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MacKeen’s grandfather left behind a memoir of his experience that became the inspiration for her own journey. In 2007 MacKeen, a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Smart Money and elsewhere, set forth for Turkey and Syria to retrace her ancestor’s steps.
Over eighty five dancers from the Sardarabad Dance Ensemble of Hamazkayin Chicago and the Arax Dance Group of Hamazkayin Detroit took the stage at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center in a performance whose focus was the resilience of Armenia’s people and culture.
The Hamazkayin Sardarabad Dance Ensemble transforms the ancient traditions of Armenia into a 21st century multi-media spectacle of music, motion and light.
A biblical land, Armenia is cited in the Old Testament by the name “Kingdom of Urartu” (Ararat). In the foothills of its mountains, Noah would have cultivated vines and become inebriated drinking the wine he produced. Thanks to the Armenian translation of an apocryphal gospel, we know the names of the three Magi: Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar. Although according to tradition the apostles Bartholomew and Jude Thaddaeus were the evangelisers of Armenia, it is likely that it was instead the work of missionaries from Syria and Cappadocia. In any case, it was so successful that in 301, thanks to the apostolate of St. Gregory the Illuminator, Armenia became the first nation that embraced Christianity and proclaimed it a state religion, even before the Edict of Milan of 313,
“What of the Armenians left behind?” Ani Boghikian-Kasparian asked. A lecturer at the University of Michigan—Dearborn, Boghikian-Kasparian was the keynote speaker at St. John the Baptist Armenian Church’s 74th anniversary dinner. Her topic at the Nov. 15 event, “The Oral Histories of Life in Eastern Turkey After the Genocide,” explored the situation of Armenian families and communities that continued to survive in the Turkish Republic.
Richard Hovanissian opened his Oct. 18 talk at Marquette University Law School by reflecting on this year’s centennial observation of the Armenian Genocide. The UCLA professor emeritus commented on the amount of good press and academic conferences the Armenian cause received in 2015, Pope Francis’ proclamation, and the unity shown by the Armenian community. But the events of a century ago and their ongoing implications, rather than the commemoration, were the primary subject of his talk.
Milwaukee Armenian Community member David Luhrssen was the guest speaker at UCLA’s “I Am Armenian” program. A film series marking the centennial of the Genocide, “I Am Armenian” features Armenian films and discussion between guests and host Carla Garapedian.
According to statistics quoted by Rev. Fr. Vazken Movsesian, one woman is physically assaulted every nine seconds in the U.S. and three women die in America each day at the hands of husbands and boyfriends. Movsesian was speaking at the annual Saintly Women’s Day, hosted on March 15 by St. John the Baptist Armenian Church in Milwaukee.
The Mazmanian Family took its audience on a musical world tour with Armenia as the home base. At their Oct. 26 concert in Milwaukee, the quartet journeyed across Eastern Europe, to Spain via Cuba, to Ireland and the U.S., but their repertoire’s heart and soul was rooted in the Armenian homeland.
As part of its remembrance of the Armenian Genocide, St. John the Baptist Armenian Church of Milwaukee has invited a prominent local rabbi, Ronald Shapiro, to give a presentation after dinner. Aside from his work at Milwaukee’s Congregation Shalom, Rabbi Shapiro teaches contemporary Jewish studies at Cardinal Stritch University and is active in the city’s interfaith movement.
