Herkan: Remembering the Power of Indigeneity

 Talin Suciyan

Herkan. She had one of those special names I had never heard before… It must be one of those old Armenian names, like the ones which I had only come across in the mid-19th century archival documents. She was the mother of four children and my admiration of her started when I got to know her one and only daughter. I had first met her daughter more than 25 years ago, when I was 16 and she was 48. We lost track of each other until reconnecting recently all these years later. I had not remembered her name, I had not remembered where I first met her, but I remembered how much I loved her. A heart full of love, which she inherited from her mother Fatma-Herkan. Now on the occasion of the 8th of March, I write to bring Herkan’s legacy into the present, as it whispers a long-lost song into our ears, one that we all recognize. 

Huellas de los armenios secretos de Turquía

Avedís Hadjián

"¿Quién eres? Esto es Turquía. ¿Sabes qué es Turquía?" me preguntó el hombre, con un miedo en los ojos magnificado por sus gruesos lentes. Era de la poco conocida comunidad gitana armenia, en el distrito de Kurtulus, en Estambul. Estábamos en una confitería donde suelen reunirse gitanos armenios, a quienes trataba de entrevistar.

Y tenía razón. No sabía yo qué era Turquía. Pero Turquía, e incluso muchos armenios, tampoco sabían quién era él.

A Lost Map on the Tramway in Istanbul

Avedis Hadjian

 



“Who are you? This is Turkey. Do you know what Turkey is?” a man asked me, his thick glasses magnifying the fear in his eyes. He belonged to the little-known Armenian Gypsy community, in the Kurtuluş district of Istanbul. I was at a teahouse where Armenian Gypsy men usually gathered, trying to interview them.

And he was right. I didn’t know what Turkey is. But Turkey, and many Armenians themselves, didn’t know who he was either.

The Endlessness of Crime and Apology

Talin Suciyan

Translated by Vartan Matiossian

Last week, Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan’s statement about Dersim was immediately well received in the mainstream press, and we had to wait until the weekend to read more critical articles about it. Two articles by Ayşe Hür and Prof. Taner Akçam were like an “introduction to the literature of apology,” especially for the Prime Minister himself.[1] There may be aspects in both articles that are worth discussing, but what I want to deal with now is something quite different.