READING BETWEEN THE LINES The Story of a Diasporan Publishing House He also helped launch
By IlYRlAm GAUME
the
CDCA, the Centre de
Documentation sur la Cause Arm6nienne
aroujan Arzoumanian was
born in Algiers in 1952. In 1962, at the height of the
Algerian war, the family
shared the common fate of all Pieds noirs Isettlers of European origin in Algeria] and had to take ship once again. They moved to France, to Marseilles. In 1975, Varoujan Arzoumanian, then still a student of architecture, set up the
(Center for Docu-
mentationontheArmenian Cause), which he later left. In 1978, with Patrick
Bardou, another architect, he founded Editions Parenthbses, a publi-
Comit6Paradjanov inMarseilles, atthetime
when the film-maker was imprisoned. Arzoumanian continued to campaign for him until Paradjanov was released in 1978.
shing house specializing in fine arts. Immediately,
the "Arm6nies" series was born. With the opening in 1984 ofthe bookshop in cours Arzoumanlan, ln lront of his Marselllee bookshop.
XYRIAMilWE
oN ltETAlloRPllosls
IAI*.OMtrER
OF THE.'II.EUT
"We af,e all Turkish Armenians." Soch I '.tWthrce malri.political parties in the Diaspora condemned those was the title of tho opinion piee rhd ' lmtions,F.orffiYears,theDiasPara Varoujan Arzoumanian published i* larc hd not eoncerned itself with Armenia. 1992 in the Lyons-basedmonthly Ftwq Armdnie. This article was tobe &e fi neti*iai '' St@,cnly, it set itself up as the dispenser of hr**t*+r bllxd economic sapport and sâ‚Źries of statoments of opinion but, in the aid, while here, no one was huwtinrian groraiL' got off the end, the debate never assumiag
apolitical role any more.
I arrived inYerevanfor thefirst time ia October 1991. I went there atxious about the shock that I was expecting tateel, I travelled round. the country, I saw the villages, and, like everyone'lese, I came back with the wish to ga back there. The second time, in 1992, I went to
Karabakh through the lachin corridor. I did not libe what I saw: they had not advanced, I found the dissident Paruir Hairikian, head of the Goris nilitary region, happy with the shePherds, expans iv e--tnore so than in the
OlI TIIE FUTUBE OF TIIE sltall return to rhe cottnry'il{y cillrlrry ... ealtcd Stlabin K*ruhisar. It is not watere*.-,
ua!fqm^
bytheVolga
at
FREE ADVICE OTIfBEEADYIGE
Curm*ly, our action in the Diaspora is
adcd end. On tlw one hand, people lwve illusions here of having influence on
':
r'.'.lal'
In 1g88, when enviroilmcntal
l
'bn
though the action theY are engagtngf;a is derisory a.nd the obJertives
mobtttzationwcs tte order of thc fuy, atd. ;;Boorly dpSned,, I thi*k rhat people focus wrongly on 'the country,' Thc Diaspora is then, mobilization for independence, bandwegwt;l&111': oa tlu ;' intlw proccss of scuttlingitself. acrybody J umped AIM, JUNE. JULY 1994
porliarwfi
where he had become a deputy. After bei*g in prison, this man felt the need to live: things, to share, while I had expected him to have evolved.
ON DIALOGUE I am for a dialogue: the re sto
issue of the ration of land and acknowledgme&t d1
the genocide are two topics that are hushed:
up in Armenia today, and it is up to the