The Duduk Whispers About Armenia’s Sadness

by Jana Andric (Serbia)

I didn't expect to find Armenia

People know about a roaring earthquake, good vine, churches from ancient times, people know that Armenia is one of the first countries converted to Christianity, which adopted it as its state religion. However, my visit wasn’t inspired by any of it. Anyway, I had no idea where to start. I was at the marketplace, choosing some sujuk and pomegranates, asking myself why it is Armenia’s national symbol, when I heard low singing behind the counter. There were two girls and a woman stringing fruits on sticks while they were singing. I melted. They were upset when they saw me, but I asked them to continue. That’s how I met Yeva, she was around my age. Mesmerized I asked her to have a lunch with me. Though shy, she accepted. I thought a history lesson might wait. “So Yeva, you live here in Yerevan?” “Yes. My parents were born here but grandma came from village far away”. “Village… In my country we go to grandparents’ villages for a vacation. Do you?” “Actually no, her property was confiscated during the genocide, and after that she finished in Deir ez Zor concentration campus.” “She survived that?! Oh my goddess, how…?” Surprised by my reaction, she slowly backed off, which was logical because she barely knew me, but I asked her to tell me because I was very interested in that and was the reason why I came here. I bet she thought then that I was a freak if I came to talk about the genocide that they all persistently try to erase from their memory and fear instilled in the genes. But she continued. “Yes, her name was Shoger and she was ten during massacres. When the Turks entered her village, they set fire to her house with her family inside. Her aunt put a wet blanket over grandmother and her little brother, when the roof of the fire collapsed, they went out through it and escaped. They run for a long time but were caught near the Euphrates River. The Turks took her brother and forced her to watch them cutting off his head and throwing his body into the river from the cliff. It happened then, people were thrown alive at sea from the deck to drown. The Euphrates and Tiger rivers have even changed flows due to accumulated corpses.” I thought that those rivers we learned from history as the rivers upon which civilization began, became the end for thousands of people. They used to mean life, but now death. “She ended up in a Sirian concentrated campus where they were taken on foot through the desert, 500 000 people died there. She had luck to survive even she used to say that was curse for her eyes and ears. After 1923 she came back to Armenia, few years later my mother Armenohui was born, her name means Armenia, and then my uncle, whose name means strong, she named them like that in name of glory and victory." My body was numb from the imagined scenes, as she talked about all this as a fairy tale, emotionless. Watched thoughtfully Yeva smiled. “What?” “One day my mother was watching some Turkish soap opera on TV, when grandma heard that from other room she came, grabbed her hand and slapped her saying that she should never watch them again. “Yürü, yavrum, yürü!” (dance my child dance. Turk) that were lyrics of the song that Turks used to sing during the celebration while grandma house was burning. She could never watch someone getting burned because it was a reminiscent of the smell of burning human bodies. Around of two millions of us died back then.” I drank rest of my tea mostly in silence. I understood. The duduk songs, vine and pomegranates are state symbols as reminders of a spilled blood. Once I watched a movie about their earthquake, in one scene an old man looks up at the sky and asks god: “I understood God, I understood. But why are you explaining so painfully?” That question was always on my mind while I was talking to Yeva and experiencing this country. I understood how grateful I should be…