Countries Archives: Armenia

Armenia–Music

Much like its Azeri and Georgian neighbors, Armenia has a long, rich history during which its music has had the the chance to establish deep, resonant roots. Today’s Armenian music is a mix of ancient Church liturgy, super-ancient pre-Christian chants, relatively new indigenous folk (only centuries old) and raucously ultra-modern Euro-pop that draws substantially on what came before. Unlike Azerbaijan and Georgia, due to emigration following the early 20th century Armenian genocide in Eastern Turkey (look for details above), substantial populations of Armenians live and create music not only in their homeland but in many communities abroad.

The oldest Armenian music predates Christianity and takes the form of melodic chants known as sharakans, recorded in a homegrown musical notation called khaz that described melodies and modes by noting a voice’s pitch, duration and strength. According to Wikipedia, while some of these chants are ancient, “others are relatively modern, including several composed by Saint Mesrop Mashtots.” (What Wikipedia doesn’t mention is that “modern” Saint Mashtots was born in the year 360 A.D.) For about fifteen hundred years after Christianity appeared in Armenia the nation’s primary public music was religious in nature, at least until composer and musicologist Komitas Vardapet (1869-1916) traveled into the Armenian highlands and collected thousands of folk tunes to share with his countrymen. After the 1915 genocide in Turkey, Armenians who spread around the globe played this folk music as a way to remember and honor their cultural homeland. (In class we’re going to sing “Hele Hele Hele,” an Armenian folk song reinterpreted by Armenian-American oud master, Richard Hagopian. Watch Hagopian and his oud in action.)

Today’s Armenian artists respect their nation’s thousands of years of musical tradition but they also find inspiration in music from around the world. One of the most popular, and controversial, new Armenian musical genres is called rabiz, which blends Armenian folk with melodic modern pop. Not everyone approves. For example, at the time of this writing Wikipedia’s entry on the music of Armenia says, “Rabiz music is distinguished by low quality of lyrics and music with elements of Armenian folk music, though often deformed to such an extent that are becoming more similar to Arabic or Turkish ethnic music not Armenian.” Rabiz is known as “laborer’s music,” a genre of pop that captivates Armenian
youth both in Armenia and abroad, especially in Armenian communities throughout Russia and in Los Angeles. Both creators and fans of the catchy dance pop have developed their own street-level fashion and fast-moving, partying lifestyle. One of the giants of ribaz is Tata Simonyam, who is becoming an international pop star. We’ll embrace the spirit of ribaz and party with Tata below.

In class we’re going to listen to:

—
Tata Simonyan, “Karapner”
Tata Simonyan, known as “Tata” to his fans, is Armenian rabiz music’s most poplar international
star. Not only Tata has won award after musical award in Armenia and Russia, but he has toured extensively, bringing his energetic form of Armenian pop to fans around the world from 45 Russian cities to a much-anticipated 2010 show at the Los Angeles Staples Center. (sounds like it was fun.) Watch Tata rock the house on “Karapner” (were you at the show? were you the fan in the front row who handed him a strange thing shaped like a chicken?)

—
Shovkat Alakbarova, “Qizlar Mahnisi”

Shovkat Alakbarova rose
from humble beginnings as the daughter of an Azeri laborer to become one of Soviet Azerbaijan’s most widely revered singers. Officially recognized as, “People’s Artist,” Alakbarova toured the world throughout the 20th century introducing global audiences to the wonder of Azeri traditional song. The government of Azerbaijan marked her 1993 passing with a televised state funeral.

More about Shovkat Alakbarova:
A final conversation with Shovkat: “There are people that I have never seen even on a single occasion, but they have a great love and esteem for me. Can there be any greater luck than this?” | A severely pixelated Shovkat sings in Baku in 1982 to celebrate her ’60s birthday

The Southern Caucasus–Music

The music of the Southern Caucasus has its roots in two thousand years of cultural, ethnic and religious struggle, its mere survival a testament to the persistence and communal strength of Georgian, Azeri and Armenian people. While contemporary musicians from the Caucasus readily embrace global genres, especially those who live in emigrant communities in America and Europe, artists who perform the region’s traditional music know that when they’re passing their ancient music to a new generation, they’re doing much more than just singing songs.

Armenia–Language

If you’re planning to move to Armenia you’d better get yourself in gear and learn Armenian–at least if you intend to communicate with an estimated 97.7% of your friends. Unlike Azeri, which is related to Turkish, and Georgian, which is related to no known languages outside the region, Armenian is one of the most ancient, and most independent, branches of the Indo-European language group family tree. Armenian is the only surviving Indo-European language that is related equally to both Eastern (Persian) and Western (Greek) branches of the tree. The Armenian language is a literal linguistic
bridge between East and West. (Visit this flashing musical site about the Armenian
alphabet . Click on each letter to hear a different Armenian song.)

In class we’re going to say hello in Georgian and goodbye in Armenian

Hello in Georgian: Garmarjoba
Goodbye in Armenian: Ts’tesutyun

The Southern Caucasus–Language

One one hand, sharing a language can do more than almost anything else to unite a group of people. When you speak a certain language, those in your community not only understand your words, but in many cases you are able to share nuances of history and culture that exist, unspoken, beneath. On the other hand, those who don’t speak the same language…? You may be able to communicate through nods and smiles, but you’ll be much less inclined to break bread. Each of the three countries in the Southern Caucasus has its own language, a common tongue that allows members of the primary ethnic group that dominates the nation to understand one another and build between each other the strongest of bonds. At the same time, the language of each nation in the Caucasus is not a tongue that others in the region can understand. If you’re from Azerbaijan and speak Azeri, go too far along the winding mountain road and you’ll end
up in Georgia, where you may well have to get by on hand gestures and goodwill.

The Southern Caucasus–Travel

LonelyPlanet.com is pretty darned sure you’ll have an enriching travel experience in the Southern Caucasus. Stay away from the areas in active conflict, maintain a good sense of humor and an open mind, and each of the three nations in the Southern Caucases will offer different pleasures. In Azerbaijan you’ll no doubt visit Baku, an oil-rich, Western-paced boomtown layered upon “a picturesque Unesco-listed ancient core.” At the same time, while its rural “rest-zones” are mainly built to accommodate locals, a creative and persistent traveler who leaves Baku will find culturally satisfying fun. (If you want a real adventure, and there doesn’t happen to be an active war, venture to functionally inaccessible Nagorno-Karabakh.) Georgia is “outrageously beautiful” and charms a traveler with its ancient cathedrals and mountain views. If you want to go to Armenia–and if you’re in the neighborhood anyway, why not drop by?–and you can
shear yourself away from the overdeveloped tourist infrastructure that caters to diaspora Armenians on a visit to their homeland, you’ll find Armenians to be “gracious, humble and easygoing people,” who will invite you to dinner, then toast you, feed you and revel in your company until you emerge from the evening lifelong friends.

The Southern Caucasus–Images

Visitors to the Southern Caucasus who post their photos on flickr.com seem to love buildings. There are apparently buildings in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, in the Azeri capital of Baku and even, if you can believe such a thing, in the Armenian city of Yerevan. Okay, on Flickr you’ll also find thousands upon thousands of exciting images of Azerbaijan, Georgia (search for “Tiblisi” so you don’t get pictures of the Real Housewives of Atlanta), and Armenia that turn the lens on everything from Azerbaijanis dancing the dilşadi to Armenians deep in prayer.

Still, if you want a local’s view of you may have take to the photoblogs. For example, David Chabashvili’s “LuxFabrica”, found in the Georgian section of CoolPhotoBlogs.com, will introduce you to a Georgia that’s nation full of both natural and manmade wonders. Tbilisi-based photoblogger Fiqros Furclebi’s work runs the gamut from colorful closeups of Georgian flowers to spare black and white images of rural life. Furclebi’s accompanying text is in Georgian, but when the photo is of a face like this, what else needs to be said? Want to see a photoblog that grants you a sneak peek into the daily life of Armenia? Photoblogs.am gives you 20 of them. Especially check out the work of Dr. Hovulik and Dr. Harout Tanielian, both of who take frequent breaks from doctoring to snap photos of both the Armenian landscape and the vibrant faces of its people.

Armenia

According to Armenian legend the ancestor of all Armenian people was Haik, great-great-grandson of the Noah, he of the Ark. Just a few generations after the Great Flood, after Noah and all those pairs of animals emerged from an ark on Mt. Ararat (which, by the way, you can visit when you go to Armenia), Haik unified his kinsmen into one nation and started a several thousand year Armenian history full of strength and struggle. Whether or not there was ever a Haik–or, for that matter, a Noah, or a flood–Armenia has several millennia of past behind it.

Armenia is the longest-standing Christian nation in the world. The nation adopted Christianity in 301 A.D. while it was still part of the Roman Empire, and formed the still-independent Armenian Apostolic Church. Armenia became a Persian territory, then Byzantine, then Persian again, then Ottoman, Persian, Ottoman, Persian, Ottoman…between 1513 and 1737 the Armenian city of Yerevan changed leadership fourteen times. In the early 1800s the Russian took charge and controlled Armenia until World War I.

The Russians just ruled the land we now know as Armenia. Many Armenians still lived in the Ottoman Empire and faced some very difficult times. Refer to our section on the Armenian Genocide [the “so-called” Armenian Genocide?] below. An estimated seven million Armenians, mostly descendants of those who fled during the Genocide, now live in many countries around the world, as opposed to 3 1/2 million who live in Armenia.

When the Russian Empire fell apart during World War I Armenia joined Azerbaijan and Georgia in the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. After that initiative failed, Armenia struggled (Wikipedia on the Georgian-Armenian War of 1918 | Wikipedia on the Armenian-Azerbaijani War of 1918 | Wikipedia on the Turkish-Armenian War of 1920) before becoming part of the USSR.

In 1991 Armenia emerged from a failed USSR as an independent nation, but, as we touched upon above, stepped right into war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. (The New York Times calls it, “a phantom state.”) After years of fighting tensions have eased, but with Azerbaijan still considering the 95% Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh part of its land, we’ll no doubt be hearing news from that part of the Caucasus again. (Armenians and Azeris don’t just fight over territory. They fight over songs.)

Despite all these trials, even after having endured (and initiated) wars upon wars, not only have the people of the three now-independent nations of the South Caucasus not lost hope, but they continue to demonstrate a resilience and surprising sense of grace–look through the images we’ve gathered below and listen to their stirring music and you’ll surely get that sense. Still, there is a lot of peace still to be made in the region; a new Transcaucasian Federation isn’t likely any time soon.

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE(?):
(Disclaimer: this is a very grown-up topic, and one you may want to decide how you’ll address before talking about it with your kids.)

If you ask most Armenians, there’s no question. Yes, there was a genocide and yes, it was awful, They may call it the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres, or even The Great Crime. Whatever one calls it, according to Ottoman population rolls, in 1915 there were about 1.25 million Armenians living in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire (now eastern Turkey); by 1917, the number had dropped to around 280,000. Others suggest there were two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire when WWI started and only 1/2 million afterward. What happened to all those Armenians?

If you ask the Turkish government, and also many Turks, you’ll get a nuanced response. Yes, there used to be over a million Armenians in Turkey and surely the years of World War I, especially between 1915 and 1917, were terrible for them. Yes, the Ottoman government at the time–led by a group called The Young Turks, who had wrested control of the failing empire from the Ottoman Sultan in 1908–forcibly deported an estimated million Armenians to Syria starting in 1915, and yes, a large number of Armenians are agreed to have died en route. But were there really massacres on the scale Armenians claim? And, even if so, was this action by the Ottoman government an organized attempt to eradicate the Armenian people–hence, the term “genocide”–or did the Ottomans act legitimately against the Armenians who they believed to support Russia, the Ottomans’ enemy in the War?

Since the Ottoman-Armenian deportations began in 1915 Ottoman (then Turkish) leaders have denied they were systematically trying to decimate their Armenian population. In recent years they have especially opposed the use of the term “genocide.” In response, Armenians have asserted that the Turks’ unwillingness to use the term “genocide” continues the dehumanization of their people. Armenian organizations and their international supporters have been able to get about 20 countries even over 40 U.S. states to formally recognize “the Armenian Genocide,” and in 2010 a U.S. congressional panel even agreed to use the word “genocide” to describe what happened to the Armenians at that time. (Though, according to Wikipedia’s entry entitled “Armenian Genocide,” “within minutes the Turkish government issued a statement critical of ‘this resolution which accuses the Turkish nation of a crime it has not committed.'”) In commemorating the April 24 observance of the events, President Obama didn’t use the word “genocide.” Instead, he referred to what happened by its Armenian synonym, “Metz Eghern.”

As recently as 2005 Turkey adopted Article 301 into its legal code, making illegal any insults to Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity or Turkish government institutions. The government has since used it to charge prominent Turks with insulting Turkey by publicly discussing the fate of the Armenians. In 2005 Turkish novelist and eventual Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk said in Swiss newspaper interview, “Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do.” That reference was enough to inspire charges against Pamuk under Article 301. In 2011, after the charges were dropped then reinstated, Pamuk had to pay a several thousand dollar fine.

Was the “Metz Eghern” a genocide? Armenian-Genocide.org’s “Genocide FAQ” certainly believes so. So does one of the Young Turks’ grandsons, publicly flaunting Article 301. Ataturk.com, a site extolling the virtues of “father of Turkey,” Mustafa “Ataturk” Kemal disagrees. Do you?

The Southern Caucasus–History

The very first question we should ask ourselves before we consider the Southern Caucasus in our West Asia/Middle Eastern session is whether three countries really are part of Western Asia at all. As you’ll see from the several hundred comments on this About.com page in response to that question (most of which are respectful and able to be shared with kids, but be aware, some are not), there is certainly room for debate. Most often geographers cite the Caucasus as a boundary between Europe and Asia, with land north of the mountains being European and below it Asian. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia are mainly in the mountains…but they’re on the southern side of the Caucasus, below the highest peaks. Which would mean they’re in Asia, right? Or is the Southern Caucasus still the Caucasus and therefore on the line…? The three countries in question
boast many cultural and religious ties to Europe–for example, Georgian and Armenian
citizens are primarily Christian–and there is much to the argument that primary elements of the nations’ economies are similar to those in place in Europe, not to mention the countries want to join the European Union…but does shared culture and even desire to be part of a continent make that inclusion so?

All Around This World doesn’t have any interest in taking sides. Still, for our purposes we’re including Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia in West Asia so we can focus on them a bit more than would have been been possible if we tried to lump them into our session on Eastern Europe. If you’re Azeri, Georgian or Armenian and you also you’re also firmly European…right on!

Now that we’ve made that call, let’s get on with it….

If you’re shopping for a place to locate your small country you may very well consider plunking it down in picturesque mountains, or next to a bountiful sea, or, if you have the chance, both. If you’re particularly crafty, you’ll also place your country above a massive pool of oil, or at least right in between oil fields and hundreds of millions of people who want to use it. Of course to keep your claim on such prime real estate you may have to face some challenges, perhaps deal with some raucous neighbors…but really, who doesn’t?

Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia are located in just that kind of neighborhood, way up in the Caucasus mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas. In many ways, that’s not a bad place to be. (Azerbaijan is the one with the oil. Lucky Azerbaijan…?) On the other hand, the “raucous neighbors” in question were historically three of the world’s most powerful (and most-prone-to-conquer) empires: the Persians, the Ottomans and the Russians. Each nation of the Caucasus has spent centuries under Persian, Ottoman and/or Russian rule. Even so, the countries of the South Caucasus are now independent and the Persian, Ottoman and, to a lesser extent, the Russian Empires are a thing of
the past. With the many difficult times these nations have faced because of their location, is holding on to one’s homeland worth the struggle? Read through the below and you’ can be the judge.

Each of the three nations of the Southern Caucasus has its own language, its own culture and its own history. Each also has its own long list of historic struggles, and each has had to face them and press ahead in its own unique way. The three have often had the inclination to unite–first in an unsuccessful attempt after World War I to form the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, then, within the USSR, as part of the Transcaucasian Federation, which disbanded in 1936–but unfortunately, as of late, each of these little countries has also had a hard time getting along with each other.

Hele Hele

COUNTRY: Armenia
LANGUAGE: Armenian

Found on the Smithsonian Folkways Richard Hagopian recording, “Armenian Music Through the Ages.” Hagopian starts singing starts at 1:12.

Lyrics of All Around This World version (a loose translation):

There’s going to be a party and everyone’s invited Hele hele hele ninnay eh
That’s going to be a party it will last all night, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
At least until we all get tired, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
Which nowadays is about 7:30, Hele hele hele ninnay eh

What is a farm and what is a garden?, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
What is stopping and what is starting?, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
The fruit’s so sweet on the tallest tree, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
If I can’t reach it how sweet is it to me?, Hele hele hele ninnay eh

There’s going to be a party and everyone’s invited, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
There’s going to be a party it will last all night, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
We’ll go to bed at the break of dawn, Hele hele hele ninnay eh
Who am I kidding? We’ll be be asleep by 9, Hele hele hele ninnay ey

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