There's been a bit of a silence again. Nevertheless, a lot has been happening since my last shadow journey post.

Most importantly, Azerbaijan and Armenia have agreed a peace deal. At the end of the day Armenia was simply outgunned, and Azerbaijan has regained most of the territory it lost in 1994. The capitulation went down very badly in Armenia, where crowds stormed the Parliament, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Pashinyan. (For an expatriate Armenian reaction, see here.)

The biggest winners, however, may well turn out to be external to the Caucasus. Thomas de Waal writes: "This is a deal brokered by two big autocratic neighbors, Russia and Turkey, that can now use it to pursue their own self-aggrandizing agendas. For them this is about troops and transport corridors, not people... [Russia has gained] a greatly enhanced military presence in a region where it was losing influence... For the first time in exactly 100 years -- since the fall of 1920 -- Russian and Turkish troops will both be on the ground in the region."

Indeed, some commentators have drawn parallels with the 1921 Treaty of Kars, when Armenia was compelled by Soviet Russia to surrender territory to Turkey...

And, as if the role of Russia and Turkey in this radical redrawing of the geopolitical map were not ominous enough, there are the goals and aspirations of Israel and
Iran to contend with...

It's very unlikely this is all over.

Meanwhile, the human cost has been enormous. It is thought that the military death toll will ultimately exceed 5,000, while more than 100 civilians have also died. Just as Azerbaijanis were displaced in their thousands in the 1990s, so now Armenians have upped sticks in droves.

Tragic.

Anyway, in much less momentous (though thematically not entirely unconnected) news, I finally wrote my post on Ali and Nino.

And I've been spending many happy hours listening to traditional Georgian music...

We came into direct contact with with Georgia's famous harmonies just twice: at the Open Air Museum of Ethnography on the outskirts of Tbilisi and in the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta. (All the photos in the post are from these two places.)






I'm way out of my field here, so I'll play safe by quoting the information on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage site:

"Polyphonic singing, in the Georgian language, is a secular tradition in a country whose language and culture have often been oppressed by invaders. There are three types of polyphony in Georgia: complex polyphony, which is common in Svaneti; polyphonic dialogue over a bass background, prevalent in the Kakheti region in Eastern Georgia; and contrasted polyphony with three partially improvised sung parts, characteristic of western Georgia... Byzantine liturgical hymns also incorporated the Georgian polyphonic tradition to such an extent that they became a significant expression of it."

That thing about oppression is for real. Georgia had to deal with Russification under the Tsar, after annexation in the early years of the 19th century, and then Sovietization, including the persecution of the church, from 1921, when Moscow took back control of the briefly independent country. Yet the tradition survived. And the young people who have grown up in a post-Soviet age now look to distinctive cultural expressions such as ancient chants to help them figure out their national identity.

Growing nationalism and the increased strength of the Georgian Orthodox Church have led to a revival of the formerly repressed sacred music tradition. Characterized by close harmony and minimal vibrato, this polyphonic style was established in Georgia's monasteries by the 10th century.






Some examples that I have particularly enjoyed:

-- Renderings of the Lord's prayer (the first one sounds very much like the women's voices we heard during the service at Mtskheta)

-- Chants from the monks of the Zarzma monastery

-- Archival recordings, some going back to the early 1900s

-- Orovela, traditionally sung by a peasant during ploughing, but sung here by Leila Legashvili, as she and her family pick grapes. Her father urges her: "Sing to the grapes. They are alive, they listen to you and obey you, because you are singing to them. When wine is brewing, it looks alive. See how it trembles, how it yawns in the jar, how it ferments. Then it enters a human body, and transforms it, makes it talk, sing, recite poetry. That’s why during a banquet, after a few glasses, everyone starts to sing, or recites a poem, because wine is alive, and it caresses everyone." Wow... To me, such wholeness is actually holiness...







-- Suliko, which tells the story of a man searching vainly for the grave of his beloved, and finding not her burial place but the nightingale who now embodies her

-- Delightful traditional songs (Iavnana and Tbilisi are particularly beautiful to my ears)

-- And this introduction to an amazing variety of Georgian singing, traditional and otherwise








Let the journey continue.