In recent days, singer and composer Araz Torosyan (Araz Dare) performed the Azerbaijani folk song “Sarı gəlin” in Armenian and Persian on a television channel of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Intellectual Property Agency told APA.
A number of Iranian websites presented the performed Azerbaijani folk song “Sarı gəlin” as an Armenian song.
It was reported that Araz Torosyan also shared the song “Sarı gəlin” on his YouTube channel as an Armenian folk song titled “Sari Aghjik” (https://youtu.be/32B9JfiAspQ?si=RMCahVTMoQjZGyx0). In this regard, the Intellectual Property Agency stated that “Sarı gəlin” is a folk song belonging to Azerbaijani Turks. According to the opinion of the Agency’s expert, composer Javanshir Guliyev, the song “Sarı gəlin” is written in the “Shur” mode. The “Shur” mode is one of the seven main modes of Azerbaijani mugham art and is the most widely used in national musical practice. Thousands of Azerbaijani songs are based on this mode and have been performed at public celebrations throughout history. By genre, “Sarı gəlin” is an “uzun hava” (long air). “Uzun hava” is an integral part of the folklore of Turkic-speaking peoples. Its structural form differs from other folk songs in that it has no refrain. The function of the refrain is performed by a modulation to the “Shur-Shahnaz” section of the “Shur” mugham. “Shur-Shahnaz” is one of the main sections of the “Shur” dastgah, which was formed exclusively in Azerbaijan.
In the book “Armenian Foreign Fairy Tales,” authored by Kamran Imanov, Chairman of the Management Board of the Intellectual Property Agency, and published in several languages, extensive analysis is devoted to Armenian literary plagiarism, including attempts to appropriate the folk song “Sarı gəlin.”
The book notes that in 1925, a special department was established under the Institute of Science and Art in Yerevan, tasked with collecting and studying folk music and folklore. This department was headed by S. Melikyan, a student of S. Komitas (Soghomonyan), the founder of polyphonic classical Armenian music. According to the “Encyclopedic Musical Dictionary” published in 1959, Komitas, often presented in Armenian studies as a “genius of Armenian music,” transcribed more than 3,000 songs in addition to his engagement with religious music, about 500 of which have survived to the present day. One of the folk songs he transcribed was the beautiful ancient Azerbaijani song “Sarı gəlin,” presented as an Armenian folk song under the title “Yes keza tesa” (“Ethnographic Collection,” Vol. 1, No. 56). Along with other songs, it was published with commentary in Komitas’s “Ethnographic Collection” by S. Melikyan. As noted in “The History of the Music of the Peoples of the USSR” (Vol. 1, 1970), this compilation was later arranged by composer K. Zakharyan (approximately in the 1930s).
The repetition of this musical plagiarism continues today, as it is occasionally suggested on various foreign television channels and in foreign media that this is an “Armenian folk song.” For example, during the recent compilation of a “European Music Collection,” Armenians once again managed to include this musical treasure as an Armenian song. Incredibly, but factually, neither the compilers and publishers nor the Armenians presenting the song were familiar with the etymology of the term “Sarı gəlin.” “Sarı gəlin” does not simply mean a blonde, radiant bride; it also has a hidden meaning. In the Azerbaijani language, “gəlin” derives from the verb “to come,” while “sarı” means “towards us,” thus meaning “the bride who comes toward us.” As a result, in the “European Music Collection,” the Armenianized “Sarı gəlin” remained as “Yellow Bride.” Not to mention that the unique refrain “neylim-neylim” (meaning “what shall I do?”) was preserved in Azerbaijani in Latin script in that publication. The meaning of these words, clear to every Azerbaijani, proved inaccessible to Armenian plagiarists. It should also be noted that attempts by Komitas, regarded as the founder of Armenian music, to Armenize the name of this song were unsuccessful. Armenians present and sing this song under its original Azerbaijani name, “Sarı gəlin.”
It was noted that every instance of appropriation of authorial works, folklore samples, and other elements of intangible cultural heritage belonging to the Azerbaijani people by Armenians is regularly monitored and investigated by the Intellectual Property Agency. The Agency assists in restoring the violated copyright of the authors of appropriated songs or their heirs. For each case, the Agency conducts investigations and prepares reports based on historical grounds that prove with undeniable facts that these works belong to the Azerbaijani people, and disseminates them through the media.
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