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I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen
EXCERPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM
Leon Z. Surmelian is one of the many Armenian children of war years who fooled the enemy and didn't die. The story of these children is by now well-known to everyone. Franz Werfel tells part of it in "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," and Elgin Groseclose tells a little more in "Ararat."
Here, however, for the first time is the full story, by one of the children himself. Their world was destroyed, but not their lives. Many of them are now in Soviet Armenia, Russia, Persia, Syria, Greece, Canada, Mexico, South America and America. Many are daed in the old country, with the world that was destroyed. Their comrades, who were tougher or luckier, will never forget them. Their enemy was not any particular nation or any particular people. Their enemy was Evil, as abstract as Evil might be in any parable. These children were certainly innocent. If they belonged to any nation, it was to the nation of children. They had wronged no one. And yet Evil in men sought to destroy them, and as if they were real only in a fable, rather than in reality itself, these children lived.
Leon Z. Surmelian is one of the many Armenian children of war years who fooled the enemy and didn't die. The story of these children is by now well-known to everyone. Franz Werfel tells part of it in "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," and Elgin Groseclose tells a little more in "Ararat."
Here, however, for the first time is the full story, by one of the children himself. Their world was destroyed, but not their lives. Many of them are now in Soviet Armenia, Russia, Persia, Syria, Greece, Canada, Mexico, South America and America. Many are daed in the old country, with the world that was destroyed. Their comrades, who were tougher or luckier, will never forget them. Their enemy was not any particular nation or any particular people. Their enemy was Evil, as abstract as Evil might be in any parable. These children were certainly innocent. If they belonged to any nation, it was to the nation of children. They had wronged no one. And yet Evil in men sought to destroy them, and as if they were real only in a fable, rather than in reality itself, these children lived.
316 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1945
7 people are currently reading
161 people want to read
About the author
Leon Z. Surmelian
4 books4 followersLeon Zaven Surmelian is an Armenian-American author, was born in Trabezond, Turkey (Western Armenia). The most important literary work he did was translating the Armenian Epic, "Daredevils of Sassoun" (1964, Published by the Armenian General Benevolent Union) into English.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 13, 2016
I wish I could give this book 6 stars or better still 10 out of 5. It is beautifully written and heart breakingly poignant. And despite the hardships Surmelian endured, including the deaths of both his parents, he writes without hatred or malice.
I am researching my family history and found some common ground here, which is rather thrilling. My (Asia Minor Greek) family are from a village on the outskirts of Trebizond - and it turns out the author spent 9 months hiding in my grandparents' village of Kirechane! Also, as he was born in 1905, he was the same age as my grandmother. I have been imagining them at school together. There was only one primary school in the village, so this seems quite likely.
I loved all the details of his life in Trebizond before WWI - playing with the local children (many of them Greek), going to the hamam and to church.
Reading the second last chapter, set on new year's eve, when he reflects on his life, I had streams of tears running down my face.
This is book worthy of a large readership. If it's on your Must Read list - read it now!
I am researching my family history and found some common ground here, which is rather thrilling. My (Asia Minor Greek) family are from a village on the outskirts of Trebizond - and it turns out the author spent 9 months hiding in my grandparents' village of Kirechane! Also, as he was born in 1905, he was the same age as my grandmother. I have been imagining them at school together. There was only one primary school in the village, so this seems quite likely.
I loved all the details of his life in Trebizond before WWI - playing with the local children (many of them Greek), going to the hamam and to church.
Reading the second last chapter, set on new year's eve, when he reflects on his life, I had streams of tears running down my face.
This is book worthy of a large readership. If it's on your Must Read list - read it now!
October 27, 2022
Please read this book! It is stunningly written, and though the topic is dark (the Armenian massacre of the early 1900s) it is written from the author's perspective as a child- lightly touched, but also not avoiding any of the often gruesome things that happened.
May 9, 2021
Can an epic be simple and full of longing and nostalgia? Can it be gentle and childlike, growing with the reader as the protagonist also grows. Childhood and the fits and bursts of young love, frustration and that small bitterness of adolescence. Showing the reader what it must have been like, how things must have felt in a place so far and so different but yet nevertheless the same. “I mean that men have the same noses and eyes and hair. They are uniformly and monotonously alike in their outward appearance, and little physical differences that may exist are of no significance to the artist. But we all differ very tremendously in our thoughts, in our inner life, in our mysterious and true existence.”
So similar, but also so different. Because tremendous, perilous and petrifying tragedy leaves its permanent mark upon people. “I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen” is an extraordinary tale of tragedy and resilience. It is the tale of an Armenian child growing up in a Black Sea town of western Armenia, under the control of the Ottoman Empire. In a simple, childlike way it presents eloquently what a young man must have experienced, lived and seen and heard in the run-up to a genocide. Children are naïve and innocent and yet full of such grounded wisdom and persistent hope and faith; things to them do not seem to be strange, for they have nothing to compare them to and have entered into life with no assumptions. Those all are for the elderly – bitter and envious and greedy.
“The good world is renewed in children. In them takes place the miraculous resurrection of the race. The soul of the child is like the crocus that blooms in the sun. Therein lies the secret of that world-state we’ve been hearing and reading and thinking about.” In his epic, simple novel Leon Surmelian follows the protagonist through childhood and then into genocide, when his father and mother are murdered. And then the madness of what came after – displacement, disappearances, flight – to Batumi, to Dilijan, to Yerevan. Revolution, as the Red Armies advanced. Panic and the seeking out of refuge by young minds unable really to understand the gravity of their situation or the extraordinary moments in which they have been immersed. All this in a beautiful, simple prose that evokes the yearning of a man for his land – the deep canyons and grand mountains of the Caucasus and the ancient feasts of a people who existed upon the stony patch of ground since the time when Noah marched down off the mountain.
Truly, and I say this as a well-read fellow (and a writer myself), “I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen” is one of the most powerful, beautiful, haunting novels I have ever read. We writers learn early that a good book must start well, must have good beats, capture the imagination but – above all – must end in a triumph. “I Ask You” ends with a majestic explosion, and Chapter 24 – written directly from Leon to the reader – evokes all the power of the written word to channel the profound longing of a refugee for his homeland.
This afternoon, when I started reading that penultimate chapter, I called for my wife – who is Venezuelan, and is too a stranger forced to be far from the land where she was raised: the deep jungles and storied white-sand beaches, the festivals and the songs – and I read it to her out loud. It was hard to keep from tearing up, and neither of us were fully successful, for in these pages Surmelian captures the beautiful drama of flight and the terrible, desperate knowledge not only that one cannot go back, but even if one could – the past is long gone; and with it the places we once knew so well.
So similar, but also so different. Because tremendous, perilous and petrifying tragedy leaves its permanent mark upon people. “I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen” is an extraordinary tale of tragedy and resilience. It is the tale of an Armenian child growing up in a Black Sea town of western Armenia, under the control of the Ottoman Empire. In a simple, childlike way it presents eloquently what a young man must have experienced, lived and seen and heard in the run-up to a genocide. Children are naïve and innocent and yet full of such grounded wisdom and persistent hope and faith; things to them do not seem to be strange, for they have nothing to compare them to and have entered into life with no assumptions. Those all are for the elderly – bitter and envious and greedy.
“The good world is renewed in children. In them takes place the miraculous resurrection of the race. The soul of the child is like the crocus that blooms in the sun. Therein lies the secret of that world-state we’ve been hearing and reading and thinking about.” In his epic, simple novel Leon Surmelian follows the protagonist through childhood and then into genocide, when his father and mother are murdered. And then the madness of what came after – displacement, disappearances, flight – to Batumi, to Dilijan, to Yerevan. Revolution, as the Red Armies advanced. Panic and the seeking out of refuge by young minds unable really to understand the gravity of their situation or the extraordinary moments in which they have been immersed. All this in a beautiful, simple prose that evokes the yearning of a man for his land – the deep canyons and grand mountains of the Caucasus and the ancient feasts of a people who existed upon the stony patch of ground since the time when Noah marched down off the mountain.
Truly, and I say this as a well-read fellow (and a writer myself), “I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen” is one of the most powerful, beautiful, haunting novels I have ever read. We writers learn early that a good book must start well, must have good beats, capture the imagination but – above all – must end in a triumph. “I Ask You” ends with a majestic explosion, and Chapter 24 – written directly from Leon to the reader – evokes all the power of the written word to channel the profound longing of a refugee for his homeland.
This afternoon, when I started reading that penultimate chapter, I called for my wife – who is Venezuelan, and is too a stranger forced to be far from the land where she was raised: the deep jungles and storied white-sand beaches, the festivals and the songs – and I read it to her out loud. It was hard to keep from tearing up, and neither of us were fully successful, for in these pages Surmelian captures the beautiful drama of flight and the terrible, desperate knowledge not only that one cannot go back, but even if one could – the past is long gone; and with it the places we once knew so well.
January 1, 2014
Günü, saati, anı bir çocuk gibi yaşamak, zamanın ve mekanın, mantığın, coğrafyanın, ırkların ve tarihin sınırlamalarının ötesine geçmek istiyorum.Sahip olmak değil var olmak istiyorum.Çünkü var olmak, sahip olunacak her şeydir.
July 11, 2018
I came across this book, somewhat accidentally, as a result of overhearing a conversation about plans to republish it and offering my help. This morning, on the train to work, I finished the initial proofreading of this new edition. The way it is written, it was a joy to read it through from end to end.
The story is told from the perspective of a boy who is only about 10 years old in 1915. As you might imagine, the story is heartbreaking at times, as the Armenian Genocide progresses and family and friends are murdered. However, throughout the story, the strongest impression is of this young boy's personality, which never seems to be defeated. He may be an orphan, barely surviving at times, but he never loses his love of his family, his homeland or his passion for life, learning and the world in which he grew up as a child.
If you want to read this book, but are put off by the fact that the only way to do so is to buy an expensive first edition from 1945, hold on a little longer. If all goes well, there will be a new edition available later this year.
The story is told from the perspective of a boy who is only about 10 years old in 1915. As you might imagine, the story is heartbreaking at times, as the Armenian Genocide progresses and family and friends are murdered. However, throughout the story, the strongest impression is of this young boy's personality, which never seems to be defeated. He may be an orphan, barely surviving at times, but he never loses his love of his family, his homeland or his passion for life, learning and the world in which he grew up as a child.
If you want to read this book, but are put off by the fact that the only way to do so is to buy an expensive first edition from 1945, hold on a little longer. If all goes well, there will be a new edition available later this year.
August 17, 2025
Wonderful, rich, evocative textures. The last few chapters especially are such a deep reflection on finding hope in hopelessness, and a Mary Oliver-esque rhapsody of land and nature.
February 23, 2020
Beautiful, heartfelt, and inspiring Armenian Genocide memoir first published in 1945, now back in print
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews