When I was in Armenia last month teaching Daniel in Yerevan, I finally was able to become more acquainted with a famous Armenian known simply as "Komitas." His real name was Soghomon Soghomonian, or better understood in English as Solomon Solomonian (1869-1935). He was orphaned at the early age of 11, and was essentially raised by the Etchmiadzin Church Seminary (the veritable Vatican of the Armenian Apostolic Church) near Yerevan where his genius in music was noticed early on. His name, Komitas, was taken from a famouns 7th century Armenian hymn writer of the same name. A few folks from the Bethlehem Church took me down to a musuem in honor of all of his tremendous work in musicolgy in which he blended Armenian Church music together with Armenian folk music taken from the hinterlands of western Armenia in the years preceding the catastrophic Genocide of 1915 in which the Ottoman Turks butchered some 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War.

While living in Constantiniople , or Istanbul, at the time just before the Genocide, he was arrested by the Ottoman Turks. He and the Armenian intelligentsia were the primary targets when genocidal hostilities first broke out before rapidly the targets increasinly became the Armenian people in general. Although Komitas was eventually saved from the Genocide because of his important contacts made during the height of his musicology career in St. Petersburg, Berlin, and the Etchmiadzin Church near Yerevan, he was subjected to great persecution and witnessed the wholesale slaughter of his own people in western Armenia where he saw and heard sights and sounds he was never able to recover from. He feel into extreme depression and suffered from physical ailiments until his death in Paris in 1935.

Today is Armenian Genocide Day, a somber and sober day for every Armenian.

1 One reason Hitler figured he could get away with wholesale slaughter of Jews (and other "undesirables") was because, as he said, "Look what the Turks did to the Armenians, and nobody's made a fuss about it."

2 Excellent point Dana. He had a model to work from.

3

Armenia in the years preceding the catastrophic Genocide of 1915 in which the Ottoman Turks butchered some 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War.