Armenia (Ottoman Empire)
Komitas
1869–1935 Armenian composer and priest; arrested in Constantinople, April 1915
Born Soghomon Soghomonian in Kütahya in 1869, Komitas was orphaned young and taken at the age of 12 to the Gevorgian Seminary at Etchmiadzin, where his singing voice had been noticed. Ordained a vardapet (celibate priest) in 1895, he studied music in Berlin and collected and transcribed over 3,000 pieces of Armenian folk music; he is considered the founder of the Armenian national school of music. He settled in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1910. On 24 April 1915 he was arrested with other Armenian notables and deported inland; after interventions, including by the American ambassador, he was released. He suffered a mental breakdown, spent his last years in psychiatric care, mostly in Paris, and died at Villejuif in October 1935. His remains were moved to Yerevan in 1936.