Türkyılmaz to Discuss ‘Armenians on Records: Music Production from Homeland to Diasporas’ at Columbia

NEW YORK—Dr. Yektan Türkyılmaz, the Henry Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor at California State University–Fresno, will be delivering a talk titled “Armenians on Records: Music Production from Homeland to Diasporas,” at Columbia University on March 22, at 8 p.m.

An advertisement for Watertown, Mass.-based Armen Vahe Radio-Record Co. in the Oct. 5, 1947 issue of the Hairenik Daily (Scan: Hairenik Archives)

The lecture will explore the multi-directional journeys of Armenians in the recording history from the Ottoman Empire to the diasporas, particularly to the United States, in the first half of the 20th century, as musicians, as producers and as merchants. Drawing on the life stories and examples of commercial records in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere in the diasporas, it will illustrate the changing styles, content and language use in music production vis-à-vis place, trauma and audience/cultural dialogue throughout one of the most turbulent periods of Armenian history. The talk will specifically underscore the cultural, political and identitarian implications of the emergence of the recording technology on Armenian communities.

At the turn of the 20th century 78-rounds-per-minute (78RPM) records appeared in the “Orient”—almost simultaneously with their appearance in Europe. Within a decade sound engineers working for European companies swept the major cities of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Asia to record performers for local markets. Gramophone records, recorded locally yet pressed in Europe, swiftly became a major commodity in global trade. This new commodity had bearings beyond its merchandise value also for the Armenian communities; it reshaped the music, culture, politics and economy for the Armenians at local, national and global scales. This lecture will analyze these records played in Armenian homes and coffee shops, with a view toward expanding the study of nationalism, the genocide, diaspora experience and production of cultural forms to take account of the recording industry, in addition to the focus on print media that is currently central to these fields of study.

Dr. Türkyılmaz received his PhD from the department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. He has taught courses at the University of Cyprus, Sabanci, Bilgi, and Duke Universities, addressing the debates around the notions of collective violence, memory making, and reconciliation. Turkyilmaz is currently working on his book manuscript based on his dissertation, “Rethinking Genocide: Violence and Victimhood in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1915.”

Dr. Yektan Türkyılmaz

The event will take place at 428 Pupin Hall, 538 West 120th Street (at Broadway), Columbia University.

The program is co-sponsored by the Armenian Center at Columbia University, the Research Institute on Turkey, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), and Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR).

For more information about this program, contact Professor Khatchig Mouradian at km3253@columbia.edu.

1 Comment

  1. I wish I lived close enough to attend this.
    I’d like to hear about the lecture in an upcoming issue of AW.
    When I was a child I recall my mother buying records from the homeland that had a special place in our lives.
    Thx!

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