I Wish to Die Singing

Voices From The Armenian Genocide

Neil McPherson

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781783193059
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783193066
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Drama

The Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish Government against the Armenians, a Christian minority in a Muslim state. One and a half million people died.

The word 'genocide' itself was invented by Raphael Lemkin in 1943 to describe the events of 1915. Adolf Hitler used the Armenian Genocide as a direct inspiration for the Holocaust during the Second World War.

To this day, the Turkish government refuses to admit that any genocide ever took place.

Commemorating the exact centenary of the deportations that began the Armenian Genocide, I Wish To Die Singing – Voices From The Armenian Genocide is a controversial documentary drama uncovering the forgotten secrets and atrocities of a denied genocide – featuring eye-witness reportage, images, music, poetry from Armenia's greatest poets, and verbatim survivors testimonies from one of the greatest historical injustices of all time.

The set consists of as many levels as possible. Projected images accompany all the action, some specified in the text.

Captions on historical genocides feature throughout the play, marked with a • in the text. They all appear in an identical house style, each featuring an appropriate picture and captions.

As the audience enter, songs are heard from the album ‘Hye Yerk – Armenian Classic and Folk Songs’ – Armen Guirag.

Images: Two images are shown in an alternating loop.

Image 1: UN 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Image 2: ‘Who, after all, today remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?’ Adolf Hitler, 1939.

Enter ACTOR 1.

ACTOR 1: We’re here tonight to tell you a story. A true story. Our company of actors, using eyewitness reports from people who were there, will tell you the story of the Armenian Genocide.

• Genocide Image: The Ottoman Empire. The Armenian, Greek, Assyrian and Yazidi Peoples. 1915-1923.

And, yes, this evening – of course – is, has to be, about the extermination of a million and a half people and the erasure of a three-thousand-year-old civilisation. But it’s also about what happened after that. And how, exactly 100 years later, it’s very far from over…

So, if you’re sitting comfortably –

A look suggesting ‘unlikely in this place’.

– then we’ll begin.

You don’t need to take notes. There won’t be a test.

So, probably the first thing you’re wondering is – who are the Armenians?

Music: ‘Believe’ – Cher.

Images (in quick succession): Begins with faces of Armenian people of all ages, and then Alice Panikian, Cher, Eric Bogosian, Andre Agassi, Charles Aznavour, Arshile Gorky, Principal Skinner from ‘The Simpsons’, Gregory Peck, David Dickinson, Andy Serkis as Gollum, Alain Prost and Serj Tankian and System of a Down, ending with Diana, Princess of Wales.

(Refers to screen.) Yup – she was 1/64th Armenian. And let’s not forget the most famous Armenian in the whole world.

Image: In quick succession, different images of Kim Kardashian, ending with the title card for ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’.

Kim Kardashian. And her thirteenth cousin…

Image: David Cameron.

David Cameron. That’s not a reason to vote for him.

Then, as appropriate during the following speech –

Images: ancient relics and sculptures, then an Egyptian mummy. Then, Armenian landmarks, Armenian churches and priests and examples of the Armenian alphabet.

Going back three thousand years, Armenia’s neighbours on the Ancient map – the Cappodocians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Scythians, Parthians, Hittites – you know, all that boring stuff in the museum you skip past to get to the mummies – they’re all gone. The Armenians are the only ones that survive. The very first Christian nation on earth – with their own independent Church, and even their own thirty-eight letter alphabet. As a country, Armenia had long ceased to exist: half the Armenians lived in the Russian Empire – that’s…um…Russia today…and the other half – the ones we’re concerned with – live in the Ottoman Empire – that’s Turkey today.

Like the Jews in Germany, or the Tutsis in Rwanda,

• Image: Europe. The Holocaust. 1941-1945.

• Image: Rwanda. The Tutsi People. April-July 1994.

banking, and finance, and the professions like law and medicine were dominated by the Armenians. Which… well, that didn’t go down so well with the Turks.

Image: ‘The way to get rid of the Armenian question is to get rid of the Armenians’ – Sultan Abdul-Hamid II.

Now, it’s only fair to say that the Ottoman Empire had been far more tolerant of minorities than the West for much of its history. But the Armenians were always legally second class citizens. And often savagely persecuted. Between 1894 and 1896,

Image: 300,000.

300,000 Armenians were massacred. In 1909,

Image: 25,000.

25,000 were killed.

And so the Armenians are caught in a fatal Catch 22. If they demand equal rights, they’re persecuted. If they seek help from foreign powers, they’re traitors. If they resist persecution, they’re massacred. If they resist massacre, they’re terrorists.

But this is their home. It’s April 1915. And it’s Easter.

Music: ‘Tasmerov Par’ – Shoghaken Ensemble. Sound of birdsong. Images: Pre-war village life, and family portraits of pre-war Armenians.

The COMPANY perform a folk dance. As they do so, they give each other coloured eggs, and say the Paschal Greeting to each other as they pass each other.

ACTOR 5 and ACTOR 6 sit at the table and play cards.

VILLAGERS: Christos haryav i merelotz.

Image: ‘Christ is risen.’

VILLAGERS: (In reply.) Orhnial e Haroutiunn Christosi.

Image: ‘Blessed is the resurrection of Christ.’

Music: Hayrenik – Mariam Matossian.

HERANUŞ: Yes Hay em. I’m an Armenian. My name is Heranuş Gadaryan. I’m 11 years old. My mummy’s name is Isgushi, and my daddy’s name is Hovhannes. I have two brothers – Horen and Hirayr, and two sisters. I live in the village of Habab. I help my mummy look after all my little brothers and sisters. One day I want to be a mummy myself and have lots of babies.

Every Easter, we dye eggs with onion peel, and we eat çöreks.

Image: A çörek.

Mummy makes them with eggs and cherry essence, and fennel seeds. Mummy is teaching me how to make the d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Characters
• Chapters