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memories of my ghost sista

~ the dead are never satisfied

memories of my ghost sista

Tag Archives: Armenian Genocide

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the children of arba lijoch

19 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by babylon crashing in quote unquote

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Arba Lijoch, Armenian Genocide, Haile Selassie, jah and armenia, Metz Yeghern, Poetry, reblog, sonnet

gyumriboy:

ghostsista:

— for Kwame Dawes

Crown Prince Ras Tafari brought the children
of Arba Lijoch out of the desert —

Orphans who became Ethiopian,
who sang of the Metz Yeghern, the Great Hurt;

composed, “Marsh Teferi,” the first music
Marcus Garvey heard while in audience.

I, too, have heard of, “Natural mystic
blowing/ through the air,”
Ararat’s fragrance

in each word. I’m told, Babylon crashing.
Where in Kingston is the orchestral sound

of Addis Ababa? — I listen — I
listen, but the dance halls tell me nothing.

The ghosts of Van hang low in the background.
Who will sing their song? Tell their prophesy?

Notes:
Arba Lijoch were a group of forty Armenian orphans who had escaped from the 1915 atrocities in Turkey, and were afterwards adopted by Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. He had met them while visiting the Armenian monastery in Jerusalem; they impressed him so much that he obtained permission from the head of the Armenian church, the Catholicos, to adopt and bring them to Ethiopia, where he then arranged for them to receive musical instruction. The Arba Lijoch arrived in the capital city, Addis Ababa, in 1924, and along with their conductor, Kevork Nalbandian, became the first official orchestra of the nation. Nalbandian also composed the music for Marsh Teferi (words by Yoftehé Negusé), which was the Imperial National Anthem from 1930 to 1974. Metz Yeghern is the Armenian word for their Great Calamity, their genocide.

the children of arba lijoch

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Poetry, sonnet

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Tags

Addis Ababa, Arba Lijoch, Armenia, Armenian Genocide, Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, Kwame Dawes, poem, Poetry, sonnet

— for Kwame Dawes

Crown Prince Ras Tafari brought the children
of Arba Lijoch out of the desert —

Orphans who became Ethiopian,
who sang of the Metz Yeghern, the Great Hurt;

composed, “Marsh Teferi,” the first music
Marcus Garvey heard while in audience.

I, too, have heard of, “Natural mystic
blowing/ through the air,”
Ararat’s fragrance

in each word. I’m told, Babylon crashing.
Where in Kingston is the orchestral sound

of Addis Ababa? — I listen — I
listen, but the dance halls tell me nothing.

The ghosts of Van hang low in the background.
Who will sing their song? Tell their prophesy?

Notes:
Arba Lijoch were a group of forty Armenian orphans who had escaped from the 1915 atrocities in Turkey, and were afterwards adopted by Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. He had met them while visiting the Armenian monastery in Jerusalem; they impressed him so much that he obtained permission from the head of the Armenian church, the Catholicos, to adopt and bring them to Ethiopia, where he then arranged for them to receive musical instruction. The Arba Lijoch arrived in the capital city, Addis Ababa, in 1924, and along with their conductor, Kevork Nalbandian, became the first official orchestra of the nation. Nalbandian also composed the music for Marsh Teferi (words by Yoftehé Negusé), which was the Imperial National Anthem from 1930 to 1974. Metz Yeghern is the Armenian word for their Great Calamity, their genocide.

Image

assassination of hrant dink

19 Monday Jan 2015

Tags

Armenian Genocide, Armenian-Turkish relations, art, Hrant Dink, never forget, story without words

01--assassination-002

01--assassination-003

01--assassination-004

01--assassination-007

01--assassination-010

Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, story without words

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ash and bone [1]

26 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Disaster –- Pain –- Sorrow, drama

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Tags

Armenian Genocide, Ash and Bone, Constantinople, drama, play, The Young Turks, tragedy

memory is nothing but ash and bone
hishoghut’yan mokhir yev voskrayin
հիշողության մոխիր եւ ոսկրային
— Armenian proverb

ACT I:

FADE IN:
EXT. YENI BIR KADIN.1 FINISHING SCHOOL FOR YOUNG LADIES — DAY

[It is the age of the NEW WOMAN,2 July, 1914. YENI BIR KADIN SCHOOL is an experiment in Constantinople, the first of its kind, a brief, liberal attempt to dismantle the DHIMMI,3-caste system. The students are mainly from middle-class Turkish, Armenian and Greek families, a combination of Islamic and Christian faiths. Riot of girls cheering loudly, something that has never been seen before; wild-looking girls running at break-neck speed. The athletes wear a curious combination of head scarves, pantaloons and silky knickerbockers. Their classmates, in their official YOUNG TURKS’4 -sponsored school uniforms, cheer enthusiastically as the athletes race around on the immaculately-kept grounds. It is amazing enough to make even SUFFRAGETTE SALLY5 stand up and take note.]

[NARINE DILSIZIAN (27), an Armenian gardener, works on the school’s garden. A few feet away, her daughter, HASMIK (15), leans against a broken and bullet-pocked wall, watching the race.]

[ZELDA KIRKE, a 40-year old American English teacher, wife to a junior member of the American embassy, is enthusiastically cheering on her daughter, MATILDA (15), who, dressed in the same silly Edwardian-era fashion, leads neck-and-neck with another girl in the last lap of the race. The excitement increases as they approach the finish line. ZELDA is beside herself, encouraging her daughter with shouting and jumping up and down. A young Turkish teacher (though not a YOUNG TURK), ASIYE, stands next to ZELDA, shouting, “Bravo, Matilda!” over and over while clapping her hands.]

[MATILDA breasts the tape just ahead of the other girl; her head scarf unraveling, letting her long brown hair shine in the sun. The grounds are invaded by girls running to congratulate MATILDA and her rival. ZELDA hurries towards her happy but exhausted daughter, pushing her way through the mass of school girls.]

ZELDA:
This was your best race!

MATILDA [perspiring]:
I — I beat her, Mama.

ZELDA [proudly]:
You did daughter! [Laughing.] Come to the baths, we will get you cleaned up again.

[Mother and daughter walk happily towards the school buildings; MATILDA getting many kisses from her friends as they pass by. ZELDA stops to talk to NARINE, who jumps to her feet and looks nervous.]

ZELDA:
Narine, my dear, I hope you can make it. There isn’t much to do, you know, only caring for the tulips.

NARINE:
We’ll be there, Madam Zelda, bayan,.6 Hasmik-jan.7 will come to help me.

[ZELDA, who hadn’t realized HASMIK was there, turns to her.]

ZELDA:
How’s the calculus? Still confusing?

HASMIK [with respect]:
A little, Madam Zelda, bayan.

MATILDA [with a very fond look in her eye as she steps forward]:
Me too.

NARINE [straightening herself]:
My daughter works hard, Madam Zelda, bayan. Your money will not be wasted. Varton and I will always thank you.

ZELDA [gaily as she leaves]:
I hope to see you both later, darlings.

[NARINE returns to her work. A group of students, TURKISH GIRLS, laughing and pushing each other boisterously, amble by. As they near HASMIK, two girls nudge each other and giggle. Suddenly one of them trips HASMIK as she passes. The Armenian girl falls to the ground and jumps up aggressively, about to attack the Turkish girl. NARINE shouts “Hasmik-jan!”]

[The headmaster, OSMANOGLU BEY (65), despite his so-called liberal views, observes the incident but simply looks the other way.]

[HASMIK stands, suddenly blind with rage. With a snort she strides away towards the main school’s gate.]

NARINE [shouting angrily in Turkish]:
Nereye gidiyorsun?
(Where are you going?)

HASMIK turns to look at her mother then continues to storm off.


footnotes:

1. Turkish, literally, New Woman.↩

2. The New Woman was a Feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence on Feminism well into the 20th. The term was popularized by writer Henry James, to describe the growth in the number of Feminist, educated, independent career women in Europe and the United States. According to historian Ruth Bordin, the term was, “intended by James to characterize American expatriates living in Europe: women of affluence and sensitivity, who despite or perhaps because of their wealth exhibited an independent spirit and were accustomed to acting on their own.”↩

3. Dhimmi and Dhimmitude are historical terms referring to non-Muslim citizens living in an Islamic state. Depending on the people and time period this “separate but equal” status has led to persecution, purges and, in extreme cases, genocide.↩

4. Officially known as the Committee of Union and Progress, the Young Turks were a Pan-Turkish nationalist reform party in the early 20th century, aligning themselves with Germany during WW1 and seeking to purge non-Turkish Muslims from the country. Originally favoring reformation of the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Empire, their leadership, what historians have referred to as a “dictatorial triumvirate,” seized power in a coup d’état in 1913. Led by “The Three Pashas” (Enver, Djemal and Talaat), their dogma and policies led directly to humiliating defeat after defeat against Tsarist Russia and the ethnic cleansing of 1.5 million of their own people, the Ottoman-Armenians.↩

5. The title character in a novel by English author Gertrude Colmore (1911), written to help further the cause of the Women’s Movement.↩

6. Bayan is the Turkish word for lady.↩

7. -jan is a suffix in the Armenian language denoting affection.↩

making the bread that the dead call lavash

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Disaster –- Pain –- Sorrow, Illustration and art, Prose

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Tags

Armenian fairy tale, Armenian Genocide, art, Der Zor, Medz Yeghern, prose, the dead are always talking

lavash

The dead are always talking; it is the living, in every age of gizmos and thingamabobs, who have forgotten how to listen.

“I died like this …”

Contrary to what you might believe these stories are told to anyone who can hear, regardless of kinship curse, haunting or vague homicidal family blood ties. Why is it that those who worship ancestors the most turn a deaf ear to their own tribe, let alone the tribe of their neighbors? That is a darkening of the soul. That is something the dead will not abide.

“… far out in a desert, a wasteland of salt, in the heat and stink of what the Turks call Der ez Zor …”

If you can hear stars sing you can listen to the dead. It is simple, for the dead are always talking with red adder’s tongue and the blessed silver owl light. A kiss in your mouth that leaves sparks. Sparks. If you can rub amber’s essence between your fingers you can listen to anything.

…“I was a girl, fey-wristed with curly black hair. I will tell you. I will tell you everything …”

You know some things, but never all. Der ez Zor was a place of suffering during the starving times. During the long walks. During the annihilation. The dead can tell you this because they remember the names. Names for everything. Names that you have been taught to ignore, that you’ve forgotten.

“… we called it Medz Yeghern, the Great Calamity. Remember what I tell you. Remember when the first signs of destruction were blown to us in the wind …”

I tell you about the fourteenth year in the new century. I tell you what I’ve heard because I am nothing and nobody. I can’t speak their language or read from their books. But the dead don’t care about grammar or poor translation or how verbs are conjugated. All they need is a willing audience.

“… when the wild horsemen came and burned down our crops, killing our fathers and husbands and son, telling us that we must go south, to the camps, to follow the relocation orders …”

These are not my kith and kin. These are not my blood soaked lands. Still — Medz Yeghern, the Great Calamity — fills my dreams and will not let me rest. Ever since I returned home from Peace Corps. Ever since I first tasted that strange flat bread that the dead call lavash.

Image

mariam abandian [age 12]

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Tags

Armenian Genocide, art, Mariam Abandian

coins

Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, Feminism, Illustration and art

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the nightmare girl: chapter 1

08 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Illustration and art, Prose

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Tags

Ararat Burns, Armenian Genocide, art, Mariam Abandian, prose

March 08, 2014 (1)

A few days after her birth in 1879 in the Cilician town of Tarsus, in what is now considered to be part of southern Turkey, Mariam’s father walked to the local government building to record the event. Her parents wanted everything in order before they moved to the Ottoman city of Kars with their infant daughter. They had decided to leave their small town for there were no opportunities in Tarsus at that time and many of their formally friendly neighbors were grumbling that Armenians were to blame.

Mariam’s father was known to the government official in charge of name keeping and the issuing of birth certificates.

“Ah, it is you, Yeghishe, what can I do for you?” the official asked.

“Help me celebrate my very good news,” her father said. “I wish to report and record the birth of my daughter. She is to be called Mariamna.” Mariamna being the Russian version of the Armenian name, Miriam.

“Mariamna?” asked the official in disbelief. “No, no. Mariamna is no good.”

Her father had not anticipated any objection to the name he and his wife had chosen. It was, though, an old maxim of the Armenians of Tarsus never to question Muslim officials without understanding what was expected of them first. Her father stayed silent and waited.

The official said, “You are going to relocate to Kars, he, Yeghishe?” There were no secrets in their town. Naturally, the Armenians knew everything about each other. It was curious, too, that their Muslims neighbors always seemed to know about the business of the Armenians as well.

“You see? there is no sense in burdening your daughter with a Russian name. What Turk would do that? No, no. Use Meryem instead. That’s a proper Turkish name and she won’t be so despised when she grows. Yes, yes, Meryem. Your daughter will be better off,” the town’s official said, presenting the startled father with a document bearing witness that one Shahani, wife of Yeghishe Zildjian, had given birth to a daughter, Meryem Zildjian, on October 30, 1879.

The story of Mariam’s forced name conversion soon became part of their family lore, and before her first birthday the three of them left Tarsus for Kars. By then, Mariam had evolved into Mare, a nickname that her parents and friends all called her, ignoring the Meryem decreed by the funny little man in a red fez.

Mariam was a good name, it suited her nature well, for it was ancient and meant “the rebellious one” and in a world that was about to be torn apart in war and fire only the rebellious shall survive.

cinders and thigh bones

26 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, haiku, Illustration and art, Poetry

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Tags

Armenian Genocide, Armenienne, art, cinders and thigh bones, guerrilla warfare, haiku, poem, Poetry

Dec 26, 2013 (1)

Dec 26, 2013 (2)

Dec 26, 2013 (3)

staring at the sky
from a desert warm and still
abandoned child’s skull

][][

blank book pages filled with
caravan marching to hell
vultures circling

][][

let all my words burn
beacon fire for child’s soul lost
century ago

][][

simple things: laughter,
kissing, holding hands, all this
that she’ll never know

][][

written on the wind
her laughter, scent even name
has been lost to me

][][

silence before truth
before the question before
this desert’s secrets

][][

rocky hills sparsely
covered with ghosts of female
guerrilla warfare

][][

cinders and thigh bones
all girls who picked up a gun
stood up and fought back

notes:

We decided to play god, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play god, then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore.
—Admiral Adama, Battlestar Galactica

holocaust angel

06 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Poetry, sonnet

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Tags

Armenian Genocide, Armenian language, holocaust angel, please help, poem, Poetry, sonnet, tutor

Maybe my problem (I stop, think about
that and laugh. Then) is English. In Paris,

perhaps, I might find a teacher without
students, a great grandchild of the rootless

tribe that escaped Der-ez-Zor. Holocaust
angel, I’ve seen photos of you holy

in a torn sack dress. I’ve seen your bones, frost
white, dug up across Erzurum, Ani,

Van. Teach me French, teacher, then the ancient
tongue. The one that I wish to know. I wait,

I wait, I wait. In English there are none
who will speak. I don’t want to be silent

like a photograph. I wish to translate
this whole dark world into Armenian.

][][

note:

Let’s call this an obsession. The whole problem with wanting to learn a language that no one who lives near you speaks is that it is very hard to find a tutor. There use to be an Armenian community in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but not any more. I know this because in the city’s museum there is a display of a store run by an Armenian shop-keeper. But whoever they were and wherever they went to I do not know. One day I will meet an Armenian-speaker who will love poetry as much as I do and help me translate all the dark poems of my heart into the language I want to love but can’t speak. One day …

armenian roots of reggae?

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Arba Lijoch, Armenian Genocide, Armenian music, Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, Rastafarian, reggae

I wrote this letter to a friend last year. She didn’t have the answer but maybe somebody else does:

I don’t know if you can answer this question but you know more about Armenian music than anyone I know so I figured it was worth a shot. I discovered that after the genocide a handful of Armenian orphans were adopted by Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia. These children would later become the first official orchestra of his nation and compose Ethiopia’s national anthem. I don’t know how well versed in Bob Marley and Reggae music you are, but the Rastafarian movement considered Haile a living god and Ethiopia spiritual home of their people.

I am curious how much influence Armenian music had on the roots of what is today considered Reggae? The Ethiopian emperor was very fond of Armenian music and Rastafarians look toward him for inspiration. It would be interesting to see if the folk and church hymns of Armenian had any influence on a music now popular the world over?

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