Virtual Museum of Komitas Vardapet

http://www.komitas.am/

It only makes a passing reference to his Kurdish stuff, though.

In September 1899 Komitas returned to Echmiadzin and started his musical activity right away. In a short period he radically changed the system of teaching music in the seminary, organized a small orchestra and perfected the performance level of the choir.

He visited various regions of Armenia treating and putting down thousands of Armenian, Kurdish, Persian and Turkish songs.

Anyway, Nahro tells me that Komitas was fluent in Kurmanji Kurdish and apparently considered his grasp of that language to be almost on the same level as his Armenian. Interesting, but as Artyom says, not so surprising given two other Armenian cultural icons, Sayat Nova and Paradjanov, who also used regional cultural influences in their work.

Paradjanov even employed a Kurd in the role of the central figure in Ashik Kerib, an Azerbaijani love story, and of course, the wonderful Georgian actress, Sofiko Chiaureli, as Sayat Nova’s muse in Color of Pomegranates. Talking of Ashik Kerib, and the fact that Paradjanov says that Kurds in Armenia were not Moslem I can’t help but wonder if Yuri Mgoyan wasn’t Yezidi as some say that even today if they’re living in predominently Armenian villages.

Anyway, I absolutely love this quote from the maestro himself.

I began looking for my Ashik Kerib, this Muslim minstrel who wanders around the world to earn enough money to buy Magul Migeri’s freedom. I found just such a young man, a Kurd, my neighbour. At 22, he was a ruffian: he beat up a policeman. He thrashed a caretaker because of a leaky roof. He stole cars and got into brawls, then I met him, I asked: “Can you quit being a ruffian for a year?” He said; I can quit forever, it all depends on what you offer.” Kurds are not Muslims. He’s a Christian, but he plays a Muslim on the screen.

Interestingly, Paradjanov shot the film in Azerbaijan even though the pogrom in Sumgait had already occured.

The Armenian Parajanov made a movie based on a tale of Azeri, a nation that is historically considered to be an enemy to Armenians.

Khachatryan says that the film “Ashik-Kerib” was shot during the events in Sumgait (a town in Azerbaijan, where in February of 1988 the Armenian community was slaughtered or driven away, which was one of the origins of the Karabagh conflict). She says that when Parajanov went to Baku, the Armenians didn’t understand his step. “They spoke about it only 10 years after his death,” Khachatryan says.

Yavuryan was the cameraman on that film. He says that after Sumgait it was impossible to talk about the Azeri script and movie in Armenia, and Parajanov was very nervous and under pressure. Nevertheless, Parajanov didn’t let the world lose another masterpiece.

After having shot the video material, there was an option to record the dialogue not in the Azeri language, but in Farsi. Yavuryan says lots of people suggested this to Parajanov. “But he really was the child of the great Caucasian culture, where Christian and Muslim, worldly and spiritual are tightly intertwined and mixed. He adored this culture,” Yavuryan says.

Parajanov decided to hire an Azeri composer and singer for the film. According to Yavuryan, Parajanov said: “If they (in Baku) hang me in the same place with Shahumyan, let it be. I have to go.” (Stepan Shahumyan, an Armenian,was one of the so-called 26 Baku Communist Commissars, who was executed in Baku in 1918.)

“And he went to Baku in January 1989 (as the conflict intensified) to record the soundtrack.”

Yavuryan says if he had recorded it in another language it would have failed. He remembers what Parajanov said in one interview in Germany: “I shot Ashik-Kerib. And I can die.”

Anyway.

http://oneworld.blogsome.com/category/yezidi/

http://oneworld.blogsome.com/category/kurds/

Incidently, the Kurdistan Bloggers Union has something on Vodka Lemon here, and Kurd Media has something here.