Zabelle

Kerning Cultures

Kerning Cultures Network

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.9 • 529 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1917, a musical prodigy called Zabelle Panosian recorded a song that captured the heartbreak of a generation of Armenian Americans in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide. She toured the world, selling thousands of records. And then, she was almost completely forgotten.

This episode originally aired in July 2020.

This episode was produced by Alex Atack with editorial support from Dana Ballout, Tamara Rasamny, Nadeen Shaker, Zeina Dowidar and Hebah Fisher. Sound design by Alex Atack and Mohamed Khreizat, and fact-checking by Zeina Dowidar. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production.

Ian's new book about Zabelle Panosian can be found here.

Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $2 a month.

Find a transcript for this episode at our website.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, it's Dana. We're taking a break this week while we finish up our next batch of
0:10.1	episodes. But in the meantime, we wanted to revisit one of our favorite stories, one of my personal
0:15.6	favorite stories from the Kernan Culture's archive. It's the story of Zabel Penosian, an Armenian singer who shot to fame in the early
0:23.7	20th century capturing the heartbreak of an entire generation in the aftermath of the
0:28.9	Armenian genocide, with her recording of the song Gurdung.
0:33.6	And then she was almost completely forgotten.
0:37.2	The episode originally aired in 2020 and was presented by my co-host, Hibba Fisher and producer Alex A-Tac, who you'll hear first.
0:45.4	It begins in a ballroom inside the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts.
0:52.3	If the room had rafters, you'd say it was packed to the rafters, but it didn't because
0:56.9	rooms as fancy as this generally don't. Instead, it had chandeliers, probably at least eight of them.
1:02.0	The edges were lined with wide doorways and heavy curtains were pulled shut over those to keep the
1:06.2	sound in. The room was so full that in a photograph taken from the stage that evening, the date was October 9th, 1919.
1:13.5	The entire bottom half of the photograph is just faces crowded around tables in rows that go all the way to the back of the room.
1:19.9	It was a political event. Influential Americans like the governor of Massachusetts sat at tables with influential Armenians like Armenia's prime minister at the time.
1:28.6	The Armenians were trying to create support in the United States. And so this prime minister had come
1:35.0	to try to draw up support, political support and military support from the United States.
1:40.4	And so this dinner was held in honor of him.
1:43.0	This is the writer, Marion Mesrobian McCurdy.
1:45.7	Her grandmother was in the room that night, sitting somewhere near the front on table number 34.
1:50.2	So she was very proud to have been asked to attend and be there.
1:54.7	This is a really big event for her and for most of the people in the community.
2:00.6	It was four years after the end of the event that came to define the first part of the century for Armenians.
	...

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