A Response 100 Years Later: Museum of Literature and Art After Ye. Charents

By Hasmik Hakhverdyan

The following album is the response of the unanswered letters written in 1894-1923 as proofs of the Armenian Genocide.
100 years later 100 notable figures replied to 10 unanswered letters of the intellectuals and victims of the Armenian Genocide.
Based on the Armenian Genocide witnesses’ evidences an art contest was announced. Under the name “Past in Present” 20 best works out of more than 100 are involved in the album.
Presented archival evidences and letters are accompanied with explanatory, analytic materials and photos as facts of the reality. The aim is to help the reader to make conclusions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781796056280

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Copyright © 2023 by Hasmik Hakhverdyan. 763833

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Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

ISBN: 978-1-7960-5629-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7960-5630-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7960-5628-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901246

Rev. date: 03/03/2023

The following album which is the summary of the project A Response 100 Years Later is the response to the unanswered letters and other pieces of evidence written in the years from 1894 to 1923 as proofs of the Armenian Genocide.

The project focused on the following two aspects - correspondence and art.

100 years later 100 notable Armenian and foreign figures replied to the 10 unanswered letters of the intellectuals and victims of the Armenian Genocide. Some of the responses are included in the 1915-2015 letters section of the album.

Based on the Armenian Genocide witnesses’ pieces of evidence, an art contest was held, with the best 20 works out of more than 100 entitled The Past in Present included in the album.

Within the album all the archival shreds of evidence and letters are accompanied with explanatory, analytic materials and photos as proof of the reality. The aim is to help the reader to draw conclusions and, if they want, write a response on the last blank page of the album. It also symbolizes the denial of the Armenian Genocide, the Armenians’ expectations, the innocent victims and their canonization.

Contents

Introduction

Karo Vardanyan

Episodes from the Armenian History

Meghrig Jabakjouryan - Nerkizian

Section 1. 1915-2015: Letters

The arrest order of the Armenian intellectuals

Garegin Khajak: Without chains

Hasmik Hakhverdyan

Daniel Varouzhan, Rouben Sevak: The sons of a similar fate

Gayane Mkrtchyan

Grigor Zohrap: To the destiny we surrender

Nara Danielyan

Smbat Byurat: This is just a storm that will end, don’t worry

Hasmik Hakhverdyan

Komitas: A concern

Gayane Mkrtchyan

Siamanto: I adore every powerful thing

Hasmik Hakhverdyan

Yervand Otyan: The luckiest wanderer

Gayane Mkrtchyan

Armin Wegner: The photo-journalist of the Armenian Genocide

Nara Danielyan

General Andranik: A monument no pedestal can bear

Karo Vardanyan

David Atamian: Where are their graves?

Hasmik Hakhverdyan

The robbery of the century

Anahit Astoyan

Section 2: Art

The Armenian’s power

Armen Gasparyan

Project The Past in Present

The art response to the evidences of the Armenian Genocide

Sarah Berberyan’s evidence

Suren Safaryan: WHAT’S MY FAULT?

Narek Knyazyan: THE LAST

Stella Grigoryan: RISE

Armen Zakaryan: MEMORY

In front of the ruined house

Vahagn Igityan - Tadevosyan: NEMESIS

The owners of the country

David Tevanyan: BELIEF

Tashkhot

Ara Shahumyan: A RESPONSE 100 YEARS LATER

Deir-ez Zor hero

Hayk Petrosyan: THE HERO OF DEIR-EZ ZOR

Sem Kadoryan’s evidence

Arpine Ketsyan: IT HAS NEVER BEEN FORGOTTEN

Zackary Demirtshyan: THE HUMANITY HELLHOLE

Ilya Nekrasov: SOULS

Pomegranate

Narek Alekyan: MIGRATION

Manvel Matevosyan: TO THE ETERNITY

Heghine Hovhannisyan: A CENTURY AGO

A sea of tears

Rafael Manoukyan: KOMITAS - HERITAGE

My angel

Sargis Babayan: APOCALYPSES

Maya Avagyan: YOU HAVE RISEN FOR THE WORLD TO KNOW

Mher Khachatryan: MY ANGEL

Yevnig Salibyan’s evidence

Syuzanna Hakobyan: DOLOROSSA

Return home

Artem Melik-Azaryants: RETURN HOME

We are awaited there: Pilgrimage to Western Armenia

Elmira Shahnazaryan

Epilogue

Hasmik Hakhverdyan

Introduction

…We were not only dictated a fate but also an everlasting topic, which will always be reflected in our literature and art as a nightmare and which we will never get rid of, even when the desired moment comes, and the whole world recognizes the Armenian Genocide. No atonement will soothe the 100-year-old cut, a wrinkle on the Armenian’s soul, named the Genocide.

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the well-known slogan has automatically aroused inside us and has become popular today: I remember and demand. In the last hundred and a few years only the first part of this slogan - I remember- was mentioned and kept through generations about the tragic memory of the genocide and exile from the homeland. In the present with the above-mentioned topic having received state sponsorship and encouragement, the second part of the slogan - I demand was gradually formed, aiming to replace the mentality of a victim to the persistence of a demander.

Taking into consideration this idea, the project A Response 100 Years Later was organized by the Museum of Literature and Art, the results of which are included in the namesake album. The first part of the album is dedicated to the Western Armenian intellectuals. It is well-known that the young Turks firstly arrested and brutally killed the Western Armenian intellectuals-in this way beheading people, which would, according to their cruel plan, enable them to carry out the genocide without any fuss.

Referring to the golden generation of Western Armenian intellectuals as a powerful source of inspiration, the project made the well-known Armenian and foreign figures and the young participants of the contest - artists and sculptors think over the reality of the Armenian Genocide.

For long months, in order to comprise this part of the album, the project staff studied numerous letter-evidences both from our museum and other archives, each of them worth mentioning for its eloquence. Nevertheless, only ten of them were to be included in the album, and for this aim certain criteria were taken into account: the popularity of the artists, the literary value of the texts, sentimentality, availability of facts proving genocide therein, etc. Besides the aforesaid, other main criteria to be distinguished, were the peculiarities and thoughts which the selected figures were famous for within a certain period of study. Komitas with his tragic life has traditionally been perceived by generations as one of the symbols of the massacred Armenians. Grigor Zohrap, with his broad interests and prolific literary-social-political activity, was the leader of the Western Armenian intellectuals of his generation. Yervand Otyan, as well as Arshak Chopanyan, Vahan Tekeyan and others, were among those few writers, who managed to escape from the Turkish yoke by mere chance and lived not only their lives but also the lives of their massacred generation: they created ten times more than a common mortal is capable to. Not only was Siamanto the first in Western Armenian reality to raise the poetry of revenge and struggle, but he was an exceptional poet, who focused only on this topic refusing other inspirations as well. According to one of A. Isahakyan’s evidence, Siamanto once tore his tender romantic poems angrily swearing never to refer to this topic as long as his country and nation suffered from the Ottoman brutalities.

It is not accidental at all that General Andranik is also included in the album with his touching letter to his soldiers. He was one of our epic heroes having gone through the hell of the Genocide and later considered one of the most heroic generals of the World War I by foreigners for his exceptional participation and contribution both in Armenian and World history¹. It’s worth mentioning that Turkey showed a political grimace with the commemoration of the victory of Gallipoli (Chanakkale) just on the 100th eve of the Armenian Genocide, trying to shift the world’s attention from the Genocide commemoration. Another fact worth mentioning is that the minister of war, Enver, attaching importance to the decisive battle (April, 1915) taken place near north Persian Dilman village, located his invincible regiments of Gallipoli right there, aiming at making great Turkey stretching to India. And these very regiments were defeated by Andranik, glorifying his and his soldiers’ names in the Russian historiography. The rest of these very invincible regiments escaped in panic from Andranik spreading fearful legends such as Andranik Pasha is the devil and the satan, no bullet touches him, it’s impossible and useless to struggle against him.

It’s symbolic that Grigor Zohrap called his first novel Lost Generation (1886). How could a 25-year-old energetic and optimistic fellow know that three decades later he would become an unfortunate witness of his generation’s slaughter? How could he know that for weeks he would in vain knock on villains’ doors, demanding an explanation and that he would follow the traces of his generation? This generation played an exceptional role in the Armenian history, and there was never to be such a generation again. That’s what one of the representatives of the exiled generation writes: The names which I remember and I forgot represent the generation who, with his sacrifice, revolutionary character, his moral perception, was only once born and the world never saw such a generation again…I have seen many generations in different places but the smell and taste" of that generation was different, just like Artamet apple even if it is wormy.²"

Each of the representatives of Zohrap’s eminent generation - Varouzhan, Siamanto, Rouben Sevag - had their birth date and managed to glorify it with their prolific literary-social activities, but their death date was the same –the year of 1915 - written in black letters in Armenian and the whole humanity’s history.

Karo Vardanyan

Director of the Museum of Literature and Art after Yeghishe Charents.

Episodes from the

Armenian History M.

Jabakjourian - Nerkizian

The treaties of Amasya and Qasr-e Shirin signed in 1555 and 1639 were decisive for the Armenians: the great parts of Armenia fell under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire. Politically the Turkish domination caused factual slavery. Economically the main aim of the Sultanate was to turn the conquered lands into its state property.

The Armenians living under the Ottoman Empire didn’t have life and property insurance: the Armenians living in the conditions of blind religious fanaticism didn’t even have the most elementary human rights. Everything was done to show the dependent position of a Christian with his appearance banning or obliging to wear special clothes³. A Christian attacked by a Turk didn’t have the right of self-defense.

The 1877-1878 Russian-Turkish war ended with the victory of the Russian Empire. On February 19/March 3⁴, 1878, in the of village San Stefano, 12 km away from Istanbul, a treaty was signed on the request of the Ottoman Empire, according to which several parts (Kars, Ardahan, Bayazid, Alashkert…) of Western Armenia were passed to Russian domination. The 16th article of the treaty was about the responsibility to make the necessary reformations in the Armenian regions of the Ottoman Empire. The term Armenia was first mentioned in this article after the conquest by the Ottoman Empire. Taking into consideration the fact that the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Armenian places conquered by them and to be returned to Turkey may provoke collisions and complications which will impact the friendly relationship between the two states, the Sublime Porte is obliged to undertake reformations and repairs of Armenian regions and provide the Armenians with the security from the Kurdish and Cherkez people. European countries were not satisfied with this treaty: the power of Russia might endanger the interests of those countries. Therefore, a short time later a conference took place in Berlin (July 13, 1878, president Otto von Bismarck) to make some changes in the treaty: the 16th article was replaced by the 61st article. Thus, if according to San Stefano treaty the reformations of Western Armenia had to be made at the presence of the Russian troops, somehow guaranteeing their execution, then according to Berlin treaty Russian troops were to be taken out from these parts leaving the solution of the problem to Turkey… The European countries carried out