Story of a Song… Long Forgotten, Now Remembered: Khani Yerka

I didn’t think about the song much at that moment, but knew I would have loved to hear more of it sung.  I played it over and over just to hear his voice telling the story of how he walked behind the marching men singing.

In May of this year, the Gomidas Institute published Dad’s memoir, Avedis’ Story: An Armenian Boy’s Journey. Since then, I’ve asked a number of friends if they’d ever heard this song, Lousin Ch’gar, but the answer was always the same, “No.” I searched the internet, but came up blank there, too. I began to feel it was a lost and forgotten song and that finding anyone who knew it was highly unlikely.

Then, a series of happenings showed me how wrong I was. It started with a trip to Toronto to take part in a symposium on Armenia.  After the day’s events the participants gathered at one of the organizer’s homes. After dinner, everyone sat around singing Armenian songs.  Our host played the violin, and Dr. Zareh Ouzounian played the piano.  One Armenian song after another flowed, all from their school years — children’s songs, love songs, nationalistic songs, folk songs — on and on.  It was wonderful, but I was weary and hoping the evening would end soon, as I had an early flight to catch in the morning. But the group didn’t show signs of breaking up and since the person taking me back to the hotel was one of the most ardent singers, it was not possible to ask him to depart. So, I hung on.

A point came when the songs stopped and someone said, “Anyone have any suggestions?  Requests?” I piped up, “Yes — I do. Does anyone know Lousin ch’gar?” I was greeted with blank stares. Someone said, “Sing some of it… maybe we’ll remember.” Then, one of the participants, Garbis Korajian, an Armenian born in Ethiopia who now lives in British Columbia, said, “I know it,” and started to sing in full voice, the words mixed with ‘la-la’ when memory failed. I couldn’t have been more delighted. He asked, “How do you know this song?” I countered with, “And how do you know it?”  He said, “I learned it as a little boy of six or seven in Ethiopia”

Later he told me, “Our family lived in a large compound in Addis Ababa, given to my grandfather as a reward for his faithful service as palace treasurer and advisor to Emperor Haile Selasie. My mother’s father was one of the famous 40 orphans — the National Music Band — adopted by the Emperor. My father taught all of us in the family the songs he had learned when he was at the Armenian school in Paris. He had a big book of Armenian songs from which he taught us every song from beginning to end. The first song in the book was Mer Hairenik, the second was Antranige kach, and the third was Lousin ch’gar. I haven’t heard it or thought about that song for many years.  I don’t remember all the words. If you find them, send them to me.”

I began to have hope that I would find others who knew this song as well.

Two weeks later, I was having lunch with my aunt (the same aunt who got my father to dictate his memoirs), my friend Sonya Nersessian and her mother Betty. The conversation turned to Dad’s memoir, and I told them about the song. Betty said,  “I know that song. My husband and I used to sing it a long, long time ago. I haven’t thought about that song for years.” She went on to explain that as she remembered it, it was an old Dashnag song, which the soldiers used to sing. And now she began to sing the same two lines my father sang but didn’t remember any more of it either.

The very next day I was at the office of my dentist, Dr. Vatché Seraderian. After the visit I asked, “Vatché, do you know a song that goes like this…. Lousin ch’gar….?” I didn’t get to sing even the little I knew when he began to sing it finishing the first lines. His eyes opened wide and with a look of disbelief he asked, “What ever made you think of that song. Where did you hear it? Of course I know it. My father taught it to me when I was a little boy.” I told him the story about my father singing the song as a little boy. Vatché started to sing as much of the song as he could remember.

That night Vatché went to see his father, Vartan, specifically to ask if he remembered the words to this song. Now in his nineties, Vartan was for many years a deacon and the choirmaster of St. Stephan’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown. Before coming to the US in 1980, he held teaching positions in Aleppo and then in Beirut, where he served as a choirmaster and teacher of many in liturgical and ancient Armenian music (as he was a master of the ‘khaz’ Armenian note system) and Armenian folk music.  He was also a master of Armenian nationalistic songs, which he sang and taught as well.

Vartan’s response thus was no surprise. “Of course I know the song, but I don’t remember all of the words. I will look it up in my yerkaran — my song book now 100 years old.” Interestingly, he too had learned this song when he was a little boy of eight or nine years old in Aleppo from soldiers who had escaped the Genocide and had gone to the front to fight the Turks.

The next night, Vatché’s dad arrived at his home with the song written out in his own hand and sang it from beginning to end. Vatché described the powerful emotions of the moment. Both father and son, with tears flowing, embraced each other as they remembered singing this long forgotten song. They remembered the peaceful days at their summer cottage in the mountains surrounding Beirut, the family lying on the ground on a moonless night gazing up at the stars and singing, “Lousin ch’gar….. moot kisher er…”

I have no such memory, only that of hearing my father’s voice singing it recorded for me all those years ago. My image is of him as a little boy singing it as he marched through the streets of Batum. The name of the song is Khani Yerk.

I am sure that there are those of you reading this who know this song and for whom it brings back some special memory.  If it does, please send me a note and tell me about it… I would love to know how this song has touched you. Please write to me at cnajarian@rcn.com.