Mischa: I can’t help admiring how much effort you put into this presentation.
This is a picture that radically changed how I think about the organization of ideas,
and it alerted me to the fact that symbols
are a larger part of my aesthetic vocabulary than I otherwise suspected.
It sort of woke me up, you might say.
it is clear that Paradjanov is using a motion picture camera to recreate religious icon paintings.
The colors, set designs, and carefully choreographed action are lovely to behold, but Paradjanov adds an overtly surreal element to these tableaux.
The sensual quality of some of the characters is subtle, but when cleverly juxtaposed with religious icons and scenarios, certain gestures evoke a mild but undeniable eroticism that creates considerable tension.
They are in the truest sense a mystical meditation: calm and rigorously organized, yet irrational and ultimately ecstatic.
Thanks for this, Mischa. I don’t have time to fully digest it right now, but I’ll definitely come back to it.
Mischa, are these grabbed from the new Region 2 disc? Looks amazing? I’ve got to get my hands on a copy…the company replied to me that they don’t currently have plans for a region 1 or an HD, which is a bummer.
@Doctor Lemonglow
it is clear that Paradjanov is using a motion picture camera to recreate religious icon paintings.
Yes, Parajanov was also crazy about miniatures and pantomime, and he used these kinds of formats as inspiration for the expression of his ideas in this film.
The colors, set designs, and carefully choreographed action are lovely to behold, but Paradjanov adds an overtly surreal element to these tableaux.
Choreography is a good term to desribe the action in this film, which is all played out in static camera shots, and is structured into tableaux (or what Parajanov titles “Miniatures”). But despite its careful choreography, it surely is a mystical meditation indeed; I find the film to be quite overwhelming in many aspects (including the music soundtrack, which I’ve been unable to locate seperate from the film).
… certain gestures evoke a mild but undeniable eroticism that creates considerable tension.
The love story between Sayat-Nova and the princess (each played by the same actress!) is so unusually displayed from a kind of dispassionate perspective, but I find it to be so engaging and emotionally powerful; there is, as you say, much erotic tension in the gestures of the characters, and also the vocal music soundtrack helps this tension too.
@Matt
Looking forward to it!
Yes Ben, I used this DVD, which seems to be the best available version for image quality (it’s the Russian cut by Sergei Yutkevich).
Yeah, it just came out a couple months ago, and needs to get some serious international attention. It just demonstrates how weak the Kino disc is, and even prints in that I’ve seen in the US are pretty faded and in disrepair. Frown. But that means this rerelease means there’s a relatively recent master available, and hopefully more regions will get releases. I think this is the master used for several complete uploads to youtube, but even though you can tell their source video is of a high quality…it’s …still youtube.
Ah, the image of the woman’s breasts in the OP was removed by Photobucket :(
Damn censorship !!
…
Oh, and I’m also aware of the four hours of rushes of Sayat-Nova which were broadcast on Rai Tre, and which were thankfully recorded and thus available for download, but I haven’t had the time to watch it all yet; when I do, hopefully I’ll be able to identify some more “Miniatures” from Parajanov’s scenario, and if I do, I’ll post them either in this thread or I’ll make up a list and post it here.
It looks to me that the new DVD edition by U.K.’s Second Sight indeed boasts better image quality than any of the four previously available editions compared here.
Thanks for this, Mischa.
Yes, I saw that comparison Arsaib and was considering buying the Japanese version before I found the Second Sight one (which incidentally has some interesting documentaries on it, too).
Well, I just re-watched the Yutkevich cut (along with the doco Memories of Sayat-Nova), and I noticed a few more screenshots that I could fit into Parajanov’s scenario (and also a couple of shots which are probably mismatched in the OP); I missed them the first time around, which means that there may be plenty more from that cut alone, nevermind from the Armenian cut AND from the four hours of rushes.
And so I’ll probably make a MUBI list of the scenario with screenshots so that I can simply edit it as I discover more screenshots which would fit in, rather than reposting the entire scenario (with 100-or-so images) over and over again in this thread, which would obviously become rather cumbersome. But of course, discussion on the scenario here in this thread is welcome and encouraged !!
@soiwaswrong
Save away, my friend :)
The other thing that’s nice about the rushes is the way it humanizes the actors in contrast to how they come across in the finished epicness. Watching them laugh at jokes that people must be cracking on set and whatnot while decked out in such resplendent and in the midst of rigid compositions is an uncanny pleasure.
Speaking elsewhere of the lack of discussion on individual film threads… COME ON, PARAJANOV FANS!!
Let us know what you think of this film (whichever version you have seen).
@Ben
Yes, I’ve recently viewed some of the rushes and that sort of thing is beautiful to see; I’m quite overwhelmed by the sheer amount of footage… I have a feeling that the number of screenshots I’ll end up with for the scenario will be enormous!
this is fantastic work, mischa. i watched a dvd from netflix a few years ago but it was so faded. this version looks stunning! i want to watch it again soon
@Ruby
Unfortunately the older DVDs were rather faded and poorly transferred, but fortunately this new Second Sight DVD is a big improvement and as such it is highly recommended.
Please let us know your thoughts on it when you have re-watched it!
bravo, mischa, bravo. will comment as soon as as I have the time.
Mischa:
One thing I meant to mention, I discovered this work of cinema art ( calling it a motion picture almost sounds inadequate) when I saw a music video for “God is God” by Juno Reactor at a club in 1997.
I was almost certain that the images were lifted from an old eastern European picture ( countless music videos have simply provided random shots from public domain pictures).
But about three minutes in I noticed that every character was looking at the camera,
which led me to the notion
that perhaps this WAS a new music video, but the film had been treated to lend a patina of vintage film.
It took me a good long while to get to the bottom of the matter,
because in 1997 internet research was not the
instantaneous endeavor it now seems to be.
Seven years later I included POMEGRANATES in a series I programmed for the art museum here.
Many folks in the audience gathered in the lobby afterwards and talked about the picture
as though a flying saucer had just landed (aesthetically and emotionally, that was practically the case, really).
Security staff were trying to close down for the evening,
so the crowd sort of ambled outside and CONTINUED an animated discussion in the parking lot.
One of the best nights of my life; no need to take a poll.
Anyway, someone has apparently remade the Juno Reactor video in HD, using a different transfer method and source material. It might interest you to examine that footage. An explanation of the remake is provided at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUQk-gZwmpI&feature=watch_response
See also Tarsem’s blatant and admitted appropriation of the style for LOSING MY RELIGION and even, I think, the style of Jay-Z’s video for ON TO THE NEXT ONE.
Ben: Yes, the REM spectacle is just sad, really. The empathetic embarrassment factor can’t even be charted.
And by the way, that’s me in the corner, losing all my dinner. (I’ve seen too much).
Very interesting, Doc; I’d not heard of Juno Reactor before.
From the YouTube link: This video was re-created using as a template the very low-resolution and low bitrate version available on the internet at the time (July 2010) … The video track in this version was completely compiled and edited anew from the best resolution version of the film imagery that could be located (a transfer from a relatively good 35mm print, digitized at 752×576
Now this is interesting; does this mean that somebody did a new transfer from a 35mm print for this video, or that somebody simply ripped a DVD containing a new transfer? I don’t know much about the logistics of making new transfers from prints, I’m afraid. But the quality of the YouTube print looks not too bad (though it can be hard to tell on YouTube); the colours are slightly faded and the contrast looks quite bright and crisp (the Second Sight DVD boasts warmer, fuller colours), and also the contrast doesn’t seem to be boosted towards the black quite as much (though, to be fair, that may be my fault with the VLC screenshots I did – it can be difficult to get the contrast settings of VLC at a nice balance from film to film, and so I’ll take a closer look and make any adjustments for my upcoming list where necessary). Plus, interestingly I noticed in the YouTube video a shot from the Armenian cut (i.e. not included in the Second Sight DVD of the Russian cut), but the quality of this print also seems to be somewhat different from the Kino DVD of the Armenian cut (which is slighly warmer and fuzzier).
@Ben
Yep, there are some similarities in Parajanov’s style and those music videos (especially in Tarsem’s video), but neither of them blew my mind I gotta admit haha ;)
@Sean John
Looking forward to reading your comments!
Here is the LIST version of the scenario; it will be much easier for me to add/replace images to the scenario this way. Suggestions are welcome!
Please note though that I still haven’t taken screenshots of the rushes, and also that some of the images in the OP were contrast-boosted too much, and so I’ve replaced them in the list with better versions.
Mischa
[ After an intial screening for the Soviet censors in 1968, Sayat-Nova was confiscated and re-edited as The Colour of Pomegranates in an Armenian cut and a Russian cut. ]
[ The following scenario is that of the original version of Sayat-Nova written in 1966 by Sergei Parajanov (translated into English by Guy Bennett). ]
[ Apologies in advance if I’ve misprinted anything from the book, and if I’ve mismatched (or missed) any of the screenshots aligning with the text. ]
An inscription in gilded letters appears against a background of lilac-coloured tuff:
Sayat-Nova is one of those exceptional poets who, through the sheer force of their genius, speaks not to a single people but to all of humanity.
- Valery Bryusov
In absolute silence, a LOAF OF BREAD appears suddenly on the black screen. From outside the frame, a hand throws a live fish onto the bread…
A cluster of grapes on a stone slab. A man’s foot steps lightly on the grapes… crushing them… Wine flows from them.
A woman’s bare breast covered by a gold cup… The cup fills with milk and overflows.
Mauve pomegranates against a white canvas, next to a hand-tooled dagger. The pomegranates bleed… The white canvas turns red.
The wind blows… A white rose loses its petals.
A white rosebush appears.
Silence.
I am he whose life and soul are made of suffering.
MINIATURE DEPICTING THE LAMENTATIONS OF THE TRANSCAUCASIAN PEOPLES IN MEMORY OF SAYAT-NOVA
Matagh
A woman in black against a background of gray rocks. Why is the woman crying? Why? The woman in black tears at her mourning clothes and, dancing frenetically, moves on… against a background of white mountains… And reappears in black. Crying… Why is the Armenian woman crying?
A woman in black against a background of gray rocks. She, too, is crying. Why? Why is she tearing at her mourning clothes, and why is she singing? She sings against a rocky background… and the rocks echo her song… and again she appears in black… Why? Why is the Georgian woman in black?
Why does the woman in black turn her back to the sea, crossing the steppe? Why is she in black? Why is she, too, crying? Why does she, too, tear at her mourning clothes, and why does she raise her hands to the skies, crying and singing?
The women approach one another, stare at one another; crying and singing, they turn to stone, here and now… You see?
Look… They have disappeared… Leaving…
Khachkar!
Kva!
Stele!
Here where they meet! Three women dressed in black! Three eternal sorrows.
A young Armenian carrying a sheep.
A Georgian carrying a sheep.
Another young man, his back to the sea, a sheep in his arms.
Why are they crying?
Why do the white roses lose their petals?
Why do the young brides tear at their wedding veils?
Why do the three young men sacrifice the sheep before the sacred Stones, before the eternal stones?
Why does the monk Sayat-Nova suddenly appear near by, crying with them? And, from beneath his black cossack, little Haroutine, clad in a white tunic, watches the sacrifice with horror; he, too, cries.
The monk Sayat-Nova is crying!
His childhood, little Haroutine, is crying…
The white roses cry for years on end, losing their petals.
… Likes books…
MINIATURE DEPICTING THE WORLD OF BEAUTY AND MYSTERY THAT OPENS BEFORE THE YOUNG HAROUTINE
Thunder roared over Sanahin… lightning flashed… rain poured down…
Water streamed down the glistening walls of Sanahin monastery… The saturated basalt walls reflected the lightning…
Young Haroutine watched the sky in fear… The sky repeated itself, and this repetition frightened the boy.
Thunder… Lightning… Water.
Thunder… Lightning… Water.
He shivered…
The water flowed in furtive streams over the cathedral altar… into its library…
The mother wrapped the frightened boy in a rug… But still, young Haroutine trembled…
Another rug…
Thunder… Lightning… Water.
Yet another…
Thunder… Lightning… Water.
Then everything stopped… Dawn rose. In absolute silence, birds perched on soaked branches and began to sing…
Crowds of monks rushed to the library… one by one they silently removed the wet books…
Little Haroutine… He climbed a wooden ladder, a wet book in his free hand…
Little Haroutine surrounded by wet books drying on the roof of Sanahin monastery.
Little Haroutine opened one book… then another… then another…
The sun rose…
Sunlight on the wet books…
The world of ancient manuscripts, of Armenian miniatures suddenly appeared before Haroutine’s eyes.
Exalted, the boy turned the pages.
The books, soaked during the night, dried in the sun and rustled in the wind…
The boy was silent, deep in thought…
The pages of the ancient manuscripts rustled in the wind.
Kemancha, you are mine.
MINIATURE DEPICTING THE PLAY, PASSIONS AND CHILDHOOD IMAGINATION OF THE FUTURE POET
Moedani
In the centre of Moedani, a boy in white… A boy like a blue fresco. He looks at the world around him…
Dirty wool, spun into a thread.
The thread is thrown into a vat… Colours suddenly appear – yellow, blue…
Drying, the thread drips colours…
And a rug is woven… on white cords…
A generous weaver unfurls rugs beneath the feet of passers-by…
People walk back and forth on the rugs…
Horses walk on the rugs…
Even the boy in white with a face like a blue fresco walks on the rugs…
He dances on them, laughing.
Old women in black waiting near the walls of Saint-Kevork sung by the white cock.
Cockerels sing…
One has its throat cut…
It hops about, bloody…
The old women pray…
The noise of the city fades. In the boy’s imagination:
Sion cathedral…
Saint-Kevork…
The mosque…
The boy hears Georgian songs from the cathedral…
Armenians singing in Saint-Kevork…
Songs from the Karaite mosque as well…
The boy listens… Cockerels sing and he imagines that Saint Kevork is galloping around him on a white horse…
The throats of white cockerels are cut…
The old women pray…
And the boy tries to leap into the saddle behind Saint Kavork!
He is enchanted by everything he sees… He sees the King and Queen with the King’s daughters and sisters. They walk on the rugs, making their way to the baths of King Irakli.
Young Haroutine runs beneath the vaults of the old baths… He climbs onto the domed roof and sings into a lantern:
a-a-a-a
A-A-A-A, answer the baths…
The boy climbs onto another roof…
a-a-a-a
A-A-A-A
a-a-a-a
…
This dome doesn’t answer… The boy peers inside… He sees:
A Moslem woman pouring green water… The soapy lather washes away… A breast, the breast of the young princess appears in all its nakedness…
Young Haroutine is silent…
He seems to be growing.
Now an adolescent, Haroutine stands in a musician’s studio…
He watches as a transparent skin is stretched over the tari and the kemancha…
Scooping up shards of mother-of-pearl, he pours them over the breast… The pearly breast of the kemancha.
I am Haroutine… Sayat-Nova!
MINIATURE DEPICTING HAROUTINE SAYADIAN, YOUNG BARD AT THE COURT OF IRAKLI II. HE CREATES HIS PSEUDONYM: SAYAT-NOVA
Erekles abano
The statue of a lion. Green water gushes from its gaping mouth.
Steam rises from a warm, sulfurous spring…
King Irakli is lying on the marble floor. The hands of a Tartar masseur run rhythmically up and down his back… he rubs the monarch’s back and chest with a damp massage glove and, smiling, chants a compliment…
The king watches sadly as the Tartar masseurs smear Christians with “Turkish mud.”
And the docile Christians wait for the coat of gray mud to dry before washing with cold water…
The warm, sulfurous spring flows noisily into the green water of the pool in which the king’s court bathes, their heads rising above the surface.
Among them the young man with a face like a blue fresco. Warm water cascades over the young man’s hair in dark rivulets… The adolescent is moved… he expects something… He sees…
the Tartars bathing the king!
smearing him with gray mud!
Water slaps the bottom of the empty pool.
Two women in black, wearing clogs, bathe the young princess Anna. In spite of the splashing water, the princess hears an instrument being tuned nearby…
Embers smoking…
Pilaf cooking…
The king is wrapped in a white sheet.
His retinue is wrapped in white sheets.
The bard is wrapped in a white sheet… He slowly tunes the strings of the kemancha, listening to its belly…
And in the growing silence, the bard sang. And his words and the notes from the kemancha resounded in the vaults of the baths…
which echoed them…
the king listens to the bard…
His retinue listens…
Smoke arises from the embers. Steam rises from the pilaf.
Green water cascades into the pool.
Through the splashing, the princess hears the bard.
The princess listens for silence… Moving forward, she leans her breasts beneath the fountains of green water, and, honoured, falls silent… The green water streaks her white breasts. She listens to the bard…
Nightingale, my friend, who flies above,
I give you my tears. Do not cry!
You await the rose, and I, my love.
I give you my tears. Do not cry!
The bard sings, sings! Tears fall from his wet, black hair…
Bard! How your song charms me!
We are aflame, you and I!
Sayat has said, “Oh, my love!
I give you my tears. Do not cry!”
Loves the soul,
Loves the virgin…
MINIATURE DEPICTING SAYAT-NOVA UNAWARE OF HIS LOVE FOR THE PRINCESS. HE SINGS THE BEAUTY OF LAÏLA IN THE NAME OF MAJNÛN
The princess is making lace
The palace of Irakli, the princess’ apartments.
Anna’s young hands making lace…
Sayat’s young hands strumming strings. He was singing the love of Majnûn. Glorifying Laïla’s beauty, he nodded his head, his eyes closed…
Anna slowly fixed her eyes on Sayat… her fingers mechanically working the thread…
In the recesses of the room, Anna’s young friends portrayed sensual pleasure,
sadness and
love.
They embraced a llama.
Peacocks fanned their tails…
Boys imitated nightingales…
Sayat sang Majnûn’s love and glorified Laïla’s beauty!
I die yet you live. This fatal passion is my destiny…
Left for the mountains, like Majnûn, I have not heard from Laïla…
I die yet you live. This fatal passion is my destiny…
Anna’s eyes on Sayat, her hands restlessly working the lace. One of her rings snagged a thread. The princess pulled… and the thread broke.
Sayat suddenly opened his eyes. One of his rings snagged a string. The bard pulled… and the string of the kemancha broke. The song of Laïla and Majnûn stopped.
The peacock closed its tail.
The dancing girls froze.
And the llama broke free.
Looking into Sayat’s eyes, Anna removed her ring.
And Sayat… removed his!
PRAYING AND HUNTING IN THE SAMTAVISSI MOUNTAINS
The bas-reliefs of Guegart and Sveti-Tskhoveli. A wall depicting a stag hunt serves as background for this scene.
Black stallions glistened… Bridles… Gold-encrusted stirrups gleaned…
Black panthers growled in their chains, snapping at the stallions…
The stallions chomped nervously at their golden bridles, their tails drooping. Horns resounded in the mountains…
Torrents thundered…
The king in black, on a black horse…
The king’s retinue in black, on black horses…
All waiting, turning in circles on their dark steeds…
The panthers growled…
The horns sounded…
The glistening stallions whinnied…
Princess Anna emerged from the white temple in the Samtavissi mountains… She wore white, as did her retinue. And the king’s bard, Sayat-Nova, in white, and on a white horse… He looked like a white Saint Kevork!
Bells rang…
Choirboys sang.
And Sayat-Nova imagined…
the white princess on her white horse flew in the sunlight among the songs…
In his imagination:
white walls flow…
drip…
ooze…
And again, the lace is woven mechanically…
Samtavissi has turned to stone.
The panthers are unchained.
They jump into the river.
Clamoring birds take wing…
Stags rush through the mountains…
Spotted snow-leopards growl…
Bells ring… Polyphonic charts resound…
And the white princess on her white horse, trotting in the torrent.
The black stallions leap… and everything plunges and shatters in the gleaming torrent.
Horns resound…
The princess speeds by on her white horse…
The king’s retinue try to catch her on their black stallions. But the bard’s white horse pierces the dark pack of their steeds…
The bard’s white horse among almond trees in bloom…
The princess’s white horse among almond trees in bloom…
The bard’s white horse whinnies…
Silence.
Night… Silence… A foreign land! (Have we crossed the border?) Ghost-like poplars merge with the night… The moon reveals a mosque, a few ramshackle houses… No one… No dogs bark… Everything is dead… Malediction! Plague!
The bleached skull of a horse on the ground…
The princess’s horse whinnies.
Sayat-Nova’s horse whinnies!
The bard enters a crypt…
A mummy-like sack on a bed of stone. On the white silk sack, an inscription embroidered with pearls:
“You have left for another world and we, living in the light of the sun, have made this coccon that you may float into your future like a butterfly…”
Sayat-Nova touched the sack, rattling the bones, and stirring up the dried excrement of bats which wafted up into the vault… falling in dark drifts on the white sack embroidered with pearls.
Sayat-Nova silently restrained his emotion… Anna approached him and set her cheek against his…
Clouds engulfed the moon…
The excrement settled in the crypt… Silence… A foreign land!
TWO ALLEGORICAL PANTOMIMES DEPICTING SAYAT-NOVA AS HE OBSERVES HIS COUNTRY’S SADNESS FOLLOWING THE INVASION OF GEORGIA AND ARMENIA BY THE PERSIAN TROOPS OF NADIR-SHAH
Night… King Irakli stands between the white plane trees…
Looking to the sky, he watches itinerant actors, disguised as imps, leaping back and forth on a tight-rope.
And Muslims, their beards and palms painted with henna, strip the king…
The king tears the cross from his chest.
The bard touches the kemancha… but the sounds have died… silence all around.
Sayat-Nova leaps from rug to rug… the rugs disappear into open graves.
Muslims with red beards and red palms wind a Muslim turban on the head of a Georgian king…
Imps leap through the white plane trees.
Sayat-Nova disappears into an open grave with the rugs.
SAYAT-NOVA’S DREAM
Dawn… The plane trees shimmer, a silvery gleam.
The bard smiles at the rising sun… he touches the strings of the kemancha and the new-born sounds herald the dawn…
Itinerant actors tear off their imp costumes and leap onto ropes, disguised as white angels…
The king smiles… he takes off the turban and the foreign clothes… The cross on his chest gleams gold.
Catching sun beams with his cross, he reflects them onto the angels.
The angels squint… they laugh, blinding the king in turn with a gilded cross…
Sayat-Nova touches the rug with his bare feet… Laid over golden crosses, they tinkle under his step. The plane trees shimmer, a wash of dazzling gold. A bard sings in paradise… It is Sayat-Nova!
…I die yet you live…
MINIATURE DEPICTING SAYAT-NOVA, IN LOVE WITH PRINCESS ANNA, BECOMING A MONK
Yar
The palace of Irakli. The princess’s apartments…
The sun shone like pearly silver. Sayat-Nova tried to sing…
No artist could ever draw your face
So pure. No one could ever make lace
As well as you.
Around the world, thousands of pilgrims do
Recall your name. How my eyes burn!
For your lovely face they yearn.
I die.
The princess desperately trying to make lace…
The bard struggling with the frets… the bow was damp, the nut broken…
Sayat-Nova watched the princess as if plagued by painful memories…
The princess stared at her work, puzzled.
In the recesses of the room, her young friends mimed sadness.
Love…
They released the llama…
Boys mimed nightingales.
Sayat-Nova took up the lace… peering through it at the world…
In his imagination: the palace walls running, dripping, flowing again with water. The Samtavissi lace came to life, then turned to stone.
The palace of Irakli… The princess’s apartments… In the recess of the palace young girls stood still…
The princess stood still, perplexed…
Gone! Sayat-Nova has left the palace! A glistening tear on his cheek!
Sayat-Nova walking backwards through the streets of Tblissi!
Wet rugs dripping water, crying… Anna’s friends follow him, miming love and sadness…
They walk… Through the deserted city streets… Wet rugs dripping, crying…
The white llama cries.
I, Sayat-Nova, cry. You cry, too, Sayat-Nova!
Love your cell,
love the stones!
AKHPAT
Thanks to human labour and divine will, there was an extraordinary harvest of every crop that grown in Armenian soil… The hems of their robes lifted, their pale legs shaved and washed, the monks of Akhpat stood in stone vats, rhythmically stomping clusters of grapes…
On a yellow strip of land white oxen lunged forward, dragging their plough and the dark monks standing on it… Flecked with gold straw, the monks shouted at the white oxen and everything turned round and round…
The monks turned the stone. Clear oil flowed in the refectory. The stones squeaked, the monks groaned…
Black-robed monks squeeze through tight holes, emerging from the cavern where the mortal remains of the Catholicoi lie buried, out of the cavern where the wine vats lied buried; they prepare receptacles for the oil and the wine.
Through divine as well as human providence, the Man has come to Akhpat with a hope…
“Love the stones! Love your cell!”
Today, in Akhpat cathedral only the Man may SAY THE OFFICE OF THE DEAD… MARRY… BAPTISE…
The Man sings.
The monks stomp the grapes. Wine flows…
The strip of land turns…
The Man sings… The Man is a monk. A monk named Sayat-Nova.
MINIATURE DEPICTING A NIGHT OF ASCETICISM AND MYSTICISM THAT BEFALLS THE POET
Night falls on Akhpat monastery later than in the valley.
A single spring breaks the dead silence.
Monks in black slide silently along the monastery walls in the dark…
They stick to the stone walls, silently waiting for the moon to rise. In the moonlight Sayat-Nova will see monks digging and cutting their unique, complex khachkar into the hard basalt.
Suddenly, a whirlwind tears at their clothes. Like stone idols, the monks are unperturbed. Some lie on the ground…
Beneath the cupola of Akhpat, other monks dig and cut the khachkar.
This night of Saint-Sarkis, the moon slipped behind a dark cloud and a monk on a white horse appeared… He told them of Catholico’s wish to be buried in the Akhpat convent. The monks silently kissed their khachkars, whispering to one another. All together they tried to turn a stone buried in the rocky ground of the monastery, exhausting themselves.
The spring babbled.
Sayat-Nova stood in the open tomb of Catholicos, dug out of the rock.
Crossing himself, he witnessed a miracle.
A cloud entered the cathedral. It brushed against the vault, turned, then sailed out of the nave in a gust of wind…
And at that very moment, a mist seeped through every door of the cathedral. Monks, altars, vaults, all disappeared…
Thunder roared in the mountains… Lighting cracked the sky and slopes crumbled beneath flocks of sheep…
Shepherds shouted. The wet, white wool of running sheep rushed into the monastery, bleating, filling the nave and the cells, struggling up into the choir and… with a bleating…
b… e… e… e… e… e…
fell into the open tomb.
Sayat-Nova stood bewildered in the open tomb of Catholicos, nearly buried beneath the sheep…
In his imagination the dying hand of Catholicos dropped his cross on the stone slabs.
The gold tinkled.
Stones gleamed.
The ivory shattered in a thousand pieces.
It left the imprint of a cross on the stones of Akhpat… an eternal imprint.
… You were clothed in heavenly snow…
HOW SAYAT-NOVA, SACRISTAN OF AKHPAT, FOUND THE FINEST SHROUD FOR THE BODY OF GHAZAR IN A CONVENT WHERE HE MET A NUN WHO RESEMBLED THE PRINCESS
HRIPSIMÉ
Bells suddenly rang out… Sayat-Nova made his way up the mountain… Then down again… until he reached the convent of Saint Hripsimé…
Nuns brought Ghazar’s blessèd shroud, embroidered with gold, laying it at the feet of Haroutine, a gilded sadness…
Sayat-Nova, immobile, shunned the nuns’ piercing eyes, as they stared intently at him, each one possessing him privately for a moment…
The sisters made way for a nun in white lace who approached Sayat-Nova.
She smiled, and touched the blessèd shroud with her lips, kissing Sayat-Nova through the gold of Jesus!
The sisters in black looked away.
Sayat-Nova stepped back…
Sayat-Nova strolled through the convent cemetary…
Bells suddenly rang out.
And the nun in white lace ran after Haroutine, shouting.
But a wall suddenly sprang up; the nun in white lace struck the red stones.
Suddenly, all was silent.
Sayat-Nova entered Akhpat cathedral, covering Ghazar’s body with the gold from Hripsimé.
Your son takes after you…
Or will the mother give birth
to another daughter that will take after you?
MINIATURE DEPICTING THE YOUNG MONK SAYAT-NOVA, EXHAUSTED BY MONASTICAL LIFE, RETURNING TO HIS YOUTH AND CHILDHOOD
GIJ MART
Akhpat… Sayat-Nova slept… A restless doe belled… Dogs barked…
Restless white pigeons fluttered in the darkness… Sayat-Nova slept…
Youths had entered the cathedral. Candles were burning…
Sayat-Nova slept…
Sayat-Nova went out to milk the doe.
Relieved, the animal grew still.
Birds returned to their branches.
Dogs stopped barking…
Sayat-Nova spilled the milk in the monastery courtyard and everything turned white…
Sayat-Nova awoke with a shudder… All was calm.
He slowly went down into the courtyard…
Snow whitened the mountains. It covered Akhpat… The spring had frozen over: silence reigned…
Sayat-Nova moved furtively…
Entering the refectory, he dug into the ground…
He opened an earthernware jar that lie buried there and gulped down the wine… Sayat-Nova staggered drunkenly down the mountain and into the valley…
He stumbled through the darkness… The snow crunched beneath his feet… Somewhere in the night, someone was chopping down trees!
The insistent music of a Kurdish wedding resounded…
Sayat-Nova lost his way…
I could compare you to satin,
But with time it wears thin.
I could compare you to a flower,
But it withers in an hour.
I could compare you to a doe,
But then everyone would know.
My words take wing like a dove,
What can I say, o my love.
Sayat-Nova entered Tblissi.
He walked toward the palace… Near the entrance, fires were burning, bards were singing in honour of Anna, the princess.
On that dark night, a child was born…
The princess gave birth to a son…
A horseman passed, a gilded cradle gleaming beneath his white cape.
The cold sobered Sayat-Nova… The bard’s hymn rang false… Sayat-Nova began to sing:
I could compare you to satin,
But with time it wears thin.
I could compare you to a flower,
But it withers in an hour.
I could compare you to a doe,
But then everyone would know.
My words take wing like a dove,
What can I say, o my love.
The princess’ window slowly opened… She listened, anxious and feverish…
Sayat-Nova sang… The princess cried. Sayat-Nova sang on.
The bards fell silent.
Smoke rises from the chimneys of ramshackle houses…
Wood is being chopped in the courtyards of Avlabar.
Dogs bark at the man in black as he passes.
The man in black is looking for his home… All around, the barking of dogs and the sound of wood being chopped.
Icy stalactites slowly drip from the roofs…
Old women run across the streets, warm bread in their arms.
They surround Sayat-Nova and hold the warm bread to his face…
Sayat-Nova tears off a piece and chews it slowly…
The old women take him by the arm and push him toward his childhood home.
The house is empty and cold, no rugs cover the floors… Water drips into copper basins, and Haroutine’s cradle hangs from the ceiling, wrapped in gauze…
Sayat-Nova holds the warm bread to his heart and, rocking slowly, closes his eyes…
A little bed! A little Armenian bed. An old woman sits at a spinning wheel. Yellow chicks scuttle over her black skirt…
The spinning wheel turns… A hen cackles.
Suddenly, the wind kicks up, howling over the city, bending the cypresses, blowing the dome off the church of Saint Sarkis.
The old women run off with their warm bread…
Smoke swirls in the courtyard.
Gij mart! Suij mart!
Frightened people run by with their warm bread…
The dome of Saint Sarkis flies overhead, striking a minaret, crashing into the rocky face of Mount Mtatsminda, then plunging into the waters of the Koura…
it flies off again and, dripping with water, disappears into in the sky…
Roofs are blown off houses!
The hat is blown off Sayat-Nova’s head as he runs…
He runs, pushed along by the wind. He runs toward the cemetery of Petros and Poghos, clasping the bread to his breast.
As he runs through the tombs, the ghost of his mother and father appear before him…
The grandmother with the spinning wheel and the chicks.
They stretch their hands toward Sayat-Nova, toward the warm bread…
My throat is dry,
I am ill.
SPRING
The end of Lent. On the porch of Akhpat cathedral, pilgrims slaughtered sheep, skinning them, and examining their entrails…
Pack of dogs swarmed around them, scavenging for scraps…
A new-born lamb was thrust into the outstretched arms of Sayat-Nova…
He went out into the monastery courtyard, carrying his strange burden.
Dry grass and gray mountains all around…
Sayat-Nova raised his head…
the blue green grass of spring was growing on the dome of the monastery.
Sayat-Nova suddenly found himself on the roof of the monastery.
A spring breeze blew… The blue-green grass undulated… Sayat-Nova set the lamb down on the church cupola…
He turned his face to the sun, his eyes closed… The restless lamb bleated…
As if in a dream, Sayat-Nova smiled as he slowly unbuttoned his robe, then took it off. Naked from the waist up, he opened his arms to the sun and the spring… Rocking slowly back and forth, he quietly began to sing…
In his imagination:
Shepherds lead their flocks over distant, snow-covered mountains toward Akhpat…
Young men, naked from the waist up, walked on the domes of the monastery, cutting the spring grass…
They strew the ground with the freshly cut grass; the sap glistened on the dark walls of Akhpat…
The astonished monks watched Sayat-Nova and, closing their eyes and turning their faces to the sun, they, too, took off their robes…
Packs of barking dogs roamed the monastery grounds, dragging off the sheep entrails…
After the winter cold, after Lent, SPRING has arrived!
The spring of the poet… of the poet-monk!
Sorrow! My mother no longer sings
in the earthly choir!
MINIATURE DEPICTING AN OLD SAYAT-NOVA RUSHING TO A COMPETITION WITH A YOUNG BARD BUT, ON THE ROAD TO TBLISSI, HE SEES THE MISFORTUNE OF THE PEOPLE AND STAYS BEHIND
Sorrow! My mother no longer sings in the earthly choir!
Monks are talking about it, pilgrims are talking about it… Some behind his back. Others, looking him straight in the eye. In Tblissi, they say, there is a miraculous young bard…
Acording to rumour, Sayat-Nova cannot compare. The poet-monk accepts it as true… Calm within the walls of Akhpat, he carves his Khachkar…
As always, stars shine over Akhpat…
As always, the spring babbles…
And the white horse roams the monastery, like a ghost… It smells a monk. It whinnies in the night…
And the monk gallops toward the mountains, clinging to the horse’s mane…
He gallops over a precipice.
Toward the torrent…
But here, in the monastery, silence reigns. The spring babbles and the monk returns. The mountain air cleaves his chest like an axe. He coughs… His chest fills with blood.
Yet another monk clings to the white horse’s mane.
He gallops over the precipice. Toward the torrent…
Sayat-Nova is moved, obsessed. He waits… The horse, probably… And the horse whinnies before him, pounding the earth with its hoof…
The monks look timidly at Sayat-Nova…
He disappears into the mountains… into the torrent… into the darkness…
Again, silence. Clouds sail through the dark sky. The earth seems to breathe. Then, dawn comes…
The monks wait in silence…
The horse steps out of the fog… Alone. Walking calmly into the courtyard, it drinks from the spring of Akhpat.
On the road to Tblissi, Sayat-Nova was thirsty… He knew that he would pass the spring of Our Lady of Akhtala… He will drink from the spring and will surely defeat the bard…
Deep in thought, Sayat-Nova imagined Turkish arrows penetrating the image of Our Lady of Akhtala…
Turkish arrowheads piercing the saintly image…
Overcome with shame, the icon toppled onto the altar.
A spring gushed up out of the altar. Sayat-Nova drank from this spring in order to defeat the young bard…
How can we imagine the image of Our Lady? What should we compare it to? What sorrow… All is forgotten, even the features of our loved ones! And Our Lady is without a face…
So thought Sayat-Nova as he walked. Suddenly, Suffering appeared before him.
A crowd approached him, crushed with sorrow. Unshaven in mourning, fogged with sorrow, sons carrying the body of their mother.
Sayat-Nova looked at the dead woman in despair…
Her face resembled that of Our Lady of Akhtala.
Sayat-Nova closed his eyes. He thought that his head had suddenly struck the casket of the dead woman… He sensed the men walking in silent sorrow, followed by their sisters. It smelled of milk. The sad girls, in black, cradled their heavy breasts in their hands. New-borns stretched out their arms, pressing their mothers’ full breasts. Someone offered Sayat-Nova Iavash and meat, and food of sadness!
Sayat-Nova smelled the meat…
The crowd walked on in silence, borne away by their pain…
Sayat-Nova murmured: “And blood will again pour from my wounds…”
“And blood will again pour from my wounds…,” suddenly sang the sons and daughters of the dead woman… The children began to cry…
“Sorrow! My mother no longer sings in the earthly choir!” murmured Sayat-Nova.
“Sorrow! My mother no longer sings in the earthly choir!” sang the sons and daughters of the dead woman, ecstatically raising their dead mother to the sun and the sky, her face resembling Our Lady of Akhtala…
Tblissi and the spring lay before Sayat Nova. He turned away from the spring. Without having drunk from it, he returned to the monastery with Suffering.
Now you are song, Sayat-Nova!
Now you are wound, Sayat-Nova!
Now you are garden, Sayat-Nova!
MINIATURE DEPICTING THE DEATH OF THE POET
The city burned… The enemy raged. They weren’t satisfied with pillaging. The demanded recognition… They spilled blood… They imposed their faith…
In those days, in Sion, in Saint Kevork, in the synagogue, in the mosque, with the Greeks: sorrow and sadness everywhere.
But Sayat-Nova sings in Saint Kevork… His song suddenly ceases…
A knife in his back…
Hot… hot… hot… Sayat-Nova tears off his robe… He wears white. Saint Kevork wears white… A young man in white appears, like a mirage…
The young man is wound with a vine shoot… He wears a crown of grape leaves…
The bear no fruit. A restless bird flies off with a squawk, searching for seeds… The young man takes up a vase and pours wine on Sayat-Nova’s chest.
Cold… cold… cold… Sayat-Nova feared the cold stones of Saint Kevork.
The enemy roared outside the walls of the cathedral. But all was calm in the church… Sayat-Nova looked up at the white cupola…
On the white cupola, the yellow ear, gray lips, and blue eye of the Saviour, nothing more… The painter, still at his work, hangs in the cupola, suspended from a paintbrush touching the eye of the Lord.
Sayat-Nova looked down:
A simple mason immuring resonating vessels in a corner.
Seeing Sayat-Nova who lay on the stony ground, the mason commanded:
“Sayat-Nova, yerkir!”
And Sayat-Nova obeyed the mason… He sang…
Now I am song, Sayat-Nova!
Now I am wound, Sayat-Nova!
y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y
e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e
The mason corrected the resonating vessel, pointing its mouth at Sayat-Nova…
“Sayat-Nova, yerkir!”
Again, Sayat-Nova sang.
Now I am wound, Sayat-Nova!
Now I am garden, Sayat-Nova!
y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y
e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e
The resonator echoed, deforming the words…
The mason suddenly turned the vessel, and said:
“Sayat-Nova, merir!”
And Sayat-Nova died…
As he lay dying he heard the resonating vessels, which had preserved his voice, each one echoing louder than the next…
Your song!… You!… Garden!… Wound!…
!! Sayat-Nova!… Sayat!…
Now you are!… Now you are!… Sayat!…
Sayat-Nova
Sayat!… Sayat-Nova!… Sayat!… Nova!…
Sayat-Nova!… Sayat-Nova!… a-a-a-a-a!!!