Harry A. Kezelian III
“That generation…”
Stephan Karougian, the 80-something male soloist of St. John’s
Armenian Church Komitas Choir in Detroit, was telling me about his
parents, as I sat in his living room, interviewing him about his life in
Armenian music. He shook his head and sighed. He didn’t really expound
upon those two words, but his tone of voice was enough to tell the
story.
Karougian’s father had been born in Pingyan, a village in the
Province of Sivas in Ottoman Turkey, very close to the large town of Agn
in Harput province (the Ottoman borders divided up the Armenian
villages of that region, which also included Armdan and Divrig). He told
me that when his father would gather with friends, they would sing a
song in Turkish beginning with the words “Egin de veran olmush” (“Agn is
in ruins”). It was a very sad song about their region. But when
Karougian first told me about this song, he didn’t say that it was a
song about the Genocide, he simply told me that they sang it.
