My Mother Tongue Exploits

The following passage is a translation from Migirdic Margosyan's autobiographical short story "My Mother Tongue Exploits" (Anadili Serüvenim) which was first published in the form of a letter to Hagop Mintzuri (another famous Armenian author), in Armenian. Of course, my translation is from the Turkish version, rewritten by the author for the collection "Our Ticket Was Cut to Istanbul" (Biletimiz İstanbul'a Kesildi) published in 1998. Margosyan was born in the Kurdish city of Diarbekir in 1948 to an Armenian family. The following epitomizes Margosyan's work which mainly deals with the odd and amusing situations stemming from this accident of birth.

This passage is part of a translation project that I might never be able to complete. This is partly out of respect for the author, whose beautiful long Turkish sentences weaved together with the mastery of a life-long tailor I had to tear apart.


That moment, that journey affected my life in a way that I could never have imagined; a life which started in Diarbekir, in Hancepek, in the Quarter of the Godless, left behind after being shipped off, without even being asked, in a hurry to Istanbul to do nothing but learn my mother tongue. It was in that moment I left behind the Turkish word "gavur" and the Kurdish word "fılla," which were quickly replaced by this scornful sentence when we were put into the Karagozyan Armenian Orphanage the second we set foot in Istanbul:

"Ruuun! Ruuun! Kurds arrived from Anatolia!"

Küllerin şanı

Küllerin şanı arkasında
titreyen-kenetlenmiş
üçyoldaki ellerinin.

Pontik bir zamanlar: burada,
bir damla,
üzerinde
boğulmuş küreğin,
derin
taşlaşmış yeminin içinde,
çağıldıyor.

(Dikey
nefesipliğinin üzerinde, önceden,
yukarıdan daha yüksek,
iki ağrıdüğümünün arasında,
parlak Tatarayı'nın bize doğru tırmanışı sırasında,
Ben beni gömdüm senin içine ve sana.)

Küllerin-
şanı arkanızda
üçyol-
elleri

Önünüze, doğudan, yuvarlanan,
korkunç.

Kimse
tanıklık etmez
tanıklara.

- Paul Celan