SUSAN PATTIE AT PRIO’S 3RD CONFERENCE IN NICOSIA
Alexander-Michael Hadjilyra

Gibrahayer
Dec 3, 2008

On Friday and Saturday, 28 and 29 November 2008, PRIO organised its
3rd Annual Conference titled "One Island, Many Histories: Re-thinking
the politics of the past in Cyprus". Amongst the various speakers,
one name was very familiar: Dr Susan Pattie, the author of the
brilliant book on the Gibrahay community titled: Faith in History:
Armenians Rebuilding Community (Washington: Smithsonian Institution
Press: 1997). Pattie was one of the four speakers of session 7 (Ledra
Palace Hotel), where she spoke on "Imagining Homelands: Poetics and
Performance among Cypriot Armenians".

Pattie started with a personal story: when she first arrived in Cyprus,
at the age of 10, it was night. She woke up at Ledra Palace, facing
the most beautiful sunrise, and seeing a palm tree for the first time
in her life!

Proceeding to her topic, she identified that theatrical plays
and musical performances help promote nationalism and the idea
of ethnicity, as the performance of history becomes part of their
narrative. There are three main categories of Western Armenian poetry
and music. First, poetry and music about the origins, the bravery and
the pride of the Armenians, with powerful symbolisms carried through
the Ararat Mountain, the Christianisation of Armen ia by Sourp Krikor
Naregatsi, the battle of Avarayr, and the invention of the Armenian
alphabet by Sourp Mesrob Mashdots.

The second category of poetry and music speaks about the Genocide;
here, we have accounts of the deportations, of the sacrifices for the
collective, and of the horri fic slaughters, as well as narrations
of the survivors, who speak about their survival tales and the help
they received. Poetry and song-making prevent people from forgetting,
they electrify the audience, and they re-ignite grief and anger,
even if the word "Turk" is not mentioned. The third category is
about the Dispersion; this poetry speaks about the displacement,
the Diaspora, the new homelands, and the sense of feeling "foreign"
in a new home. It also speaks about the new multi-lingual reality in
which Western Armenians now live in, and the important attachment
they must feel about their homeland and their motherland. Finally,
it speaks about the dichotomy of feeling grounded and at the same
time being a part of your new country.