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Meliné Karakashian

Meliné Karakashian

Meliné Karakashian was born in Beirut, Lebanon. After graduating from high school, she immigrated to the U.S., established residence in New Jersey, and continued her education, obtaining an Ed.S. in school and community psychology, a Ph.D. in child clinical psychology, and a practicing psychology license. She has volunteered to help victims of the 1988 Armenian earthquake, the Karabagh War, and September 11. Her work has been recognized by the presidents of Armenia, the American Psychological Association, and the New Jersey Mental Health Association, among others. She is the recipient of two lecturing Fulbrights to Yerevan State University. She has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and two books. Komitas: A Psychological Study is her most recent work.

17 Comments

  1. Very well written. Please clarify: was it Komitas’ friends that cleared his apt or the Turkish authorities? Why was it cleared out and what happened to those items?

  2. Thank you for this excellent article.
    I grew up in my mother’s Armenian family and I remember two things very clearly: My grandfather, Levon Karakashian, never, ever mentioning the Genocide. But thanks to my aunt, his eldest daughter, I knew the name Komidas and what it meant.
    It was only in adulthood that I asked questions as to my family history, and learned that my grandfather had suffered immeasurably even though he escaped with his life (though not the horrors and the loss of his family, which must have traumatized him irreparably), and I’m convinced he died of it; so much unexpressed pain has to affect the body.

  3. I would like to state an event during Gomidas Vartabed’s assylum time in Paris. One day his uncle’s wife knowing that Gomidas Vartabed liked cheese beoreg (cheese turnover), baked and brought to him to the psychiatric hospital where Gomidas Vartabed was hospitalized, offered them to him by saying in Turkish “Gomidas Vartabed bakh sana neh getirdim?” (“Gomidas Vartabed look what I have brought to you?”). He took over the tray with beoregs, and threw them one by one to his aunt’s face saying “do you still speak in that useless(anbidan)Turk’s language?”. This story had been told to me by one of Gomidas Vartabed’s choir members’ sister, Mrs. Anoushian, in Pasadena, Calif.

  4. Back home in Lebanon,we had a lady called oryort Verkin from Izmir who claimed to be Gomidas’s pupil.She used to play the piano & was our daily visitor for years.As far as I remember she had never been to Istanbul.Could it be that in between 1910-15,father Domidas had taught in Izmir as well?

  5. TKU for this great article and shedding light on the conspiracy of silence. Although ‘conspiracy’ might be the wrong word. The enormity of the tragedy/crime was such that our ancestors and the next generation (most of them god-fearing and law abiding citizens) simply didn’t have the sophisticated tools to document their emotions and express their feelings. This is an excellent article to reflect for the third generation and how we can take the narrative forward.

  6. Thank you for this article that I read with great interest. Though I was quite young when my paternal grandfather died, my father informed me of the events that surrounded my grandfather’s imprisonment and exile with Komitas in April – May, 1915. They were together and shared a room or cell until they were sent back to Constantinople. They were released for different reasons. Komitas’ release was at the request of a Turkish notable who liked Komitas’ voice and wanted him to give voice lessons, whereas the eight other Armenian notables were released at the request of Morganthau’s first secretary who had been finally convinced after multiple attempts by my uncle, who worked at the embassy, that they were all to be executed (the eight were Armenians with US connections or employment). The US embassy could not intervene for the other Armenians. Both, Komitas and my grandfather, had suffered more mental torture than physical with the imprisonment and and both suffered PTSD, but Komitas’ condition was more severe. As for singing, Komitas would only sing Der Voghormia repeatedly without end.

  7. Fascinating article. Looking forward to reading your book in English. I had read in another book (can’t remember which one), that most of his transcripts (collection of 4000 songs), were destroyed (burnt to be precise) by Turks in front of his very eyes; which contributed to severely deteriorating his mental condition following this event. Could this be validated ?

  8. What a great article. My Mother’s family escaped from Constantinoble to Thessaloniki, Greece in 1915-1916. My Uncle used to tell me stories of his family. The sadness ran deep in their family, but rarely did they give details as to what happened to my great-great grandparents in Constantinoble. So I understand the fear and pain, Gomidas was a musical genius, Der Voghormia is one of his pieces that brings tears to my eyes. It appears to reflect his inner pain. Thanks you for this, I am looking forward to your reading your book.

  9. Besides the loss of life, I don’t know what, if any cultural losses other races experienced in their genocides, but I will cite one example for the Armenian case. Before the Genocide, Komitas had collected several thousands of songs (as I recall three or four) from nearly all historic Armenian villages and documented them meticulously. After his arrest and imprisonment, the Turkish criminals destroyed his papers and as a result most of those songs have been lost forever… cultural songs which had come to exist amongst the Armenians from the dawn of time. A large number of his songs survive today, but no where near the original figures. Yet in the Genocide, this is but one aspect of the loss in our culture. One cannot even begin to put into words the devastation that was brought on our nation. And here 100 years later, we are still struggling to get the Genocide recognized and have to deal with a bunch of crazed ignorant lunatics and their hired political prostitutes who turn the tables on us without shame and with a particularly crass attitude. I would ask the fair minded Turks that are Genocide recognizers, what is the remedy of this loss? You can take lives, but through those that survived, the race lives. You can take lands, and give them back. You can take possessions and give them back, but what can you do about destroying entire Armenian villages and then destroying their cultural records? And we as Armenians what are we willing to settle for as restitution for such an unrecoverable loss?

  10. Thank you dear Meline for your very beautiful informative article about our Saint Gomidas as many poets and painters defined before me.
    I am collecting more information about Gomidas from many sites…to complete my poetry collection…and name the heading of the book “Gomidas my secret God”…As I lost my faith in all gods
    I hate to use the word madness…
    We all carry few madness genes…hidden somewhere
    Appears on and off when someone gets unfairly traumatize…
    No-one is purely sane as everyone thinks…
    Why Gomidas was note called insane
    when he created all beautiful poems…hymns…music
    Why he was called mad…after he was tortured…
    castrated by the butchers … the well known criminals…
    What should we expect from him…what he observed with his genius
    astrocytes with passionate cardiocytes and musical ear drums…
    After he heard the lies the cries…the rages of the innocent dedicated literate friends
    poets…mothers lost their homes…their beloveds…
    Do you want him to laugh…to sing…as he lost 300 members of his chorus…!
    Who can answer ‘yes….let thee tell us…
    Awake my friends and analyse
    Don’t ever use the word madness…
    We are all mad as we get older and hear more stories of genocide…
    We will die mad and our brain cells will stay
    carrying the pains of genocide…
    till we reach graves and beyond…
    Sylva-MD-Poetry

  11. Dr. Meline Karakashian has brought to our attention a much larger problem through her discussion of Gomidas Vartabed’s life and subsequent psychological drama. This is the effect of the Genocide trauma that has affected directly the survivors and to a great extent the generations that followed. Unfortunately, our scholars have focused so far only on the historical aspects of the events associated with the Genocide while there are innumerable related fields that need study and documentation.Our inability to get Armenian scientists to cover and analyze the multifaceted aspects of what happened in 1915 has narrowed down the field of the genocide narrative.If at age of 70 I am still haunted by the story of the genocide like innumerable others who belong to the post genocide generations, one would wonder what type of treatment or solution would bring relief to the rage and anger I feel. This is why I get mad whenever I see free lance “problem solvers” engaging in solo discussions with Turkish authorities believing that so called “goodwill” gestures could bring reconciliation and closure to a harrowing story.

  12. Also see Archaeology of Madness: Komitas, a Portrait of an Armenian Icon, which was the first work analyzing and diagnosing Komitas’s mental illness as PTSD and its impact on his creativity and life based on original research of Komitas’s actual hospital files: http://www.gomidas.org/books/show/58

  13. So, his friends contributed to his madness due to their ignorance. Positively tragic. Sometimes Armenians can hurt each other more than the Turks (which is true for any other group).

    By the way, you guys know that Arlene Oski Avakian, an author heavily relied upon by the article, is a lesbian and an activist for LGTB and feminist causes, right? One of the central themes of her book (“Lion Woman’s Legacy”) is about growing up a lesbian in the Armenian culture. An interesting character indeed. And an interesting fact omitted by the author of this article.

    • And how does this make a difference in the issues discussed and/or the value of the book?

  14. I just purchased the book in Western Armenian. Would love to talk to you about (one day soon) converting it to an AUDIO CD or MP3 for purchase…that people could listen to in their cars…in Western Armenian!

    vanarmenya@yahoo.com

  15. I hope your book will one day be translated into Turkish too.
    I am a turkish citizen and like many others grew up believing the official history taught us by the government: that such a genocide never happened that we never hurt anyone. however in this information we are living in it is impossible to keep things secret anymore. and like many others i too am trying to read and learn more about our “unofficial” history, including the genocide of the armenians. things i read are shocking and what i find even more horrible is that i as one individual cannot do much to change my governments attitude towards this problem. however i hope the younger generations will one day manage this, manage to confront this issue and apologize in a proper way for the atrocities comitted against armenians and other ethnic groups as well.
    that is why i hope your book will be translated into turkish as well. so that the younger generation can read it. i find Komitas’s story to be very moving and it touched me from the deep down. i know it can reach others as well and make them question things they believed to be true.
    thank you!

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