“A”-nauguration: Oshakan, the first pilgrimage for Armenian first-graders
Children make their first pilgrimage to Oshakan wearing letter “A”
By Julia Hakobyan
ArmeniaNow Deputy Editor
15/10/2012
From mid-September on for several weeks a small Armenian village at the foot of Mount Aragats becomes a tourist attraction.
Most of those visiting Oshakan are not quite usual tourists as they just turned six. One by one buses leave for Oshakan where first-graders from around Armenia visit the Church that is the resting place for perhaps the most iconic figure of Armenian history – the creator of the Armenian alphabet Mesrop Mashtots.
In the Church they are met by a priest, who, with each group of pupils, conducts a quick history lesson. Children descend to a small cell to thank Mashtots for the written language that he granted to the Armenians and mark their first learned letter of the Armenian alphabet.
Shrouded in myths and legends and surrounded by vineyards and pomegranate orchards, Oshakan (which is situated about 30 kilometers from capital Yerevan, in the Aragatsotn Province) is the first pilgrimage place for most Armenian children. Along with the first day of school or the first received mark, visiting Oshakan is a kind of initiation for Armenian pupils, and teachers start preparing children for this ritual well in advance, in fact throughout September, telling them about the Armenian alphabet and its history.
The modern Armenian alphabet which was created by Mashtots at the request of King Vramshapouh, consists of 36 letters. Created 16 centuries ago, the alphabet, except for three added letters, has not undergone any change and is used now entirely in its original form.
Mashtots, a monk, theologian and missionary, devoted 45 years of his life to preaching Christianity and 35 years to the dissemination of Armenian written language, opening schools in different provinces of the country and promoting literacy.
Mashtots was honorably buried by Armenia’s ruler Vahan Amatuni in the village of Oshakan, where on his tomb a church was built in 443.
Mashtots’s importance is also in the fact that he is the first historical figure whose creating a writing system is not connected with a legend, but is documented. While the uniqueness of the alphabet he created is that it was fully adapted to the language, which means, the letters are pronounced the way they are written.
Children feel very excited about their trip to Oshakan, but they are still six-year-olds and act like ones. For them, going on a collective trip out of town is a joyous occasion in itself. They happily eat their buns made in the shape of the Armenian letter “A”, running about a large courtyard of the St. Mashtots Church, playing hide-and-seek amidst two-meter-high letter khachkars located close by.
In the meantime, a visit to Mashtots’s Oshakan grave is perhaps more interesting for their parents. For at least five of them, who are repatriates, the Friday trip was perhaps more “emotionally charged” than for others.
Among such parents was Arina Zohrabian, who along with her daughter Alexandra discovered Oshakan and got a first-hand experience of things she had learned at a Sunday school in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA. Zohrabian moved to Armenia 10 years ago when she was 23, she married a local Armenian and now they raise two daughters.
“To be able to join our children and see them as they embark on this beautiful journey of reading and writing in Armenia is a privilege – and one I’m sure I wouldn’t be afforded in the US,” she says. “And I hope that Alexandra’s school years will not only be educational for her – but for me as I witness firsthand the wonderful opportunities provided to children here during their elementary schooling.”
Along with the American accent, one can hear in the class of my son, Victor, also Syrian and Lebanese accents. All 5 repatriates came to Armenia many years ago, settling down in and recovering their motherland about which they had heard from their ancestors.
It will take quite some time before our children understand the importance of the Armenian alphabet which was created once and for all and which became one of the cornerstones of the Armenian Church and had a huge spiritual influence on the Armenian people during the long centuries when Armenia was under the control of other states.
Meanwhile, during this Oshakan trip, for their parents, locals or immigrants, the idea of a unified Armenian nation acquired quite a visible shape due to a single spoken and written language that helped Armenians not to get assimilated while living in foreign land, a language through which they can understand each other. And our children and generations to come will be going to Oshakan to thank the creator of this alphabet that enables us to do all that.
