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October 28, 2014
AGBU Sofia Chamber Orchestra Holds Concert to Honor Bulgarian Poet Peyo Yavorov
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On Sunday, October 12, AGBU Sofia Chamber Orchestra held its first concert of the fall season at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria. -
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Over 350 guests enjoy a performance by celebrated pianist Jeni Zaharieva. -
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Hagop Dunaiyan, editor-in-chief of the Beirut-based literary and cultural journal Dzaghig, reads the Armenian translation of Yavorov’s 1899 poem, "The Armenians."
Yavorov is Celebrated as a Defender of the Ottoman Armenian Community
On the hundreth anniversary of the death of Bulgarian poet and activist Peyo Yavorov, AGBU Sofia, in collaboration with the Culture Department of the Municipality of Sofia, organized a concert by the AGBU Sofia Chamber Orchestra to pay tribute to a great supporter of Ottoman Armenians in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire.
On Sunday, October 12, more than 350 people gathered for the orchestra’s first concert of the fall season at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria. The orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Bedros Papazian, played European pieces by Bach, Mozart and Shubert as well as a selection of traditional Armenian pieces. It was also accompanied by prominent soloists, including Pavel Zlatarov and Tsanka Filipova on the violin, Vartan Ananyan on the English horn and Jeni Zaharieva on the piano.
The evening also featured Hagop Duniayan, the editor-in-chief of the Beirut-based literary and cultural magazine Dzaghig. Duniayan gave a detailed biography of Yavorov and commented briefly on his importance as a literary figure before reading one of Yavorov’s poems about the Armenian people, translated into Armenian by renowned twentieth-century poet Kevork Emin.
The audience was composed of members of the Armenian and Bulgarian communities as well as ambassadors and diplomatic officials from Lebanon, Russia, Kazakhstan, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Egypt, Palestine and Morocco. Also numbering among these guests of honor was the Armenian ambassador to Bulgaria Arsen Shoyan.
At the start of the concert, Ambassador Shoyan read a letter addressed to the AGBU Sofia Chapter on behalf of Hranush Hakopyan, the Minister of Diaspora of the Republic of Armenia. Her remarks emphasized the longstanding friendship between the Bulgarian and Armenian peoples: “Peyo Yavorov rose to prominence by assisting and notably supporting the Armenian liberation movement at the end of nineteenth century. It is for this reason that after a century, Yavorov’s position as a humanist remains unchangeable and unforgettable. He wrote about Armenians with warmth and his morals will remain indelible in the minds and hearts of all Armenians.”
Peyo Yavorov (1878-1914) was one of the foremost poets in Bulgaria at the turn-of-the-century, which was still part of the Ottoman Empire at that time. As was common with artists and intellectuals of the day, Yavorov was also politically engaged and defended movements that challenged Ottoman authority, including the Bulgarian, Macedonian and Armenian nationalist movements. The struggle of the Ottoman Armenian community to achieve national liberation also appeared in his poetry. One poem of note is entitled “The Armenians” (1899) and was inspired by the plight of the Ottoman Armenians who fled to Bulgaria during the Hamidian massacres of 1894-1896. Yavorov is remembered fondly by Armenians worldwide, including those in the Republic of Armenia where a school is named in his honor.
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