La poésie française de Daniel Varoujan : Gand au « Coeur de la race »

Abstract

This article republishes two poems in French by Daniel Varoujan, published for the first time in the Almanach des Étudiants Libéraux de l’Université de Gand. The first, A la statue de Van Artevelde, was originally written in French, whilst the second, Le premier péché, was translated from the Armenian original. For its interpretation, the article takes as its cue the nationalist reading proposed by the editorial introduction to the first poem. It proposes to understand the first poem within the context of the comparison established by Varoujan between the completed national history of Belgium and the as yet incomplete one of Armenia. The second poem can be read as a response to the massacres of Adana in 1909.