Akhtamar- Church of the Holy Cross (Soorp Khach)

[Gavur]

Sounds like a bad Turkish movie.

[Joseph]

[B]Fazil Say is a fool as you can see below statements in bold made below. Another case of Turks/Turkey appropriating Armenian culture and folklore. Keep in mind that the legend of Akhtamar pre-dates the arrival of the Turks into Asia Minor and that it was the daughter of a king and not a monk. A monk in the Armenian Church would not have had a family. Armenian should stay clear of this "man"


A painful cry of an eternal love

Tuesday, February 19, 2008


A group of artists from Turkey and Armenia will be coming together in a huge project by Turkey’s acclaimed piano virtuoso Fazıl Say. Yaşar Kemal, one of the greatest literary masters of the world, will write the lyrics of the ballet version of the legend ‘Akh Tamar,’ which will be on stage in 2009

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU
ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

A group of 250 major artists from Turkey and Armenia will give life to the legendary "Ah Tamar" symphonic piece through Turkey's world-renowned piano virtuoso Fazıl Say who is readying to realize the project next year.

The project is a crucial step that will bring Armenia and Turkey closer to each other, Say told the Turkish Daily News in an exclusive interview.

Say, sensitive to the current situation and the heated debates recently surrounding him, wanted to preview the article or would refuse to consent to its publication. Underlining that he faced great difficulties after a translation-related mistake in the past, Say said: “My struggle is for Turkey's bright future. I am tired of being misunderstood, misinterpreted and falsely introduced to people.”

The celebrated Turkish pianist's remarks that he wants to leave Turkey, uttered in an exclusive interview with German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, received much attention by the Turkish media and were followed by an intense polemic in December 2007.

Say, an envoy for the 2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, will compose the ballet version of the vocal and symphonic work. The lyrics will be composed by Turkey's world famous writer Yaşar Kemal.



Tense atmosphere

Say said he started working on his Akh Tamar project in 2004 but had to abandon it for a while due to the tense atmosphere that was created after Nobel Price winner novelist Orhan Pamuk said in a 2004 interview that about 30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians had been killed in Ottoman Turkey.

Say, noting that the political atmosphere in the country became even more tense in 2007 following the assassination of journalist Hrant Dink, founder and editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, said his project was further delayed due to all these "unfortunate" events.

Say, who said that he had once spoken to Dink about the project over the phone, said that it is highly important in terms of taking steps toward friendly relations between Turkish and Armenian people. Drawing the attention to the recent collaborative work by Greek artist Mikis Theodarikis and Turkish artist Zülfü Livaneli, Say said efforts by these two prominent artists have paved the way for a warming of Turkish-Greek relations within the last few years.

Say said he has contacted the Armenian State Opera Ballet for his project and received a positive reply from the institution.

When reminded that an opera on the legend of Akh Tamar was firstly composed by world-renowned Istanbul-born Armenian composer Sirvart Karamanukyan, Say said he did not have much knowledge on the issue, however, he would be pleased to make contributions to any kind of projects about it. Karamanukyan, 95, has received several international awards and medals.

At the moment Say said he is focused on the Akh Tamar project that he plans to stage next year. Say will first compose the music of the ballet version of Akh Tamar. The legend has a beautiful concept, Say said, adding, that he will then construct and edit his work based on that concept. The Akh Tamar ballet will embark on a world tour after it is staged in Istanbul, Yerevan and on the island of Akh Tamar in Van Lake in eastern Turkey.

Discussions obstacle to dialogue Armenians and Turks tell different versions of the Akh Tamar legend. According to the Turkish version, Tamar falls in love with a Turkish boy whereas according to Armenians, both the hero and the heroine of the legend are Armenian.

“Everybody's Akh Tamar is different from each other's. You may listen to the legend from 100 persons but each one can tell it in a different way,” Say said. Arguing over such a topic is just meaningless, he added.

“For Armenia, even Beethoven and [Leonardo] da Vinci are of Armenian origins. Armenia perceives everything with a great ego... but what is important today is taking steps of friendliness. We should leave aside unnecessary discussions,” he said.

Say, drawing attention to his position as an envoy for the 2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, said that unless necessary steps of friendliness and reconciliation are not taken, healthy relations cannot be established between Armenia and Turkey. “We all would like to know what the facts are,” said Say. With the said steps, relations between the two peoples will heal and dialogue will start, he added.

Two different versions of the legend

Armenian legend has it that Tamar, a young and beautiful princess, falls in love with a poor Armenian boy who each night would swim from mainland to the Island of Ah Tamar (Akhtamar) to unite with his love. He found his way with the help of a torch lit by Tamar to prevent him from drowning in a current. However, Tamar's father, the king, quickly became angered by the situation and imprisoned his daughter in a fortress. He then, lit the torch as his daughter used to do but directed it toward the current instead. The dark waters of the lake drowned the boy and his dying cries, they say, were just "Akh Tamar" (Oh Tamar).According to the Turkish version of the legend, once upon a time, there used to live a beautiful girl named Tamara, the daughter of a chief monk living on the island. Tamara fell in love with a young Muslim shepherd boy from one of the surrounding villages. The boy swam to island every night to unite with Tamara, who waited for him with a candle. Tamara's father who later learns about the situation goes down to a shore on a stormy night. He carried a light in his hand and, by shaking it, causes boy to lose his strength. Tired of swimming in different directions due to the light, the boy is submerged under the dark waters of the lake. His final cry was “Ah Tamara” and Tamara, who hears the cries of her love, surrenders to the waters of the lake and drowns herself.

[bell-the-cat]

Armenian should stay clear of this "man"

And continue to bury their heads in the sands? What solution is that?

A devastating critique of Turkish attitudes and that of their apologists could be made out of this story and the background (i.e. the Aghtamar "restoration") to it. If well written it would be the sort of article that would be read by any intelligent reader and could (and would, if it were by an established journalist) be published in any of the main quality newspapers or magazines. It would be the very article that Meline Toumani would be writing right now if she weren't so uninformed about these issues and so self-constricted by outdated attitudes.

[bell-the-cat]

BTW, here are some pictures of the official reopening of Aghtamar.

http://www.virtualani.org/aghtamar-reopening/index.htm

[chinchilla]

It would be the very article that Meline Toumani would be writing right now if she weren't so uninformed about these issues and so self-constricted by outdated attitudes.

Give some examples.

Here are her articles. Which one features outdated attitudes?

[Joseph]

And continue to bury their heads in the sands? What solution is that?

A devastating critique of Turkish attitudes and that of their apologists could be made out of this story and the background (i.e. the Aghtamar "restoration") to it. If well written it would be the sort of article that would be read by any intelligent reader and could (and would, if it were by an established journalist) be published in any of the main quality newspapers or magazines. It would be the very article that Meline Toumani would be writing right now if she weren't so uninformed about these issues and so self-constricted by outdated attitudes.

I believe you are correct. Armenians should make this hypocrisy well-known. We need to take more action, this is true. Some of it is a function of fighting an uphill battle on a daily basis and certain things get overlooked by those who are in the trenches.

To give some background on Toumani, she is one of those Armenians that has more or less answered the Turks prayers; live and let live, Armenians and Turks should be friends, genocide should be forgotten, look how different Turkey is now, etc.

[Joseph]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/turkish-restoration-of-armenian-church-leaves-no-room-for-apology-442512.html

Turkish restoration of Armenian church leaves no room for apology

By Ian Herbert in Van, Anatolia, Turkey
Friday, 30 March 2007

Across a blue salt lake on an island surrounded by snow-capped mountains in eastern Turkey, Armenian Christians were invited yesterday to witness how the Turkish nation has restored one of their most holy sites.

From the bas-relief etched out of red tufa stone, to the frescoes on the high conical roof, most of the ancient treasures were back on view again at the 1,000-year-old Church of the Holy Cross, on the island of Akdamar in Lake Van, eastern Anatolia. Except for the cross; the same cross which was visible in early sketches of the church and photographed in 1908, just before Armenians were rounded up, never to return, in the city of Van at the beginning of what they describe as their genocide at the hands of the Ottomans.

The church's restoration had been sold to the world - and specifically to the US, whose House of Representatives is about to consider a resolution labelling the Armenian deaths genocide - as proof that Turkey want to put things right with the Armenians. But, despite the protests of the restoration project's Armenian architect, a cross was ruled out - as is any immediate prospect of this Christian church being consecrated so Armenians might, occasionally at least, pray here again. "The church is reopening as a museum and doesn't need a cross," Yusuf Halacoglu, the head of the Turkish Historical Society, insisted this week. "Around 22,000 Ottoman buildings have had crescents taken off when attacked. Other countries don't give as much attention to that."

The insensitivity set the tone for yesterday's ceremony which, despite the Turkish posters everywhere declaring Tarihe saygi, kulture saygi ("Respect the history, respect the culture"), was a painful and almost provocative statement of Turkey's national identity. The Armenian architect/bishop Manuel, who started building the church in AD 915, employed Armenian master carvers to create Christian reliefs of Adam and Eve, Noah's flood and David and Goliath. But Turkey has appropriated the holy site in a three-year, $2m (£1m) rebuild and was making no secret of the fact. The Turkish cresent and a giant Ataturk hung from the front of the church where, after a triumphal rendition of the Turkish national anthem, the culture and tourism minister, Atilla Koc, Turkey's most senior government representative, made his address. "We protect the cultural diversity and assets of different cultures," he proclaimed during a speech in which the word "Armenia" was not used once.

Perhaps it was just as well that only 29 people from Armenia had travelled here - by road, via Georgia, because the Turks would not open the borders to their cars or Van airport to their planes. But those who did make the journey bore witness to the most extraordinary man in the place.

Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan believes his people were the victims of genocide - he calls it medzegherm(the great slaughter) - and he would like the Turkish government to say "a simple sorry to my people to ease the tensions". But he was prepared to take the Turks' Akdamar gesture at face value in the hope that Armenians and Turks can live together. "The government ... has courageously completed the restoration project," he said when he clambered to his feet. "It is quite a positive move in Turkish-Armenian relations and I offer my profound thanks." His only request was that the Turks allow the church to become the site of annual pilgrimage, concluding in a Christian ceremony, once a year.

It remains to be seen whether Turkey's modernising Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan can let that pass. It is an election year and a rising tide of nationalism is being fuelled in large part by the EU's frostiness about Turkish accession. Antagonising those who consider further concessions to the Armenians an "insult to Turkishness" might be politically contentious. It might also explain why Mr Erdogan, a progressive who started the Akdamar project and has also launched a History Commission to investigate the events of 1915, thought it best not to attend yesterday's ceremony.

So desperate is Mr Erdogan's government to demonstrate its tolerance of Turkey's 70,000 Armenian minority that it took journalists around the country this week. The trip revealed more than the government might have intended: Armenian schools in Istanbul where only the Turkish version of history - ignoring 1915 - is taught; Armenian priests who need metal detectors at their churches because of the threat of extremists; and, at the newspaper offices of the murdered Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink, a stream of abusive emails from nationalists. (Dink's last article communicated his exasperation at the Turks' initial selection of 24 April - the day when Armenians mark the anniversary of the round-up of intellectuals in 1915 - as the day of the Akdamar church reopening. That date was later changed.)

With the Armenian government unwilling to join Mr Erdogan's History Commission, Patriarch Mutafyan invokes the memory of Levon Ter-Petrossian, Armenia's former president, and his search for common ground. Mr Ter-Petrossian wanted a monument on the countries' border with the inscription, in Armenian and Turkish, of the words "I'm sorry". It was never built.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said yesterday that a request by Patriarch Mutayfan that the cross be returned to Akdamar was being referred to the culture ministry. "I'm praying that one day it will be there," another Armenian church leader, George Kazoum, said before the ceremony.

For now, the Armenians can only take comfort from the crosses which no one can take from them. They were bathed in sunshine yesterday, away from all of the Turkish stage-managed razzmatazz, on gravestones in the Akdamar churchyard which have stood here through 1,000 years of snow, storms, earthquakes and human carnage.

[bell-the-cat]

Another "restored" Armenian church in the Lake Van region.

http://www.virtualani.org/edremit/index.htm