Asked to comment on the challenge of the translation, in the same article in September, Brutyan said that “as a reader and translator, I experienced a variety of emotions and deep reflections when working with this monumental work by Camões. I had the responsibility of translating a text that is truly dear to the heart of every Portuguese person, which brought me a huge burden of responsibility. As I began to read and translate, I experienced genuine amazement and a deep admiration for the beauty, the metaphors and the richness of the ideas expressed throughout each stanza. Soon, I felt an almost total involvement; I almost felt like a crew member about to discover the indisputable, sailing through seas of creativity and history. It was a fascinating journey, full of challenges and surprises with each new verse. I felt immense pride in being part of this magnificent work, recognizing that completing the translation of such a significant text is, without a doubt, an achievement worthy of true pride as a cultural bridge.”
Now, on the eve of the launch in Lisbon, Brutyan, who has lived in Portugal for nine years, makes a point of thanking the entities involved: “The support of our sponsors Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, DGLAB- General Directorate of Books, Archives and Libraries and Camões IP Institute, ensured that the adaptation of the eighth Camonian rhyme into the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots was carried out with the highest academic criteria and offers the Armenian reader an opportunity to access the Camões’ genius. Thanks to this sponsorship, the work becomes a permanent ambassador of friendship between our peoples”.
The book, published by Edit Print, from Armenia, has a preface by João Figueiredo, professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Lisbon and a great connoisseur of Camões’ work. The epic poem, which tells of Vasco da Gama’s journey to India, and also the History of Portugal, was published for the first time in 1572. It has translations into the main world languages, and the most recent ones, before this one into Armenian, had been into Turkish and Arabic.
Today a small country in the Caucasus, with three million inhabitants, and with a large diaspora closely linked to the nation, Armenia’s antiquity is such that it even had close relations with the Roman Empire. It was also the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in the 4th century. Armenian is an Indo-European language, which has its own alphabet, dating back to the beginning of the 5th century, the time in which Mesrop Mashtots lived.
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