Exile, Trauma and Death: On the Road to Chankiri with Komitas Vartabed

Aram Andonian

transl., ed. and annot. by Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian
London: Gomidas Institute, 2012,
xiv + 186 pp., photos and map
ISBN 978-1-903656-92-1, paperback
UK£16.00 / US$22.00
To order please contact books@gomidas.org

Part of "Trilogy - April 24, 1915" this work is a translation of 25 articles written by Aram Andonian in Armenian. Andonian was commissioned to write them by the publishers of Arevmoudk for their special edition dedicated to Komitas Vartabed’s 75th birthday. These articles were published in Arevmoudk during a seven month period from December 1946 to June 1947. The articles were called "Komitasi hed. Inch baymannerou dag aratchatsav Komitasi mdki daknabu" (With Komitas: the circumstances which precipitated his mental turmoil). As the title implied, it was intended to highlight the Armenian composer’s tragedy after his arrest and during his journey to exile. But the articles had unclogged the suppressed memory of those years in the author and the few articles that had been planned turned into a series that went beyond their initial mandate and covered the circumstances of not only Komitas’ fate, but also the fate of all those intellectuals who were arrested during that same fateful night. Therefore, the initial title did not reflect the content of the series anymore. Each article was finished with the phrase "to be continued." The 25th article, despite the same ending, "to be continued", was to be the last installment. They left the reader suspended in air and wanting closure.

This work is part of "Trilogy - April 24, 1915", Aram Andonian (Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian comp and ed), Exile, Trauma and Death: On the Road to Chankiri with Komitas Vartabed (vol. 1), Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian, Teotig - Biography (vol 2) and Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian, The Survivor: Biography of Aram Andonian (vol. 3). Also by the same author: Archeology of Madness: Komitas, Portrait of an Armenian Icon

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