InternationalShushanik Kurghinian, a voice for the voiceless
Published: Thursday March 05, 2009
Shushanik Kurghinian.
Yerevan - Shushanik Kurghinian (née Popolchian) was a pioneer in the development of Armenian feminist and socialist poetry. She was born in 1876 in Alexandropol (present-day Gyumri), where she published her first poems and short stories. Often writing about oppressed women, prostitutes, and other neglected members of society, she gave voice to the voiceless. Kurghinian understood her role as a poet to be a profoundly political one.
In 1893, at the age of 17, she was a founding member of the first Hnchakian young women's political group in the Caucasus. At 21, she married Arshak Kurghinian, a businessperson and member of the socialist underground. In 1903 she planned to move to Moscow with her husband and two children to continue her education, but due to the children's poor health, the family was forced to stop in Rostov, where Kurghinian would remain for several years.
She published her first volume of poetry, Ringing of the Dawn (Arshaluysi Ghoghanjner) in 1907, in Nor Nakhichevan. A collection of new poems and older ones that had originally been published in Armenian journals, Ringing of the Dawn was a response to the Russian Revolution of 1905.
Kurghinian's health began to deteriorate in 1910. She was eventually diagnosed with a rare case of exophthalmic goiter, and for years was transferred from hospital to hospital, where she continued to write about social justice despite her pain and poor health. Her last days were spent in the Nor Malatia district of Yerevan, where she died on November 24, 1927.
Until recently, only a few of Kurghinian's poems had been translated into English and she was not known at all outside Armenian literary circles. In 2005, Shushan Avagyan, who is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Illinois State University, published a collection of Kurghinian's poems, both in their original Armenian and English translations. The book is named after one of her most resonant poems, I Want to Live. Here are two of the poems from this collection.
The first, "I Want to Live," is a bold poem calling for social justice for women in a direct and demanding tone. The second, "The Waves," speaks symbolically about women's fight against oppressive customs and discriminatory laws. It celebrates the strength and solidarity of women and their ability to defy those laws through a collective and united struggle.
I Want to Live
I
want to live, not a lavish life
trapped in obscurity, indifferent and foolish,
nor as an outright hostage of artificial beauty,
a frail creature, delicate and feeble,
but equal to you, oh men, prosperous
as you are, powerful and headstrong,
fit against calamities, ingenious in mind,
with bodies full of vigor.
I
want to love, unreserved, without a mask,
self-willed like you, so that when in love
I can sing my feelings to the world
and unchain my heart, a woman's heart,
before the crowds?.?.?. ignoring their stern
judgments with my shield and destroy
the pointed arrows aimed at me
with all my vitality unrestrained!
I
want to act, equal, next to you,
as a loyal member of the people,
let me suffer again and again, night or day,
wandering from one place to another,
always struggling for the ideal
of freedom?.?.?. and let this burden
torment me even in my exile,
if only I may gain a purpose in this life.
I
want to eat comfortably, as you do,
from that same fair bread, for which
I gave my share of holy work;
in the struggle for existence, humble and meek,
without feeling shame, let me
shed sweat and tears for a blessed earning,
let scarlet blood flow from my worker's hands
and let my back tire in pain!
I
want to fight, first as your rival,
standing against you with an old vengeance,
since absurdly and without mercy you
turned me into a vassal through love and force.
Then after clearing these disputes of my gender,
I want to fight against the agonies of life,
courageously like you, hand in hand,
facing the struggle to be or not.
(June 7, 1907)
The Waves
The
waves - were accustomed to the black cliff,
the waves - curled under the shorn cliff,
always coy in their cadence,
rippling from the gusts of
wind,
fondly greeted the cliff
with a bustle of an active
life.
The waves - rebelled one black day,
the waves - sang an alarming song:
"Why do the first virginal rays
of dawn, so pure, descend
always upon your face?
While we, like beggars,
coiling beneath your foot,
must cheer, gasping,
with anticipation and awe,
till the sun graces us with a
beam."
The waves - defiantly arose,
the waves - braced the cliff,
what hurricane, what violent
storm!
With might the ether
thundered,
and from the water's pounding
the cliff shook in a blast,
the waves - deluged the cliff,
the waves- caved in the cliff.
