The central issue the unique online encounter tackled and most movingly treated was the question: what does it mean to survive? Articulated in words and music, the answer was: survival is more than staying alive; survival means continuing to live on, in one’s own meaningful existence, and to provide for the next generation, and those coming thereafter. It means keeping one’s own identity alive, and that of one’s family and community. It means above all, preserving the history and culture of the people, and developing cultural excellence further.
This message was embedded in the very format of the event, whereby personal remarks and greetings alternated with brief musical offerings, whether on the piano, on the flute or violin, or vocally. The pieces performed were either classical works, by Bach or Chopin (Ronja Tischkov), Komitas (Gurgen Baveyan, Nora Shekyan), Rachmaninoff (Narek Alarverdyan), for example, or new works by contemporary composers, sometimes even compositions by the young performers themselves. Tamar Eskenian presented her 2018 piece, In Memorium, on a traditional Armenian flute. A brief recorded selection of Eduard Bagdasarian, by world class musicians Sergey and Lusine Khachatryan (violin and piano) illustrated the achievements of the current generation.
Prof. Elke Hartmann, who teaches Turkology at Hamburg University, developed the concept of cultural survival in a presentation of the Houshamadyan project, which she cofounded in 2010 together with other descendants of genocide survivors. The meaning of April 24, she said, is different for each generation. The Houshamadyan, which is a website, provides the space for a new form of memory, in that it researches Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire prior to the genocide, and, by documenting the loss, brings the villages and towns back to life. She showed how the website works, how someone today might search for information about life in the village where one’s ancestors lived. The richly illustrated material comes from individuals who have made available memoirs and photographs of family members and of precious personal items saved from destruction. “Perhaps one might find where one’s grandparents or great-grandparents lived and where they went,” she said, adding that such reconstruction of a past threatened with annihilation is of extreme importance especially for the younger generations today.
Vahan Alaverdyan, father of pianist Narek, who had played an etude by Rachmaninoff, addressed the same matter in personal terms. Now, in springtime, he began, when we all rejoice in Nature’s awakening, we think back 105 years, when that spring brought not life, but death. It was a death that humanity had not seen before, the death of two-thirds of a people in a short time. Yet through a miracle, there were those who managed through an invincible will to save themselves, to leave Armenia and to spread throughout the world. One of those survivors, a seven-year-old girl, he explained, was his grandmother, the great-grandmother of the young pianist who had just performed. Through her having survived, 38 members of the family came into this world, among them, he and his son. Each generation, he said, has a different task, first to survive, then to remember, to resurrect. In springtime when we celebrate resurrection, for Armenians, it is a celebration of survival and culture, which go hand in hand. Through self-realization and the creation of culture, the following generations defy the genocide.
It was precisely the several musical offerings interspersed in the program, masterful performances by members of the youngest generation diaspora Armenians that represented a proud defiance of genocide.
Concluding the commemoration, as always, was a religious service. Bishop Serovpé Isakhanyan, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church in Germany, joined by two clergymen, officiated in an otherwise empty church. Following the service in Armenian, he addressed the virtual participants in German, and elaborated on the message of Easter. In celebrating the resurrection, we celebrate the victory of life over death, he said, comparing the martyrdom of the Armenians in the genocide 105 years ago to the crucifixion, and stressing the importance of the fight for justice, liberty and truth in the shadow of this death. It took many years, he went on, for our ancestors to overcome the trauma, to look to the future with confidence. He said that remembrance and the fight for justice have united millions of Armenians, something that even the terrible Corona virus pandemic cannot prevent. There is no desire for enmity, he concluded, but a commitment to remembrance and demand for justice.
We stayed home and remembered.
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