Istanbul literary figure receives final send-off


Tuesday, December 21, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Writer Yervant Gobelyan died last week at the age of 87, leaving behind an impressive literary career that included eight books, one of which was devoted to poetry. Born in Istanbul, Gobelyan was known for emphasizing his profound love of the city in his literary works. The writer also spent his last 14 years at Agos, a weekly of Turkey’s Armenian community


Gobelyan had spent many years away from newspapers until he was hired at Agos in 1996 by Hrant Dink.

Prominent Istanbul literary figure and weekly Agos writer Yervant Gobelyan will be buried Wednesday after succumbing to illness last week.

The 87-year-old writer was best known for his poetic and literary works that reflected an overwhelming love of Istanbul.

Gobelyan died Thursday at Yedikule Surp Pırgiç Armenian Hospital after a long treatment process. He will be buried at the Balıklı Cemetery in Zeytinburnu after a funeral service starting at 1 p.m. at Beyoğlu’s Üç Horan Armenian Church.

Gobelyan was born in Rumelihisarı in the Istanbul district of Sarıyer, a neighborhood known for is beauty next to the Bosphorus. Like many other Armenian writers from his generation, Gobelyan enjoyed close relations with members of the Turkish literary world, including one of the country’s most famous poets, Orhan Veli Kanık, as well as many others. Gobelyan and others, such as Kanık, used to come together at Eptalafos, an old Greek-style tavern in Taksim.

Writing was a passion for him

Writing was Gobelyan’s main interest in life, but financial difficulties often prevented him from earning a living solely from his literary pursuits. Like many other leading figures in Turkish-Armenian literature, Gobelyan graduated from Esayan Armenian School in Taksim. After finishing school, however, Gobelyan had difficulty in making ends meet as a writer, leading him to work as an apprentice, auto mechanic, carpenter and in other professions. Despite the hardships, Gobelyan never ceased his literary pursuits.

His first book of poetry was published in 1948, after which he found a job writing for the local Armenian community’s weekly “Luys” (Light) paper. Financial difficulties, however, soon forced Luys to close, after which Gobelyan was again forced to find other employment. Within time, Gobelyan would work for all of the major Armenian community’s papers in Istanbul, working the final 14 years of his life at Agos.

Gobelyan had spent many years away from Armenian newspapers until he was hired for the Agos job in 1996 by Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink, the prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist assassinated in 2007.

Remained inaccessible to non-Armenian readers

Despite his close relations with Turkish writers and poets, most of Gobelyan’s works, including one book of poetry among a total of eight books, remained only in Armenian for many years and were thus inaccessible to the wider Turkish society.

Eager to bring the writer’s work to the Turkish public, Aras Publishing House, which began publishing in the 1990s, released a number of Gobelyan’s stories in “Memleketini Özleyen Yengeç” (The Crab Missing His Country) in 1998.

The book, which featured stories from Gobelyan telling of the daily routines of Turks, Greeks and Armenians in Istanbul, quickly drew interest from Turkish readers.