Author: Babajanian Karo

GEORGIANS NOT PROPERLY AWARE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE – EXPERT

12:18 ~U 22.04.13

An Armenian expert on Georgian affairs says the country lacks proper
awareness on the Armenian Genocide issue.

“There are problems that have to be taken into consideration. It
is first of all awareness, for which the Armenian community has to
carry out considerable work,” Jonny Melikyan told a news conference
on Monday.

He said the neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey have, over the course of
years, conducted an active propaganda with the Georgian nation in an
attempt to prevent Genocide recognition efforts. The expert further
pointed out to the economic factor between Georgia and Turkey and
Azerbaijan’s role in the process.

He expressed concerns that a book addressing the Georgian media’s
coverage of the Genocide (which was published in the country several
years ago), is not to be found anywhere today.

Melikyan stressed the importance of the Genocide recognition by
Georgia, noting that an organization in the country has been working
the government for several years to have the tragedy acknowledged. But
the Georgian authorities’ statements made in April seem to rule out
such a possibility.

“I wouldn’t say the recognition process is easy, but it isn’t
impossible either,” the expert added.

Armenian News – Tert.am

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILLBOARDS IN THE STREETS OF FLORIDA

10:01 22.04.2013

Four striking billboards, crowded in among beer and cosmetic surgery
ads along two South Florida highways, contain one sentence starkly
lettered in white on a black background: “Thank you for officially
recognizing the Armenian Genocide – April 24, 1915,” Sun Sentinel
reports.

‘It’s a bold move to bring public attention to an almost century-old
tragedy that Armenian Americans say takes a back seat to other
large-scale human rights violations: the killing of 1.5 million
of their ancestors during World War I in what is now Turkey,” the
article reads.

But until now, the identity of those behind the signs was a mystery.

Small wording at the bottom of the 672-square-foot billboards states
only that they were “paid for by individuals concerned about the
plight of Armenians.” They list no names.

That’s because it’s not about publicity, it’s about bringing larger
awareness to the issue, said George Pagoumian, 70, a Fort Lauderdale
businessman and philanthropist who came forward only after the Sun
Sentinel began researching the signs.

The four billboards are located at Florida’s Turnpike-Interstate 595
interchange; and on Interstate 95 at Southern Boulevard in West Palm
Beach, at Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach and at Northwest 79th
Avenue in Miami. And the campaign was organized and financed through
Armenian community members, said Pagoumian, declining to list the
other contributors or how much was donated.

“We don’t want money to dictate this,” said Pagoumian, whose parents
were Armenian and who lost his grandmother and other relatives to
the killings. “Our grandmothers, our family who died are paying. They
are sending checks from heaven.”

‘Twenty countries have officially recognized the killings as genocide,
and those nations’ flags are on the South Florida billboard, under
the words “thank you.” The United States is not among them – something
Armenian Americans have fought passionately to change for years. They
are pressuring President Obama to make an executive declaration,”
the article continues.

But calling what happened in Armenia almost 100 years ago a “genocide”
is a very touchy subject – especially in South Florida. About 4,000
people of Armenian descent live in Broward and Palm Beach counties,
according to the Census, alongside about 5,000 of Turkish descent.

Turkey denies that Armenians were targeted because of race or
ethnicity.

Fuat Ornarli, past president of the Florida Turkish American
Association, has not seen the billboards but dislikes what he considers
a politicization of the issue.

“I would like to express my deep sorrow to see such billboards around
us, since this subject is so politicized, and so biased,” said Ornarli,
of Miami.

Genocide declarations should be made by scholars, not politicians,
Ornarli said, adding that not all historians agree the Armenian deaths
should be labeled genocide. Like the leaders of his native country,
he said the deaths were casualties of war, exacerbated when the
Armenians aligned themselves with Russia, Turkey’s enemy.

Rosanna Gatens, director for the Center for Holocaust and Human Rights
Education at Florida Atlantic University, said the removal and killing
of Armenians by the Turks is taught along with the Holocaust and other
modern genocides in the state-mandated human rights education program.

Each year, a few teachers get complaints from upset Turkish parents
“who think their children are being taught that Turkey is a terrible
place,” she said.

SBS GIVES ARMENIAN RADIO PROGRAM ANOTHER HOUR

11:03 22.04.2013

The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia)
reports that the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) has reinstated
an additional hour of Armenian language radio broadcasting after an
extensive campaign by the community.

In 2012, SBS announced that the Armenian language program would be
cut from three hours to one hour and be assigned to a new 5pm timeslot.

Having raised serious concerns amongst the Armenian-Australian
community, ANC Australia began an e-petition campaign calling on SBS
to reassess its decision.

Vache Kahramanian, Executive Director of ANC Australia, and His Grace
Bishop Haigazon Najarian met with SBS management, and SBS agreed to
alocate an additional one hour for the Armenian language program. The
additional hour, which will be a replay of the program aired at 5pm
will air at 8pm on Tuesday evenings.

Kahramanian said: “This is a victory for the Armenian-Australian
community.”

“With an additional hour, Armenians have won another opportunity
to listen to this fantastic program, and the fact that it is at 8pm
means people will be able to listen to the Armenian program at a more
convenient hour during prime-time.”

“We thank SBS for taking this principled stance and not only listening
but acting on our community’s concerns.”

The new digital program will commence on 29 April and will broadcast
on SBS Radio 3. It can also be listened to online, through a mobile
device or through the SBS digital TV channel.

ELIF SHAFAK: ‘FEAR IS A VERY DANGEROUS THING’

The voice of Turkish literature – tells Joy Lo Dico why Istanbul
needs to make another great leap

ar-is-a-very-dangerous-thing-8571991.html?origin=internalSearch JOY
LO DICO   SATURDAY 13 APRIL 2013

When I invited Elif Shafak to lunch at Julie’s, a smart London
restaurant tucked between the Victorian town houses of Holland Park,
I hadn’t considered the decor. Carved wooden panels, rugs and leather
stools: it looked like someone had made a quick raid on the Ottoman
Empire to furnish it. Would Shafak, who is from Istanbul, roll her
eyes at the cliche of inviting her to a faux oriental den? She looks
around. “How lovely,” she says, a little coolly.

Dressed head to toe in black (she claims that this is the only colour
in her wardrobe) and with the looks of a French film star, Shafak is
an easy choice to be the face for the London Book Fair, the special
focus of which this year is Turkish literature. Her 2006 novel The
Bastard of Istanbul was long-listed for the Orange Prize. She followed
it with a retelling of the life of the 13th-century poet Rumi folded
into the life of a bored Jewish-American housewife, in The Forty
Rules of Love. And last year she published Honour, the story of an
“honour” killing by a Turkish Kurdish family living between their
home country and Dalston.

That diversity comes from her own internationalism. Born in
Strasbourg, she’s lived across Europe and America and now divides
her time between Istanbul, where her husband is editor-in-chief of
a newspaper, and London.

“It’s like a compass,” she explains. “One leg of the drawing compass
is fixed in one spot. For me that is Istanbul. The other leg draws
a huge, wide circle around this one and I see myself as global soul,
as a world citizen.”

Shafak’s writing is not high literature in the Nobel Prize-winning
Orhan Pamuk vein: the prose is open, the pages turn easily, plots
sometimes twist too conveniently and The Forty Rules of Love’s
spirituality brings to mind Paulo Coelho. But Shafak has big ideas –
about women’s rights, identity, freedom of expression – that really
challenge readers, and her novels work hard at bringing out unheard
voices.

It’s reflected in her readership. The queues at her book signings,
Shafak notes proudly, are made up of “people who normally wouldn’t
break bread together: liberals, leftists, secularists, Sufis,
conservatives; girls with headscarves but also women with mini skirts”.

As we pick over the skeletons of our grilled sardines, it occurs to
me that Shafak makes waves with wide-selling literature – so popular
that her books are pirated in Turkey – but that the forms and ideas are
not so radical to Britons – an exception perhaps is her exploration of
“honour” killings. Her real strength lies in her eloquence on politics
and culture, she writes columns on both for the newspaper Haberturk.

It is 90 years since Kemal Ataturk declared Turkey a republic, and
this past decade has seen it walking tall despite “being left in the
waiting room”, as Shafak says, by the EU. The steady government of
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, economic growth, a grown-up regional policy and,
as of last month, a ceasefire with the PKK (the Kurdish nationalist
movement fighting for independence for the past 30 years), has returned
Turkey as a significant player to the world stage.

Shafak welcomes reconciliation with the Kurds but is already thinking
one step ahead: about changing the nature of modern Turkey. “What
we need is a new constitution which is more embracing, not only
of Turks and Kurds but also the minorities in Turkey who are not
feeling comfortable: Armenians, Jews, Azeris, gypsies, and others,” she
suggests, seeing this as a time when Turkey could reconstruct its whole
self-image. “Our 600-year-old empire was multi-ethnic, multi-lingual,
multi-religious, amazingly cosmopolitan. In 1923, the nation state
was established and, throughout the republican era, the main discourse
was that we are a society of undifferentiated individuals. No classes,
no ethnicities. Seeing difference as the source of danger and looking
for enemies within created a lot of fear in Turkey, and fear is a very
dangerous thing because it produces authoritarian responses. I’m not
saying Ataturk’s Turkey should be abandoned: I’m saying we need to
take a step forward and have a far more egalitarian and democratic
society. What I find frightening is top-down uniformity.”

The blooming of identities she talks of – she includes homosexuals and
transsexuals – echoes the voices in her books. But Shafak, remembering
how quickly her comments have been twisted in parts of the Turkish
media, chooses her words carefully. In 2006, after writing about the
Armenian genocide, an ultra-nationalist group had her put on trial
under an archaic law for “insulting Turkishness”.

The Turkish Ministry of Justice now intervenes to prevent such trials
but the law remains. Shafak drives it home with a British analogy.

“The other day I was thinking, when Hilary Mantel was ‘criticising’
Kate Middleton, that there was a discussion in the UK media,” she
says. “Everyone was asking, ‘Is she right or wrong?’ But as a Turkish
writer, my main interest was not who was right or wrong but that this
debate can be heard freely.”

We move on to the mint tea and Shafak points out that Britain and
Turkey, both of which she calls home, have taken different routes
out of empire. London remains a global crossroads but Istanbul risks
forgetting the way porous boundaries helped it thrive. It is the
subject of her next novel, which will be set in the 16th century.

Shafak will be taking part in a series of seminars and talks at
the London Book Fair next Tuesday, along with other big hitters in
the Turkish literary scene, including Perihan Magden, Ayse Kulin and
Ahmet Umit. Shafak knows how to pitch to a bigger audience than just
those who want to dabble in the Orient: “The conversations we are
having about identity, amnesia, past and future don’t concern solely
the society in Turkey but they resonate through the Muslim world,
and the world in general.”

Honour by Elif Shafak

Penguin, £7.99

‘It was all because women were made of the lightest cambric, Naze
continued, whereas men were cut of thick, dark fabric. That is how
God had tailored the two: one superior to the other. As to why He
had done that, it wasn’t up to human beings to question … ”

The Market Focus Cultural Programme at The London Book Fair is curated
by the British Council and begins tomorrow. For more information visit:
literature.britishcouncil.org

HOUSING POVERTY TURNING INTO A HEADACHE FOR EURASIA

17:09 22/04/2013 ” SOCIETY

Eurasia is often thought of as having more developed housing than
many other parts of the world, AlertNet reports. Recently, however,
international attention has focused on several types of housing
poverty in the region:

Fact 1: Housing related expenditure is the biggest component of
consumer spending in the EU. According to the International Union of
Tenants, housing expenditure was the biggest component of consumer
spending in 2011, accounting for 23% of total expenditure. For 12%
of the population, housing accounts for 40% of expenditure.

Fact 2: Previously, construction and heating methods did not focus
on energy efficiency. Families pay more for energy and many live
in energy poverty. Every 10th person in the EU lives in a household
which was unable to pay utility bills in 2010, according to the EU
Statistics on Income and Living Conditions.

Fact 3: In Romania, 43% of the population suffers from housing
deprivation, with deprivation most acute for disadvantaged Roma
populations.

Fact 4: The Eastern part of the region faces more serious problems.

In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, around 70% of dwellings lack a bath or
a shower. In Kyrgyzstan, only 34% of rural homes have piped water,
according to WHO/UNICEF.

These problems prompted four international organizations – Habitat
for Humanity International, the International Federation of Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies, the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
– to organize the Housing Forum: Europe and Central Asia. This Forum
is a platform for decision-makers to explore solutions to housing
challenges in Europe and Central Asia.

In April 2011 in Hungary, in the midst of the economic and financial
crises, the partners developed a vision for creating a space for
professionals in all areas of the European and Central Asian housing
sector to come together and work toward establishing a common approach
to housing in the region.

>From 22 to 24 April 2013 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva,
Switzerland, the four organizers are holding the second Housing Forum:
Europe and Central Asia. This time they are joined by the United
Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) as a fifth strategic
partner, and to support the regional roll out of the UN Global Housing
Strategy. The Forum will look at ways to address housing problems,
develop affordable housing solutions for the poor on national and
regional levels and bring together businesses and the public sector.

Luiza Vardanyan, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity Armenia
and Karine Mailyan, Program Director of Habitat for Humanity Armenia
travelled to Geneva to take part in the second Housing Forum.

“If we are to impact the housing deficit throughout the world, we
need to partner with groups and organizations committed to this same
vision. The Housing Forum is the ideal way to bring like-minded people
and groups together to share, to dream and to create ways to address
the housing issues facing not only this region, but throughout the
world,” says Greg Foster, Area Vice President, Habitat for Humanity
International.

“Sustainable housing is a requirement, not an aspiration, if we are
to ensure a future for all,” states Graham Saunders, Head, Shelter &
Settlements, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies.

“With strong Government commitment and a proper legal framework,
each country can establish enabled property markets which provide a
sound basis for economic growth,” says David Egiashvili, UNECE Real
Estate Market Advisory Group.

“To achieve the goal of adequate housing for all UN-Habitat has
launched a Global Housing Strategy, a collaborative global movement,
aiming at improving access to housing in general and the living
conditions of slum dwellers in particular. Its main objective is to
assist UN member States in working towards the realization of the
right to adequate housing,” says Mohamed El Sioufi, Coordinator of
the Global Housing Strategy, UN-HABITAT.

The Housing Forum brings together leading housing professionals
from the region, among them key NGO actors, private corporations,
researchers and policymakers.

About Habitat for Humanity International – Habitat for Humanity
International is a Christian nonprofit organization dedicated to the
cause of eliminating poverty housing. Since its founding in 1976,
Habitat has built and renovated more than 600,000 homes worldwide,
providing simple, decent and affordable shelter for more than 3
million people. For more information, visit

About International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
– The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization. It works
to support and develop the capacities of its member National
Societies around the world in their humanitarian mission to assist
the most vulnerable members of society, without discrimination as to
nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. The
IFRC’s work focuses on four core areas: promoting humanitarian values,
disaster response, disaster preparedness, and health and community
care. For more information, visit

About UNDP – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the
UN’s global development network, an organization advocating for change
and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to
help people build a better life. UNDP in Europe and the Commonwealth
of Independent States is on the ground in 28 countries and territories
in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. For
more information, visit

About UNECE-The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations. It was
established in 1947 by the UN Economic and Social Council. The overall
mandate of the UNECE is to facilitate greater economic integration and
cooperation among its fifty-six Member States and promote sustainable
development and economic prosperity. For more information, visit

About UN-HABITAT -The United Nations Human Settlements Programme,
UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It
is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and
environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing
adequate shelter for all. UN-Habitat programmes are designed to help
policy-makers and local communities to get to grips with the human
settlements and urban issues and find workable, lasting solutions. For
more information, visit

Source: Panorama.am

PEOPLE MUST LEAD THE STRUGGLE – RAFFI HOVANNISIAN’S SUPPORTER

April 22, 2013 | 15:47

YEREVAN.- Despite their statements on supporting people, Armenian
political forces are doing the opposite, member of Heritage party said.

Stepan Safaryan, secretary of party’s board, noted that the main
political forces showed indifference about internal political
developments during the presidential elections and the April 9 rallies.

“The problem is that political forces do not perceive people as a
political entity, treating them as a subject, using which it is
impossible to achieve change of power,” Safrayan told reporters
on Monday.

He believes it would be more honest to claim that the way proposed
by Raffi Hovannisian is unacceptable for them, rather than trying to
discredit people’s protest movement. People must lead the struggle,
he emphasized.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

Watertown Family Describe Minutes Leading to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Arrest

By Nanore Barsoumian

April 20, 2013

WATERTOWN, Mass. (A.W.) – There was a heavy police and military presence
in Watertown on Fri., April 19, as police searched for 19-year-old
Dzokhar Tsarnaev. The suspect, a resident of Cambridge, had gone on a
violent rampage the night of April 18, together with his 26-year-old
brother Tamerlan. After gunning down an MIT police officer and
seriously wounding a transit police officer, the brothers carjacked an
SUV and drove to Watertown. An exchange of gunfire near the Weekly
offices ensued between police and the two suspects, during which
Tamerlane was shot and killed. The brothers, who are reportedly from
Chechnya, were suspects in the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings that
took the lives of 3 and injured over 160 others.

A SWAT team prepares to conduct door to door searches across the
street from Baikar Association. (Photo by Nanore Barsoumian, The
Armenian Weekly)
Dzokhar Tsarnaev escaped that exchange with police, and remained at
large throughout most of the day. As SWAT teams conducted door-to-door
searches in a 20-block radius in Watertown, authorities advised
residents to stay indoors. Businesses remained closed and streets were
eerily deserted while police cruisers, bomb squads, armored vehicles
whizzed through the streets, and black hawks hovered overhead. At
around 8:45 p.m. on April 19, the manhunt for Tsarnaev came to an end
when he was found hiding in a boat behind a house on Franklin St.

Emmanuel Der Torossian and his daughter Julie, 13, whose back porch
overlooks Franklin St., ventured into the streets for a stroll soon
after the police lifted the curfew in the neighborhood at 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, a neighbor spotted a body in a boat behind his house and
notified the police. `The police came running through. They told
everyone to get off the streets and to go into their homes, but we
couldn’t go home… [the police] stopped us from going back,’ Emmanuel
told the Weekly last night, as police officers worked to apprehend the
suspect. The police blocked off the street, preventing the Der
Torossians from returning home. Officers evacuated the neighborhood,
escorting Emmanuel and Julie to another street, where they waited
anxiously for hours. In the midst of the chaos, Emmanuel’s wife Marina
and son Joey were taken out of their home and onto a different street.

That part of town, added Emmanuel, is populated mostly by Armenians.
`It’s a quiet area and so it’s easy to hide. No one would suspect
something like this. He was behind my house this whole time,’ said
Julie, anxiously looking in the direction of the flashing blue lights
down the street. Minutes later, the family was reunited, and together
saw the end to an unnerving ordeal.

Marina had a different story to tell. With a father, 83, and a brother
in Aleppo, Syria – the site of an escalating human rights crisis – Marina
has long been fearing for their safety. When her sister called her on
Marathon Monday, asking if she had heard about the bombs, Marina
thought her worse fears had come true.

`I thought she meant my father’s apartment in Aleppo had been hit by a
bomb. I hadn’t been following the news. My legs got week, until she
told me that she was talking about Boston. I turned to the news on TV
and couldn’t believe my eyes… All day I was like a zombie,’ Marina
told the Weekly.

The Der Torossian family, moments after being reunited (Photo by Aaron
Spagnolo, The Armenian Weekly)
Late on April 18, she heard gunshots, and saw police officers
searching her driveway. That night, she and her kids did not sleep.
They didn’t the following day, either. Marina was about to leave her
house when she saw soldiers rushing down her street towards her house.
Her neighbor informed her that the suspect had been located one street
over. Marina picked up her phone and called her husband who was out on
a walk with their daughter.

`I was on the phone with my husband, when suddenly there were
gunshots. I lay flat on the ground and I made my son do the same. I
did not know where the gunshots were coming from. Two minutes later
there were knocks on our door. There were officers. They told us to
leave the house immediately. I grabbed what was there, a pair of
snow-boots and a heavy winter coat, and ran outside,’ said Marina. The
officers then used their back porch as a perch to watch the suspect’s
movements.

`My back porch overlooks Franklin St., and I could see the officers
advancing. There were five officers behind our house. There were
numerous officers on Franklin St., and I couldn’t find my husband and
daughter. I was shaking, my entire body was shaking,’ she said,
adding, `I hope today brings an end to this.’

After hours of being under lockdown, hundreds of Watertown residents
came out of their homes. Some cheered, others thanked police officers,
and many waived American flags. Tsarnaev was taken to a Boston
hospital, and reportedly is in serious but stable condition.

A SWAT team conducts door to door searches. (Photo by Nanore
Barsoumian, The Armenian Weekly) An armored vehicle transporting a
SWAT team (Photo by Nanore Barsoumian, The Armenian Weekly)

Ispirian: Turkey reacts painfully to recognition of Armenian Genocide

Saturday,April 20

In order to encourage the international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide, the Armenian authorities should do active work in the
countries which have a leading position in the international arena.
Turkologist Andranik Ispirian expressed such an opinion during a talk
with the correspondent of Aysor.am when discussing the measures and
mechanisms aimed at the international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide.

He said that levers of exerting pressure and influence on the ruling
circles of countries, which have not yet recognize the Genocide, may
also contribute to the Genocide’s recognition. The expert did not
consider the existence of large Armenian communities in these
countries as a necessary condition.

`Let’s take a look at the list of the countries that acknowledged the
Armenian Genocide. Among them are also countries, in which the
Armenian community is not very influential,’ he stressed.

The Turkologist underlined the necessity to work actively with the
public sector of various countries, including editors, scientists,
analysts so that they could discuss the subject of the Armenian
Genocide and denounce this crime against humanity.

`More information about the Armenian Genocide should be published in
foreign periodicals and information field, while authoritative public
and political figures should make statements and appeals for the
condemnation of the Genocide,’ Ispirian noted.

According to him, Turkey reacts painfully to each case of the Armenian
Genocide’s recognition by a country.

In his opinion, it is necessary to develop a legal package with
documented facts about the Genocide.

`We should achieve a legal condemnation of the Armenian Genocide by
going to various courts. Such experience already exists in
California,’ Ispirian said.

TODAY, 17:58
Aysor.am

What are you keeping silent about, Lamb of God – AGNUS DEI

20-04-2013 07:57:21 | Armenia | Culture

Since the Armenian Genocide, we Armenians have come a long way in
reinstating the historical truth: historiography, diplomacy, lobbying.
Being well aware of the power of culture, we have also been talking in
the language of culture about the state crime committed against us. Of
course, there have been oversights in this as well; we have not always
taken into consideration the important fact of being accessible and
understandable to the world. While on the contrary, a long-term
far-reaching cultural policy would have led us, albeit slowly, to
achieve fundamentally increasing diplomatic accomplishments, because,
in general, documenting is more contested than fine arts.

Today, on the threshold of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, we have the problem of formulating worldwide public opinion.
This applies even to the countries whose governments have recognized
the Armenian Genocide. From Uruguayans to the French and Germans, they
all still need to hear us, and, importantly, in a language that is
accessible to all. Isn’t it an indication that God is in favor of this
that we were blessed, at the right moment, with a work of art worth
many diplomatic initiatives?

I am referring to Tigran Mansurian’s Requiem dedicated to the victims
of the Armenian Genocide. This forty-five minute large scale musical
composition took 10 years of the Maestro’s life; if we count the
entire initial phase of research work, the process of thoroughly
studying the huge number of Requiems already written in the world, as
well as the attempted, but put-aside versions by himself that paved
the way for the work that was premiered in November 2011, in Germany.
The idea of writing a Requiem had long been lingering in Mansurian’s
mind when he was commissioned to write one by the Chamber Orchestra of
Munich and the`RIAS’ Chamber Choir of Berlin.

I have visited Mansurian many times during the years he was working on
the Requiem and I was witness to his creative concerns and research.
It is natural, as creating such a composition was not a simple or easy
task. He had to enter the world of the numerous Requiems written on
the basis of the Canonic text – in Latin- of the Catholic Church as
well as to thoroughly study the Requiems that were not based on the
Canonic text. Everybody knows the musical monuments of Mozart, Verdi
and Brahms in this domain. The task was to enter that world and create
the first Armenian Requiem based on the Latin Canonic text, which
should simultaneously include both the centuries-old experience of
Armenian sacred music and the psychology of the Christian Armenian
faithful. If we are to agree that any ceremony contains some theatre
elements, we should acknowledge that a Requiem also contains them.
These elements are the necessary condition to the expressions of fear
and entreat, of lamentation and awe found in a Requiem, the equivalent
musical embodiment of which should have found its certification in the
deeper folds of our centuries-old traditions and rituals.

It suffices to say that the citizen of a country with strong
statehood, with the security derived from it, when praying to God, is
psychologically different from a person who lacks the feeling of
safety conditioned by the strength of his country. In other words,
Mansurian had to fulfill the commission of the Germans and at the same
time realize his own dream of creating a genuine Armenian Requiem. The
fact that it was to be dedicated to the victims of the Armenian
Genocide was very important. Members of Mansurian’s family were among
the million of victims killed; and the expressions of his own grief
would, inadvertently, be inscribed on the musical canvas that exhibits
the pan-national sorrow. Thus, the problem of `what to do’ was
actually solved for Mansurian. The only problem that remained was to
determine who were the people singing this Requiem. And he did find
`heroes’ who were visible and perceptible in their specificity. As
Maestro mentions, they are black-browed characters with round eyes
portrayed in Armenian miniatures who live in their peaceful naivety
and sometimes in deeply mysterious silence. As if the ancestor of
those characters was not deceived by the snake. The sin cannot coexist
with this extent of humility. Who else but these characters could be
trusted with the singing where Latin comes to intertwine with the
Armenian melody to say Agnus Dei – God’s Lamb? And this is where that
which is neither actually Catholic nor actually Armenian, and not even
a synthesis of the two, but an entirely new value originated; its
interpretation of course, is the work of musicologists. But one thing
is unequivocal: Mansurian’s Requiem’s text is in Latin, it was
commissioned by the Germans (according to the contract, only the
Chamber Orchestra of Munich and the `RIAS’ Chamber Choir of Berlin
have the right to perform it for one and a half years), nevertheless
this `Requiem’ became part of both the world music heritage and the
Armenian music treasury. Now a few words about how Mansurian’s Requiem
was premiered in Berlin. After the final rehearsal young German
students had an hour and a half long talk with Mansurian about the
Maestro’s Requiem, about it being dedicated to the memory of the
victims of the Genocide that took place 97 years ago, and about the
past and future of Armenia. On the concert day, before the performance
of the Requiem, music students from Berlin gave a half an hour
presentation on the history and miniature art of Armenia to prepare
the audience to listen to the musical work. And only after that the
Requiem was performed which was followed by endless applause. On the
next day, Mansurian’s Requiem and, following it, his interview were
broadcasted on Deutschlandradio Kultur. And this is precisely what I
was talking about in the beginning– precisely about this way of being
accessible and understandable to the world; something we are much in
need of.

Three years are left to the 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide. If
we make the effort, it will be possible for our Requiem to resound in
various churches of the world. In the same way that in Germany
Mansurian’s and Mozart’s Requiems were rendered during the same
concert, thus performing an unknown work together with the work of a
genius, Mansurian’s work could be performed in Italy together with the
Requiem of Verdi and in France together with the Requiem of Fauré. And
if we can fundamentally resolve this -not only cultural- problem, the
world will understand even without words what the characters of our
Christian miniatures are keeping silent about, or who is, in
Mansurian’s Requiem, evocated in known Latin words but in a seemingly
entirely different language.

As I said, while working on the Requiem, Mansurian and I had many
talks about the creation of this unprecedented – in the Armenian
culture- work of music. Together we met with our Catholicos to talk
about intertwining the spiritual and the cultural.

I also met Tigran after he returned from Germany. Once more I was
astonished by his boundless humility. He was talking about his work as
if he had no participation in its creation. For a moment I took him
for one of the characters in our miniature art. During our meeting he
surprised me by voicing his intent to write a Messa (a musical program
of Divine Liturgy of the Holy Mass to be mainly performed in concert
halls, not to be part of the actual Church ritual) that would, this
time, be dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Genocide. It is a
new responsibility for Mansuryan: to present a new Armenian Messa,
after Komitas andYekmalyan, not only to us but also to the world. The
73-year-old Maestro was talking with the enthusiasm of a child about
our sacred culture, the Armenian melody that deserves to be presented
to the world, and his own I was listening to him and thinking that it
was high time for our country to consider seriously and practically
its greatest treasure – culture, to plan its culture endeavors in all
of this. strategy for the benefit of its citizens, its intellectuals
and its cause.

Razmik Markosyan

The Noyan Tapan Highlights #958

News from Armenia and Diaspora – Noyan Tapan

Samvel Karapetyan of Turkic-speaking Armenians (video)

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2013-04-20 16:37:02

The head of the Foundation for the Study of Armenian architecture
Samvel Karapetyan in his video blog talked about Turkic-speaking
Armenians.