Turkey seems to have a burlesque history of genocide denial. On June
2, the German Parliament voted to recognise the 1915 killings of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "genocide." Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's reaction was predictable: “Germany has no right to comment on
genocide.” Ankara recalled its ambassador from Berlin.
Sounds familiar? Ankara's recent withdrawal of its ambassador to
Bangladesh following the execution of an indicted “war criminal” reveals
the Erdogan regime's grotesquely negligent attitude toward the genocide
in Bangladesh during 1971.
The church is modest in its architectural scope, yet its history
offers a rich tapestry of the Armenian footprint on the commerce,
politics, and education of East Bengal. More important, the church is an
architectural testament to the story of how the Armenian diasporas
spread out from their historic homeland, located between the Black Sea
and the Caspian Sea, to far-flung regions, and thrived as a versatile
cosmopolitan community.
Armenia occupies a crucial geographic location at the intersection of
various civilisations and trading routes, such as the Silk Road from
China to Rome. A vital link between East and West, the country was under
the domination of various competing political powers, including the
Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Persians again, the
Ottomans, and the Russians. Their long political subjugation, on the one
hand, made it difficult for them to maintain their Christian faith,
language, culture, and national identity. (The Armenians were the first
people to embrace Christianity as a state religion in 301 CE). On the
other hand, challenging circumstances exhorted Armenians to be resilient
in the face of political repression, to develop entrepreneurial acumen
and mediating skills, and to be a “trade diaspora.” Wherever the
Armenians went to trade, they typically learned the local language -
unlike other Asian or European merchants - and they benefitted from the
ability to communicate with primary producers.
The Armenians also played a significant role in the history of world
architecture. In the early medieval period, when the Byzantine world
abandoned classical stonework in favour of brick masonry (the
sixth-century Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is basically a brick
construction), only the Armenians retained the knowledge of concrete
work and continued the Hellenistic attitude to buildings as a compact,
object-like impression in space. Their contribution had a crucial
influence on subsequent development of church architecture in Europe.
There is no consensus on exactly when the Armenians arrived in Dhaka.
Some historians, however, suggest that they were in Bengal in the early
17th century, most likely arriving with the southbound migration of
Armenian diasporas from Persia. During the Safavid-Ottoman wars of
1603-1605, the Safavid monarch Shah Abbas (r. 1587-1629) deported up to
300,000 Armenians from the Armenian mercantile town of Old Julfa to what
became known as New Julfa in the suburb of Isfahan.
Because the official language of the Mughal court was Persian, the
Persian-speaking Armenians could easily adapt to the life in the Mughal
Empire. Being skillful in the textile business, the Armenians naturally
gravitated to Dhaka, one of the trading hubs for fine textile,
contributing significantly to the city's commercial life. In addition to
textile and raw silk, the Armenians engaged in the trade of saltpeter
(used as gunpowder), salt, and betel nut. They pioneered jute-trading in
the second half of the 19th century and popularised tea-drinking in
Bengal. When they began to lose the textile business to the British
private traders in the late 18th century, the Armenians reoriented their
focus to landholding, eventually becoming prominent and wealthy
zamindars (or landowners). Examples of Armenian zamindars in Dhaka
include: Agha Aratoon Michael, Agha Sarkies, and Nicholas Marcar Pogose.
Another major Armenian contribution to Dhaka was the introduction of
the ticca-garry (or horse-carriage), which became the main mode of
transportation in the city until the first decade of the 20th century.
Armenians also introduced western-style department stores for European
and British goods, including wines, spirits, cigars, bacon, reading
lamps, shoes, toys, table cutlery, shaving soap, saucepans, frying pans,
traveling bags, and umbrellas, among other items.
The Armenian community contributed significantly to Dhaka's civic
life and urban administrative bureaucracy. Nicholas Pogose founded the
first private school of the city, Pogose School, in 1848. It still
functions as a prestigious school in Old Dhaka. In response to Nicholas
Pogose's resolution that the Dhaka Municipality Committee had no
corporate entity and that steps should be taken to remedy the problem,
the British colonial administration enacted the District Municipality
Act of 1864. Subsequently, the Dhaka Municipality became a statutory
body with its own legal jurisdiction.
Compared to those in Calcutta and Madras, Dhaka's well-knit Armenian
community was small but wealthy, exerting a great deal of influence on
local and regional businesses. The Armenians resided in Armanitola, an
Old Dhaka neighbourhood that was named after their colony where they
once lived (although not all Armenians lived there).
Many of Dhaka's wealthy Armenians lived in European-style bungalows
in Old Dhaka. One of the most famous was the Ruplal House (now
derelict), built by the Armenian zamindar Aratoon. The religious life of
the community revolved around the Armenian Church of the Holy
Resurrection, built in 1781 on the ruins of an earlier chapel and
cemetery. The land for the Armenian Church was originally gifted by the
Armenian noble man Agha Catchick Minas, whose wife died in 1764 and is
buried inside the church.
The Armenian Church stands today like a quiet and dignified monument
amidst the frenzied urban growth surrounding it. Residential apartment
towers dwarf its two-story structure and the belfry (or the bell tower).
The oblong plan of the church is a simple basilica type with a
double-height nave flanked by a pair of one-story, 14-foot wide arcades
that open to the surrounding graveyard. The three-tier bell tower,
capped with a conical roof, on the west provides a square-shaped and
arched vestibule, followed by a ceremonial entrance to the nave.
The high boundary wall around the Armenian Church in Dhaka shields
the property from rampant land speculation that characterises the
capital city today. The main entrance to the site is from the east, near
the circular apse. Visitors must walk through the graveyard all the way
to the western forecourt of the church. Reading the tombstones of the
graveyard feels like a journey back to a time when the Armenians played
pivotal roles in the life of the city.
It is hard not to feel empathy for the Armenians, particularly in light of their and our “neglected” genocides.
"The Daily Star" (Dhaka), June 9, 2016
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