LULECIYAN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-01-17 published
A man of letters -- and passion
Edited Armenian paper before moving to Canada
Architect also wrote book about William Saroyan
By Catherine
DUNPHY,
Obituary
Writer
Two careers, two countries, one passion.
Call it pride, if you will, of place or of history but certainly
of a people. Bedros
ZOBYAN was an architect and crusading newspaper
editor born and raised in the Turkish city of Istanbul who used
both of his careers to nurture and nudge his fellow Armenians
closer to their heritage and culture.
Five years ago, long after he and his wife and daughter had immigrated
in 1967 to live quietly in Don Mills, as well as after retiring
from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce where he designed
everything from buildings to bank machines,
ZOBYAN once again
took up his pen.
He wrote a book about the three-week trip he took in May 1964
with William Saroyan to find the Pulitzer Prize-winning author
and playwright's Armenian ancestral home.
Towards Bitlis with William Saroyan was published by an Armenian
publisher in 2003. The cover features a photo of Saroyan sitting
on a rock in the rugged Anatolian countryside alongside a signpost
stating: Bitlis 10.
The pair went from Istanbul via Ankara to Samsun on the Black
Sea. They stopped at Lake of Van (considered to be as sacred
a place as Ararat to Armenians). Venturing into remote villages
where Armenians had lived before the genocide of 1915, they found
Armenian children being raised in primitive conditions by Turkish
and Kurdish families.
In Bitlis, Saroyan located the foundations of his family's home,
with some help from villagers hoping this rich American was going
to lead them all straight to a hidden cache of gold. (He didn't.)
Although ZOBYAN told his family that Saroyan took notes during
their trip, the author never directly wrote about it, although
he did write a play called The Istanbul Trilogy.
ZOBYAN, however,
wrote up a series about the trip for his newspaper called: "60,000
Kilometres in 16 Days with William Saroyan."
For years people told him he should write a book based on those
articles. And when he finally did start writing, he became immersed
in the work.
"While he was working on the book, nothing else existed," said
his wife, Seta.
It took three years. A perfectionist, he typed, copy-edited and
typeset the book, along with choosing and laying out the photos,
then sent it to the publisher in Istanbul. When the publisher
sent back the galleys,
ZOBYAN proofed every comma.
"Every day I came home from school and my grandfather would be
typing. Every day," said Amara
POSSIAN, 15. "My grandma too,
both of them always had red pens."
American Armenians had arranged a special book launch for October
2003 in California, but
ZOBYAN was too ill to attend. When he
died at 82 of pancreatic cancer this past December, he had received
dozens of letters from Armenians around the world thanking him
for writing the book.
It is considered much more than a travel book.
"It's part of our history," says his friend, Arta
YUZBASIAN,
an Armenian artist living in Toronto. "It was very well received
within the Armenian diaspora, especially in the U.S."
A dignified and diffident man,
ZOBYAN was well respected within
the Armenian community in Toronto.
"People looked up to him," said Berc
LULECIYAN, a deacon at the
Holy
Trinity
Armenian Church, who attended high school with
ZOBYAN
in Istanbul.
In 1958, ZOBYAN was commissioned by the patriarch of St. Gregory
the Illuminator Church to build a new church in the old authentic
Armenian style on the site in Istanbul of the old church that
had been expropriated to make way for a highway. He rescued and
reincorporated the ceramic tiles from the original chapel, marble
stones, and reused the carved stone cross belonging to the 500-year-old
church.
It was -- and continues to be -- the only one of Istanbul's 28
Armenian churches that displays the austere, powerful lines and
massive stonework that marks Armenian church architecture. The
church's Catholics wrote him commending his work.
"My father built the most important church in Istanbul," said
his daughter, Hasmig
POSSIAN, 53.
But he was having more fun as a journalist working at the Marmara,
a daily started in 1940 by Seta
ZOBYAN's father, a well-known
foreign correspondent. The young couple took over the paper in
1950. One of two Armenian dailies in Istanbul, it had a circulation
of 5,000 but a considerably larger reach in terms of influence.
ZOBYAN lobbied in its pages to save the church he would go on
to rebuild; his scoop on the guilty verdict of the court martial
trials of the Democratic Party president and its prime minister
landed him in prison for two days. Seta
ZOBYAN pulled every string
she had to get her husband released.
"Without bribery he would have been in jail months and months,"
she said.
They lived a good life for a time, attending balls, receptions
for visiting royalty, the ballet and concerts. "I translated
for Petula Clark when she was getting a leather coat made," his
daughter recalled. She also danced with Eric Burdon, lead singer
of the Animals, when she was 14 and her father took her on his
press pass to a club.
But after the military coup of 1960, many Armenians left Turkey,
including many of their families. In 1965 they sent their daughter
to Toronto, to St. Clements School, where they believed she would
be safe and get a better education.
Two years later, they immigrated, but it wasn't until 1970 that
they sold the paper.
"That still hurts," said Seta
ZOBYAN.
Neither practised journalism in Canada: Bedros
ZOBYAN went to
work for the large architectural firm of Page and Steele building
the Commerce Court towers, and Seta
ZOBYAN found a job in market
research. She now works part-time as a court translator and interpreter.
In the 1970s they visited Saroyan at his home in Fresno, California.
He had two houses, one in which he lived and one in which he
wrote. After Saroyan died of cancer in 1981, his homes became
the site of a museum dedicated to his works and his Armenian
heritage.
ZOBYAN made sure the museum received copies of his book; he'd
hoped to translate it into English for Armenians living in California
and Europe.
"I will translate it," Seta
ZOBYAN said. "That was his wish and
I will try and make it come true."
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LULLO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-01-08 published
DI LULLO,
Francesco
Peacefully on Thursday, January 6, 2005 at Toronto Western Hospital.
Francesco, beloved husband of Angela. Loving father of Peter
and his wife Marianne, John and his wife Rose. Fondly remembered
by his grandchildren Andrew, Adrian, Michael and Alessia. Friends
may call at the "Eglinton Chapel" of the McDougall and Brown Funeral
HomeS, 1812 Eglinton Ave. West (at Dufferin St.), 416-782-1197,
from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. on Sunday, January 9, 2005. Funeral Mass
in Saint Thomas Aquinas, 640 Glenholme Ave. on Monday, January
10 at 10 a.m. Entombment Prospect Cemetery. If so desired, donations
to the Canadian Cancer Society would be appreciated.
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