The Armenian National Institute (ANI), the Armenian Genocide Museum of America (AGMA) and the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly) jointly, and in cooperation with the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, and the Republic of Armenia National Archives, announced the release of a major exhibit consisting of 20 panels with over 150 historic photographs documenting the role of the Armenian Church during the Armenian Genocide.
ANI director Dr. Rouben Adalian created the exhibit, entitled "The First Refuge and the Last Defense: The Armenian Church, Etchmiadzin, and The Armenian Genocide." It explains the importance of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin during the Armenian Genocide. It also examines the vital leadership role played by the clergy during the Armenian Genocide, especially the all-important intervention of His Holiness Catholicos Gevorg V Sureniants in alerting world leaders about the massacres, effectively issuing the first ‘early warning’ of an impending genocide.
The sacrifices of the Armenian clergy are well documented. Thousands,
among them several primates in Western Armenia and other parts of the
Ottoman Empire, paid the price of martyrdom for their faith during the
Armenian Genocide. Far less well known is the extent to which the
Armenian Church in Eastern Armenia, then under Russian rule, came to the
assistance of the Armenian people in its hour of plight.
The exhibit provides ample evidence of the aid extended by fellow
Armenians to the refugees fleeing Ottoman Turkey as the Young Turk
regime pursued its path toward the destruction of the Armenians. It is
now almost forgotten that the first people to come to the aid of the
fleeing and starving were Armenians across the Russian-Turkish border
who welcomed their countrymen into their homes and threw open the doors
to their schools, hospitals, and other facilities to house, care, and
feed the hungry, the sick, and the homeless.
At the epicenter of this outpouring of aid was Etchmiadzin, the
primary destination of the Armenians fleeing the massacres along the
border regions of the Ottoman Empire, especially as a result of the
great exodus of the Armenian population of Van. They had dared resist
extermination only to find themselves abandoning their homeland, when
the Russian forces that arrived to deliver them shortly thereafter
retreated. After the slaughter of 55,000 Armenians in Van province alone
in April 1915, the survivors, 100,000 in all, concentrated in the city
of Van, were left with no choice other than exile. As armed Turkish and
Kurdish bands pursued them every mile of their trek across the rugged
landscape of mountains, valleys, and rivers cutting through gorges, the
exodus turned into the road of massacres.
With testimony from survivors and witnesses, the exhibit reconstructs
this particular chapter of the Armenian Genocide, a chapter often
overlooked in the context of the mass deportations of the Armenians from
all across Ottoman Turkey to the interior of the Syrian desert where
hundreds of thousands perished from hunger, thirst, and slaughter. The
episode in Van was no less tragic as the death toll was no less
ferocious even after thousands seemingly reached safety only to die of
exhaustion, fright, starvation, and raging epidemics as the resources in
Eastern Armenia were quickly overwhelmed and Etchmiadzin transformed
overnight into a vast and fetid refugee camp.
With 3 maps, 12 historic documents and news clippings, and 16
survivor testimonies, specific to the details of the events documented
with over 150 photographs, the exhibit reconstructs the Armenian
Genocide in a single region of historic Armenia and reveals how the
people of Eastern Armenia became aware of the policies of the Young
Turks during World War I. The exhibit combines images retrieved from
archives and repositories in Armenia and America and connects them
together in this first extensive narrative exhibit on the Armenian
Genocide.
These dramatic pictures highlight the role of the Mother See of Holy
Etchmiadzin during the critical years of 1915 and 1916. They also
explain the invaluable national role of Armenian church leaders as
exemplified by four of its outstanding catholicoses, namely Mkrtich I
Khrimian, Gevorg V Sureniants, Khoren I Muratbekian, and Garegin I
Hovsepiants, the first three, Catholicos of All Armenians and the
fourth, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia.
The exhibit also explores the role of the laity in responding to the
appeals of the Armenian Church and reveals how the Eastern Armenian
intelligentsia, as represented by figures such as Hovhannes Tumanian,
the most prominent writer of his era, and the famed artist Martiros
Sarian, closely cooperated with the Mother See in order to assist the
Western Armenian refugees.
Numerous other important figures are also represented through
photographs and testimony in the exhibit, including United States
President Woodrow Wilson, U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings
Bryan, American missionary in Van Dr. Clarence D. Ussher, Prince
Argoudinsky-Dolgoroukov, Komitas, Alexander Khatisian, Aghassi Khanjian,
and General Andranik Ozanian.
The central role of Near East Relief, the American philanthropic
organization constituted in response to the spreading news of the
desperate state of the Armenians during World War I, is a subject that
has been widely explored due to the availability of extensive
documentation and testimony. In comparison, because of the subsequent
disasters that struck Eastern Armenia, the role of local Armenian
philanthropic organizations operating in the Russian Caucasus that
hastened to relieve the plight of the Armenian refugees has been
overlooked by historians.
A variety of benevolent groups, local Red Cross committees, and, in
particular, the Fraternal Aid Committee, authorized by the Catholicos
Gevorg V Sureniants, led the initial responses to the Armenian Genocide.
Months before any relief was delivered from overseas, fellow Armenians,
medics, nurses, clergymen, and countless volunteers hastened to
Etchmiadzin and nearby towns to assist the refugees. This heroic
response within a matter of days to the crushing reality of tens of
thousands of Armenians made homeless remains a much neglected episode in
Armenian history deserving of greater attention. Certainly the
photographic evidence gathered in this exhibit attests to the scale of
the response and dedication of the Armenian volunteer aid organizations.
They were the Transcaucasian counterpart to the Armenian General
Benevolent Union operating out of Egypt at the time that reached out to
fellow Armenians wherever it could deliver assistance in the Middle
East.
The mass of evidence that was gathered for the exhibit required
careful examination in order to establish the context of the photographs
from that era. The effort to reconstruct this history relied upon
historic sites well documented with imagery. For the purpose of this
exhibit these primary markers were the famous monastery and school of
Varag near Van, where Khrimian Hayrik once presided as abbot; the
American missionary station in Van, where Dr. Ussher and his family
ministered to the educational, spiritual, and medical needs of Armenians
and others who sought their services; the compound of the Mother See of
Holy Etchmiadzin, at the time still a medieval fortress surrounded by
bastions to protect Armenia’s most sacred site from marauders; and the
Gevorgian Academy at Etchmiadzin, Armenia’s premier educational
institution soon converted into a hospital by Tumanian.
The evidence exhibited was collected from multiple sources including
the United States National Archives, the Library of Congress, the
Republic of Armenia National Archives, the Mother See of Holy
Etchmiadzin Archives, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Nubarian
Library, Research on Armenian Architecture, and from many other helpful
individuals and institutions in Armenia and in the Diaspora. A catalog
identifying all the contents of the exhibit is in preparation.
Like the exhibit released jointly by ANI, AGMA, and the Assembly in 2013, titled Witness to the Armenian Genocide: Photographs by the Perpetrators’ German and Austro-Hungarian Allies,
‘The First Refuge and the Last Defense: The Armenian Church,
Etchmiadzin, and The Armenian Genocide,’ is also being issued in digital
format for worldwide distribution free of charge as downloadable
posters suitable for printing and display. For those wishing to look at
the exhibit in hard copy, the minimum of 11×17 inches page size is
required and poster size at 2×3 feet is recommended. The exhibit may be
printed as large as 4×6 feet.
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