Welcome Back to the Twenties!

VARTAN MARGOSIAN

Well, a hundred years have gone by (though it seems sometimes like it should be eighty...) and we are once again in a decade called the Twenties. Whether these Twenties will be "roaring" or not remains to be seen. Frankly I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen more "Great Gatsby" themed parties. Maybe it's because since the beginning of the year, social media has been consumed with speculating whether World War 3 is going to start, and when they aren't doing that, speculating whether the President of the United States has really been impeached or not, and when they aren't doing that, talking about the upcoming election. 

Well, dear readers, I am not going to talk about any of those things, but rather take you on a little trip back to the Nineteen Twenties. Cousin Harry - you say with a groan - I already know about the 1920s! I read the Great Gatsby in school! (ok, I read the Cliff's Notes.) And I know all about the jazz age. I watched that Ken Burns documentary. Ok, I watched one episode and fell asleep but WHAT IS YOUR POINT? 

My point is, I am going to introduce you to the Armenian-American 1920s. Which sounds a lot more like my style, now doesn't it?

So let's start at the begining. And just as the American 1960s didn't really begin until the JFK assasination, the Armenian-American 1920s didn't really begin until the Armistice of Mudanya. What is the Armistice of Mudanya?

Here we go down the rabbit hole. 

So what most Americans know about World War I is that the Allies won, Germany lost, Turkey was an ally of Germany, and during the war Turkey committed the Armenian Genocide. But wait a second. Turkey LOST. How did they then get away with Genocide?

The answer is, that I would argue Turkey never really lost WWI. The government surrendered to the Allies with the Armistice of Mudros (October 1918). Britain and France occupied Constantinople, the Committee and Union and Progess or Ittihad Party was kicked out, and the Itilaf Party was brought to power and initiated war crimes trials, the Allies carved up Turkey...But at the same time a young army officer named Mustafa Kemal got the army to rebel against the Allied victory..... and fought the Allies until they ... sort of surrended in a second armistice - the Armistice of Mudanya (1922). The British gave the Kemalists all of Anatolia and Constantinople, and the Allies got trade routes and the oil fields of Mosul. Armenian issues were swept uder the rug.

Essentially, the government lost the war, but the army didn't give up.

Over the course of the winter, spring, and summer of 1923 the Treaty of Laussanne worked out these details. All Greeks still living in Turkey were sent to Greece. All Muslims in Greece were sent to Turkey. The last Armenians left in orphanages were deported from the country; the large orphanage in Kharpert was evacuated to Lebanon. The last hope of Armenians having any kind of independence on these lands were crushed. A small remnant was left in the interior, but for most, there was no going back. 

After the treaty of Lausanne was signed in July 1923, Armenians in America went into preservation mode. That September in NYC, singer and violinist Vartan Margosian released 12 recordings of his native Kharpert folk songs in Armenian and Turkish. Longing for the homeland, he sounds like he's crying on some tracks.

Armenian recordings hadn't been made in America since the war ended 5 years earlier, and back then it was the big record labels looking to capitalize on immigrants. But Margosian set in motion a independent recording movement that became a whole industry. Before the year was up businessman Sarkis Sarafian started the Sohag record label in NY in order to record and promote Armenian show tunes and classical pieces.

And the records just kept coming - record labels such as M.G. Parsekian, Oriental, Pharos, Stamboul, Shamlian, and even privately pressed recordings by the biggest star in the Armenian world, Armenag Shah-Mouradian. All of this culminated in Armenians being picked up by the major labels, Victor and Columbia. Oud, violin, dumbeg, clarinet, kanun, blul, tar, mandolin, and piano players along with singers vocalizing in Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, and even French were all featured. Armenian-owned record labels were putting out material by Anatolian Greeks and Sephardic and Romaniote Jews. In fact, as far as I can understand from my research, during the 1920s New York / New Jersey was the world capital of the Armenian recording industry.

It wasn't just music. Literature took a turn toward preservation mode as well. Coming out of Boston, in the summer of 1924 the writer Hamasdegh (Hampartzoum Gelenian) published "Kiughe" (The Village), his book of short stories about growing up in the village of Parchanj outside of Kharpert. At the same time, Kharpert-Hussenig native Peniamin Noorigian headed up a committee to seek out and publish all surviving works of their teacher at Kharpert's Central High School, the famed writer Tlgadintsi (Hovhannes Haroutiunian), father of provincial Armenian literature, known to his students simply as Hovhannes Effendi. Tlgadintsi was murdered in the Genocide, but his complete works (as many as could be found) were published in Boston in 1927. With all physical connection to the Old Country lost, Armenian-Americans wanted to make sure that the lands and the life they left behind was not forgotten in their new home, the United States.

SETRAK SOURABIAN

And they built churches, and newspapers, and compatriotic societies, and other organizations. The 1920s were the era of the "picture brides" - orphaned Armenian girls who came to America to marry men they had never met, but who were from their home village, had left a few years back to make money in America, and who were lonely themselves. Usually these men were vouched for by some common relative or family friend among the survivors. These newlywed couples began to start families and new lives. And to the sprightly, optimistic tune of Setrak Sourabian's immortal song "Akh Im Anoush Yar," (which was, however, tinged with loss in the actual lyrics), a new Armenian community was born, thrived, and made it in America.

"Your Homeland And The Phonograph" (old advertisement)

The following advertisement was found on the back cover of the Pharos Records songbook of 1928. Pharos Records was an Armenian-owned record company in New York City in the 1920s. Their catalogue contained numerous Armenian and Turkish songs by mostly Armenian artists, with Greek and a few other ethnicities represented. The songbook is a valuable document with lyrics to the songs that are on many of their records, whether in Armenian or Turkish, printed in Armenian letters.

Pharos was not a producer of phonograph equipment and the advertisement below was not selling any particular brand of phonograph. But of course, Pharos wanted you to have a phonograph, so that you could buy their records to play on it. The ad is interesting and touching because it probably gives some of the real reasons that early Armenian immigrants did buy phonographs, and what listening to Armenian and Turkish songs meant to them, especially considering the events of 1915.

Your Homeland And The Phonograph

                The phonograph is that instrument of music, through the grace of which it has become possible to make alive the songs of the homeland and the sweet memories of them. The picture of your ancestral country, the faces of its folk singers, and each syllable of all those songs which lullabied your childhood to sleep and enflamed your youth, will always remain burning and alive in your memory through the grace of the phonograph.

                Let the phonograph be an indispensable object in your house, a beautiful ornament in your parlor, and enjoy it a bit, in order to draw inspiration from the pleasures of an unmatched branch of the fine arts, Music.

                The phonograph is the live communicator of music, through the grace of which you can at all times, in your home, have near you all the singers, not only those who are your compatriots, but also those belonging to other nations and who have fame and talent. Through the grace of the phonograph, even the dead artists will speak with you in the sweet-sounding language of their songs.

Coming to America

Its Armenian Christmas today, but unfortunately I don't have any Christmas-related recordings.

To all my Armenian Christian friends: Christos dznav yev haydnetsav!

Of course it's also the beginning of a new year...a time of new beginnings...so here's song about a man starting fresh in the land of the free and the home of the brave...it's not quite kef music by strict definition but its a fun Armenian song:

Yep, its our old friend Edward Bogosian, who we last heard in the first post on this blog singing his all-time hit "Soode Soode." "Sofi Jan," a tale of immigrant life is one of my favorite pieces by Maestro Yetvart. It is unusual in that in addition to the violin and oud there is a very prominent piano on this track. Also, it's in a moderately fast 6/8 which combines to make it sound more like Eastern European music. Although thats not my thing in general, I really like this song. The depiction of immigrant life is very poignant "come on and let's suffer together" yet the singer sounds happy, not depressed. My family has now been in America for 100 years. When they got here they suffered but they never lost hope. They struggled and they made money and raised children and grandchildren and great grandchildren (me). That's why this song resonates with me, and I'm sure many of you reading this.

Yela, yega America - I got up, I came to America     

Gananch dollar-uh yes shaheloo - To earn the green dollar

Paytz guh tzavim yes useloo - But it pains me to say

Gananch derevuh chi kudah - I didn't find the green leaf (money)

Aman aman Sofi jan - Aman aman Sofi dear

Naz m'uner toon, Sofi jan - Don't be coy, Sofi dear

Aman aman Sofi jan - Aman aman Sofi dear

Naz m'uner toon, Sofi jan - Don't be coy, Sofi dear

Herik herik toon zis danches, - Enough, enough, with you torturing me

Minchev yerp toon zis al khapes? - And until when will you keep fooling me?

Yegour yertank menk, ay Sofi - Come on, let's go, oh Sofi

Vorbes tzavenk miasin - So that we can suffer together

(chorus)

Usbasel em yes al nra - I've been waiting for her

Gyankus eller eh oo al g’erta - My life has come and it goes

Yegour yertank menk, ay Sofi - Come on, let's go, oh Sofi

Vorbes tzavink miasin - So that we can suffer together

(chorus)

Kani me dari al verchuh - And a few years later

Bzdig mun al danuh mechuh - There'll be a child in the house too

Aghchig muh ulla ne kezi - If it's a girl, for you

Manch muh ulla ne indzi - If it's a boy, for me

(chorus)

EDWARD BOGOSIAN
ARMENIAN ACTOR AND COMIC SINGER

Since I haven't already I thought I would do a bio of Mr. Bogosian for those interested in this major figure in the early Armenian-American music scene. Yetvart Boghosian was born in Constantinople in 1900, the son of Nazaret Effendi, a schoolteacher at the Bezazian School in Istanbul and the Varvarian School in Kum Kapu, whose thick eyebrows and glaring eyes behind his round eyeglasses frightened many a student, despite his short stature. In reality though, Nazaret Effendi was a kind man who loved clever jokes, and his son took after him. Yetvart got his start in showbusiness at a very young age in the Armenian theaters of Constantinople, and was formed by the theater movement of the Menagians and the Benlians (not sure who they were). He was one of the founders of the "Hay Arevelyan Taderakhoump" (Armenian Oriental Theatre Troupe) in Kum Kapu.

At the age of 20 Boghosian came to America where he often went by Edward, the direct translation of his name. Settling in New York, he toured the country performing in Armenian plays, and made records of Armenian comedic songs which were very popular. Many of them, like "Sofi Jan" give us a fascinating look at the life of the first Armenian immigrants. He wrote the words and music of most of his records. More classically trained singers said that although he didn't have quite as good of a voice, he undoubtedly had an extraordinary ear for music, and feel for the music he was performing. He was also known to enunciate his words carefully so that the listener could understand the lyrics. In the 20s he recorded on Pharos records but by the 1940s he was recording excusively for Metropolitan, another ethnic record company. He has an extensive amount of 78 rpm records and 2 LPs, which were made around 1960 and 1975, and were compilations of his 78 recordings, with a few originals on the second LP. According to noted oudist Mr. John Bilezikjian, Bogosian used Garbis Bakirgian on Kanun, Marko Melkon on oud, and Nick Doneff (who was Bulgarian) on violin for his 78 rpm records. This makes sense since they were essentially the house band for the Metropolitan and related labels. Certainly Garbis played Kanun on the recordings that included that instrument (not on Sofi Jan), because he is pictured on the first Bogosian LP and it says "Accompanied by Kenar Orchestra" next to his picture. As for who is playing piano on this piece I have no idea.