«Գիրքը կաշխատի նույնիսկ անմարդաբնակ կղզում» - Հարցազրույց Սերգեյ ԽԱՉԻԿՈՂԼՅԱՆԻ հետ

The article by Sergey Khachikoglyan is devoted to the history of the founding and the publishing philosophy of the Armenian publishing house "Sarkis Khachents" (later — "Sarkis Khachents – Printinfo") established by him, as well as to the broader question of the role of translating world philosophical and literary classics for the preservation and development of national language and culture.

Introduction and methodology

The material is an interview with the head of the publishing house, structured around the author's personal biography and the history of the formation of his publishing project — from its conception in the Soviet years to the shaping of today's publishing program. The form of presentation is a free-flowing discourse combining autobiographical episodes, historical and cultural digressions, and generalizing theses on the fate of the translation tradition in Armenia.

Key thesis

The central idea of the article is that translating world thought into a national language is not merely a way of enlightening the reader, but an act of "fertilization" and growth of the language itself, expanding its capacity to convey meaning. The author appeals to the tradition going back to Mesrop Mashtots and points to the dramatic gap between this legacy and the current state of translation work in Armenia.

Historical and cultural context

A comparison with post-Soviet Russia, where during perestroika intellectuals massively published works written "for the desk drawer"; in Armenia there was no such tradition, which the author interprets as a sign of spiritual stagnation.
Work at the National Gallery (from 1987) as a first attempt to institutionalize a translation program, which failed to receive support amid the collapse of the USSR.
A polemic against "provincial modernism" — the tendency to jump straight to contemporary authors (Lyotard, Deleuze, Derrida) while bypassing the classics (Plato, Kant, Pascal), without assimilating which an understanding of later thought is impossible.

Publishing strategy and practice

The author describes the principles behind forming the publishing series:

priority given to time-tested world classics — Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Plotinus, Pascal, Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, Cassirer, Wittgenstein;
translation from the original languages, taking into account existing Russian and foreign translations;
the parallel development of original Armenian thought — the publication of the author's own philosophical works and translators' commentaries.

A separate place is devoted to the material and technical side of the publishing house: the collaboration with the French embassy (the support of Madame de Harting and Patrick Donabédian), the symbolic gift of an old offset printing press through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the subsequent partnership with the "Printinfo" printing house and its director Aram Meghrabyan, which led to the creation of the merged publishing house "Sarkis Khachents – Printinfo."

Conclusion

The author's concluding thesis is fundamental, almost metaphysical in character: the significance of a book does not depend on the presence of a reader at the moment of its publication — the very fact that a translated text exists in the national language establishes a "system of coordinates" for future generations of thinkers. Thus, publishing activity is regarded as a long-term cultural investment, laying the foundation upon which the language and the people acquire their full place in the world's intellectual tradition.