2010_05 Hye Sharzhoom Newspaper May 2010

              6
Hye Sharzhoom
May 2010
Terian Gives Talk on Less-Known Victims of 1915
Armen Melidonian
Staff Writer
Kazan Visiting Professor
Dr. Abraham Tbrian gave his
final lecture of the semester
at Fresno State, titled 'The
Less-Known Victims of the
Armenian Genocide." at 7:3QFM
on Thursday. April 29. in the
University Business Center.
Room 191.
Among those victims were
numerous Armenian writers
who were tortured during the
Genocide and failed to produce
works afterward. Indra. the pen
name of Diran Chrakian. was a
mystic writerof prose and poetry;
the best known of the genre at
the start of the twentieth century.
As a result of his witnessing the
Genocide, he never wrote again.
He was murdered by the Turkish
government in 1921.
Komitas Vardapet was a
notable composer who was
arrested on April 24. 1915 and
after surviving deprivation,
suffered from schizophrenia after
witnessing the horrors of the
Genocide. He was never again
able to compose or to conduct
any further scholarly research in
his field of music.
Many distingiis hed and highly
educated clergy died during the
Genocide. The cferrise ofthe most
prominent Armenian seminary
of Armash is notable because it
was reform oriented. Many of
the seminary's most prominent
graduates were killed in the
Genocide, and so the Armenian
Church lost the possibility of
reform.
Dr. Tbrian also discussed the
fate of the Aimenian churches
in Turkey, many of which were
deliberately destroyed after being
abancbned with the destruction
continuing long after World War
I.
Dr. Terian discussed how
Western Armenian language,
literature, and culture suffered
as well, ever since the Western
Armenians were exiled from their
homeland. If no Genocide had
occurred, the culture would have
continued to thrive, but now. with
the Armenians in the Diaspora
living in foreign lands, mere is
a trend to be satisfied with only
symbolic tokens of their historic
culture.
The forced conversion of
many Armenians to Islam
received much attention in Dr.
Tbrian's lecture. There is little
doubt that Armenians who
became Muslim at the time were
converted involuntarily. This is
expressed by a distinction in the
way Christian Armenians would
refer to them: not as 'lslamats ats
Hyer." but 'lslamats Vats Hyer."
This implies that these Armenians
did not choose to become Muslim
by free will but were forced
to convert. Even though these
Armenians converted, they are
still stigmatized in Turkey to this
day. Dr. Tbrian compared this
to the situation of the Kuros in
Turkey, who are predominantly
Muslim in an overwhelmingly
Muslim Turkey, but are still
a stigmatized group because
they are not ethnically Turkish.
Paradoxically, he pointed to
historical sources studied by Dr.
Speros Vryonis in his book The
Decline of Medieval Hellenism
in Asia Minor and the Process of
fslamizahon from the Eleventh
through the Fifteenth Century,
that compel one to conclude that
more than half of those who claim
to be Turks today are not of ethnic
Turkic descent.
Terian, From Page 1
atmosphere of sheer tension and
pressure, among the arrested
Ottoman Armenian intellectuals
and leaders who anticipated the
worst in the detention centers.
Armenian Golgotha follows
their experiences on their way
to the interior, where gendarmes
who intended to kill them
intercepted the group. The deaths
are recounted in detail by Bishop
Balakian and remain to this day
a dark, but very illuminating
account of the tragedies suffered.
Dr. Tbrian recounted tills
memoir, and asked "What does
he [Bishop Balakian] have to say
as a religious man and spiritual
leader? lb understand these
events through the eyes of such
an individual is to gain insight
into an event that few survived
and few could handle in the years
following."
Dr. Tbrian pointed out that
writers in the East and West
differed greatly in their responses
to the Genocide. In the Soviet
Union, leaders emphasized that
once a people were under the
Soviet blanket, they should forget
all past grievances and look to the
future. As such, there wasn't a lot
of literature produced directly on
the Genocicfe after 1920.
'Under communism, it was a
taboo to speak of Genocide or to
write of it." stated Dr. Tbrian.
A few writers though did stand
out. such as Raphael Patkanian
who penned the poem 'My Arax."
and Levon Avedissian's   'I've
Cried it All." A lasting symbol
for the Eastern Armenians was.
and remains today, the great
Mount Ararat. A strong symbol,
only comparable to the Jewish
people's Zion, our Mount Ararat
has evoked feelings of irony and
injustice post-Genocide as it lies
just inside of Turkey. A beautiful
symbol of Armenian heritage, it
has been in sight, yet j ust out of
reach.
Early responses in literature to
the Genocide were not typically
in poetic or artistic form.
Interestingly, it was in the last
half of the twentieth century and
in recent years that the topic of
the Genocide and events of World
War I have taken an artistic turn.
Dr. Tbrian's lecture was an
important look into the literary
aspects of the Genocide. Dr.
Sergio La Porta concluded the
evening with some observations,
focusing on the Turkish response.
and declared that now we are
seeing more and more Turkish
writers turning to Armenian
themes.
The literature. memoirs
and poems alike, all gave an
encompassing look at the sheer
brutality, discrimination, and
death thatthe Ottoman Armenians
faced in World War I. This all
serves to educate the public and
will, with the recent new push
to recognize the Genocide in
the United States and European
nations, aid in getting justice for
those Armenians and Ottoman
Christians who were killed.
Akcam, From Page 1
discussed."
The battle for Armenian
Genocide recognition will be
fought in the next few years in
Turkish civil society. The political
push for Genocide recognition
will also continue, and one day
when that has been achieved true
reconciliation can begin.
"The Genocide was a
tremendous loss, not only for
Armenians but also for all
humanity. And therefore, not
only as Turks or as Armenians,
but as human beings, we must
struggle together so that such a
crime against humanity is never
repeated."
Dr. Akcam's words will
resonate with a larger audience,
leading to a brighter future, in
which denial has been defeated
and truth will win the day.
The Genocide commemoration
was organized by the Armenian
Inter-Communal Committee
for the Commemoration of the
Armenian Genocide.
Thank You
Annual Fund Donois
Sponsor
Roxie Moradian
Supporters
Patt AltoonianHerdklotz
Allan & Rosemary Jendian
Marguerite & Grace Kazarian
aso member Leslie San-
tikian speaking at the
April  24   Genocide  event.
Scar Conscious
pr 15 million Armenians systematically massacred by the Ottoman
Turks froml915-1923,agenocideunrecognizedbytheU.S.government
What is this wicked dream that bleeds down
rivers, and kicks like the babies sliced
from the guts of mothers ?
All my life this word-Genocide.
that wets the tears of grandmothers,
that slashes the aorta of spirit with its bayonet fingers,
genocide that fills the lungs with ash and soot,
the residue of identity, genocide
that dressed young Vartan as a girl
when the Turks came to chain all the men,
kicking them into churches,
torches thrown through tall kaleidoscope windows,
bronze Armenian flesh welting.
screaming mesh of body and soul nightmare.
Genocide is Panos freezing for days. hiding
in the ice of Lake Van, image of his mother and sisters
raped and butchered.
It is Ani and Armenuhi wrapped tightly
in the center of elaborate rolled carpets
concentrating not to breathe,
a blend of unfamiliar words. ugly sounds.
muffled shouts and gunfire.
4.000 years of solid history desecrated,
a concerned German nurse documenting fields of decayed bodies
with his camera, only managing to smuggle one film
canister
in his belt back to Germany.
This is the genocide.
before the Holocaust.
before Cambodia,
before Bosnia.
before Rwanda.
beforeDarfur.
My genocide-
that stings when I touch it
which sings in secret,
foaming at the mouth
like a mad,
rabid wolf.
Tbo many scars linger from beneath
the greyest aberrations of the soul.
inside the same skin that keeps the blood warm,
distortions etched with the pain of humanity failing.
Armenia.
1915.
Some politicians are ready to finally call it "genocide."
perhaps casually over breakfast,
sunny side up and over-easy.
It is the presidents that shy from the word,
they are afraid of its truth,
they don't like the connotations,
their tongues surely to dissolve
like a million and a half Armenians into
a lost crease of history.
Paul Magarity, April 13,2009
The Circus Show
May 2010
the art of
fresno armenian-american arust
varaz samuelian
Art Hop
May 6, 2010
Reception 5-8 pm
Special Introduction at 6 pm
by Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian,
Armenian Studies Program
Fresno City Hall, Second Floor
2600 Fresno Street, Fresno
Free Admission
Varaz's book
Willif and Varaz: Mfmorifs of
MyFrifnd William Saroyan
amd selected lithographs of
Varaz will be on sale at the
EXHIBIT.