References about People’s Artist of the Soviet Union, the renowned singer Muslim Magomayev on the internet, in which Azerbaijani censorship is possible, are “cleaned up” from references about Armenians. It is not indicated that his first wife was an Armenian (unsuccessful marriage, they lived together for only a year), while studying in Baku he had favorite Armenian professors, and finally, most importantly, that he was the best performer of Arno Babajanyan’s a few dozen songs, and both artists have build their name, their popularity thanks to each other (and the poet Robert Rozhdestvensky). Eradication of positive or at least neutral references about Armenians is quite similar to the behavior of Turkeys, when, let’s say, the Armenian script letter were carefully deleted from the churches of Ani or Kars, there is no single word in the signposts about their national identity, and the Turkish guides who travel with foreigners while giving the names of the architects of these churches and the kings and engineers of that period “forget” about their ethnicity.
And, now I think if some 50 or 100 years from now a person of any nationality (including Armenian and Azerbaijani) tries to gather information via google-search whether he will get an adequate picture. I am talking about an ordinary man, not a scientist, who probably will not be limited to a web search and will go to libraries, and will study sources. The history, of course, has always been distorted, every minute, centuries, and millennia ago before the creation of the internet, simply now we have a vivid and generalized image of the distortion.
I write all these to try to evaluate today’s events through the eyes of the future. In particular, I’m interested to know what the reader (internet user) will think 50 years later about our wonderful artists Robert Amirkhanyan, Martin Vardazaryan, Aram Satyan, if he makes a search for the period of “2013 Autumn”. Let’s try to do it and you will see that it gives the information not about their own high-quality music, not about their contribution to our culture, but about who has possessed or is going to take over the chair of the president of Composers’ Union, and who has sold or intends to sell the assets of the Union.
One of our readers, in response to my previous publication on the same topic, has written: “The battle is going on merely in “creative” unions, where there are tangible assets left from the Soviet Union, the building, recreation houses, etc., as well as intangible assets, which the president of the Union is ultimately materializing: effect, sympathy of Armenians in abroad (and not only), grants and so on.” In theory, it is right. But, I do not believe that the above mentioned composers much care about it. I do not want to believe. Also, I do not want the next generations to have the wrong idea about these people.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
