Vanishing Legacy: Tumanyan's library in Tbilisi shuts down
The Hovhannes Tumanyan Library in Tbilisi has stopped operation since the beginning of this year. The library, named for one of Armenia’s most beloved writers, has been housed in his former residence since 1909.
Georgian businessman Archi Lejava, who in 1997 acquired the premise for $162,000 from the municipality of Tbilisi now decided to empty it.
Tumanyan (1869-1923) is the author of favored poems, lyrics, ballads, stories, fairy tales. “Anoush” and “Almast” Operas based on Tumanyan’s poems continue to be staged internationally. The Hovhannes Tumanyan Library in Tbilisi has stopped operation since the beginning of this year. The library, named for one of Armenia’s most beloved writers, has been housed in his former residence since 1909.
Georgian businessman Archi Lejava, who in 1997 acquired the premise for $162,000 from the municipality of Tbilisi now decided to empty it.
Tumanyan (1869-1923) is the author of favored poems, lyrics, ballads, stories, fairy tales. “Anoush” and “Almast” Operas based on Tumanyan’s poems continue to be staged internationally.
The building housing the library is situated in the historic Tbilisi community of Sololaki. Authorities in the Georgian capital gave the apartment to Tumanyan in 1921 as a gesture of appreciation for his art. According to the mandate given by the municipal authorities, it was not subject to confiscation or any change.
In 1949, after the writer’s death, Tumanyan’s wife, Olga Matckalyan, convinced Tiflis Municipality authorities to turn four of the apartment’s seven rooms into a children’s library, using the other rooms as family residence.
Until 1949 Tumanyan’s family continued to live in the apartment. In 1949 the apartment was divided into two parts: one was turned into a library, and Tumanyan’s family continued to live in the other. In the same year, all Tumanyan’s belongings were taken to the Tumanyan Museum in Yerevan. A similar apartment can been found in the museum there.
Tumanyan’s great-granddaughter – Yelena Kolesnikova lives in the portion of the Tbilisi apartment that has not been sold. The only Tumanyan relative who continues to live in Tbilisi, her family consists of seven cats. Other family members live in Yerevan or abroad.
“Of course, I was brought up listening to stories about Tumanyan,” the great-granddaughter says. “They say that when he was 50, a group of his fans gathered under this very library, and he talked to them from the balcony. The writers from ‘Vernatun’ (literary club) kept on gathering in this apartment. It was in this apartment that Tumanyan and composer Armen Tigranyan decided to write ‘Anoush’ Opera based on Tumanyan’s famous poem.”
Kolesnikova says that in the 1990s, when Georgia, like Armenia, faced crisis, there was no means for maintaining the library or others in Tbilisi. The municipality of Tbilisi decided to borrow money from different businessmen to keep their libraries open.
“And so when the time to pay back the debts came, they had to give away dozens of libraries instead of the money, and this library was among them,” tells Kolesnikova.
She says that she cannot blame the authorities, since otherwise the library would not be kept so long. However, she does not have the same viewpoint about the closure of this one for children: “Children’s parents are complaining, because there is no other library close to this territory. Lejava was wrong to close the library.”
Armenia’s ambassador to Georgia Hrach Silvanyan tried to negotiate with the owner of the premise to buy it back, but Lejava refused the offer. Lejava has already replaced the library doors by new ones and, according to Kolesnikova, is getting ready to turn the library into residential space.
Levon Ananyan, president of the Writers Union of Armenia believes that neither his union nor that of Georgia can do anything; the issue can be settled only on a governmental level.
“Yet in 2004 I turned to then Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan for help, however, nothing was done. Later, at Tumanyan’s 140th anniversary (last February) all of us suddenly woke up, and we started talking,” he says.
Arnold Stepanyan, head of “Multinational Georgia,” says that the closure of the library was foreseeable, since the RA foreign policy has shortcomings. Another reason is the weakness of the Armenian community in Tbilisi: “Our organization cannot carry out an activity to settle the issue, since it is not involved exclusively in the problems of Armenia.”
In the opinion of the Armenian community in Georgia and various Armenian intellectuals, the dismantling of the library is symptomatic of a general “anti-Armenian” sentiment currently expressed in Georgia.
“The Georgian authorities pretend to be friends with us ‘externally,’ however, ‘internally,’ they gradually destroy all Armenian cultural values (in Georgia),” says Samvel Muradyan, who has made a career of studying Tumanyan’s literature. “But no matter how hard our brother Georgians try, they would never manage to make Tumanyan’s memory vanish from Tbilisi, since it was thanks to Tumanyan that literature developed in this city.”
Head of Tbilisi’s Armenian Theater Armen Bayanduryan says something different. He states that Armenian readers were not attending that library for almost 25 years – a general trend that he blames on internet.
“Besides, all libraries are optimized in Tbilisi. Currently there are 30, but soon they will be centralized in one library,” says Bayanduryan.
He also mentioned that there were 380 Georgian and 400 Russian books in the Tumnyan Library, while only 180 Armenian books there.
“I took the Armenian books and moved them to the library in the Theater, which has 3,000 Armenian books,” he says.
The delegation of the Foreign Minister of Georgia arrived in Armenia last week; however, there were no talks about re-buying the library.
News of the library issue raised controversy in Yerevan mass media, from which mis-information spread, including the erroneous report that it had been Tumanyan’s private library that had been sold. (Meanwhile his private library is in Armenia; hence it could not be sold in Tbilisi.) Also there was a statement saying that the building belonging to ‘Vernatun’ literature club, established in 1899, was sold.
“Tumanyan rented ‘Vernatun’’s building and lived there for a while, but it was never his property. It was sold long ago, and a Georgian woman currently lives there. And at the end of 2008 the apartment, where Tumanyan lived during the last years of his life (1909-1923), was sold,” clarified Narine Tukhikyan, the director of the Tumanyan museum in Yerevan.
“We woke up late, when it is impossible to do something. We lost the only apartment which belonged to Tumanyan,” she adds.
Georgian businessman Archi Lejava, who in 1997 acquired the premise for $162,000 from the municipality of Tbilisi now decided to empty it.
Tumanyan (1869-1923) is the author of favored poems, lyrics, ballads, stories, fairy tales. “Anoush” and “Almast” Operas based on Tumanyan’s poems continue to be staged internationally. The Hovhannes Tumanyan Library in Tbilisi has stopped operation since the beginning of this year. The library, named for one of Armenia’s most beloved writers, has been housed in his former residence since 1909.
Georgian businessman Archi Lejava, who in 1997 acquired the premise for $162,000 from the municipality of Tbilisi now decided to empty it.
Tumanyan (1869-1923) is the author of favored poems, lyrics, ballads, stories, fairy tales. “Anoush” and “Almast” Operas based on Tumanyan’s poems continue to be staged internationally.
The building housing the library is situated in the historic Tbilisi community of Sololaki. Authorities in the Georgian capital gave the apartment to Tumanyan in 1921 as a gesture of appreciation for his art. According to the mandate given by the municipal authorities, it was not subject to confiscation or any change.
In 1949, after the writer’s death, Tumanyan’s wife, Olga Matckalyan, convinced Tiflis Municipality authorities to turn four of the apartment’s seven rooms into a children’s library, using the other rooms as family residence.
Until 1949 Tumanyan’s family continued to live in the apartment. In 1949 the apartment was divided into two parts: one was turned into a library, and Tumanyan’s family continued to live in the other. In the same year, all Tumanyan’s belongings were taken to the Tumanyan Museum in Yerevan. A similar apartment can been found in the museum there.
Tumanyan’s great-granddaughter – Yelena Kolesnikova lives in the portion of the Tbilisi apartment that has not been sold. The only Tumanyan relative who continues to live in Tbilisi, her family consists of seven cats. Other family members live in Yerevan or abroad.
“Of course, I was brought up listening to stories about Tumanyan,” the great-granddaughter says. “They say that when he was 50, a group of his fans gathered under this very library, and he talked to them from the balcony. The writers from ‘Vernatun’ (literary club) kept on gathering in this apartment. It was in this apartment that Tumanyan and composer Armen Tigranyan decided to write ‘Anoush’ Opera based on Tumanyan’s famous poem.”
Kolesnikova says that in the 1990s, when Georgia, like Armenia, faced crisis, there was no means for maintaining the library or others in Tbilisi. The municipality of Tbilisi decided to borrow money from different businessmen to keep their libraries open.
“And so when the time to pay back the debts came, they had to give away dozens of libraries instead of the money, and this library was among them,” tells Kolesnikova.
She says that she cannot blame the authorities, since otherwise the library would not be kept so long. However, she does not have the same viewpoint about the closure of this one for children: “Children’s parents are complaining, because there is no other library close to this territory. Lejava was wrong to close the library.”
Armenia’s ambassador to Georgia Hrach Silvanyan tried to negotiate with the owner of the premise to buy it back, but Lejava refused the offer. Lejava has already replaced the library doors by new ones and, according to Kolesnikova, is getting ready to turn the library into residential space.
Levon Ananyan, president of the Writers Union of Armenia believes that neither his union nor that of Georgia can do anything; the issue can be settled only on a governmental level.
“Yet in 2004 I turned to then Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan for help, however, nothing was done. Later, at Tumanyan’s 140th anniversary (last February) all of us suddenly woke up, and we started talking,” he says.
Arnold Stepanyan, head of “Multinational Georgia,” says that the closure of the library was foreseeable, since the RA foreign policy has shortcomings. Another reason is the weakness of the Armenian community in Tbilisi: “Our organization cannot carry out an activity to settle the issue, since it is not involved exclusively in the problems of Armenia.”
In the opinion of the Armenian community in Georgia and various Armenian intellectuals, the dismantling of the library is symptomatic of a general “anti-Armenian” sentiment currently expressed in Georgia.
“The Georgian authorities pretend to be friends with us ‘externally,’ however, ‘internally,’ they gradually destroy all Armenian cultural values (in Georgia),” says Samvel Muradyan, who has made a career of studying Tumanyan’s literature. “But no matter how hard our brother Georgians try, they would never manage to make Tumanyan’s memory vanish from Tbilisi, since it was thanks to Tumanyan that literature developed in this city.”
Head of Tbilisi’s Armenian Theater Armen Bayanduryan says something different. He states that Armenian readers were not attending that library for almost 25 years – a general trend that he blames on internet.
“Besides, all libraries are optimized in Tbilisi. Currently there are 30, but soon they will be centralized in one library,” says Bayanduryan.
He also mentioned that there were 380 Georgian and 400 Russian books in the Tumnyan Library, while only 180 Armenian books there.
“I took the Armenian books and moved them to the library in the Theater, which has 3,000 Armenian books,” he says.
The delegation of the Foreign Minister of Georgia arrived in Armenia last week; however, there were no talks about re-buying the library.
News of the library issue raised controversy in Yerevan mass media, from which mis-information spread, including the erroneous report that it had been Tumanyan’s private library that had been sold. (Meanwhile his private library is in Armenia; hence it could not be sold in Tbilisi.) Also there was a statement saying that the building belonging to ‘Vernatun’ literature club, established in 1899, was sold.
“Tumanyan rented ‘Vernatun’’s building and lived there for a while, but it was never his property. It was sold long ago, and a Georgian woman currently lives there. And at the end of 2008 the apartment, where Tumanyan lived during the last years of his life (1909-1923), was sold,” clarified Narine Tukhikyan, the director of the Tumanyan museum in Yerevan.
“We woke up late, when it is impossible to do something. We lost the only apartment which belonged to Tumanyan,” she adds.