Ler Kamsar was born on October 24, 1888 in Van. His father was a
priest. He received his elementary education in the local American
school. He graduated from the Kevorkian Lyceum in Etchmiadzin (1909)
and returned to Van, where he worked as an actor and then as a teacher
in the school of the Holy Cross monastery of Aghtamar and the Yeramian
School.
His first satirical piece appeared in the “Ashkhadank” newspaper of
Van in 1909 that made him instantly famous. His literary pseudonym was
born at this time. When he went to the editorial offices to deliver his
writing, they asked him under what name they should publish it. As he
was leaving, he nonchalantly said, “Krek ler kam sar” (write ler or
sar). Both words mean “mountain” in Armenian, and the editors turned
the option “ler or sar” into Ler Kamsar.
In
1915 he participated in the self-defense of Van, during the days of
the Armenian genocide. His home was one of the defense positions
against Turkish attacks. After the evacuation of Van, he left for
Yerevan, where he continued contributing to many newspapers of the
Caucasus. Many of his writings had been lost on the road to exile. In
1918 he published a satirical piece on Lenin in the daily “Horizon” of
Tiflis that became one of the causes for his disgrace during Soviet
times. The piece was called “The Letter of Czar Nicholas to Ulyanov
Lenin.”
After the sovietization of Armenia, Ler Kamsar was a regular
contributor to the organ of the Armenian Communist party, “Khorhrdayin
Hayastan.” He published three works during this period: Apocryphal Deads (1924), National Alphabet (1926) and Wrongful Tears (1934).
In 1931, during the purge of kulaks (the
so-called “bourgeois” of Soviet times), he was accused of being one,
because he owned 40 beehives, from which he made no profit, yet paid 200
rubles in taxes. The persecution continued until 1935, when Ler Kamsar
was arrested and incarcerated in Yerevan, charged of organizing an
attempt to assassinate Stalin. A ludicrous trial followed and he was
sentenced to three years of exile in Vorkuta, a coal-mining town just
north of the Arctic Circle, and then seventeen years of internal exile
in Armenia, in Basargechar (actual Vardenis), with no right to see his
family or publish his writings.
He returned to Yerevan in 1955, after a general amnesty, and requested
a review of his case by the Supreme Court of Armenia. The Court found
him innocent. He noted bitterly, “A small error, but it is interesting
they do not offer even a half-hearted apology for their enormous
mistake, as elemental courtesy would require.” And he acerbically
added: “What about those unfortunate people who learn of their
innocence...after being shot?”
Twice his files were confiscated and destroyed by the KGB, and the
flood of 1946 severely damaged his archives in Yerevan. Many of his
works remained unpublished because they were unsuitable for the Soviet
regime. He managed to publish one collection of articles in 1959 (Old People, 1959); another collection titled The Man in Home Clothes (1965)
was censored because of one article. The resulting stress caused a
heart attack that led to his death on November 22, 1965 in Yerevan.
Some of his earlier works were published in two volumes in 1980 and
1988. With the independence of Armenia, more of his work is being
published and his literary heritage is being reevaluated.
