Komitas in the Life and Activities of Thomas Hartmann
During the Genocide, Komitas suffered a mental collapse in exile and was hospitalized in Paris. Armenian intelligentsia figures took up his care, and the Russian composer of German origin Thomas Hartmann, together with the Tiflis-based 'Society after Komitas', provided material and public support. Arriving in Tiflis in February 1919, Hartmann published a substantial study of Komitas in Zakavkazskoe Slovo, among the first serious scholarly treatments of him, and delivered a lecture-concert that catalyzed a broader Tiflis effort to care for the composer and preserve his creative heritage. The Society was founded in May 1919, drawing in Armenian, Russian and Georgian composers, performers, writers and painters alongside Hovhannes Tumanyan.