Poet Daniel Varoujan
Daniel Varoujan (20.04.1884 - 26.08.1915) was an Armenian poet and an alumnus of Ghent University. At a young age, he was sent from Istanbul to Venice to study at the Mourad Rafaelian school. In 1905, the Mkhitarian brothers sent him to Ghent to continue his studies. His curriculum here included subjects such as sociology, literature and economics. He was introduced to Western poetry: Baudelaire, Verhaeren, Maeterlinck. However, he also experienced the dire situation of the proletariat in industrial society, class warfare, socialism. It strongly influenced his later oeuvre.
In Ghent, Varoujan first lived at Kunstlaan 17, but moved several times because of his dire financial situation. As a member of the Société Générale des Étudiants Libéraux, the liberal student association, he got to know historian Henri Pirenne; in 1909, Varoujan dedicated a poem to his teacher. In 1908, Daniel Varoujan published his French-language poem 'A la statue de Van Artevelde' in the liberal Almanach de l'Université de Gand. At the foot of the statue of Jacob van Artevelde, the poet muses on the Ghent struggle against oppression, on the speeches of Artevelde and the 'serpent' Gérard Denis (Gerard Denijs, leader of the weavers and murderer of Artevelde). At the end, the poet hopes that Artevelde's heroism may inspire his poetry, to help his martyred Armenian people break the chains of oppression.
Varoujan graduated in 1908 and one year later returned to his native village to teach. Together with other Armenian poets, he founded the Mehean Literary Group in 1914. Their aim was to create a renaissance in Armenian literature. In the summer of 1915, however, he was murdered during the Armenian Genocide.
On 9 February 1958, at an impressive ceremony in the presence of his widow at Ghent University, a bronze plaque was unveiled, installed in the entrance hall of the Book Tower, according to the wishes of the organising committee. The plaque, after a design by the French sculptor Baron, shows the mustachioed young poet with his name spelled Daniel Varoujean and in Dutch and French the text "poet from Armenia student at this university from 1906 to 1909". At the bottom, in Armenian, is a quote from his work:
"What importance does quenching life have
When the dream remains alive
When the dream is immortal?"
Apart from a statue of the poet in the Armenian capital Yerevan, the plaque in Ghent is the only place where the memory of this great Armenian poet is kept. As a result, the memorial plaque in the Book Tower has gained an important place in the collective memory of the Armenian people and commemorative ceremonies are regularly held at Ghent University.
After the renovation, the plaque moved to our information point, next to the lockers.
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