14 October 2007

Who was Sayat-Nova ?

... a full bouquet of history, facts, legends, images and descent woven together

Sayat-Nova
(Armenian: Սայաթ-Նովա; Azeri: Sayat-Nova; Persian: سایات‌نووا; Georgian: საიათ-ნოვა) (June 14, 1712 Tiflis– September 22, 1795, Haghpat), or 'King of Songs' is the name given to Harutyun Sayatyan. His mother, Sara, was born in Tbilisi, and his father, Karapet, either in Aleppo or Adana. He was skilled in writing poetry, singing and playing the kamancheh. He performed in the court of Heraclius II of Georgia, where he also worked as a diplomat, and apparently helped forge an alliance between Georgia, Armenia and Shirvan against the Persian Empire. He lost his place at court when he fell in love with the king's daughter, and spent the rest of his life as an itinerant bard. In 1795 he was killed in Haghpat Monastery by the army of Agha Mohammed Khan. Read further on Wikipedia here
If you read Russian language, the Russian article on Wikipedia has the most information


Who was Agha Mohammed Khan ?

In 1795 he ravaged Georgia, a Christian kingdom to the north of Persia, which was formerly part of the Safavid empire. In the same year he also captured Khorasan. Shah Rukh, ruler of Khorasan and grandson of Nadir Shah, was tortured to death because Agha Muhammad thought that he knew of Nadir's legendary treasures. Read the whole story of his life here

What is the Haghpat Monastery ?

Described as a "masterpiece of religious architecture and a major center of learning in the Middle Ages", this venerable institution of the Armenian Apostolic Church was placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1996.[2] The monastery was founded by Saint Nishan (Sourb Nshan) in the 10th century during the reign of King Abas I. The nearby monastery at Sanahin was built around the same time. Read further on Wikipedia here

Who was Erekle II ?

In 1795, he demanded that Erekle acknowledged Persian suzerainty, promising in return to confirm him as wali. Erekle refused, and in September 1795, the Persian army of 35,000 moved into Georgia. After the valiant defense of Tbilisi at the Battle of Krtsanisi, Erekle’s small army was almost completely annihilated, with the king becoming a witness of the fearful devastation of his capital and being forced to retreat into the mountains. The Persian invasion delivered a hard blow to Georgia from which it was not able to recover. Despite being abandoned at the critical moment, he still had to rely on the Russian belated support and fought, in 1796, alongside the Russian expeditionary forces sent by Catherine into the Persian possessions. But her death that year brought an abrupt change of policy in the Caucasus, and her successor Paul I withdrew all Russia troops from the region. Aga Mohammad launched his second campaign to punish the Georgians for their alliance with Russia. However, his assassination in 1797 spared Kartli-Kakheti more devastation. Read further on Wikipedia here

Get a whole image of those times and histories with Parajanovs famous movie "The colors of Pomgranate"

"Its place in cinema history according to Mikhail Vartanov: "Probably, besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein, the world cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until the 'Color of Pomegranate,' not counting the generally unaccepted language of the 'Andalusian Dog' by Bunuel."" At Amazon.com here



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to leave this as a comment on your blog, but couldn't find an email address. Anyway, if you've got a Facebook account, I invite you to join a new group I've set up to start some kind of communication and cooperation between Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian bloggers. In fact, I'd like it to include the surrounding region, especially Turkey.

Anyway, the group is at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5735179012&ref=mf

Please invite others as well.