Haroutiun Kurkjian
Translated by Khatchig Mouradian
Translated by Khatchig Mouradian
This is the title of the volume that Houshamadyan presented to the
public as its first publication, three years after launching the website
with the same title (houshamadyan.org). Already from a first glance
standing out as an elegant volume, it holds in its 270 large-size (28×22
cm) pages multidisciplinary research articles and photo galleries
documenting a variety of themes.
The publication is realized in partnership with Haigazian University
and the Department of Turkology at the University of Bamberg.
The media covered the publication of the volume and its presentation
to the public through brief book reviews, event reports, and interviews.2
But this text is of a quite different nature. Far from pretensions and
responsibilities associated with writing a book review, it aims at
conveying clear impressions about the oeuvre and the phenomenon, and
then emphasizes connections with the present, using a brief overview of
the contents of the book as a springboard.
Overview of content
The preface by Tachjian is followed by three photo galleries
alternating in a structured and neat manner with five research articles.
The articles, with their various approaches, can be designated
respectively as ethno-sociology (“Why Was Pastirmaci Khatchatur Efendi
Killed? The Life of an Ottoman-Armenian Elite in the Mid-19th-Century
Erzurum/Karin” by Yasar Tolga Cora); political history (“Imprisoned
Communities: Punishing Politics in the Late Ottoman Empire” by Nanor
Kebranian); cultural history (“Mapping the Fatherland: Artzvi
Vaspurakan’s Reforms Through the Memory of the Past” by Dzovinar
Derderian); and cultural bibliography (“Manoog Dzeron and Alevor: Unique
Authors of the Houshamadyan Genre” by Vahé Tachjian). The fifth article
is an exhaustive list of memory books prepared by Mihran Minassian,
divided geographically by region.
The three photo galleries are separate from the articles—which have
their own photographs—and stand alone; yet, they stand as equally
amazing productions, themselves a product of a multidisciplinary
approach. They are titled “Families,” “Crafts,” and “School Life.”
It is worth noting that the foreword of the book, penned by Haigazian
University President Paul Haidostian, and then the listing of around a
dozen sponsors whose financial support, alongside the enthusiasm and
impetus in collecting materials for the book, have motivated the
director of Houshamadyan to announce the publication of a new volume
every year. We learn from an interview that preparations for volumes two
and three are already under way.
Dual merit
The publication is to be commended first because its quality sets it
apart from similar works. Other works, published by intellectuals and
scholars or foundations in Europe and America, in particular, have tried
to be albums, research monograms, and encyclopedic indexes, sometimes
all at once, and sometimes unclear about their aims. These publications
are often little more than albums of randomly grouped photographs,
confusing in their amateurish editorial and “historiographic” elements.
One of the publications that stood out among these earlier works, with its scholarly and artistic value, was “Les Armeniens 1917-1939: La Quete d’un Refuge” (The Armenians, 1917-1939: In Search of Refuge”),3
which, by the way, was co-authored by the founder and director of
Houshamadyan, and already showed some of the characteristic contours of
the current Houshamadyan volume.
In addition to the unquestionable superiority of the publication, one
has to note a central issue, which is the overall approach of the
Houshamadyan team, emphasized in the preface. The publication follows
the principles that guided the Houshamadyan website—namely, a
multi-disciplinary approach; a diversity reflecting the Ottoman Empire’s
essence, both multilingual and multicultural; the use of a variety of
multilingual sources reflecting the real character of the Ottoman
Empire; an emphasis on the value and importance of Armenian-language
sources in research in the field, as evidenced by the very articles
contained in the volume; and the impossibility of disconnecting the
Ottoman Armenians from the socio-economic framework of the empire. A
condensed formulation of these principles are also found on the
Houshamadyan website, and is reprinted as an excerpt in this article.
The objective of the publication, just like that of the website, is
the examination and appreciation of the daily life of the Ottoman
Armenians with a holistic approach (and not only through “tragic and
gloomy episodes”), because today we remain oblivious to many facets of
that past, and a scholarly examination of the very Armenian sources is
necessary to shed light on this multi-faceted Armenian community that is
little known. To revive this Armenian past and, furthermore, to grant
it tangible immediacy, the website and this volume employ visual
material—photographs, drawings, maps—that serve as focal points for the
transmission of memory.
Partnership of historical accuracy, active memory
The photo galleries make this commitment to a true recreation
particularly palpable. The introductory page to the first photo gallery,
“Families,” after citing how photography became closely associated with
Ottoman Armenians in the 19th century and reached the farthest corners of the empire by the early 20th
century, emphasizes how photographs from that period reached
Houshamadyan—often from private family collections from all over of the
world, mainly in digital form, thus turning these photographs into
sacred fragments from a destroyed world. The author notes, “Each
[photograph] is the glowing reflection and legacy of a particular
family’s lost life. At the same time, each photo is a microcosm, a
unique sample of the collective fate that befell the Ottoman Armenians.
Life and Catastrophe…”4
Such a study of a centuries-old national and communal life not only
enriches the sources of our historical, sociological, and cultural
understanding, but awakens our senses and memory. This approached is
outlined in the second segment presented in this article.
The author cites literary works that testify to this effort to
recreate, and are closely associated with the sacramental value of
remembrances. It is in this context that Krikor Beledian’s “Semer”
[Thresholds] and Norair Atalian’s “Kapuyt Yerznka/Erzincan” [Blue
Yerznka/Erzincan] are quoted. And the introduction to the first photo
gallery concludes with the following statement: “To remember and to
reconstruct our past lives based on these memories, and to never forget
the Great Catastrophe.”
This living presentation of fragments from a past is, concomitantly,
scientifically valid; that is, unlike other publications of the same
nature, it reveals the inception, identity, and trajectory of the
featured artifacts, documents, and photographs. Yet this scholarly
approach to documentation is at the same time sensory-emotional. It’s
never commemorative, ceremonious, and superficial, as that would not
constitute remembrance, but a mere masking of amnesia, and the
mummification of the reality of Yergir [Homeland], a word that
we ceaselessly utter, although it has stopped being a living presence
for us. The Houshamadyan volume is welcome especially for being an
active and a reviving memory.
The volume, as well as the website, stand as a testament to a
holistic vision that is scholarly and artistic, and particularly
pedagogical in the broadest sense of the word. It is the kind of vision
that we need as a collective—as do our education systems and schools. In
the words of the editor, “We must make Armenian studies accessible to
the new generations. … We must turn the Armenian history class, the
Armenian museum, and any effort pertaining to Armenian history
appealing… We should not repeat the mistakes that made all this
synonymous with expired and boring. … [We should also be] creative. The
historian should know how to work with the artist…and to give the
historic material appeal and generate greater interest.”4
***
In view of this work that is imbued with the dual advantages of
scholarly and artistic caliber and the expression of a comprehensive
vision, it is worth pausing and thinking today, a century after the
genocide, about this challenge to our ceremonial, pro-forma memory, and
our abstract love for the homeland—and this, in a time when buried
across Western Armenia, the decimated, transfigured remnants of the
Armenian nation are showing the first signs of revival and taking
ownership of their ancestral homeland.
Houshamadyan participates in this challenge with its website and the
current volume, standing as a factor for revival. Despite being born
from the memory-deprived Western Armenian Diaspora, it weighs in against
the deprivation of memory. And for that, Houshamadyan is twice, thrice
valuable for us.
Notes
1. It seems to me that it is important to have sections in Armenian—and another European language besides English—in a volume such as this (even if a very condensed version was presented in these languages) to counterbalance the hegemony of the English language. On the website, the presence of a section entirely in Armenian has essentially resolved this issue. For the publication, the editors would determine the format in which other languages appear. What is expressed here is a general concern on the importance of such diversification.
2. See, for example, the reports in Aztag (Beirut, May 15) on the event launching the book, and the interviews in Ararad (Beirut) and Agos (Istanbul) on March 27 and March 7, respectively, the latter in the newspaper’s Turkish-language section.
3. Les Armeniens 1917-1939: La Quête d’un Refuge, Raymond H Kévorkian; Lévon Nordiguian; Vahé Tachjian, eds. (Beirut: Saint Joseph University, 2006)
4. The editor of the volume has used the term “Catastrophe” in English in reference to the genocidal crime, the Medz Yeghern. In European languages—in English in this particular case—one may be obliged to employ the term. (*) On the Houshamadyan website as well, Medz Yeghern and “genocide” are used as equivalents of that “Catastrophe.”
It is worth noting here that academics and intellectuals in the West do not always demonstrate sensitivity to this terminology and, prompted by the Judeo-Christian thinking, employ the term Aghed.
The use of the term Aghed in reference to the Medz Yeghern
or Armenian Genocide of 1915 is not simply an understatement, but a
serious mistake that demotes the act from a historical-political Crime
to a metaphysical-theological concept, or simply a natural disaster,
like a flood or an earthquake. At best, the Crime becomes the victim of a
dubious game of dual-meaning.
(Here, I remember how in Turkey in the years following the 1895-96 massacres, the euphemisms Tebk and Medz Tebk
were used in reference to the massacres, under conditions of censorship
and self-censorship. Are we still there? What censorship are we
subjected to now?)
Let us not forget that Aram Andonian, a witness to the Medz Yeghern and a pioneering historian documenting it, titled the French version of his book Le Grand Crime, which was a literal translation of Medz Yeghern, unlike “Catastrophe” or some Aghed. (**)
Conclusion: The genocide must be termed as Yeghern, Crime, and not as Aghed or Catastrophe, even if capitalized, in order to convey the political and legal dimensions of the act.
5. Interview in Ararad (Beirut) on March 27, 2014.
"The Armenian Weekly," December 19, 2014
(*) It is not clear why "one may be obliged" to use Catastrophe in European languages ("Armeniaca").
(**) Aram Andonian's Armenian book was actually called Medz Vojire, while the French version of his book (abridged) was published as Documents secrets sur les massacres armenienes. ("Armeniaca").
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