Armenian Musicians from Azerbaijan at Harvard

The New Directions in Armenian Studies Lecture Series presents

Jonathan Hollis

PhD Candidate in Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ethnic Armenians were part of Azerbaijan’s musical culture throughout the 20th century. These musicians created their own musical community in Baku, and participated in large scale cultural projects. As instrumentalists, they cultivated a form of mugham, the most important musical tradition in the country and a central artistic expression of national identity in Azerbaijan. This talk discusses the history of the Armenian musicians of Baku, and their contributions to Azerbaijani musical culture from the perspective of Georgy Minasov, the last of his generation of Armenian musicians. Drawing on ethnographic and oral history research, this talk considers the Armenian musical community of Baku in the context of Soviet cultural policies, the recording industry, and current memory practices. Interrogation of this musical tradition in historical and political context, with a focus on the individual musicians who lived this history engages issues of musical nationalism, conflict and displacement, and the politicization of cultural heritage. In the context of the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh, it considers the experiences of Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijani society before their violent expulsion from the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic during the late 1980s.

Co-sponsored by: Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations