Hamshen at Crossroads of Past and Present

On the 9th of April 2019 our documentary film watching “Hamshen at Crossroads of past and present” took place at the “Elite Plaza” business center.

In recent times people talk much about Hamshen. The youth has a great interest towards the culture of Hamshen,  they sing their songs and dance dances of Hamshen. But few people know what Hamshen really is and what makes the culture of Hamshen so different and at the same time so close and inviting.

Hamshen is a foggy and gloomy place, surrounded by impassable mountains, deep gorges and thick forests. Today also many ethnic Armenians live in Hamshen together with other nations, who carry unique culture, music and dialect.

The Opening of the Event

The opening speech of the event was made by  Sergey Vardanyan.  He spoke about the creation of the film and about the whole film-making process. He mentioned that the film won the Armin Wegner humanitarian award in the “Arpa” international ceremony at Hollywood. The film was also shown in the “Golden Apricot” and “Socially Relevant Films” film festivals, “Nur” festival in Toronto, Prague and etc.

Sergey Vardanyan also spoke about Lusine Sahakyan’s new book called “Hamshen in Armenian Manuscripts”.

Afterwards we started watching the film.

First part / Artvin Province

The film is made of two parts. The first part that is called “Artvin Province”, after short information about Armenian Hamshen district, tells about the life of Hamshenis in Hopa district of Artvin province. The film was made according to Lusine Sahakyan’s journey. After being forcibly Islamized in the 18th century a group of Hamshen people moved to Artvin. Though they lost many important parts of their Armenian identity, surprisingly they managed to keep their Hamshen dialect in that huge Turkish environment. That is reason why some of them accept their Armenian origin.

The people of Hamshen have their unique music and dance culture which is accompanied with the sounds of swirel and bagpipe, and they also use zurna and dhol. There are also screens of dances of Hamshen people of Hopa district, songs performed by famous singers and villagers, samples of their local dialect, folklore, beliefs and cuisine.

Second part / Rize Province

The second part that is called “Rize Province” presents the Turkified people of Hamshen. In the region of Rize the Turkish roots are deeper. They forgot their mother language and speak Turkish. Some of them accept their Armenian origin but say that they have already become Turks.

After watching the film the author of the film Lusine Sahakyan answered the questions of the participants, told some funny stories and talked about the difficulties that rose during the shooting.

The evening was full of the spirit of Hamshen. During the event the participants got answers to their questions about what Hamshen is and who the people of Hamshen are.

In the end of the event some young people filled with Hamshen spirit performed the national dance of Hamshen “Trtruk” .

 

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