Meltha Magazine Online

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Meltha 2000, No 10 pages 30-31

IN MEMORIAM

Our memory is our safeguard. It is our sanctification and enlightenment. And it is our guide that leads us all to the gates of eternity, yet it saves us from ignorance and oblivion after all.

On 27 August 2000 a Stela was solemnly unveiled in Levashov memorial to victims of Stalin' s purges near St. Petersburg in commemoration of Assyrian residents of Leningrad who disappeared in GULAG inI930-50s. (See photo on the cover).

This monument was molded by well-known Assyrian sculptor Yuri Jibraev who was encouraged by professor of St. Petersburg Clerical Academy Mikhail Sado. In a matter of two years of continuous work in KGB archives were identified about 100 repressed Assyrians in Leningrad alone, the 60 of them were mercilessly executed.

The opening ceremony was attended by Assyrians of St. Petersburg, children of the repressed, "Memorial" society members and city hall officials as well as some Assyrians from the USA. On behalf of St. Petersburg's highest authorities Mi. Romankov, a local Duma deputy, came to deliver the speech.

At noon the bell tolled three times solemnly and the two of Assyrians namely Father Stefan (Sado ), a hegumen with the Lavra named after Alexander of the Neva and the head of the library at the St. Petersburg Clerical Academy, and Father Venjamin (Tamrazov), a hierarchical monk, sanctified this Stela.

Apart from others words of acknowledgement were uttered by children of the repressed Assyrians. Th~all said that for long years they even did not know where their parents were buried, and from now on this memorial would be a worship place for them in the memory of victimized Assyrians.

It is a pleasure to note that apart from the temple built and sanctified by bishop Mar Iskhak in Simele (Iraq) in the memory of Assyrians who perished in the slaughter in 1933, the Stela near St. Petersburg is apparently the first Assyrian memorial to victims of genocide and political repressions. ..

We believe that our compatriots everywhere will erect such monuments in worship of their ancestors who died at the hands of malicious torturers. To keep all these victims in our memory is our common duty.

Rabi David Iljan

The Assyrian people have lost one of their most outstanding national giants, Rabi David Iljan, a 90-year old Assyrian poet, writer, translator and teacher of the Assyrian language.

Rabi David Iljan was born into a teacher's family in Saida (Lebanon) in 1910. The future poet spent his green years in the village of Satibak, villajet of Van, where his family had moved to shortly after his birth. In 1918 Rabi David' s family fled to Trans caucasus from Turks. Eventually they all settled down in Elendorf (now Khanlar, Azerbaijan).

David began to write when he was very young. His first verses were published in the mid 1920s in t&e Tiflis based newspaper "Kokhva d'Madynkha". In 1933 his poem "Moscow" was out in Moscow followed by publication of the poem "Mam Shallu and Kambar" first in 1938, and then in Germany.

Rabi David spent almost all his life in the art in Tbilisi (former Tiflis) where he had come after his exile years in Siberia and where he lived for about 50 years. To this city he dedicated his poem "Tbilisi". It is here again where he composed such poems as "Saddakra", "Enkidu", "Ishtar's love for the Eagle", a book of verse "Garden ofa Thousand Roses", short stories and fables "Pilgrim and Rose", " Akhikar lives on", "No Freedom Without a Motherland" and others put together in one book "The Magic Idol" translated into Georgian and published in Tbilisi in 1983. A brilliant expert in the Assyrian language he translated into the Assyrian language the poem of great Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli "A warrior in the tiger's skin". Its chapters entered into "The Book of the Assyrian Language" edited by academician K.G. Tsereteli. Rabi David also translated some verses by Nikolos Baratashvili and Ivan Franko.

The name of Rabi David Iljan is mentioned in the "Concise Encyclopedia of Literal Works" published in Moscow in 1971. It also was included in three volumes of "The History of the Assyrian Literature", published by Pira Sarmas in Teheran in 1962.

Rabi David's short stories like "The boy that drinks the Sun", "Why God created evil?", "No Freedom Without a Motherland", "Two Summits and Two Hearts", etc. would put him on a par with Gregory Yukhannan Bar-Ebrey of Meliten world-known as Abu 1 'Faradj Bar- Ebrey, the author of "The Book of Adventures" and outstanding encyclopediast of the 13th century.

Reading his woks one can be surprised to find a profound philosophical approach enhanced by his optimistic vision of life in his "Garden of a Thousand Roses", as well as his extensive knowledge of history and culture of the Assyrian people in his "Saddakra", "Enkidu", etc. Rabi David's legacy is enormous. Unfortunately it so happened that only some of his works have been out in the world. For instance, neither his verses nor his poems have ever been translated into a foreign language due to the lack of qualified translators. Otherwise it is simply difficult to render all the beauty of the original with its wordplay and richness of its sounds. His verse composition seems very refined and yet very easy to follow hence it might be felt that it is easy to write them. Not at all. Only a few can ever do it so beautifully.I know.

Rabi David Iljan's contribution to the modem Assyrian literature is very great. I am confident that his poetry will be able to pass a test of time.

Assyrians will always keep him in their hearts, and his fine literary works will be a considerable part of the Assyrian national legacy.

Edward Badalov