ON HISTORY AND ACTUAL PROBLEMS OF ARMENIANS OF DERSIM
Ruben Melkonyan
30.09.2010
R. Melkonyan – the senior expert of the Centre of the Armenian Studies
of “Noravank” Foundation, the vice-dean of the Faculty of Oriental
Studies at the YSU
Dersim, which is currently on the territory of Turkey, in different
periods took a special place for the Armenians, Zazas and Kurds who
were established there. Due to its geographic position Dersim had been
an asylum for the rebels and those who were persecuted for many times.
There is a legend that in that very mountainous province a group of
Armenians who had not adopted Christianity in 4th century sheltered.
Later, during the Pavlikian and Tondrakian movements Dersim served
as an asylum for the followers of those teachings. Its mountainous
geographical position had also influenced the characters of people
living there – unruliness and courage were wide spread in Dersim. It
is also known that after the establishment of the Ottoman rule,
Dersim preserved its semi-independent status which bothered Turkish
rulers in different periods.
It should be mentioned that besides the autochthons – Armenians,
there were also Zazas and Kurds among whom Alevism was rather
widespread which presuppose religious tolerance. This religious
belonging considerably distinguished Alevi Zazas from Muslims from
other regions of Empire, where religious extremism often prevailed.
Friendly relations of the Armenians from Dersim with neighbour Alevi
Zazas also played a certain role during the Armenian Genocide in 1915:
according to different sources about 30-40 thousand Armenians from
both Dersim and other neigbouring regions inhabited by the Armenians
were sheltered by Alevi Zazas. It should also be mentioned that local
heads of Alevi Zaza tribes saved Armenians because of their faith too,
which is mostly anthropocentric. But we must also add that at the
same time there were cases when a number of Dersim Kurdish and Zaza
tribes collaborated with Ottoman authorities and participated in the
massacres of the Armenians and pillage of their property. The evidences
of the mean betrayal of Zaza heads of tribes have also preserved.
However, the issue of the Armenians who sheltered in the mountains
of Dersim became a subject to discuss and negotiate for the central
Ottoman authorities and local heads of tribes because Turkish
authorities demanded to deliver up the Armenians. This demand caused
a serious problem for Alevis because they faced a difficult choice
between the order of the central authorities and their religious
principles. And very often the order was declined and when the
demands became stricter heads of tribes helped a part of the sheltered
Armenians to escape to Eastern Armenia or Russia.
But besides all this, there were many cases registered when Armenians
who found shelter with Alevi had to change their names, religion
(often outwardly) and present themselves as Alevi Zazas. This
circumstance allowed the heads of tribes to say that the suspects were
not Armenians but they were Alevi Zazas. And that was the way many
thousand Armenians had converted and became Alevis. A part of them
managed to preserve openly or secretly their national traditions and
the other part merged with Alevis. It is important to mention that not
so radical stance of the surrounding Alevi population allowed Armenians
from Dersim and their generations to preserve some elements of their
Armenian identity if they wanted till our days, but, nevertheless, the
predominant element had decisive influence on the self-consciousness
of the generations of the Armenians.
In this regard the well-known Armenian Mirakian kin, a part of which
settled in different countries, including Armenia, after leaving
Dersim, but some of them still live in Dersim under the name of “Mirak
Ashiret”. Unfortunately, as the specialists who visited them mention,
today’s generations of Mirakians preserved only a memory of their
Armenian descent. It is remarkable that even today they are proud of
the rebellious and bellicose image of their ancestors – Mirakians,
which make those generations acknowledge their origin.
As a result of the centuries-long Armenian presence in Dersim and
the fact that many thousand Armenians found shelter there during the
Genocide, many elements of Armenian culture, habits, language were
passed to the Zaza environment. For example, in the Zaza language there
is a layer of loanwords from Armenian, a number of Zaza holidays and
habits have Armenian features, till present a number of old Armenian
place names is used among people of Dersim. But it should also be
mentioned that the Turkish anti-Armenian propaganda has influenced
Dersim too and there are facts which come to prove that even in Alevi
environment being an Armenian was not always encouraged.
The preconceived and hostile attitude of the Ottoman Empire in regard
to Dersim continued and even intensified in republican Turkey: the
semi-independent status of Dersim turned into one of the issues which
cause concern to the Kemalist authorities.
Back in the 1930s Kemalist authorities initiated the radical solution
of Dersim issue: the methods of solution were the same the Young Turks
used. In 1937-1938 in Dersim genocide was perpetrated by the state
during which the methods used during the Armenian Genocide were used.
According to different sources during the genocide in Dersim 70-90
thousand people were killed and the whole population of the province
was exiled to other Turkish provinces. The issue of the Dersim genocide
needs scrutiny but we would like to turn to one of its episodes. We
can clearly say that one of the main and important target groups for
the Turkish authorities were the Armenians who sheltered there after
1915. Many facts, evidences of the survivors come to prove that the
events of 1937-1938 were the continuation of the Armenian Genocide for
the Armenians from Dersim; over those years a part of the Armenians
who survived in 1915 was killed. It should also be mentioned that
Turkish authorities presented the fact that Zazas sheltered Armenians
as substantiation for massacres to the troops which took part in the
Dersim genocide.
Today in Turkey a research is carried out within the scope of which
the stories concerning the Dersim genocide are collected and, due to
the fact that it is very difficult to find any objective data about
those events in official Turkish documents, the confessions of those
who survived and took part in those events are of important as a source
for the study. Thus, one of the Turkish army soldiers who participated
in those events confessed that their commanders before ordering them
to kill Zazas substantiated it in the following way: “They are those
who sheltered Armenians and this is the reason they must be destroyed”.
It is interesting and very remarkable that in our days among the
Armenians from Dersim a process of attaching importance to their
origin and reclaiming their identity can be observed. Lower we will
bring some remarkable facts concerning the current conditions of the
Armenians from Dersim which was wrote down in 2009 during the “9th
Mndzurian Festival”. Thus, the participant of Mndzurian Festival,
Bagrat Estukian from “Agos” daily mentions: “I already felt there was
something native about those people. I had read before that there
were many of those whose ancestors were of Armenian descent. But I
never thought that there were so many of them… The other surprising
phenomenon was that nobody tried to conceal its descent. People
there got used to present themselves through the integrity of Alevi
religion, Kurdish political movements and Armenian identity. This
combination, which is strange for us, Armenians from Istanbul, is
quite a natural phenomenon for people from Dersim. … You can meet
the splinters of Armeniancy all over Anatolia. And in Dersim you
can meet Armenians. They are neither crypto-Armenians nor those who
disclaimed their roots; they are simply special, unique”. The other
evidence presented by Bagrat Estukian speaks about the peculiar way the
traces of Christianity have preserved among the Armenians from Dersim:
“One of them took out a cross from under his shirt, showed it to me and
said: “Don’t get me wrong, I’m atheist, and Alevism is my culture, but
this cross is a symbol that I’m a grandson of Shoghakat grandmother,
the son of Hambardzumian kin”.
In August 2010 it became clear that a group of Armenians from
Dersim initiate the establishment of the NGO to shift the process of
reclaiming of their identity to a qualitatively new level. The NGO have
to carry researches concerning the culture, history, religion, language
of the Armenians from Dersim. The initiator is the Armenian from Dersim
Selahettin Gultekin who has also changed his name and became Mirhan
Gultekin. As Mirhan mentions one of the goals of the organization
is to make so that the Armenians from Dersim and their generations
return to their roots, live without hiding their real identity, bear
Armenian and not Turkish or Kurdish names, protect Armenian churches,
monuments, graveyards in Dersim, to restore officially old Armenian
names of the villages. “Armenians from Dersim should protect their
identity and culture. They should reclaim their origin; they should
send their children to churches. For all those purposes we must have
an organization and I call all the Armenians and first of all those
from Dersim, to help this organization”, – mentions Mirhan Gultekin.
Let us also remind in the end that such an organization was created
by the Armenians from Sasun living in Turkey who try to carry works to
preserve Armenian churches and holy places in Sasun. Of course, under
the state policy of Turkey those organizations cannot have a broad
field of activity but the attempts of different groups of Armenians
in Turkey to self-organize are remarkable and, at the same time, they
put forward interesting developments connected with searching and
“reclaiming” national identity.
“Globus National Security”, issue 5
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Another materials of author
ON CURRENT CONDITION OF THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCHATE IN
ISTANBUL[15.07.2010] ARMENIAN COMMUNITY IN ISTANBUL IN THE CONTEXT
OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS[27.05.2010] THE GENERATIONS OF THE
CONVERTED ARMENIANS IN EUROPE[17.05.2010] ON PERCEPTION OF THE ISSUE
OF THE ISLAMIZED ARMENIANS [06.04.2010] FORCIBLE ISLAMIZATION OF THE
ARMENIANS DURING THE GENOCIDE: PROCESS AND EFFECTS[19.03.2010]
From: A. Papazian
http://noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=5054