Contributions To Iraqi Culture
Armenians have played traditionally an important role in Iraqi culture, particularly in literature and music and in general all arts.
Yaacoub Sarkis was a famous author and researcher in Iraqi arts. He used to hold cultural gatherings in Baghdad's Murabba'a region on the Tigris river, where the Iraqi cultural elite would meet. He is also renowned for the two volume "Al Mabaheth al Iraqiyyah", a definitive guide of Iraqi history and society. He lived well into his eighties before dying in the 1950s.
The two founding members of the Western-style pop group Unknown to No One, Art Haroutunian and Shant Garabedian, are of Armenian heritage. During the rule of Saddam Hussein the band could only have its music aired once they sang a song celebrating the dictator's birthday. Unknown to No One has been given a large amount of publicity in the post-Saddam era.
Read more about this topic: Armenians In Iraq
Famous quotes containing the words contributions to, iraqi and/or culture:
“The vast material displacements the machine has made in our physical environment are perhaps in the long run less important than its spiritual contributions to our culture.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“I will cut the head off my baby and swallow it if it will make Bush lose.”
—Zainab Ismael, Iraqi housewife. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 31 (November 16, 1992)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)