{"id":27025,"date":"2015-08-30T21:07:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T19:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27025"},"modified":"2015-12-06T19:37:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-06T17:37:28","slug":"a-papasian-production-that-makes-you-proud-of-being-an-armenian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27025","title":{"rendered":"A Papasian Production that makes you proud of being an Armenian"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Professor Hovhanness I. Pilikian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Exploring the socio-Political Context of the First Ottoman Turkish Opera Composed by an Armenian)<\/p>\n

By Professor Hovhanness I. Pilikian<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Editorial Note<\/span>:\u00a0 Hot from the press, Professor Pilikian\u2019s this article is the most astounding yet, and that is saying something! Full of rich historical detail, spanning many centuries, integrating the ancient, the old and the new of our lives, the Professor is uniquely able to display historical continuities through the cement of the Armenian presence throughout millennia … in a language that is accessible, and free of academic jargon.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

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Gerald Papasian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gerald Papasian<\/strong> hails from Paris, an Armenian man-of-the-theatre, who acts and directs with some panache <\/em>Garin<\/strong>\u00e9, <\/strong>the op\u00e9ra–<\/strong>comique<\/em> <\/strong>by Dikran Tchoukhadjian <\/strong>(1837-98), <\/strong>at the Arcola Theatre, <\/strong>in Dalston, <\/em>London. <\/strong>I was particularly glad to <\/strong>catch its last evening performance, on <\/strong>the 15th<\/sup> (August, 2015), as I had seen his smooth production of the same on the Internet (Highlights) with French actors<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=v2fXdyyB7rA<\/a><\/p>\n

Tchoukhadjian undoubtedly was the creator of Opera in Turkey \u2013 the very first composer of opera-music, and Hor-Hor A\u011fa<\/em> seems to have been his first opera, hence the first opera in Ottoman Turkish.<\/p>\n

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Dikran Tchoukhadjian (1837-98)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Few people have appreciated the historical fact that the Ottoman Empire was multi-ethnic<\/span>, with a healthy lack, almost a complete absence of disgusting racist nationalism which resulted in the genocide of the Armenians in 1915<\/span> by the Young Turks<\/em>, and plunged Turkey into the mire of cancerous ultra-nationalist barbarism, under which the poor Turkish people are suffering still, surrounded with endless-seeming civil wars in our own days, produced by infective nationalist-racism, deliberately fanned by Western (American-British) imperialism.<\/p>\n

The First Ottoman Turkish Opera by an Armenian <\/em><\/h3>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the Ottoman Sultans had multi-ethnic Christian parentage, married to European Christian wives and numberless concubines filling their harems<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sultan Selim III (1761-1808), of a Georgian-Armenian mother, was a great patron of the Arts.\u00a0 A poet and a composer himself, with highly civilized tastes, he introduced to his Court the Armenian musician Baba Hampartsoum Limondjian <\/strong>(1768-1839). \u00a0While in today\u2019s Turkey acknowledging the Armenian parentage of the great Ottoman architect Sinan<\/strong> (1489-1588) is a punishable state-crime, Sultan Selim received Baba Hampartsoum in his court with great honours and commissioned him to develop a system of musical notation, with the avowed noble intention to record and save the classical Ottoman repertoire of music for posterity.\u00a0 Limondjian could spend two years (1813-5) comfortably working on the project in competition with Abdulbaki Nasir Dede, who also created his own system.\u00a0 And Sultan Selim did not cut off Limondjian\u2019s head, instead, he selected Limondjian\u2019s system of musical notation, which is still in use today in Turkey<\/span>.<\/p>\n

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1870-\u0561\u056f\u0561\u0576 \u0569\u057e\u0561\u056f\u0561\u0576\u0576\u0565\u0580\u056b\u0576 \u053c\u0565\u0575\u0562\u056c\u0565\u0562\u056b\u057b\u056b \u0585\u057a\u0565\u0580\u0565\u057f\u0568 \u056f\u0561\u057f\u0561\u0580\u0578\u0572 \u056d\u0578\u0582\u0574\u0562\u0568\u0589 Photos by hy.wikipedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

{Baba Hampartsoum\u2019s Armenian patron was Hovhanness \u0295elebi D\u0171zian, no less than the Director of the Ottoman Imperial Mint<\/em>… \u00a0A super little book just published \u2013 ISBN 978-9953-0-3224-5 \u2013 by the Londoner, Dr. Hratch Kouyoumjian, lists the names of the Ethnic Armenian Civil Servants in leadership positions running the Ottoman Empire as late as in 1909<\/span>, with some fascinating givens; the chief… pharmacist<\/em> of the Central Prison<\/em> was one Efendi Khatchig Kivosian; The First Inspector of Alcoholic Drinks<\/em> and… Hunting<\/em> was Mihran Efendi Yerazian; The Supervisor of Turkish Language Exams Bureau<\/em> was Vosgian Efendi etc. etc.}<\/p>\n

In 1797, Sultan Selim had invited a European (perhaps French) opera company to give perhaps a single performance in his harem <\/em>in Istanbul \u2013 the very first opera presentation in the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n

Thus, the miracle of Tchoukhadjian was that he created opera out of literally nothing, and at its highest level<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0 The composer\u2019s own Turkish title of the Opera was Leblebidji Hor-Hor Agha <\/em>(1875), not<\/span><\/strong> Garin\u00e9<\/em>, clearly labelled on the title-page of the score (and on posters, survived) as an op\u00e9ra comique<\/em>, which clearly defines already the essential features of the music-genre, later obliterated by the romantic nationalist fools of Soviet Armenian cultural \u00e9lite, altering ironically (due to musical historical illiteracy) the subtle Mozartean type of call-to-revolution against the ruling classes (camouflaged in the complicated plot-lines) \u2013 the Aristocracy in Mozart, and the Bourgeoisie in the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately in this context, even Mozart\u2019s bitingly satirical revolutionary ardour is not yet appropriately evaluated in musicology \u2013 carried away by the beauty of his music and the wealth of his melodies people forget to notice the massive political implications <\/span>of his entangled plots \u2013 Leporello (for example), the servant of Don Giovanni (the landed Aristocrat in the opera of his name, 1787, in Italian) makes a total fool of his Lord, representing the useless, pointless sex-obsessed class of idle perverts, aristocrats who have too much time on their hands, and have nothing else to do but fantasize sexually \u2013 their use of women is truly an abuse of\u00a0 the woman-kind, used as a tool for their masturbatory fantasies, and not a genuine loving appreciation of the individual female involved.\u00a0 Bed-hopping, usually with the lower classes who have no defence against them<\/span><\/em>, is their impotent violent hobby; violent, even murderous \u2013 Don Giovanni<\/em> kills one of his many lover\u2019s father, once a military commander, trying to protect the virginal honour of his daughter \u2013 precisely like Hor-hor Aga<\/em>, an ex-janissary commander, desperate to guard his daughter\u2019s virgin-honour!\u00a0 Hor-hor does not \u201cdetest the theatre\u201d<\/span> per se<\/em>, as written up in the programme-leaflet, but the lack of honesty, deception, and sexual licence of the people who administer it \u2013 not much changed there since the old days.<\/p>\n

Mozart\u2019s highly original invention \u2013 the killed Commendatore<\/em> comes alive in the form of the … marble Statue<\/strong> on his grave, as a dinner guest invited (personally in the cemetery) by the arrogantly fearless aristocrat, and the loving father drags the Don down (with his palace \u2013 signifying the whole system of the Aristocratic social order<\/span><\/em>) into the fires of hell and eternal damnation, where the whole of his ruling class belongs!\u00a0\u00a0 This indeed is the true camouflaged message of Mozart\u2019s own … Marxist Revolution, entirely unobserved by the so-said Mozart-experts.<\/p>\n

And yet incredibly, Tchoukhadjian, hardly half a century later, seems to have grasped this nature of Mozart\u2019s music by the horns.\u00a0 Tchoukhadjian\u2019s plot is as complicated as Mozart\u2019s, even messier, more complicated than the one in (say) Die Entf\u0171hrung aus dem Serail<\/em> (by Mozart, in German = The Abduction from the Seraglio)<\/em>, where there is also a Chorus of Turkish Janissaries<\/em> (\u201csingt dem\u00a0 grossen Bassa Lieder<\/em>\u201d = Sings the big Base Songs, a parallel for the Chorus of the Leblebidji ex-janissaries<\/em>) with a lot of shenanigans, coming and going out of the Harem<\/em>, with plenty of occasions for rude and crude vulgar eroticism \u2013 belly dancing, commedia dell\u2019arte<\/em> gesticulation etc.<\/p>\n

To sum up Tchoukhadjian\u2019s plot, very briefly; an opera-theatre is being set up for a sumptuous production (symbolizing high art \u2013 the private domain of the Ottoman Aristocracy).\u00a0 The Soprano absconds, but lo and behold, out of the blue, an angelic virgin appears, the daughter of a chick-pea seller, who in turn is trying to hunt for her, his own lost daughter named Garin<\/em>\u00e9!\u00a0 What follows are endless excuses for erotic incidents of drunken behaviour, harem belly-dancing, dagger-and-dog fights etc.<\/p>\n

The original libretto<\/em> in Turkish is lost \u2013 what we have is a mangled Soviet Armenian hash of it, entirely unreliable.\u00a0 I shall explain how, as I unpack for the first time ever<\/span> the gems still preserved even in the title… The composer Tchoukhadjian knew well what he was doing, which alas, his first Soviet Armenian romantic interpreters did not.<\/p>\n

Let us begin at the very beginning, with the title, Leblebidji Hor-Hor A\u011fa<\/em> \u2013The original name of the opera has remained a puzzle hitherto, and yet it contains a wealth of material buried within it, which can be mined for a proper understanding of the missing libretto.\u00a0 It is the golden key that opens an Aladdin\u2019s cave of complex semantic and musical significances.<\/p>\n

Note that the name is of 3 sections;<\/p>\n

(1) Leblebidji<\/em> provides the hero\u2019s profession \u2013 leblebi<\/em> = chick-pea, –dji<\/em> is a Turkish suffix, signifying a person\u2019s daily occupational involvement \u2013 in this case, a dealer concerning all matters to do with leblebi \u2013 <\/em>buying\/selling it, grooming it (washing, cleaning, sorting, as there are several kinds of it) etc.\u00a0 He is thus not a mere seller, but a true trader, a business-man<\/span> with a shop, using free or tuppence child-labour, selling his chick-peas in street corners everywhere.<\/p>\n

(2) Hor-hor <\/strong>is the first (and possibly the only) name <\/strong>of this tradesman, which suggests that it is actually a nickname<\/span> \u2013 a natural imitative sound-effect = khor-khor = khrr-khrr in Turkish\/Armenian, and refers to<\/p>\n

(a)\u00a0 Snoring = being a sleepy-head, to which character-trait there are certainly many references in the plot-line about the chick-pea seller falling asleep, or being made to sleep through wine, and erotic semi-naked belly-dancers, and<\/p>\n

(b) The reference also goes to his flatulence, gas-pains, a rumbling stomach full of farts \u2013 the Chick-Pea Seller\u2019s name would thus satirically mean The Farting Lord<\/em> or the Lord of Farts<\/em>, abbreviated to Lord Fart, <\/em>further complicated by the seller\u2019s profession, because<\/p>\n

(c)\u00a0 The Chick-pea (a very nutritious seed) has a sophisticated, layered use in Byzantine \/ Ottoman \/ Armenian food-culture; several versions (like musical variations) are produced from the basic seed \u2013 fried with salt, it loses its natural skin, turns attractive yellow with black-burnt spots and is eaten universally throughout the day as a staple cheap food for the poverty stricken masses<\/span> \u2013 imported by London rip-off merchants, it becomes a luxury item, an expensive delicatessen<\/em>!\u00a0 It needs no further dressage, <\/em>is eaten like peanuts.\u00a0 Raw, the chick-pea is softened by boiling, then crushed into a paste and mixed with tahini<\/em> (paste of crushed sesame seeds) in virgin olive-oil becomes the most delicious nutritious humous, <\/em>another cheap staple diet for the masses even today among the London Turkish\/Kurdish communities.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, again, the side-effect is a gassy Hor-hor khrr-khrr<\/em> flatulent belly, reinforcing the semantic-musical significance of the Base-baritone lead as the Lord of Farts<\/em>, the most important, vital commander ( = Agha) of the hungry masses with khrr-khrr<\/em> tummies …<\/p>\n

The Commedia dell\u2019arte<\/em> humour, the main ingredient of the Comic Opera, was scatological, not just a camp game of wits for its own sake, but because it reflected real life; lacking food hygiene in medieval times, the \u201crotten\u201d food the lower classes accessed, and the \u201crich\u201d food the Aristocrats consumed, made populations everywhere overall gassy \u2013 half-empty rumbling bellies full of farts, although for opposite economic reasons.\u00a0 In Ottoman Turkey, moreover, they had to enjoy belly-dancers with belly-aches farting anywhere, from the Sultan\u2019s harem to the mayhanes<\/em> (the drinking places) of the poor.<\/p>\n

(3) The third part of the opera-title is Hor-hor\u2019s exclusive honorific title; Typical of all empires, the Ottomans used an enormous number of silly titles to feed the vanity of their hierarchically obsessed ruling class; Pasha, Hoca, Effendi, Bey, Vali, Vizier, Hanim, Mufti, Alim, Mullah <\/em>Etc. <\/em><\/p>\n

Agha<\/span><\/em> was a military title exclusive to the Janissaries<\/em><\/span>, be they active or retired, signifying commander<\/em> (Mozart\u2019s commendatore<\/em>), <\/em>appropriate in Tchoukhadjian\u2019s opera for the revolutionary attempt of the chick-pea seller to affect a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat <\/em>with his mates formed into a gang. <\/em><\/p>\n

Tchoukhadjian thus displayed inventiveness, bravura<\/em>, and an extraordinary revolutionary courage<\/span> to place the lowest social class of the Leblebidji<\/em>-s right in the heart-centre of Life itself in Ottoman Istanbul<\/em> (as the producer of the staple food of the masses \u2013 and to think that such a point would not be understood in a Soviet<\/span> Armenia!); thank god the Ottoman audience was too illiterate to appreciate Tchoukhadjian\u2019s subtleties, otherwise, he could have lost his head on a Silver platter gifted to the Sultan by his Grand Vizier<\/em> (the Prime-Minister).<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s the rub; The Turks were barbaric Turkic hordes, from the steppes of Central Asia, murdering and plundering their way into Europe via Byzantium<\/em>, continuing the tradition they had inherited from Genghis Khan and his nomads \u2013 their ancestors.\u00a0 While Genghis and his hordes used to do their plunder seasonally<\/em>, destroying everything in their wake, and then returning to their dens in Mongolia<\/em> \u2013 I am aware that a Mongolian oligarch of the Russian category, a man of billions and billions of pounds is trying to whitewash and civilize the Genghis-image as a national hero, and we shall be fools in Europe to be bribed by it \u2013 the destructive derivatives of Genghis set their ambitions higher and wished to rob the riches of Europe on a permanent basis<\/span>, by bleeding the heart of the civilized world then, Byzantium<\/em> itself, marked finally by the fall of the city of Constantinople<\/em> itself in 1453.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

A Failed Document of True Civilization<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

One Turk, called Osman<\/strong> (1258-1326), born in Anatolia \u2013 ancient Armenia \u2013\u00a0 excited by the centuries of Byzantine refinement wished to go further and civilize his followers<\/span><\/em> (easier said than done!), by founding a dynasty, that remarkably lasted for 600 years as the Ottoman Empire (until its dissolution in 1922, by the declaration of the Republic of Turkey, in 1923).<\/p>\n

It takes millennia to construct a civilization, and with our own Western modern technology and the arms-trade, just a few days to destroy all, as the civilized American and British governments achieved attacking Iraq, Syria, Libya, <\/em>turning ancient countries to dusty rubbles today!<\/p>\n

Osman, the progenitor of the Ottomans, in his last Testament to his son Orhan Ghazi, instructed him to<\/p>\n

\u201cavoid cruelty and superstition<\/span> … Remove from the state those who encourage cruelty and superstition …. Widening justice and virtue to the whole world<\/span>… scholars, virtuous men, artists, literary men constitute the power of a state … honour these men, treat them with kindness… Depend on God\u2019s help to achieve justice and fairness, and remove cruelty from the world<\/span>…<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.osmanli700.gen.tr\/english\/sultans\/01index.html<\/a><\/p>\n

{My own translation of a glorious document of civilized culture indeed, unique in history \u2013 The ancient so-said civilizations of the Maya<\/em> and the Inca<\/em>, and the Chinese<\/em> had produced no such document \u2013 translated unfortunately into ghastly English on the website above!)<\/p>\n

There can be absolutely no doubt that the progenitor of the Ottomans wished to construct a civilization<\/strong>, and would have disowned in eternal shame the genociders of the Armenians (the blood-thirsty pack of hyenas led by Talaat, Enver, Djemal Pashas) carrying his name as Osmanli<\/em> Turks. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Armenian Contribution to the Byzantine Empire \u2013 Politics and Culture, All<\/em><\/h3>\n

Osman, born amidst the Armeno-Byzantine culture of Anatolia, <\/strong>wished to adopt and adapt it for his own people.\u00a0 He would be fully aware of yet another absolute<\/strong> historical fact forgotten now but alive and vibrant during Osman\u2019s own lifetime \u2013 the Armenian legacy in the Byzantine Empire, which Osman\u2019s progeny was to destroy by the destruction of Byzantium.<\/p>\n

The most important Byzantine Emperor, who brought about the Golden Age of Byzantine culture, was Basil the First<\/strong> (811-886 AD), who founded a Dynasty, that lasted almost 200 years (from 867 to 1056).\u00a0\u00a0 He was a Law-giver, collected in 60 books, called Basilika<\/span><\/em> (= Royal Matters<\/em>, from the classical Greek word Basileos = King) <\/em>that governed Byzantium until its fall to the barbarians.\u00a0 During Basil\u2019s own reign of 19 years, an official genealogy of the Emperor was recorded documenting his birth as a descendant of the Arshakouni<\/em> (in Greek, the Arsacid<\/em>) Kings of Armenia<\/span> \u2013 the eminent British historian John Julius Norwich goes as far as confirming that Basil, in spite of his Greek name, was actually a native speaker of Armenian<\/span>, and spoke Greek with a heavy accent! <\/em><\/p>\n

If you wish to find out the Armenian names of over 20 Byzantine emperors, visit<\/p>\n

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Armenians of Byzantium (part 1)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n