By Cynthia Citron
LOS ANGELES — If you’re Armenian you’ll love Komitas. If you’re not, the play may seem a little obscure. It’s the story of a 19th century musicologist who made it his life’s work to collect the music of his country—the folk songs, the liturgy, the classics—so that they would remain pure and free from the myriad influences of other cultures that had invaded and settled in the country throughout its history.
“Song is a crimson thread woven through our culture,” he says. “But the Armenian heart is not ours alone. It is Syrian and Indian and Persian.
In addition, Komitas was a composer and a priest, a teacher, and the founder and conductor of an acclaimed national choir.
In Lilly Thomassian’s play, now having its world premiere at the Circle X Theater in Atwater Village, Komitas’ life is presented in a loose, back and forth manner, interspersed with dreams and fantasies and doubts. Jesse Einstein, who plays Komitas with earnest devotion, is often joined onstage by Arthur Parian, who plays his younger, orphaned self.
Komitas was a rebel who was indulged by the church even as he went his own way. But he maintained his loyalty even after he fell in love with the beautiful singer, Margaret (Gina Manziello). Manziello’s glorious voice brings the plaintive Armenian music to life, and the Armenians in the audience, who understood the words, to tears.
The historical period that Komitas lived through comes to a head in 1915 during the brutal genocide fomented by the Turks, (“There is deep sorrow that characterizes our Armenian soul,” he says) and the events through which he suffered eventually drove him mad. He spent the final 20 years of his life in total silence in a mental institution in Paris.
Despite the occasional comments in Armenian, the play, which is a historical documentary as well as a touching love story, is easily understood, if a trifle too long and repetitious.
Director Pavel Cerny has done a skillful job of telling Komitas’ story while adding some distinctive touches: for example, half a dozen players evoke the long death march instigated by the Turks by stamping their feet rhythmically in place for long minutes. It’s an effectively chilling moment.
Further, the nine ensemble players continually morph into other characters, making lightning-fast costume changes as they represent dozens of different individuals.
The ensemble acting is generally good, and Jesse Einstein, who remains onstage for the full two-and-a-half hours, is especially commendable in the lead.
It’s an interesting and absorbing play, but as I indicated earlier, it helps if you’re Armenian.
Komitas, produced by the Armenian Cultural Movement, will continue at the Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Avenue, in Los Angeles, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 6 through August 19th. Call (818) 551-1234 for reservations.
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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief of San Diego Jewish World. She may be contacted at cynthia.citron@sdjewishworld.com
By the way Miller is the same as guy as ERGUN he uses Miller when hes exposed, same Garbage, just do your own reading and all of his statements fall apart.
Remember; First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic, Hovhannes Katchaznouni’s own manifesto under the name of “Dashnagtzoutiun has nothing to do anymore” in Bucharest in April 1923 (was found in Russian arhives) is saying that there was no genocide took place. The Armenian volunteer units were unconditionally allied with Russia, they massecred the Muslim population , Turkey had acted with an instict of self-defence and Turks have no reason to regret today..This is the manifesto of the first Armenian Prime Minister in 1923. (Translated from the original by Mathew A.Callender,Edited by John Roy Carlson (Arthur A.Derounian) ,published by the Armenian Information Service, suite 7D, 471 Park Avenue, New York 22. 1955) (Note: its copies were removed from the libraries in Europe by the Dashnagziun members, this document was found in Lenin Library in Moscow.)
There is a long list of authoritative Western Historians who reject the “genocide” label for the 1915 events. And contrary to the claims of Armenian Propagandists, their “genocide scholars” are not the “world authority” on genocide that they often claim to be. Overwhelming historical evidence shows that Armenian Revolutionaries were responsible for the torture and death of tens of thousands of innocent Moslem Turkish Civilians. This is the primary reason why so many Authoritative Western historians reject the “genocide” label for the subsequent events. Armenian Propagandists should stop tampering with legitimate American political processes, stop pressuring our legislators with their powerful lobbies and money, and leave them to confront the real problems facing the nation at this difficult time.
The list below is a partial list of Non-Turkish Western Historians who reject the “genocide” label for the 1915 events:
1. William Batkay, Associate Professor at Montclair State University
2. Arend-Jan Boekestein, Professor International Relations at Utrecht University and also Member of Parliament in The Netherlands
3. Levon Panos Dabagyan, Armenian historian and writer
4. Roderic Davidson (RIP), former Professor at George Washington University
5. Paul Dumont, Professor at Strasbourg-II University, Director of the Institut Français d’études Anatoliennes (French Institute of Anatolian Studies, Istanbul)
6. Gwynne Dyer, Ph.D. in Ottoman Military History
7. Edward J. Erickson, Ph.D. in Ottoman Military History, Researcher at Birmingham University
8. David Fromkin, Professor at Boston University
9. Edwin A. Grosvenor
10. Michael M. Gunter, Professor at Tennessee University
11. E.Y. Hooijmaaijers, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
12. J.C. Horowitz, former Professor at Columbia University
13. Eberhard Jäckel, Professor Emeritus at Stuttgart University
14. Steven T. Katz
15. Avigdor Levy, Professor at Brandeis University
16. Bernard Lewis, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University
17. Guenter Lewy, Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts University
18. Heath Lowry, Professor at Princeton University
19. Andrew Mango, Researcher at University of London
20. Peter Mansfield, Professor of Middle East Politics at Willamette University, Oregon
21.Robert Mantran (RIP), former Professor of Turkish and Ottoman History at Aix-Marseille University
22. Justin McCarthy, Professor at Louisville University
23. Pierre Nora, former Professor at School of High Studies in Social
Sciences (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris), Member of the French Academy
24. Pierre Oberling, Professor at Hunter College
25. Dankwart Rostow
26. Jeremy Salt, Professor of Political Science at Melbourne University
27. Stanford J. Shaw (RIP), former Professor at UCLA and Bilkent University
28. Philip H. Stoddard, Ph.D. in Ottoman Military History
29. Norman Stone, Professor at Bikent University
30. Dr. Hew Strachan (Ph.D), Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford University ( labels the issue “still not clear” )
31. Gilles Veinstein, Professor at Collège de France
32. Annette Wieviorka, Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris)
33. Dr. Malcolm Yapp Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of The Modern History of Western Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London
34. Robert F. Zeidner, Ph.D. in Ottoman Military History
35. Many others…
How can factual Holocaust be the same as bogus genocide? Did Jews establish Jewish armies behind German lines, kill noncombatant German citizens in order o establish a Jewish state on German soil during WWII? Were Jews involved in terrorism, raids, rebellions, treason, territorial demands from Germany, or kill half a million Germans during WWII? Ottoman-Armenians committed all those heinous war crimes and more during WWI. Wouldn’t equating the two be untrue and unethical? And an insult to the silent memory of the Jewish victims of Holocaust?
Nazi-Armenians passionately Helped Hitler during WWII: Just google the words “Armenian Nazis”. You will see the 20,000 strong Armenian-Nazi 812nd battallion. Armenian Nazi party operated radio stations in Armenia during the 1930s. They were passionate killers of Jews during WWII —just like they were during WWI in Anatolia and the Caucasus. The Armenian-Nazi 812nd battallion were later rewarded for their criminal anti-semitic acts by being transported all the way to Holland to help with”processing” of Jews there. Perhaps even those “dark skinned” Nazis who arrested Anne Frank’s family were Armenians.
Armenian genocide is a long discredited, biased, and political claim. According to 1948 UN Convention, intent must be proven after due process at a competent tribunal for a genocide verdict to stand. No such tribunal (a la Nuremberg) was convened and no genocide verdict exists. Insisting on a non-existing label, purely based on a racist and dishonest version of history, boils down to lynching. When the six T’s of the Turkish-Armenian conflict are all truthfully considered, it will be obvious that it was a inter-communal warfare fought by Christian and Muslim irregulars. Truth should not be a fodder to newspaper ratings, political support, or other such benefits.
Even if you arent a paid lobbyist you are still a career lobbyist and Genocide denier, if you were in Germany and denied the holocaust you would be brought up on charges. You are lucky the world was asleep while the Ottoman Turks carried out the first mass extermination of race in their own homeland.
Komitas is known for his support for the Armenian terrosists which qualifies him as one of the notorious “gun toting” priests.
What this article is doing is part of a larger “social reconstruction”, a term referring to the attempts to build a public memory based on social acts, not history’s facts.
To see this clearly, please take a look, for example, at this incredible photo at http://www.ETHOCIDE.com which single-handedly refutes the entire Armenian narrative. Taken in 1906, it depicts cadets in uniform at an Armenian Military Academy in Bulgaria. The Armenian cadets are proudly posing while brandishing their Russian-made MOSIN rifles. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation used these weapons since 1893 to kill Muslims, mostly Turks, a issue which is never mentioned in the “official Armenian narrative.” This photo is the tiny needle that bursts the “genocide balloon”.
Do these people in the photo look like “poor, starving, unarmed, helpless Armenians” to anyone? And who ever mentions the poor souls killed by these Armenians and their rifles? How come no one writes or even wonders about them? This is called bias and bigotry combining to censor the other side of the story.
This simple, unassuming photo is a “smoking gun” of sorts, that destroys the house of cards the Armenians built in their genocide claims, that Armenians were always loyal, hardworking citizens who never betrayed their country; that they never had armies or guns because they were “poor, starving, unarmed” masses; that the Armenians never posed a threat; and that everything happened one day on April 24, 1915 without provocation; The Armenian myth is blown with a single photo…
Ergun are you the same Ergun thats a paid lobbyist for Turkey?
Just google the name Ergun Kirlikovali and you will see who this vile person is who speaks ill of the dead and those who had no chance to defend themselves.
Komitas was never a gun toting priest, I have never heard of such nonsense, he never lifted a finger against the murderous backstabbing Turk. I have also never seen so many fallacies and lies in one place with this Ergun characters words.
The article stands in the correct place, for those who are interested do your own study into Komitas and see what a beautiful character he was and how much contributed to the world culture not just Armenian culture, listen to his music and see for yourself.