Tag Archives: Armenia

A Parenthesis Utopia

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

One of the difficult lessons I learned from COVID and beyond (because the world won’t be the same, at least not for us) was how futile efforts at utopia are. When COVID hit in February 2020 I was living in … Continue reading →

Posted in International Affairs, Travel | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

On Writing

Posted on May 12, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

It’s difficult to be a writer in America in 2022. Of course, it’s always been difficult to be a writer. Anywhere. It requires a measure of sacrifice; a Sisyphean sense of the futile; and an overinflated perception of self. Writers … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature | Tagged | 2 Comments

An Armenian Sketchbook

Posted on April 2, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Vasily Grossman understood Armenia. And thusly, Armenia saved his live; as it did for Osip Mandelstam. As it did for me. Armenia saved his life, though he was to die only two years after visiting Armenia. Despite that “An Armenian … Continue reading →

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The Pandemic is Over

Posted on March 6, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Last night I attended a musical event hosted in Alexandria, VA by Common Sense Society, an organization dedicated to promoting the civilizational virtues of liberty, prosperity and beauty. Celtic music, love songs from times of war and hardship on the … Continue reading →

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Hope Against Hope

Posted on March 5, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

I read “Hope Against Hope” while Vladimir Putin bombed Ukraine. It is the biography of Osip Mandelstam written by his wife Nadezhda. Osip was a Russian Jewish poet in the early 1900s who was killed by Stalin during the terror … Continue reading →

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Musa Dagh

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Musa Dagh is a tabletop mountain on the Mediterranean in southern Turkey or northern Syria where 5000 Armenians set to be marched to their deaths in the 1915 genocide decided to make a stand. It is a true story, and … Continue reading →

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To Talk of Many Things… (Vol. #11 – Armenia and Azerbaijan)

Posted on November 28, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

It has been just over a year since Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire to end the ’44 Day War’. A war started by Azerbaijan in order to gain back land they lost more than 25 years ago following a … Continue reading →

Posted in International Affairs | Tagged | 1 Comment

Towers of Trebizond

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

This is how Rose Macaulay described the Black Sea in her masterpiece “Towers of Trebizond”, a: “…long strange, frightening, and romantic drama for which the Black Sea and its high forested shores seemed to me to be the stage. Some … Continue reading →

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My Last Night in Yerevan

Posted on May 13, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

The quiet hum of Ashtarak highway reverberates in the background; the wind rustles the trees, new leaves – excited to show them off after a long cold winter. The city, away down into the valley buzzes with life: restaurants and … Continue reading →

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Springtime In Yerevan

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

It’s springtime again in Yerevan. The crisp early-morning air smells like croissants and coffee and cigarette smoke over cologne or perfume wafting from a wandering passerby on a labor of purpose. A bustle of movement, new-construction around which deliveries – … Continue reading →

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