they figured out that they themselves are the enemy is beyond me. By chance, as I write this I am wearing an Ara the Rat hoodie with a picture of the two peaks and the words, “Out of bounds, but never out of sight.” This is our circumstance, our vidjag, that the symbol of our nation, the mountain of our hearts and souls, revered in song, poetry and art, lies not in our country but in our enemy’s country.
Imagine if, because of war and arbitrary borders, Mount Fuji was no longer in Japan. It is unfathomable for any educated person with a basic knowledge of geography and history. Well, with regard to Ararat, the unfathomable is a reality Armenians can see every day.
At many Armenian cultural events we attend or in articles we read, we see or hear the line, “We are unmovable, like our mountains.” I understand the sentiment and its inspirational intent. But, as it often can be, the truth is much harsher. Our borders can and have been moved; our people can and indeed have been moved from our unmovable mountains.
Who moved the borders? Who eliminated our people from our unmovable mountains?
This was done in 1915 in Western Armenia and again just a few months ago in Artsakh. Might we call these people, oh, I don’t know, enemies? Turkey has an issue with the word enemy in the third verse of our national anthem. Again, for some reason, they believe it may refer to themselves. Sounds like paranoia to me. They ask for this change while simultaneously supplying their latest drones to surrogate Azerbaijan, who keeps threatening to take what it calls ‘Western Azerbaijan.’ This sure sounds like an enemy to me. I would want more than a tricolor to shine against such an enemy – maybe some seriously high-tech weapons of my own. Perhaps we can call it ‘the iron ladle’ drone.
We would not feel any safer by acquiescing to these requests to change our National Anthem or eliminate Ararat from our Coat of Arms. It rings more of subjugation than negotiations for border delineation and security. Yet, the government of the Republic of Armenia is considering these changes. But negotiations tend to go the way of the 800-pound gorilla in the relationship, and clearly, the Republic of Armenia is not the 800-pound gorilla.
Maybe we can borrow from Prince’s playbook and no longer refer to Ararat or Masis but instead ‘the mountain formerly known as…’ We don’t even have to use the words Ararat or Masis. We could conjure up an abstract symbol, again a la Prince, to replace the names Ararat and Masis. I might recommend, and I am just spit-balling here, the Greek letter beta: β. They might not get that it is just a stylized graphic of Ararat rotated clockwise 90 degrees.
Per the Khrushchev-Mikoyan story, this is nothing new for Turkey. Here is another example. About a dozen years ago, I organized a concert with a singer born and raised in Istanbul. One of the songs we planned for her to sing was ‘Khnjouki Yerk,’ based on the endearing poem by Armenian poet Sarmen. The first two lines of the poem are:
Seghann eh arad,
Timatsn Ararat…
The abundant table
Set under Ararat…
She had learned a version of the song without a reference to Ararat. Even though she attended an Armenian school, they had to comply with state regulations and censorship in this regard. It would be beyond horrible for schools in the Republic of Armenia to ever have to follow the same rules as Armenian schools in Istanbul.
If this were to happen and, sadly, such concessions have been considered, I would surely be in favor of changing Armenia’s National Anthem. But I would also change the first line from:
Mer hayrenik, azad angakh…
Our fatherland, free, independent…
Back to Mikayel Nalbandian’s first line:
Mer hayrenik, tshvar, ander…
Our fatherland, miserable, barren…
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Origninally published in The Armenian Weekly
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