Author: Aram Torosian

BY HOVSEP DAGHDIGIAN

Karen Balayan, born and raised in landlocked Armenia, is a sea captain. He looks the part, and speaks clearly with a calm, assuring voice; all I presume an asset for one who commands a ship and its crew. But besides this, he is a historian and a naval architect. He also may be considered an experimental archaeologist. Experimental archaeologists study the past, striving to replicate the past by living, working, and building as they believe people did long ago. Doing this allows them to verify theories about the past and gain insight about how people lived and thought, and the difficulties they encountered.

Karen (pronounced “Garen” in Western Armenian) was trained as an engineer, but had an interest in the sea — initially building model boats and exhibiting them at shows and competitions. His main interest was less in winning awards than introducing Armenian boats to the rest of the world.

On Armenia’s Lake Sevan he learned to sail small sailboats, later building larger 29-foot sprit-rigged sailboats and promoting sailing among enthusiastic young Armenians. All the while he researched Armenian nautical history and architecture. Balayan studied ancient boats uncovered at Lchashen on Lake Sevan as well as boats of other nations, but his main focus was on merchant ships of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (12th c to 14th c) in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea. This area is currently in Turkey and Syria. In 1985 Karen Balayan and friends founded the Ayas Nautical Research Club (www.ayas.am), with an office in Yerevan currently filled with nautical memorabilia.

This was followed by six years of extensive research on Armenian nautical history, shipbuilding, and navigation techniques at Armenia’s Madenataran — an ancient manuscript repository — as well as at archives and museums in Amsterdam, Venice, Genoa, Marseille, Portugal and other ports that documented their medieval trade with Armenian merchants. Many of the traded goods were from Armenia, including Artsakh, while other goods arrived at Armenian Cilician ports from Asia via caravans over the Silk Road. Cargos were then delivered over sea routes by Armenian merchants. In the 13th century, shipbuilding skills were passed down from father to son or to apprentices. Now these skills had to be rediscovered. While there was information on the shape and size of Armenian merchant ships, there was little information about their interiors. But as Balayan pointed out, the ships were designed to hold cargo, not for crew comfort. Sailors probably slept on top of the cargo. Balayan and his colleagues had to not only reinvent 13th century shipbuilding craft, but had to determine what tools and materials were used, and what instruments were used by 13th century Armenian mariners, as well.

In ancient times pine, oak, and cedar were used. This time oak was procured for major structural elements such as the ship’s skeleton, while pine planks were used for decks and for cladding the hull. Cedar is no longer available due to its scarcity and high cost. To construct the keel of the 65-foot long ship, an oak tree with a trunk and root of the same shape as the keel was cut to fabricate a strong, single-piece keel. Navigation was by maps using astrolabes, a medieval instrument predating sextants. According to Balayan, this allowed determination of both latitude and longitude though it required about a half hour of calculation to determine the ship’s position. But, since astrolabes from around the 13th century are extremely rare, he borrowed five of them from museums and collectors. After carefully disassembling them and copying their parts, accurate replicas were constructed.

To learn seamanship, Balayan traveled to Georgia where he enrolled in school, receiving his ship captain’s license. Just as there were no experienced 13th century ship builders to learn from, there were also no old salts left to teach sailing a 13th century ship. So, the Cilicia’s crew spent two years learning to sail the ship on Lake Sevan. Finally, they gingerly towed the ship on a specially built trailer through the mountains of Armenia and Georgia to the Black Sea, setting sail under an Armenian flag.

Initial financing for this project was from friends. Later, when success appeared on the horizon, other donors came forth to help. The ship had little modern equipment except those items required by maritime law — a small engine and a radio.

In 2004, flying an Armenian flag and starting from the Black Sea with a crew of 12, the Cilicia ship visited the ports that a 13th century Armenian merchant ship would have visited, including the Armenian Cilician ports of Ayas, Korikos, and Alexendretta (in current day Turkey), then Syria and Lebanon, as well as other ports on the Mediterranean. Later, it was on to Europe and Russia. They did not sail during the winter months. Turkey offered no impediment to visiting ports. Off the coast of Syria, a coast guard ship quietly approached during the nighttime darkness then lit its searchlights. The Syrians were cautioned to take care that this was a fragile wooden ship and to avoid potentially damaging contact with their metal ship. Two Syrian officers boarded the ship. Only the Syrian captain spoke English (the international maritime language). They toured the ship and were quite impressed. In Greece, the Cilicia ship was put into port after surviving a severe storm resulting in damage to the ship’s rudders. Greek officials were impressed that the ship survived the storm and was able to make it to port — a testimony to the seamanship of the Armenian crew and the seaworthiness of the ship.

During three years the Cilicia traveled 15,000 nautical miles. After visiting European ports and Russia, it sailed down Russian rivers entering the Black Sea. The ship was then transported back to Armenia’s Lake Sevan, having visited 25 countries and 63 ports.

The ship is currently out of the water, at home in Armenia’s Port Ayas, near the Artinash peninsula on the coast of Lake Sevan. It needs some repairs due to exposure to the hot sun. As Balayan stated, if the ship stayed in the water, it would not last more than 10 to 20 years. Current plans include the construction of a new home for the ship — a maritime museum in Yerevan near Yerevan Lake where the ship together with Armenian maritime history will be on display. Classes in sailing as well as other activities will be offered. The museum is planned to have a controlled environment, which will help preserve the ship and minimize maintenance. The ship will be visible from outside the museum, hopefully attracting visitors. The establishment of a new museum featuring the Cilicia, as well as other aspects of Armenian nautical history, will be a major addition to Armenia’s cultural and historical attractions. It will encourage further interest in the largely unknown field of Armenian nautical history.

A number of non-Armenians who visited the Cilicia during its journey have offered support, as has the city of Yerevan. Land has been designated for the museum’s construction though this process has not yet been finalized. Positive discussions have been held with relevant Armenian ministries and with Yerevan authorities. There is a sponsor for funding this project, though it is unclear if this will cover the complete cost of the museum.

There is a great deal of information about the Cilicia ship online, including videos. Simply search for “Cilicia Armenian Ship.”

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
Part II

This is the continuation of the letter written by Armin T. Wegner to Franz Werfel in 1932, which is being published for the first time:

“Already in 1915 I became friends with Johannes Lepsius. As I traveled by train, from Constantinople through Asia Minor to Baghdad, I witnessed the entire deportation. I repeatedly sent material to Lepsius for his collection. I have lived in close relationship with Armenians and Turks for several years, and have spoken their language, albeit very imperfectly. Hiding under my stomach bandage, I smuggled the pictures that I had taken of the horror scenes in the desert. I transported them, at the risk of death, across the border along with the refugees’ letters to the American embassies.
In 1919, in a public event in Urania [a scientific society in Berlin], with the help of Johannes Lepsius, I showed the pictures in a sensational lecture. As a result, almost a pogrom broke out between the immigrant Armenians and Turks. Soon afterwards I published my book, ‘The Road of No Return’ (‘Der Weg Ohne Heimkehr’), revealing personal experiences from that time. I related most of the experiences from the days of the deportation, for my Armenian novel.

At short intervals, two more books were published — ‘In the House of Happiness,’ (‘Im Hause der Glückselligkeit’) and my ‘Turkish Novels,’ (‘Türkische Novellen’) which also include two stories from the persecution of Armenians. At about the same time, in 1921, my novella ‘The Storm on the Women’s Bath’ (‘Der Sturm auf das Frauenbad’) – the description of an Armenian massacre – appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt. In the same year I published the stenographic report ‘The Court Case of Talaat Pasha’ (‘Der Prozess Talaat Pascha’), to which I was invited, along with Johannes Lepsius and others, as a witness.

In 1925, I began to write my Armenian novel, which I had already planned during the war. The first announcements of the work can be found around the same time in the Kirschner, and in Albert Sörgel’s history of literature, where the book had been announced with the title ‘The Expulsion’ (‘Die Austreibung’). But, as I set out to portray the vast epic of deportation and extermination of an entire race of people, I soon realized that my work would be piecemeal if I confined myself to describing only the end of this tragedy.

So the work grew under my hand, more and more, beyond what I originally had planned. The entire fate of the people, and the struggles of the peoples of the Middle East, should be presented in it. The antagonism of races, religions and classes were laid bare. It was not my will, but the inner nature of that work, which became a four-volume novel. I’ll give you a short outline of the blueprint that I shared with the academy two years ago.

The first volume deals with the prehistory of the novel – the youth of the main hero, who was born in a small Asian town in 1890. In 1896, during the massacres of Abdul Hamid, he loses his parents and grows up an orphan in the Syrian orphanage in Jerusalem. The actual content of the first volume, then, describes life in a small Asian city, the contrast of the Turks and Armenians, their conflicting as well as common revolutionary activities, and it finally leads to Constantinople in the court of Abdul Hamid. This volume will be titled ‘In the Shadow of God.’

The second volume, titled ‘Eternal Hatred,’ leads first into the mountains of an Armenian village. It shows the differences between Kurds and Armenians, and finally depicts the outbreak of the revolution of 1908 in Asia Minor and Constantinople, the removal of Abdul Hamid and the victory of the Young Turks, and ends in a general fraternization and reconciliation of Turks and Armenians in the age of the Constitution.

The third volume, which will probably carry the title ‘The Scream of Ararat,’ begins with the outbreak of the World War. This volume will also contain the conversation between Lepsius and Enver Pasha, which Lepsius himself has so impressively recorded. The novel always shifts between the ruling classes, the leading authorities, and the people. The Young Turkish leaders, and the whole diplomacy of Europe, play their part. The book ends with the actual beginning of the deportation.

The fourth volume, titled ‘The Desert,’ then brings the extermination of the Armenian people in the steppes of Mesopotamia. This part also contains the scenes of those two thousand refugees who had rescued themselves on a mountain and were then brought to Egypt by a ship of the Entente – scenes that I suppose to be the inspiration for the title of your planned book, ‘The Forty Days Musa Dagh.’ An epilogue to the last volume describes the murder of Talaat Pasha in the streets of Berlin.

The entire work is expected to retain the repeatedly announced title ‘The Expulsion.’

Although I began writing the Novel as early as 1924, it was interrupted by my other poetic and journalistic works. In the years 1925 to 1927, the project matured to its full extent, and from the beginning of 1930, I had to start the whole work once again. In 1928 my novel ‘Moni’ (the novel of a two-year-old child) was published in the ‘Berliner Tageblatt.’ At the same time, I offered the book to the publishing house Zsolnay in Vienna (in March 1928), and declared my readiness for a contractual bond for my planned work in progress, the Armenian novel, as a great portrayal of people. But Zsolnay refused. I then signed a contract with the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt in Stuttgart (in the spring of 1928), for my multi-volume novel on the Armenian deportation, and at that time I received a considerable advance.

The great economic hardship, the pressure to feed a family and the not quite satisfactory sales of my other books, slowed down my work. Driven by financial obligations, I had to accept extensive journalistic work, again and again, which required long trips to foreign countries. In 1930, Thomas Mann applied on my behalf to the Prussian Academy of the Arts (Section of Poetry), referring to my work. At his instigation, I submitted to the Academy a more detailed plan of my great Armenian novel. I enumerated the various stations of the above listed individual volumes. Fortunately, the academy gave me considerable support for this work. But unfortunately, all of these sums were not enough to allow me to labor on the huge work with peace of mind.”

BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN

While it is not clear who will replace the abruptly fired John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, it can be said that his departure presents a reprieve for countries like Armenia, which were pressured by Bolton to change course to satisfy the United States agenda in the region.

Bolton famously visited Yerevan last year to impress upon Yerevan that the United States intended to strangle Iran with sanctions, pressured Armenia essentially to take sides, knowing full-well the importance of Yerevan’s unique and strategically important relations with Iran, its neighbor to the south.

He told Armenian authorities at the time to decisively resolve the Karabakh conflict, offering to sell arms directly to Yerevan, while telling Baku that the U.S. would repeal Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act—an amendment to the post-Soviet US assistance effort advanced by the Armenian National Committee of America and its wide grassroots network, restricting aid to Azerbaijan and Turkey until they lifted their blockades of Armenia.

What the new Armenian government was seeking from the United States was renewed dialogue on American investment in Armenia and ways to bolster the strategic U.S.-Armenia relations. Instead what Yerevan got from Bolton was an ultimatum. Bolton was also outspoken, and expressed his dismay about Yerevan’s assistance to Syria via the dispatch of a group of experts to Aleppo to primarily aid in demining efforts in that heavily Armenian-populated city.

At the time of Bolton’s visit to Yerevan, the ANCA spoke out against the U.S. priorities as set out by Bolton, especially as it concerned Azerbaijan and bolstering that military dictatorship to have an upper hand in regional politics.

“The ANCA will continue to press for strict enforcement of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which – as a matter of law, currently waived by the Administration – restricts certain forms of direct U.S. assistance, including offensive military hardware, to the Azerbaijani government. In light of Baku’s escalating aggression, the ANCA calls upon the White House to discontinue its Section 907 waivers and urges Congress to roll back its waiver authority for this law. Parallel to Section 907 enforcement issues, the ANCA is carefully tracking potential arms export control violations related to Azerbaijan, including the third-party sourcing of sensitive U.S. equipment, software, and services for drones and other weapons systems,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian immediately following Bolton’s remarks in Armenia last fall.

Good riddance to Bolton and his war-mongering agenda that has placed the men and women of the U.S. military in harm’s way and has threatened the security around the world and specifically in Armenia and the region.