hidden Armenian Archives

By Matthew Karanian,

The following was adapted from ‘Historic Armenia After 100 Years’ (Stone Garden Press, $39.95, Pub. Feb. 2015) by Matthew Karanian. Pre-order now for $35 postpaid in the U.S. from Stone Garden Productions, PO Box 7758, Northridge, CA 91327, or pay with credit card by requesting an invoice from Bedros@StoneGardenProductions.com.

The village of Chunkush was home to about 10,000 Armenians, and hardly anyone else, until 1915.

That’s when the Armenians were driven out, and were marched for two hours to a ravine known as the Dudan Gorge. Once they arrived at the ravine, they were herded by the force of batons and bayonets into its depths. Here they died, if they hadn’t already perished before entering the abyss.

One young Armenian girl, not more than 10 years of age, stood at the edge of death. She was part of a group that had been marched to the ravine on one of the killing days—the day on which her Chunkush neighborhood had been selected for this “deportation.”

This girl was pretty, and she must have captured the attention of one of the Turkish soldiers who was herding the Armenians to their deaths. Her life was spared. At the age of 10, she became the soldier’s bride.

Five years later, in 1920, a baby was born from their union. This baby, named Asiya, was raised in Chunkush by her mother, a genocide survivor who had been able to remain in the home of her husband as one of the village’s “hidden Armenians.”

When I met Asiya in 2014, she was the oldest surviving Armenian, and indeed, the only Armenian, of Chunkush. Speaking through a translator, Asiya told me her story.

Her father, the Turkish soldier, had died when Asiya was three or four years old. While Asiya was growing up, Asiya’s mother had taught her that she was an Armenian child. Her mother also taught her that her identity as an Armenian was information that they could not share with the neighbors. Their identity had to remain hidden.

Asiya was married off to a much older man when she was 11 years old. There was no right to pick your own husband, she told me. “They gave me to whoever they thought was appropriate.” She and her husband stayed in Chunkush, and raised two daughters and a son.

I asked Asiya about the massacres of 1915. Her mother must have explained to her what had happened. But Asiya refused to talk about it. She did talk a bit about the old days.

“Chunkush was once very beautiful. The churches were so beautiful in the past,” she told me. But now “nothing remains from the old times. They even destroyed all the [Armenian] cemeteries.”

Asiya must have been about 95 years old when I met her in 2014. Her life has been swept along in a torrent of sadness. I asked her how she feels when, as the only Armenian of Chunkush, she meets Armenian visitors from the fiaspora.

“I get happy as much as a mountain,” she told me.

Source: The Armenian Weekly

About Matthew Karanian (6 Articles)

Matthew Karanian practices law in Pasadena, Calif. He is the author of Armenia and Karabakh: The Stone Garden Travel Guide, the best-selling English-language guide to Armenia. His book, Historic Armenia After 100 Years: Ani, Kars, and the Six Provinces of Western Armenia, will be published in February 2015. For more information, visit www.historicarmeniabook.com.

The Ottomans called them “remnants of the sword.” Hundred years after the massacres of 1915, more and more Turks of Armenian origin, son and daughters of those who converted to survive, rediscover their identity and dare to take the open.

Berkin is one of these Armenian “hidden”. In this day of Easter, a young man of 17 years joined the Surp Vorodman church in the Sultanahmet district of Kumkapi. With dozens of other believers, he came to pray. Naturally.

High in good Turk in the Muslim religion, Berkin has just discover its Christian origins. By chance, because her parents never had told him that “big secret”. In the early twentieth century, his family was Armenian.

“When my grandmother spoke at home, I stretched ear. Because it was neither Turkish nor Kurdish. My grandfather was like, “said the young student. “So I started doing research. And that’s how I learned that my great-grandfather was a survivor of 1915. ”

On 24 April this year, the Ottoman Empire kicks off the first genocide of the twentieth century. In less than a year, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were deported, many of them killed, most of their possessions confiscated.

Almost one hundred years later, these events remain a taboo, that the authorities of Turkey vigorously refuse to qualify as genocide.

As the grandfather Berkin, tens of thousands of Armenians were converted to Islam to escape the killings and their identity hidden deep in their memory. For decades, the Turkish official discourse exalting one people, Sunni Muslim, has made these “Dönme” these “converted” illegal.

“I studied in a traditional school. We always refers to as the enemy, “laments Berkin,” we argue a lot during the course of history because we tell them that we are not traitors. ” However, in recent years, the leaden covering this history began to crack. And the past of Armenians in Turkey resurface.

– “Knowing the truth” –

Of course, the movement is slow, difficult. Many members of this community, which counts today millions in Turkey, according to historians, are still reluctant to appear. But others, like Berkin, have taken the plunge.

“This young understood, he knows how blood flows in his veins, he understood the events of the past,” enthuses Diane Hekibashyan who attends the same church in Istanbul. “He knows that we do not ask much, that we want peace.”

Among other signs of this conservative renaissance, the success of Armenian courses. Such as animated by Talar Silelyan, which meets weekly ten people in search of their identity hidden, like her.

“Those who learned later on that they were Armenian first start by learning Armenian,” said the young engineer.

“Previously, we were afraid to talk about it, but now we are more courageous, we can discuss some things,” says Talar Silelyan, “and on the other side, some Turks are ready to talk too, people want know the truth. ”

Officially, the position of the Turkish authorities has not changed. The word “genocide” remains prohibited source and strong diplomatic tensions.

But under pressure from some intellectuals in particular, vocabulary changes, step by step. In December, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke deportations of Armenians as a “mistake”, an “inhuman act”.

“Finally, we can celebrate our holidays together in our churches,” rejoices in his side Tuma Özdemir, President of the Association of Christians in the East.

But the approach of the centenary of the 1915 events raised fears of new tensions.

But in an important step, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed for the first time Wednesday condolences Turkey victims of this tragedy.

“We hope that the Armenians who lost their lives in the circumstances of the early twentieth century rest in peace and we express our condolences to their grandchildren,” he has expressed in a statement.

“It does not require major repairs for what happened, we just want them (the Turks) recognize,” says Berkin. “We have not lost, we’re here, the footprint of our ancestors is there and we claim our origins.”

Even against the advice of his parents, the young man is determined to complete his homecoming. Once an adult, he became a Christian.

By Philippe ALFROY

AFP