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A Forgotten People

Writer's picture: Raffi WrightRaffi Wright

Updated: Oct 10, 2021


Pictured: my great-aunt Ida, my great-grandmother Alice Turian (Armenian Genocide survivor), my grandmother Chaké Tabet

This project is four years in the making at the Eastman School of Music

for Raffi Wright,

but a lifetime for Alice Turian, Raffi's great-grandmother.


Purpose Statement to ESM MUA Committee in Spring 2019:

The Struggle for Cultural Preservation Following the Armenian Genocide.

“’I have placed my death-head formations in readiness…with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'”[1] Adolf Hitler spoke these words on August 22, 1939 in preparation for the impending invasion of Poland. He subtly boasts in the slaughtering of 1.3 million forgotten Armenians that occurred twenty-four years earlier in the Ottoman Empire. 104 years later, I stand as a descendant of Armenian performers, composers, writers, dancers, but more importantly, survivors. My name is Raffi (Armenian: ՐաՖՖի). The name meaning “to lift, to raise something high” expresses reverence for God in Islam. I have long wanted to study the story of my people – the oppressed, neglected, forgotten people of the Armenian Genocide, the innocent people who were slaughtered in their homeland, and evicted from their homes they owned. Many family members have spoken of doing this kind of systematic research into our own family’s resources for sake of both our family and the other descendants of Armenian people referenced by Adolf Hitler. The Musical Arts (MUA) Major at the Eastman School of Music will provide me the opportunity to study how the Armenian Genocide altered the artistic styles of my people and single-handedly destroyed the preservation of our culture.

The history of the Armenian Genocide by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire harbors horrific stories and accounts of an oppressed people being scapegoated by an empowered group of fierce nationalists. During 1915, the Turkish government decided to evict and murder Armenians. “By the early 1920s, when the massacres and deportations finally ended, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were dead, with many more forcibly removed from the country.”[2]For perspective, the Nazi Holocaust murdered “some 6 million European Jews (as well as millions of others, including Romani and homosexuals) by the German Nazi regime during the Second World War.”[3] Since the death tolls of the Armenian Genocide are not as dramatic as those of the Nazi Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide has not received the attention it deserves. Because the Armenian holocaust has been largely forgotten both within the Middle Eastern and Western culture, the massacre of these innocent people – my people – should be remembered and accounted for.

For Armenians like my great-grandmother who endured the pain and suffering of this holocaust, the Turkish rampage against the Armenian people was without a doubt a genocide. The Turkish government has never acknowledged that a genocide ever took place due to political fear of reparations as a consequence of recognition. Educational systems in the Middle East as well as the United States conspired with the Turkish government to deny that a genocide took place. American textbooks of world history have labeled the entire event as “The Turkish-Armenian War.” The euphemism blasphemes those who lost their innocent lives during this time, and those who had to watch their friends and families be murdered with neither cause nor consequence.

My goals and objectives in entering the MUA program will be continuously motivated by my diligent passion for this subject of study. Studying the Armenian Genocide, otherwise known as the Turkish-Armenian War, will teach me who I came from, but also who I currently am as an individual artist with Armenian heritage. As my Armenian grandmother, Chakè Tabet, showed me during the years I was able to spend with her, the Armenians created beautiful music amidst the ugly conflict they faced during their lives. She spent her early life in music as a highly esteemed actress and singer. Her Lebanese husband, George Illias Tabet, was the conductor of the National Symphony of Beirut. Once he was killed in a car crash, my grandmother brought her and her four children (one being my mother) to the United States. Thus began the story of my Armenian family in the United States. My grandmother’s life has inspired me to research and analyze how artistic and musical style of Middle Eastern music changed from before, during, and after the conflict in Armenia. I understand that contributions to this type of research have already been made by several PhD and DMA candidates in Musicology and Voice respectively at the Eastman School of Music. I hope to incorporate their work into my research as well. There is an innate sense of community between fellow Armenian people, and being able to work from afar with one another in researching the struggles of our heritage would be a touching experience.

One of the most fascinating contributions I can make to research with the materials I own are those of my great-grandmother who survived the Armenian Genocide. In her time before, during, and after the genocide, my great-grandmother, Alice Torian, chose to keep diaries to record the events that took place around her and within her. In 1975, she transformed these works into memoirs. My family has had one of her several volumes translated. The rest of them are written in Armenian. Her first volume is horrifically tragic. Studying her words and anecdotes would enrich not only my life, but also the lives of fellow Armenians who have never heard of one of the most tragic events of the 20th century; an event that has been largely erased from history in several cultures. Being a part of the MUA program would allow me to be held accountable to staying to true to this research.

Perhaps the most motivating factors for my choosing to study the struggle of cultural preservation through Armenian artistry is to search beyond what I already know of the Armenian people in hopes to discover more despite years of loss and destruction. I hope to honor the lives of the Armenian people who endured the horrors of the genocide while taking part in a movement that leaves no opportunity for the question to be asked: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

[1] Sylvia Alajaji, Exilic Becomings: Post-Genocide Armenian Music in Lebanon, (Illinois, University of Illinois, Spring/Summer 2013), 238-241. [2] Armenian Genocide, (A&E Television Networks, 2010) http://history.com [3] The Holocaust, (A&E Television Networks, 2009) http://history.com

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