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Chairman of Azerbaijanâ€™s State Copyright Agency: â€œBabajanian stole from Uzeyir Hajibeyli, his â€œDance of Vagarshabatâ€ is plagiaryâ€

20 July 2011 10:13 (UTC +04:00)

Chairman of the State Copyright Agency of Azerbaijan Kamran Imanov, who commented the next cultural theft of Armenians, said this fact showed again that the cultural theft of Armenians turned into the professional habit and was not so easy to break the of the habit of thieving the Azerbaijani culture: â€œAs I always noted that these are the tradition of Armenian misappropriation of Azerbaijani cultural traditions. According to the information released by the Armenian information agencies, the music named â€œErangiâ€, which was used in the documentary on Armenia, showed in â€œMirâ€ TV, was worked by Armenian composer Komitas (Sogomon Sogomonyan). I want to note, the other version of this dancing music, presented as Armenian, was worked Armenian composer Arno Babajanian. Babajanianâ€™s version is called â€œDance of Vagarshabatâ€. Uzeyir Hajibeyli wrote â€œO olmasin, bu olsunâ€ musical comedy early in the 20th century i.e. in 1911 and 100 years have passed from that date.

According to Imanov, though the dances, reworked by Armenian composer Komitas and Babajanian on the basis of Uzeyir Hajibeyliâ€™s music, are â€œyoungerâ€ than Hajibeyliâ€™s work.

â€œIt was determined that the â€œDance of Vagarshabatâ€ was â€œestablishedâ€ in 1944. In fact, â€œthe workâ€ presented as â€œDance of Vagarshabatâ€ of Babajanian, was misappropriated from operetta of â€œUzeyir Hajibeyliâ€ named â€œO olmasin, bu olsunâ€ and is a plagiary. Then, in 1980s, in one of the central TV programs Babajanian said that he â€œfoundâ€ the â€œrootsâ€ of Uzeyir Hajibeyliâ€™s famous â€œArshin mal alanâ€ operetta in the melodies, sung in of the villages of Karabakh, and consequently attempted to accuse famous Azerbaijani composer of plagiary Besides, he also wanted to justify himself. â€œHe was signing the taking of melody of â€œDance of Vagarshabatâ€ from Armenian folk music, but not from Uzeyir Hajibeyliâ€.

Imanov who confessed that the Azerbaijanis kept silent on the cultural thefts by Armenians, said that it was needed to find the reason of wide extension of Armenian plagiary in it: â€œThough it is late, we shouldnâ€™t keep silent, and must spoke everything as it is. We also must note that the Armenians started to misappropriate Azerbaijani folk songs and cultures after establishing a country in the ancient Azerbaijani territories â€“ Western Azerbaijan. The special section was established for this purpose in the Institute of Science and Art in Yerevan in 1925.

Malikian, the student of the founder of the classic Armenian music Komitas chaired the section. According to the â€œEncyclopedic music dictionaryâ€ published in 1959, Komitas, who is introduced as â€œGenius of Armenian musicâ€, was interested in the religious music and recorded over 3000 songs, including this dance, 500 of them are preserved. Therefore, for a long time Komitas was introduced as an ethnographer, not as a composer. One of these recorded folk songs is Azerbaijani song â€œSari gelinâ€, which is introduced as Armenian folk song â€œYes keza tesaâ€ (â€œEthnographic collectionâ€, volume 1, #56). â€œSari gelinâ€ was published with explanation in Komitasâ€™ â€œEthnographic collectionâ€ by Malikian. As noted in the â€œHistory of music of the USSR peoplesâ€ (1, 1970), this compilation was later arranged and introduced by Zakharyan (in the 30s of the past century). Again we are facing the repetition of music theft: it is introduced as â€œArmenian folk songâ€ both on various foreign TV channels and in foreign media. This is plagiary,â€ he said.

Head of the Copyright Agency advised to pay attention to the Armeniansâ€™ confessions, it will clarify everything.

â€œFor example, one of the famous Armenian figures of the 19th century Nalbandian wrote: â€œMost of Armenian melodies and songs were taken from Turks (Azerbaijanis). I visited most places populated by Armenians. I always wanted to hear something purely Armenian. Unfortunately, I did not achieve it yet! I think the names of our musical instruments are in Turkish: saz, santoor, kaman.â€ (â€œAncient poems and songsâ€, volume 1). These are the words of Aghanyan: â€œThis language (Azerbaijani) is something native for Armenians. Therefore, we sing in Azerbaijani.â€ Famous specialist Koroshchenko in his book â€œObservations on Eastern, more on Caucasian musicâ€ wrote â€œâ€¦ Armenians have no folk musicâ€ (â€œMoscow newsâ€, 1896). Armenian composer and musicologist Malikian also shared his views. The â€œHistory of music of the USSR peoplesâ€, which editorial staff also included Muradyan and Tigranov, writes: â€œWhile participating in the expedition to collect and record the folk songs, the originality of the Armenian folk music was denied.â€ Therefore, Muradyan in his book â€œAbout the history of Armenian-Russian musical relations in the 19th and 20th centuriesâ€ criticized â€œtheory of influenceâ€ grounding Melikianâ€™s views, because according to this theory â€œArmenian music consists of inaccurate collection of various cultures.â€ I can increase the number of the examples proving Armenian plagiary. But my words once more prove that Armenians stole the music from the film made on the work by Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli â€œO olmasin, bu olsunâ€, their introducing it as Armenian song is groundless. This is just another Armenian plagiary,â€ he said.