Houshamadyan’s column
THE FIRST STONE
>From today we can say that Houshamadyan has been born, is working and
is appearing.
The first geographical region that we are dealing with in these pages
is Palu, with its town and surrounding villages. Of course it is
possible to ask why Palu? Why this choice?
In reality the Houshamadyan Association has no one descended from
people from Palu, so there is no need to look for emotional reasons
for this choice. In fact it was more that a book appearing in 1932 by
Rev Harutiun Sarkisian (nom-de-plume Alevor) impressed us from the
first moment with its content and wealth of information. We were
convinced that based on even this one book we would succeed in great
measure in giving new life to Armenian life in Palu. We don’t think we
were mistaken in our judgement. We also had several other written
Armenian sources at our disposal about Palu. But we weren’t aware of
other publications that in the final analysis would amount to more
than ten volumes about it. Some of them were published in the United
States of America, where there was an important colony of people from
Palu even before the catastrophe of 1915. During our work we
encountered two new publications. The first was Bedros Alahaidoian’s
book, which contained rich information about Palu’s songs. It also had
two CDs which contained recordings of those same songs. The second was
Arsen Yarman’s two-volume book, in which Armenian works about Palu of
the 19 century had been translated into Turkish.
We don’t think that we have utilised all the Armenian books written
about Palu. There might be others that we know nothing about. But this
is the attractive side of Houshamadyan’s work. We will be ready to
revise our website pages every time new sources appear about a given
place. Such sources can be provided by our visitors and readers.
We have not completed all the subjects to do with Palu. Some are still
in the composition and editorial stages. These texts will be gradually
added to the website in the next few weeks. Our visitors can follow
these updates through the free Houshamadyan Newsletter which can be
received by writing to us at our e-mail address
houshamadyan(at)googlemail.com
Our research on Palu has given us the opportunity for unforeseen,
enjoyable and useful meetings. The best examples of these are the
links forged with George Aghjayan and George Leylegian. These two
researchers living in the USA immediately appreciated our work.
Leylegian, with his rich store of information, opened great prospects
concerning future work with Houshamadyan. Aghjayan, descended from
people from the Palu region has, in many ways (maps, photographs,
pictures, archival materials and books), assisted in the enrichment of
these pages written about it.
Houshamadyan’s journey has begun, and we are hopeful that many more
meetings like this will happen during our travels.