The New York Times
August 15, 2004 Sunday

Threat of Civil War Is Turning the Abkhaz Into Russians

By C. J. CHIVERS

SUKHUMI, Georgia, Aug. 10

The men on the seashore announced their citizenship one by one. The
first man, who did not appear Slavic, said he was Russian. Then the
second, then the third. Another produced a new passport bearing the
Russian seal. ”I am Russian, too,” he said.

It was the same among all the men sipping coffee under the oleander
and palm, just as it is throughout this city, the partly abandoned
capital of Abkhazia, a tiny self-declared state.

”You can ask any person here, and they will have the passport of the
Russian Federation,” said Apollon Shinkuba, a retired general in the
military of a nation that officially does not exist.

Abkhazia, a breakaway Georgian republic the size of Delaware, has
been swept by a paper revolution.

As latent civil war with Georgia threatens to flare anew, the Abkhaz
have become Russian citizens by the tens of thousands, declaring
allegiance to Moscow, which they hope will defend them if fighting
breaks out. It is a policy resembling voluntary annexation — not by
force or referendum but by the mass assumption of the citizenship of
a neighboring state.

The Abkhaz have been applying under a provision of Russian law that
grants citizenship under certain circumstances to residents of the
former Soviet Union. They hope their new allegiance will prove to be
insurance in the event of war, although there is no clear guarantee.

”The president of the Russian Federation is the guarantor of
protection of the citizens of the Russian Federation, no matter where
they live,” said Valery Arshba, Abkhazia’s vice president, himself a
Russian citizen. He added, ”Political protection implies military
protection.”

The status of Abkhazia — a republic on the Black Sea that is
adjacent to Russia and has a deep affinity for it but is within the
internationally recognized borders of Georgia — is one of the last
of the sovereignty disputes that followed the dissolution of the
Soviet Union.

The Georgians and the Abkhaz were held together under Soviet rule. In
1992, not long after Soviet rule ended, civil war broke out, ending
in 1993 with the expulsion of the Georgian Army followed by a line of
demarcation that is still patrolled by a United Nations observers.

What remains beyond that line is a place of astonishing beauty and
often eerie stillness, a republic in a state of unsettled suspension.
Abkhazia has been independent for 11 years, able to claim
self-government, but at a cost of isolation and at a high economic
and social price.

No nation recognizes it. Its factories are idle. Its infrastructure
is run down. Its government claims to have a budget of $15 million a
year.

There is little traffic, no postal service, no state currency
(rubles, not Georgian lari, circulate here) and a marginal economy.
Its hospitals depend on aid organizations. Minefields litter its
byways.

Village after village in the former Georgian zone of Gali, near the
Inguri River, across which Georgian civilians fled as their army
collapsed and Abkhaz fighters advanced, remain depopulated and
sacked. Weeds grow from rooftops; horses wander the grounds of gutted
factories; people are few.

And tensions have risen again. Georgia has never given up its claim
to Abkhazia, and the new Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, has
pledged to bring the renegade republic into the national fold, as he
is also trying to do with another separatist region, South Ossetia.

At a briefing for journalists and political analysts this week near
Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, Mr. Saakashvili said he would be patient,
but spoke with an air of inevitability.

Abkhazia, in his view, will return to Georgia. ”We can do just about
anything short of full independence,” he said, and referred to
possible federalist models for reintegration.

The political rhetoric has been leveraged with force. Late last
month, the Georgian Coast Guard fired on a cargo ship calling at
Sukhumi, asserting that ships sailing for Abkhazia without Georgian
permission violate Georgia’s territorial integrity and international
law.

Here on the western side of the Inguri River, the Abkhaz people, a
tiny ethnic minority whose roots reach to ancient times, see
themselves as besieged. The government suspended talks with Tbilisi,
vowed to remain firm on national status and said it would use force
to counter actions it regarded as hostile.

”Right now we have our forces ready, and if necessary we will
fight,” said the acting foreign minister, Georgi Otyrba, who became
a Russian citizen three months ago.

Abkhazia maintains an army seasoned by civil war. Officials here say
it has more than 20,000 fighters and is organized in the manner of
the Swiss, with reservists who keep automatic rifles at home,
prepared to gather swiftly at predetermined locations for local
defense.

An exercise held last month to test military readiness was a success,
Abkhaz officials said. Several of them added that Mr. Saakashvili,
whom they regard as young and rash, has chosen a course that could
quickly slip from his control.

”The idea of the new president of Georgia will lead to a new war,”
said Nugzar Ashuba, speaker of Abkhazia’s 35-member parliament. ”It
is absolutely so.”

He added that although Abkhazia regarded its military as a defensive
force, it had aircraft, artillery and tanks, and if the Georgians
continued to test the borders, it might strike first. He said, as an
example, that fighter planes or helicopter gunships could be sent to
sea. ”We can destroy the Georgian ships; we have all the means,” he
said. ”But we don’t want a scandal. Of course, if they keep doing
this, we will reconsider.”

Little prospect for negotiation exists for now. The Abkhaz president,
Vladislav Ardzinba, has been ill and is not visibly in command of the
government. An election to replace him is set for October. The new
president will serve a five-year term.

One Western diplomat, citing the delicacy of the subject and speaking
anonymously, said it was difficult to assess prospects for peace
talks. ”It is really hard to discuss it seriously until after the
Abkhaz presidential election,” he said.

In the interim, residents here have been becoming Russian in waves,
with encouragement of the de facto state. Mr. Arshba, the vice
president, said 170,000 of Abkhazia’s 320,000 residents had become
citizens of Russia, and 70,000 others had applications pending. The
shift started in the late 1990’s. More than 50,000 Abkhaz people had
become Russian by 2002, he said, when a government campaign induced
roughly 117,000 more people to adopt Russian citizenship. The latest
push began this summer.

Numbers here are malleable and impossible to confirm. Mr. Otyrba said
that he had seen new, unpublished census data and that 80 percent of
what he said were 362,000 residents of Abkhazia were Russian.

Mr. Saakashvili insisted that the population is of Abkhazia was much
smaller than Abkhaz officials contended — fewer than 200,000, about
half of whom are Abkhaz and the rest principally Armenian and
Georgian.

One point is clear: given that to obtain Russian citizenship an
Abkhaz applicant must be at least 16 years old, on paper the
Russification of Abkhazia is almost complete.

”We’re at about 80 percent now,” said Gennadi Nikitchenko, chief of
the Abkhaz office of the Congress of Russian Communities, which has
been assisting residents with applications and forwarding bundles of
the documents to the office of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Sochi.

What wartime protections these new citizens might enjoy is anything
but certain. The Western diplomat suggested that their status was not
ironclad. A document, he said, ”doesn’t make them Russian.”

Russia has been ambiguous as well. The Russian defense minister,
Sergei B. Ivanov, told the Interfax news service this week that ”the
protection of the interests of Russian citizens in Abkhazia and South
Ossetia should be done by political and diplomatic methods.”

President Vladimir V. Putin has remained silent on the matter.

As the impasse continues, a sense of lost opportunities pervades.
Abkhazia, subtropical and inexpensive, gorgeous and little known,
seems like a coastal boom waiting to happen.

The republic is breathtaking, a narrow land in which mountains 12,000
feet high tumble in forested hills to the Black Sea. Its farmland is
rich in tangerines and tea.

The republic’s famed beaches at Sukhumi, Gagra and Pitsunda were
formerly vacation destinations for the Soviet elite. Stalin kept
dachas here. Before the Bolsheviks took state holidays, czars lounged
on Abkhazia’s beaches.

Yet for all of its beauty and access to the sea, Abkhazia suffers
from its isolation and reputation as a land that is locked in
struggle. Sukhumi, the seat of the separatist government, remains 60
percent destroyed and is full of gutted buildings and glassless
windows.

Abkhazia still attracts upward of 350,000 tourists a year, almost all
Russian, according to Mr. Otyrba, the acting foreign minister, but
that is down from several million tourists before the war.Those who
visit create weirdly incongruous scenes, like that at the Elbrus
Club, a bustling discotheque between the beach and the skeletons of
buildings destroyed in the last war. On summer evenings, when music
thumps at the Elbrus and beer flows from its taps, Sukhumi seems one
part Grozny, one part Miami Beach.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Aug 16 2004

Russia to step up activity to settle Upper Garabagh conflict

Moscow supports the continuing negotiations on settling the Upper
Garabagh conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry representative Boris
Malakhov says. He welcomed the continuation of talks on the level of
presidents.
Malakhov added that Russia will do its utmost to ensure that the
parties to the conflict come to terms and step up its activity within
the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at resolving the problem.*

Le Télégramme
16 août 2004

Hélène Diner fait visiter l’église

Si le fier clocher de l’église de Saint-Servais ne se mire pas dans
l’eau, contrairement à celui de la chanson, il n’en reste pas moins
que le magnifique édifice est toujours apprécié de nombreux
touristes.

Mercredi, Hélène Diner, pour qui aucune pierre du saint lieu n’a de
secret, conduisait un groupe d’une douzaine de visiteurs à travers la
nef et les bas côtés, commentant, vitraux, statues, sculptures et
tableaux, autant de trésors que renferme ce splendide édifice dont la
construction traverse tout le XVII e siècle.

Sur le clocher, en effet, on trouve inscrit la date du 16 mai 1610,
le chevet date de 1688 et la partie centrale de 1707.

Mais c’est essentiellement sur les portes qu’Hélène Diner attire
l’attention des visiteurs, dont beaucoup, curieusement, prennent des
notes et bien sûr des photos.

Trois portes sculptées

Saint-Servais a la particularité de posséder trois portes sculptées,
originales en Bretagne et d’une extrême beauté. Elles seraient
réalisées d’après des dessins du peintre italien Nicoleto dell
Abatte, dit encore Nicolet de Modène, qui est arrivé en France avec
la suite d’artistes ramenés d’Italie par François 1 e r . Ce peintre
aurait aussi participé à la décoration du chteau de Fontainebleau
avec un autre peintre italien Primaticcio. Comment les dessins
sont-ils arrivés dans les mains d’un artiste sculpteur local qui a
réalisé ces portes un ou deux siècles plus tard ? Il y a là un beau
sujet de recherche pour un historien chevronné.

Saint Servais : ne pas confondre avec Pierre

Autre spécificité de l’église, un tableau d’indulgence plénière,
écrit en vieux breton mais dont Hélène Diner donne une traduction aux
curieux qui s’interrogent « cette prière, dont le rôle était
d’écourter le séjour des mes en purgatoire, pour rejoindre le
paradis au plus vite ». On trouve sur ce panneau, situé au fond de
l’église, une représentation de saint Servais, longtemps confondu
avec saint Pierre, car le saint local est toujours représenté avec
des clés. « La différence s’explique par le fait que saint Servais
porte une mitre en tant qu’évêque, ce que n’était pas le grand saint
Pierre. Servais est, selon l’histoire et la légende, originaire
d’Arménie.

Il aurait baptisé Attila

Il aurait été le premier évêque de Maastricht et aurait même baptisé
le terrible Attila. Enfin, juste à côté de ce panneau d’indulgence,
un vitrail en oeil-de-boeuf ne manque pas d’attirer l’attention. Il
représente très naïvement un prêtre baptisant des petits noirs en
leur versant sur la tête l’eau à l’aide d’un fort belle coquille
Saint-Jacques. Là aussi, un certain mystère plane quant à l’origine
de ce vitrail. Enfin dernière curiosité de Saint-Servais que peuvent
admirer les visiteurs, les toiles de Yan’Dargent, peintre local du
XIX e siècle.

Le Télégramme
16 août 2004

Les costumes folkloriques, qu’ils soient bretons, biélorusses,
argentins ou arméniens, ne craignent pas les pluies
d’applaudissements. Ce serait plutôt le contraire.

Mais les trombes d’eau venues du ciel, alors là, c’est la cata…
Pourtant hier, le ciel n’est pas tombé sur la tête du défilé des
Nations, l’un des temps forts du festival, qui chaque année, fait de
Plozévet le carrefour mondial des cultures. Rues noires de monde,
pour un spectacle de danses slaves, sud-américaines ou bretonnes, à
même le macadam. A 14 h, le défilé s’est mis en marche sous un ciel
de traîne, un vrai temps de festival, disait le public. Il a pris son
temps pour descendre la grand’rue, amorcer le virage de l’église,
avant les premières gouttes annonciatrices. Les parapluies se sont
ouverts. Et soudain, la pluie, qui ne s’est plus arrêtée. Le défilé a
sauvé les meubles, le public s’est sauvé. Tant pis pour le deuxième
passage qui est tombé à l’eau…

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

El Pais
Ago 15, 2004

A UN PASO DE LA GLORIA Y DEL FRACASO

Ritmos etnicos, salsa, ‘hip-hop’, cantautores o rock. Todo un abanico
de propuestas en los festivales de agosto. Por Fernando Iniguez

Parecia que la historia se imponia. Cualquier villa o pueblo de mas
de 20.000 habitantes, a veces incluso menos, debia tener su festival
de musica. Podia buscarse cualquier pretexto para dotarlo de
contenido: un castillo famoso serviria para juntar a las nuevas
musicas; un claustro bien conservado o una plaza rustica, un festival
de ritmos etnicos; una playa o un desierto, un encuentro salsero o
una rave electronica, y una plaza de toros o un polideportivo
espacioso, un festival de rock con acampada incluida.

Al rebufo del exito de los festivales musicales que surgieron a
mediados de los noventa, como el rockero Festimad de Mostoles
(Madrid), los etnicos La Mar de Musicas de Cartagena (Murcia) o El
Pirineos Sur del Valle de Tena (Huesca), o el de pop independiente de
Benicassim (Castellon), la geografia espanola se poblo en agosto de
festivales. Algunos sobreviven a duras penas, otros han tenido que
dejar de celebrarse y muchos variar sus planteamientos iniciales para
hacerlos mas rentables.

Ayer mismo, 14 de agosto, coincidian varios festivales de diversos
contenidos.

En Sos del Rey Catolico (Zaragoza), la actuacion el sabado del
madrileno Antonio Vega en el Patio de la Lonja Medieval puso fin a la
tercera edicion del Festival Luna Lunera, que ha cobijado en esta
quincena una amplia y evolucionada propuesta de cancion de autor.
Luna Lunera se ha esforzado siempre por alejar el arquetipo de
cantautor del artista solitario y proteston de guitarrita y taburete,
y ha contado este ano con las actuaciones de Julieta Venegas, Javier
Ruibal, Los Secretos, Robyn Hitchcock, Peter Hammill, Distritocatorce
y Josele Santiago.

El del Castillo de Ainsa (Huesca) se ha inaugurado este ano para
bucear en un concepto unico: Musicas de Europa. Arranco el jueves con
Sargento Garcia y ofrece hasta el dia 21 un interesante abanico para
profundizar en las sonoridades de un territorio como el europeo que
se ha cruzado con miles de culturas diversas sin perder sus propias
raices. El armenio Arto Tuncboyaciyan, los irlandeses Kila o la
fanfarria gitana balcanica de Liliana Buttler & Mostar Sevdah Reunion
son algunas de las actuaciones programadas.

El rock duro protagonizo varios encuentros tambien anoche.

En Lorca (Murcia) se celebra la septima edicion de Lorca Rock que,
sin apenas difusion, sobrevive con buena salud. Para este ano han
conseguido la reunificacion de Europe, en la que sera la unica
actuacion en Espana de los creadores de The Final cowntdown.
(). La plaza de toros de Tomelloso (Ciudad
Real) acogio ayer el quinto Tomelloso Rock con un cartel pasado de
decibelios: Napalm Death, TerroriStars, Beholder o Mama Ladilla,
entre otros (). Roquetas de Mar (Almeria) monta,
desde este ano, Agosto Rock, un festival que ya ha pasado por miles
de dificultades antes de inaugurarse. Se divide en dos jornadas, la
primera el pasado viernes, con los leoneses Cooper de estrellas, y
Profesor Popsmuggle y Sujeto Pasivo; y la segunda el proximo sabado
21, con una mirada mas internacional: los ingleses Pleasure Beach o
Sidonie.

No muy lejos de Roquetas, en la playa de Villaricos de la localidad
almeriense de Cuevas de Almanzora, aparece el Creamfields 2004, un
festival de vanguardia inspirado por Cream, el celebre local
londinense que ha marcado tendencias en la cultura de clubes y musica
de baile desde hace mas de diez anos. Massive Attack son sus
estrellas, pero compiten en igualdad de condiciones con Fatboy Slimo
con reputados pinchadiscos como la francesa Miss Kittin o el
norteamericano Jeff Mills.

El proximo fin de semana, Aranda de Duero celebra la edicion de
Sonorama 2004, un festival que quiere convertirse en una especie de
Benicassim mesetario. El viernes 20 actuan Yani Como, Mastretta,
Astrid, Atom Rhumba y Sidonie. Al dia siguiente, el campo de futbol
arandino recibira a Sexy Sadie o Bebe, la revelacion de la temporada,
y a El Columpio Asesino y Big Soul, una actuacion que se declara ya
historica, pues supone el punto y final de su carrera, segun anuncia
el propio trio. En la otra punta de Espana, ese mismo sabado arranca
la primera edicion del Festival de Hip-Hop Canos de Meca, a celebrar
en la localidad gaditana del mismo nombre en el marco del cortijo El
Acebuchal. La Excepcion que Confirma la Regla, Hablando en Plata,
Juaninack y 5 Elementos expondran alli sus audaces rimas callejeras.

Pero mientras unos nacen y otros se mantienen, los hay que
desaparecen. El Festival Son Latinos (Tenerife), que reunio a 400.000
personas el ano pasado en la playa de las Vistas, ha sido suspendido
por las presiones de los ecologistas. Otros, como el Festival Serie
Z, ha cerrado por falta de dinero. A la espera de como vayan las
cosas con vista al verano de 2005, todos los festivales en curso, y
los que tuvieron lugar entre julio y primeros de agosto.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

La Stampa, Italia
August 14, 2004

OGNI ANNO SEI MILIONI DI PELLEGRINI SALGONO AL SANTUARIO SUI PIRENEI
La grotta delle guarigioni Sessanta i miracoli “”certificati”” dalla
Chiesa

Tosatti Marco

:
SEI milioni di pellegrini visitano ogni anno Lourdes, un villaggio
dei Pirenei dove nel 1858 una contadinella ignorante e votata alla
tubercolosi, Bernadette Soubirous, vide la Madonna vestita di bianco
che fece sgorgare una fontana d’acqua dalla grotta. Acqua miracolosa:
da allora migliaia di persone sono ritornate da Lourdes “”guarite””
in maniera inspiegabile dalle malattie che le affliggevano. La Chiesa
ha “”certificato”” solo 66 di questi presunti prodigi. Ci va con i
piedi di piombo: un po’ per diffidenza connaturata della gerarchia
ecclesiastica verso tutto cio’ che appare straordinario, un po’ per
il timore, piu’ che giustificato nella Francia dei Lumi e nel clima
di scetticismo regnante, di un effetto boomerang, se i controlli non
sono severi. E in effetti lo sono.

Dal 1927 e’ stata creata una Commissione internazionale, composta da
medici di diverse nazionalita’ e fedi (o nessuna fede) che ha il
compito di seguire per vari anni il decorso di coloro che si
ritengono guariti miracolosamente.

Ci sono due livelli di giudizio, dopo la prima segnalazione che il
“”miracolato”” fa all’Ufficio Medico di Lourdes. E passano parecchi
anni, e numerose visite, prima che arrivi il giudizio. L’ultimo caso
“”certificato”” riguarda Jean Pierre Be’ly, colpito nel 1972 da
sclerosi multipla. Riconosciuto invalido al cento per cento, aveva
diritto a un accompagnatore fisso. Nel 1987 ando’ a Lourdes, e per la
prima volta, dopo tre anni di letto, riusci’ a camminare. Il 9
febbraio ’99, dopo anni di osservazioni ed esami, si parlo’
ufficialmente di guarigione al di la’ dei confini della scienza.

Lo scorso anno qualche cosa di analogo accadde a una signora di Roma,
Giuliana Tofani Mangelli, 60 anni, che soffriva di una sindrome
semiparalizzante dei muscoli delle gambe, detta di Guillan-Barre’.
Era venuta a Lourdes per pregare non per se’ ma per suo marito
Raffaele, malato di un tumore al cervello. Mentre si trascinava
cercando di seguire la processione delle fiaccole “”proprio in
coincidenza di fronte a me del passaggio della statua della Madonna –
ha raccontato – mi sono sentita chiamare, un invito che diceva:
”cammina, cammina”. E’ cosi’ che e’ incominciata la mia nuova vita.

Le mie gambe, come liberate da enormi stivali carichi di cemento,
hanno cominciato ad avanzare, involontariamente, sembrava che il mio
cervello non le controllasse piu'””.

Giuliana faceva parte del pellegrinaggio della diocesi di Roma,
guidato dal cardinale Ruini, e organizzato dall’Opera Romana
Pellegrinaggi. “”Abbiamo visto quella signora sofferente, e quasi
incapace di reggere in mano le candele tanto la malattia l’aveva
consunta – ha detto il Presidente dell’Opera, monsignor Liberio
Andreatta – si e’ improvvisamente ripresa, lasciandoci tutti
sbigottiti””. Testimone dell’avvenimento anche Bruno Vespa, che
accompagnava l’anziana madre a Lourdes. Ora Giuliana Tofani e’
entrata nel raggio d’azione della Commissione medica internazionale.

Ogni giorno 120 mila litri d’acqua sgorgano dalla fonte della grotta
dove Bernadette si reco’ 16 volte a incontrare la Madonna e le chiese
nel suo dialetto (non si espresse mai bene in francese): “”Madame,
boulets aoue’ la bountat de me dise’ qui es?””, “”Signora, volete
avere la bonta’ di dirmi chi siete?””. “”Sono l’Immacolata
Concezione”” fu la risposta, che Bernadette ritornando a casa
continuo’ a ripetersi, temendo di dimenticarla, e ignorandone il
significato. Mori’ a 35 anni, soffrendo. “”I miracoli di Lourdes? Non
li ho mai visti””, disse.

Ma li videro molti altri, tra cui nomi come quelli di Huysmans,
Peguy, Mauriac, Cesbron. A Lourdes ha legato il suo nome Franz
Werfel, l’autore de “”I quaranta giorni del Mussa Dagh””, sul
genocidio armeno del 1915 a opera dei turchi. Werfel, ebreo, fuggiva
nel 1940 dall’invasione nazista della Francia, verso la Spagna e
l’America. Passo’ per Lourdes, e si ripromise, se lui e la sua
famiglia avessero raggiunto la salvezza, di scrivere una storia di
Bernadette. Oggi e’ una delle piu’ belle biografie della veggente.

Il culto di Lourdes e’ nato pero’ in un momento infelice del gusto
architettonico, e cio’ che si e’ costruito intorno alla grotta di
Massabielle costituiva, secondo Huysmans, una vendetta del Diavolo.

Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
August 8, 2004 Sunday, Home Final Edition

FICTION THE LAST DAY OF THE WAR;
HISTORICAL NOVEL AVOIDS USUAL PITFALLS

by Margaret Quamme, FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Judith Claire Mitchell’s assured first novel, The Last Day of the War
, neatly masters the historical novel’s biggest challenge: It breaks
through a potentially overwhelming tangle of events to focus on the
actions of a few well-defined characters and uses them to illuminate
a broader scene.

The novel wears its thorough research lightly, Mitchell never larding
The Last Day with details that don’t contribute to characters or
plot.

As World War I draws to a close, and after the official cessation of
hostilities, two young Americans become entangled in a Paris-based
plot to take revenge against the Turks, who massacred the Armenians
in 1915.

Nineteen-year-old Yael Weiss, a young woman with suffragette
leanings, meets U.S. intelligence officer Dub Hagopian, of Armenian
descent, in a St. Louis library.

There he has been scheduled to pick up weapons for Erinyes, the
secret vengeance organization run by the “old and maimed lion” Aram
Kazarian, who has had four fingers lopped off by the Turks.

Attracted to Dub and bored with St. Louis, Yael signs up with the Red
Cross in order to follow him to Europe, changing her name to Yale
White and listing her age as the required 25 and her religion as
Methodist.

On the boat to Europe, she is assigned alphabetically to room with
impetuous, ginger-haired Mary Brennan White, who is “thin as broth,
but hardly as dull” and flaunts her failed relationship with a
married man.

The two come into conflict with supervising matron Amo Winston, a
repressed former beauty cream saleswoman, who is constantly
“unsquinching” her eyes to avoid wrinkles; and with the unctuous Rev.
Alban Bliss, “an imposing man, large in the manner of President Taft,
his pink face composed mostly of cheeks and chins, his chest and
belly straining the buttons on his uniform, his roly-poly thighs
testing the inner seams of his jodhpurs.”

Their lives are later complicated by Dub’s thuggish friend Raffi,
whose life dream is “to be a full-time professional vengeance
seeker,” and by Raffi’s sister Ramela, who has barely survived the
Turkish atrocities, and whom Dub has promised to marry if she will
stop cutting and burning herself.

The scope of The Last Day is rare in a first novel. Each of the
characters is fully developed, and their interactions are thoroughly
believable. So is the world in which they live: It shapes the
characters just as they, in some small way, shape it.

Equally rare is Mitchell’s finely tuned pacing. Allotting each scene
enough time to unfold fully, but never bogging down the narrative in
incidents that don’t advance the action, she builds to a conclusion
as satisfying as it is unpredictable.

Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
August 12, 2004 Thursday FIFTH EDITION

“Ragtime’ risky business for Main Street

By Myra Yellin Outwater Special to The Morning Call – Freelance

Artistic risk for theater management is a relative term depending on
geography, ensemble, casting pool and audience.

Risky subject matter on Broadway could carry multi-million dollar
consequences; financial risk is less Off Broadway, where profit
ratios are smaller, audiences are less mainstream and filling seats
depends more on word of mouth.

The issues are different yet when talking risk in local theater.
Directors can’t just choose any play, they have to know that an
appropriate cast is available. And, to quote Harold Hill, “you gotta
know your territory,” meaning it is a brave or, perhaps, foolhardy
director who mounts a show without knowing how it will play.

That said, I admire Main Street Theatre Artistic Director Bill
Mutimer’s gutsy choice of “Ragtime,” which opened Wednesday at the
Quakertown theater. The 1998 Tony Award winning musical based on E.
L. Doctorow’s ambitious family saga takes a look at the social
changes of the 20th century. Its elaborate plot weaves together the
stories of three families — a family of northern blacks, a family of
Russian Jewish immigrants and an upper class WASP family. The
vignettes are held together with a wonderful sweeping score that
explores ragtime, a uniquely American form of music.

“Can you really do this show?” I asked Mutimer at a recent interview.
And the unflappable director replied with a big smile and the
confidence of a Barnum, “Of course!”

But, conceded Mutimer, he had several aces up his sleeve. First, his
casting problem was solved with the African Americans in his
38-member multi-racial ensemble. Cessalee Smith-Stovall has already
delighted audiences this summer in “Barnum,” “How to Succeed” and
“Mame.” Other African Americans performing in lead roles are Michael
Howard and Leo Sheridan.

In addition, Mutimer has cast Kate Varley and David Button from
DeSales University in two of the leading roles and Lori Sivick,
another local theater mainstay, in another.

“Some people have asked why don’t we just do the usual kinds of
summer musicals,” says Mutimer. “But this is such a wonderful show
and I don’t want to keep doing what everyone else does.”

So far this summer Mutimer has had a good track record presenting
seldom-produced Broadway musicals. The season opened with an
energetic “Barnum,” the offbeat Cy Coleman musical bio of Phineas T.
Barnum. Next came “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”

And now comes the most ambitious of the three. Not only does
“Ragtime” have a multi-racial cast, but it also has a sweeping story
line and many scenic changes, including a trip to the North Pole. The
cast must play real-life characters ranging from Harry Houdini, Emma
Goldman, Robert Peary, Harry Thaw, Stanford White and Evelyn Nesbitt,
the original “girl on the red velvet swing.”

Then there’s the need for period costumes for a large cast — the
original script calls for 60 players; Mutimer’s ensemble will play
double roles.

In order to create thematic unity, each family has its own color
scheme — white and navy for the WASPS, rusts and olives for the
African Americans and blacks and grays for the Jewish immigrants.
Mutimer is working with local costumer Scaramouche.

So with all these pluses, why is “Ragtime” such a risk?

“Our real problem, is that people don’t know this show and so it has
to be a big sell. People in this area seem to want to see shows that
they know. So tell them that the score is wonderful and it’s fun to
stage. We are even building Evelyn Nesbitt’s velvet swing.”

“Ragtime,” 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and Aug.
26, through Aug. 28, Main Street Theatre, 10 S. Main St., Quakertown.
Tickets: $20; $18, seniors, students; $12, Wednesday; $16, Sunday.
215-536-3545.

PERSONAL STORIES

Muhlenberg Summer Music Festival director Charles Richter also took a
risk this summer by presenting a new revue, “Made in America: Irving
Berlin,” which runs through Sunday. But what makes this show about
the immigration experience less risky is a well-known score of Irving
Berlin songs and New York professionals Shawn Churchman and David
Bishop running the show. In addition Churchman has brought along two
of his original cast members — Silva Mateosian and Mary Lou Barber.

Mateosian says it was her professional friendship with Churchman that
got her her first role in the show when it premiered two years ago in
Stamford, Conn. But it was her Armenian ancestry which got her the
callback to reprise the role in Allentown.

“There aren’t a lot of Armenians in the theater,” says Mateosian, who
plays a shy, nave Armenian immigrant. Mateosian morphs from an Old
World European dressed in a shawl singing “God Bless America” to a
show-stopping flapper dressed in black sequins who heats up the tempo
with a flirtatious rendition of a lesser known Berlin romp, “I Left
the Door Open and My Daddy Walked In.”

“When I was first cast in the show, I thought we would just be
singing some Berlin lyrics and all we had to do was learn some new
songs,” says Mateosian. “But soon Shawn started asking us to go and
research our own families and come back with stories. I learned a lot
about my family and Shawn used a lot of my stories.”

Mateosian says her father was Armenian and her mother was born “a
true blue American.” She knew that her grandmother was a survivor of
the Armenian genocide in Turkey, and that her father came to this
country at the age of 23. But she did not know she could trace her
theatrical talents to her mother’s side. Her maternal grandfather was
a dentist who also toured in minstrel companies. He played a woman
because he was a small man. “He developed a funny alter ego named
Sadie,” says Mateosian, adding her maternal grandmother was part of a
family orchestra that played in theaters in the days of the silent
movies.

“Made in America: Irving Berlin,” 8 p.m. today through Saturday, 2
p.m. Sunday, ends Sunday. Muhlenberg College, Trexler Pavilion, 24th
and Chew streets, Allentown. Tickets: $28; $25, seniors; $15, youth.
484-664-3333.

Myra Yellin Outwater is a freelance arts writer and member of New
York’s Drama Desk, a group of journalists who bestow the annual Drama
Desk Awards.

Go Guide Editor Jodi Duckett

[email protected]

LANCASTER NEW ERA (LANCASTER, PA.)
August 13, 2004, Friday

Name game: What’s in a name?

by Pam Hagen

FAMILY AND FRIENDS are well aware of my addiction to family research,
so the topic inevitably comes up at social gatherings. One frequent
topic of conversation is the origin of their last name, or surname.

Many people know the origin of their surname. If you are lucky, your
surname reveals important information about your immigrant ancestors,
such as their ethnicity (Gonzales), country or area of origin
(England, Hill), occupation (Shoemaker, Carpenter), even personality
characteristics (Stern) or a physical description (Short). If you are
not so lucky and have a very ethnic name, the real challenge may be
sorting out the many possible spellings and which one was the
original.

What’s in a name? More specifically, what’s in your name?

Surnames were first used between the 12th and 16th centuries in
Europe. In the past 600 years, many names have changed, some a little
and others radically. Is a BIRD by any other name still a BIRD?
Perhaps not.

Some American BIRDs may have started as FOGEL (German for “bird”) or
L’OISEAU (French for “bird”) before immigrating to English-speaking
countries where their surnames were eventually translated. Some
FOGELs became VOGELs along the way. Then there are the BIRD, BYRD,
BIRT, BORDT and, of course, the LOISEAU and FOGEL families who never
changed their names. Does that make Larry Bird, former Boston Celtic,
Larry Loiseau? Probably not.

A side note about the capitalization of SURNAMES: Genealogists do
this to prevent confusion of the first name with the last name.
Consider “Henry James.” If we didn’t know better, this could be a
first and middle name and no surname. Or perhaps someone omitted a
comma, so it should read “Henry, James.” To make it clear to future
researchers (and ourselves), we write Henry JAMES. Writing last names
in all capital letters also makes surnames easier to find when
scanning a family tree or genealogical history.

You may already know the ethnicity of your surname but not the exact
country. What appears to be a German name may have its origins
outside of modern-day Germany. For example, my dear mother-in-law
Weiss insisted her parents immigrated from somewhere in Germany.
After I located her father’s immigration and naturalization papers, I
had to break the news to her that her parents were, in fact, German
Lutherans who lived outside Warsaw, Poland. For almost 80 years,
because of faulty oral family tradition, she believed her parents
immigrated from Germany. It’s been 15 years, and she still doesn’t
believe they were Polish!

Tracing the original spelling of some ethnic names can be a real
challenge. Some of our European ancestors had names difficult to
understand and even more difficult to spell. Many could not speak
English and some were illiterate, making it impossible for them to
communicate the correct spelling of their surname to English-speaking
listeners. Many names were immediately misspelled and forever changed
by English-speaking record keepers. One of our family names is
PFERSCHING. The oddest spelling I have found is FOERSING, and the
most familiar is PERSHING. But they are all the same family. Never
discredit a spelling just because it isn’t the way the name is
spelled today.

Sometimes the immigrant Anglicized the spelling himself after too
many frustrating experiences. For example, SCHMITT became SMITH. And
finally, some immigrants completely changed their name. I had a
first-generation American-born Armenian friend in college by the name
of MILLER. MILLER? That’s an Armenian name? She patiently explained
that her name translated from Armenian into English meant “miller.”
Pity her future family historian!

Soundex is helpful in figuring out these misspellings. Soundex is a
system that drops out the vowels in a surname and uses only the
consonants, grouping together consonants that are often confused with
each other.

Many database search engines use this system, including the Social
Security Death Index. I would never have found my husband’s
PFERSCHING ancestor in the census index if it weren’t for Soundex,
which came up with FOERSING.

Pamela Hagen is a research assistant at the Lancaster County
Historical Society. Send your questions about how to trace your
family’s history to “It’s All Relative,” Lancaster County Historical
Society, 230 N. President Ave., Lancaster, PA 17603. The columnists
will not be able to answer each letter personally. Process-related
questions will be answered in a future column. For additional
information on genealogy or the historical society’s research
services, consult their Web site at

Pasadena Star-News, CA
Aug 16 2004

Church blesses grapes

Father Nareg Pehlivanian performs a blessing of the grapes at Saint
Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church in Pasadena on Sunday. The ceremony
took place in celebration of an Aug. 15 feast day honoring the
assumption of St. Mary into heaven. Roza Balyon and Knarik
Chaparioin, bottom left, grab a bag of blessed grapes at the Pasadena
church. The blessing of the grapes, a fruit used to make wine, is
symbolic in the church as the blood of Jesus. Nevait Der Ohanessiam
of Pasadena buys nuts from Kevork Babasan, bottom right, at the
church’s street fair to celebrate the Blessing of the Grapes festival
Sunday.