Hagop H. Asadourian was born in Chomaklou, an
Armenian-speaking village near Mt. Argeos in Cappadocia on March 3, 1903.Hagop Asadourian
Hagop H. Asadourian was born in Chomaklou, an
Armenian-speaking village near Mt. Argeos in Cappadocia on March 3, 1903.
The catastrophe of 1915 occurred while Hagop was still a young lad attending the village elementary school. He joined the caravans being driven to the Syrian Desert and walked for 39 days far south to Aleppo, and from there, to the desert in convoy of cargo wagons. In the autumn of 1918, Asadourian entered the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) orphanage in Jerusalem and, with the rest of the orphans, was later relocated first to the Port Said, Egypt, and then Mersin, Cilicia.
Approximately a year and a half later, in the summer of the 1920, Hagop left the orphanage in Mersin and arrived in the United States some two months later, on October 29, 1920.
After finishing elementary school, he continues his education at the De Witt Clinton High School. It took him eight years, until the fall of 1928, before he finally was able to register as a night-school student at Columbia University, with great hopes of realizing his old dreams of receiving a college education. Unfortunately, the heavy burden of night studies for several years and the fatigue brought on by continuous heavy daytime work, together with the cataclysmic plunge in wages brought on by the Great Crash of 1929, ended all possibility of continuing his education.
Asadourian made his first literary attempts in 1923-1924. In a way, this was also a beginning of his public activity. During this period, in the turmoil of Armenian life in America that was beginning taking shape after World War I, he conceived and also became the first editor of the official organ Argeos, the mouthpiece of the Chomaklou Society, founded to lend assistance to the village folks scattered in America and the Middle East.
Asadourian’s first volume was a collection of poems, entitled Antasdan, which was published in Boston in 1946. In 1962, he published a study entitled Komitas Vardapet yev Hai Yerkuh (Komitas Vardapet and the Armenian Song) in Beirut. The articles appearing there was practically the first evocation of the art of the incomparable Komitas, in Armenia and Diaspora.
Along with his literary activities, Asadourian has had an appreciable musical activity too. In 1947 he put together an album of select songs, with the piano accompaniment of Alan Hovhannes.
In 1984, the golden jubilee of Asadourian’s literary, musical and public activities was celebrated in New York, sponsored by the Tekeyan Cultural Association. On this occasion, he was awarded with the St. Sahag and St. Mesrob Medal and with an Encyclical from His Holiness Vazken I, Catholicos of All Armenians.
In 1993, Yerevan University Press, published a fine monographic-analytical volume, entitled Hagop Asadourian, written by Academician Hrand Tamrazian, the prominent writer and dean of the Department of Armenian Literature in Yerevan State University.
In 1994, Asadourian published a handsomely illustrated volume entitled Komitas Vardapeti Hed (With Komitas Vardapet), containing many new articles as well as revised, expanded versions of all articles from his first volume. This study, constituting a comprehensive new work of 319 pages, is a serious literary-musical evaluation of the Vardapet’s life, art and diverse accomplishments.
Asadourian was elected a member of the Council of Elders of the Armenian Writers Union on June 12, 1996.
Another monographic volume was published in 1999 in Yerevan, entitled Harazad Kroghu ou Yerashishteh (The Authentic Writer and Musician) by Margarit Brutian, a longtime professor at Komitas Conservatory and author of several volumes of musical works.
Finally, on October 4, 1996, he was granted Honorary Citizenship by the Republic of Armenia.
Mr. Asadourian besides being one of the best interpreters of folk songs of our time,
Is also a renowned writer in Armenian. Born in Chomaklou(near Caesaria) on march 3,1903,he is a survivor of the Genocide, still alert and active, and has to his credit over a dozen volumes of books, mainly based on Armenian life, personal experiences, the Genocide and the Diaspora.
In 1965, his book “The Grand Children of Hovagim” won pan-national first prize for novel in a competition organized by Tekeyan Cultural Assouciation of Beyrouth, Lebanon, on the 50th anniversary of the Genocide. It is one of the best books on the subject, which was acclaimed by almost every writer. Mr. Yervant Azadian, one of our best Diaspora literary critics, thought that “if the Jews had such a literary work on hand, most probably they would have filmed it ten times”.
We spoke only of one literary creation. The others, too, were received with as much appreciation, but this little booklet is not the proper place, nor this is the occasion to present them all one by one.
The late academicians Hrant Tamrazian, one of the most outstanding literary critics of Yerevan, and also the Dean of the department of Armenian literature of Yerevan State University, has written a 140 page book entitled “Hagop Asadourian, his life and work” , a quotation out of which will in a way present them all, in his introduction lines on page 3 he writes.
Why am I writing about him, with what inner urge? Asks the writer to himself, and then gives his own answers to it. “I want to tell the principal reason – this work is tied up also with my own predilections. Asadourian is endowed with natural and true talent, which is an exceptional phenomenon anywhere. Of course, there are other appreciable talents worth studying also. But in literature what appeals to me most, is the naturalness and its vital force. Asadourian’s talent is bent on soil, has a vital epitome and natural accents. We can even add more distinctly that with those qualities there is also something more- which gives inspiration to the writer. His life and work are very much alike to the annals of our country, to the history of our people and the immediate echo of its destiny. On the far away shores of Hudson river with spiritual toil and with the amalgam of artistic images, he has created the jolting story of toiling men of the soil on pages where the sun and the colors of the motherland keep on shining.”
Altogether different from the purely literary works referred to above by Mr. Tamsazian, Hagop has also delved into the life and work of Komitas Vartabed in two separate volumes, the last one of which ,more complete, appeared in 1994 under the title of “With Komitas Vartabed, through Armenian song”. According to an introductory note on the first page of the book ,it is “an artistic evaluation of his multi-faceted accomplishments in the collections, reconstruction and exponence of Armenian sacral and folk music. Also, Selective highlights of his life, his ordainment to Priesthood, and his studies in Etchmiadzin and, later, in Germany, up to his final departure from Etchmiadzin to Constantiople.”
It was greatly appreciated by musicians and writers in the Homeland and Diaspora as one of the best books written about the Great Master Karekin II of happy memory. Catholicos of Cilicia (and later of Etchmiadzin as Karekin I). Perhaps expressed best the joint feelings of all of them when he wrote in a letter to Asadourian: <<This is the most extensive and complete study yet to have been made concerning Komitas.>>
A short while after the appearance of the book, another monographic volume about Asadourian appeared in 1999 in Yerevan, <<Hagop Asadourian, the Diaspora writer and Musician>>,written by the well known musician and author prof. Margaret Proodian of Komitas conservatory of music. In it, she makes a complete coverage of Asadourian’s life and work with numerous quotations from the press and letters written to the author, as mentioned above. We will bring here only her own evaluation of the writer and the book
<<Adoration, love, affection, unusual devotion to understanding his (Komitas’s) work, joy of pious modesty – these are the feelings which keep on agitating the spirit and mind of the reader long after finishing reading the book.
<< No doubt, the enigmatic life of Komitas, his entry into musical career by historical necessity, his wide circle of interest, his great accomplishments during a short life time, his objectiveness and the fundamental meaning of his theories about Armenian Culture- all these are, no doubt, weighty and momentous incumbencies to be considered very carefully. And Asadourian , in his valuable volume presents all these and more, with snob persuasive and moving lines, that it is very difficult for one to come out of its strong impression>> (page 92) after finishing the book.
In line with these musical activities, Asadourian has presented programs combining lecture and song in various cities including Boston, Beirut, New York, and, at the centennial celebrations of Komitas’s birth in Yerevan in 1969 in the hall of Academy of Science. Wherever he appeared, he always brought to light the hidden beauties of Komitas’s art in the reconstruction of our folk songs.
In 1984, the golden jubilee of Asadourian’s literary, musical and public activities was celebrated in New York, sponsored by the Tekeyan Cultural Association with the participation of the Armenian Literary Society and Chomaklou Compatriotic Society, under the patronage of the Primate, His Eminence Archbishop Torkom Manoogian. On this occasion, he was awarded with the St. Sahag and St. Mesrob Medal and with an Encyclical from his Holiness Vasken I, Catholicos of ALL Armenians. The Encyclical, among other things, reads: ”As a longtime man of letters and as a devoted public figure, you have served our people with inexhaustible zeal, competently and conscientiously – characteristic of Your personality.
“We are well aware of your productive fifty years of
literary accomplishments. Parallel to literary activities, you have continuously
contributed to the splendor of American-Armenian ecclesiastic life with Your
solicitous services, particularly with a high standard of spiritual music.”
He was also awarded a Certificate of Honor from the Armenian State Committee for Cultural Relations with Armenians Abroad (Spurk Committee) “for your major contribution on behalf of the centuries-old Armenian literature and for the development and strengthening of literary ties between the Homeland and the Diaspora.”
There’s an official acknowledgment signed in 1972 by Moroos Hasratian, Director of Armenian State Historical Museum, thanking Asadourian for the donation of an “antique Armenian rug,” which is being kept “in the ethnographic section, under your name as donor.”
There’s another official acknowledgment from Henrik Bakhchinian, Director of Armenian State Museum of Literature and Art, thanking Asadourian “for your contribution toward the enrichment of the museum’s national values,” referring to the author’s gift of archival papers.
There’s a “Certificate of Appreciation” from the Armenian Assembly of America
“for your participation in oral history project’ involving the Armenian people. It reads further: “The gallant stance of survivors like you has nourished our community and continues to inspire our new generations.”
And there’s a “Fifty-year Certificate” from the Knights of Vartan, dated
November 9, 1991, “for devoted service and sacrifices... with feelings of gratitude.”
In 1993, Asadourian was publicly honored by the Central Executive Committee of the Chomaklou Compatriotic Society, which gave him a plaque “as the founder and first editor” of the Society’s Argeos Periodical, and as a writer “for his salient contribution to Armenian literature.”
Asadourian was elected a member of the Council of Elders of the Armenian Writers union on June 12, 1996.
Finally, on October 4, 1996, he was granted honorary citizenship by the Republic of Armenia.
Mr. Asadourian passed away August 11, 2003.