Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Pope calls Armenian massacre first genocide of 20th century, disappoints Turkey

APRIL 12TH, 2015 FEATURED, INTERNATIONAL
By Steve Scherer

Pope Francis described the massacre of as many as 1.5 million
Armenians as “the first genocide of the 20th century” at a 100th
anniversary Mass on Sunday, prompting Turkey to summon the Holy See’s
ambassador in Ankara in protest.

Muslim Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians died in clashes
with Ottoman soldiers beginning in 1915, when Armenia was part of the
empire ruled from Istanbul, but denies hundreds of thousands were
killed and that this amounted to genocide.

It was the first time a pope has publicly pronounced the word
“genocide” for the massacre, repeating a term used by some European
and South American countries but avoided by the United States and some
others to maintain good relations with an important ally.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II and Armenian Apostolic Church Supreme
Patriarch Kerekin II called it “the first genocide of the 20th
century” in a joint written statement.

Francis, who has disregarded many aspects of protocol since becoming
pope two years ago, uttered the phrase during a private meeting at the
Vatican with an Armenian delegation in 2013, prompting a strong
protest from Ankara.

As the archbishop of Buenos Aires before becoming the leader of the
world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Jorge Maria Bergoglio had already
publicly characterised the mass killings as genocide.

After Francis’s remarks on Sunday, Turkey swiftly summoned the
Vatican’s ambassador in Ankara to protest and seek an explanation, a
senior official told Reuters. The foreign ministry was expected to
make a statement later in the day.

In November, the Argentine-born pontiff made an official visit to
Turkey as part of his efforts to solidify relations with moderate
Muslim states.

DENYING EVIL

At the start of the Armenian rite Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope
Francis described the “senseless slaughter” of 100 years ago as “the
first genocide of the 20th century”, which was followed by “Nazism and
Stalinism”.

“It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honour their memory, for
whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester.
Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it!” he said.

Francis’s comments were also published by Armenian President Serzh
Sargyan’s office on Sunday.

“We are deeply grateful to His Holiness Pope Francis for the idea of
this unprecedented liturgy … which symbolizes our solidarity with the
people of the Christian world,” Sargyan said in a speech at a Vatican
dinner on Saturday evening.

The pope said genocide continues today against Christians “who, on
account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic origin, are publicly
and ruthlessly put to death – decapitated, crucified, burned alive –
or forced to leave their homeland.”

Islamic State insurgents have persecuted Shi’ite Muslims, Christians
and others who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam
as they carved a self-declared caliphate out of swathes of Syria and
Iraq, which share borders with Turkey.

Francis also urged reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, and
between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Caucasus mountain
region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The appeal came in a letter handed out
during a meeting after the Mass to Sargyan and the three most
important Armenian church patriarchs present.

AsiaOne
April 12 2015

Pope marks 100th anniversary of Armenia genocide

AFPSunday, Apr 12, 2015

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis faces a key diplomatic test Sunday as he
marks the centenary of the mass killings of Armenians and elects
whether to use the word “genocide”, at the risk of alienating Turkey.

The 78-year old head of the Roman Catholic Church is under pressure to
use the term publicly to describe the Ottoman Turk murders, but will
be wary of alienating an important ally in the fight against radical
Islam.

While many historians describe the cull as the 20th century’s first
genocide, Turkey hotly denies the accusation.

Francis and Armenian patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni will
celebrate a mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica, which will include
elements of the Armenian Catholic rite and be attended by the
country’s President Serzh Sargsyan.

During the ceremony Francis will proclaim a 10th-century Armenian monk
a “Doctor of the Church”, making Saint Gregory just one of 36 saintly
theologians whose writings are considered to hold key insights on the
Catholic faith.

The mass, which begins at 0700 GMT, is being held ahead of the
official April 24 commemoration of the murders.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915
and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and have long sought
to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.

But Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000
Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose
up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian
troops.

The Vatican has a long history of support for the Armenians: as early
as 1915, pope Benedict XV wrote two letters to Sultan Mohammed V
asking him to intervene in the mass killings, but his pleas fell on
deaf ears.

Using the word would not be a papal first: John Paul II used it in a
joint statement signed with the Armenian patriarch in 2000 which said
“the Armenian genocide, which began the century, was a prologue to
horrors that would follow”.

But it provoked outrage in Turkey, and a year later during a trip to
Armenia the pontiff avoided using the term, instead opting for “Metz
Yeghern”, an expression meaning “Great Evil”, used by Armenians to
describe the killings.

Pope boosts Armenia’s efforts to have Ottoman killings recognised as genocide

Pope Francis delivers powerful message by recognising atrocities
between 1915 and 1922 as genocide in speech at Vatican on eve of
centenary

Pope Francis and the head of Armenia’s Orthodox church, Karekin II,
greet each other during an Armenian-rite mass in St Peter’s Basilica.
Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP

Ian Black in Yerevan and Rosie Scammell in Rome

Sunday 12 April 2015 18.12 BST Last modified on Sunday 12 April 2015 20.02 BST

Armenia’s efforts to promote greater awareness of the massacre of 1.5
million of its people by Turkey during the fall of the Ottoman empire
were given a dramatic boost on Sunday by the pope’s description of the
atrocities as `the first genocide of the 20th century’ ` days ahead of
the centenary of the event.

Pope Francis used a special mass in St Peter’s Basilica to mark the
anniversary, and referred to `three massive and unprecedented
tragedies’ of the last century.

Kim mania as Armenia catches up with the Kardashians

Armenians warm to Kim Kardashian during her family visit and welcome
the publicity she draws to the country ahead of genocide remembrance
day
Read more

`The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the 20th
century, struck your own Armenian people,’ the pontiff said. `Bishops
and priests, religious women and men, the elderly and even defenceless
children and the infirm were murdered.’

Historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed
in state-organised violence between 1915 and 1922. Russia, France and
about 20 other countries recognise it as genocide.

The US and Britain do not, however: most likely to avoid angering
their Nato ally. The Turkish government rejects the term and
emphasises wartime conditions, although in recent years it has
acknowledged Armenian suffering.

Turkey immediately summoned the papal ambassador to Ankara to express
its displeasure and later recalled its ambassador from the Vatican.
The foreign ministry said the pope had contradicted his message of
peace and dialogue during a visit to Turkey in November.

Expressing `great disappointment and sadness’, it called the message
discriminatory because it only mentioned the pain suffered by
Christian Armenians, and not Muslims and other religious groups.

The fate of the Armenians and impunity for their killers has come to
be seen as foreshadowing the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews 25
years later. The concept of genocide was recognised by the UN in 1948.
Armenia hopes wider international recognition will increase pressure
on Turkey, though their relations are complicated by other factors,
including the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pope Francis calls Armenian massacre `first genocide of 20th century’

Strictly speaking, it was not the first such announcement. In 2001
Pope John Paul II and Kerekin II, the leader of the Armenian Apostolic
church, used identical language to that used by Pope Francis on
Sunday. The original statement, however, was issued in Echmiadzin, the
Armenian equivalent of the Vatican, rather than in Rome.

Analysts said the timing was also highly significant, coming so close
to the 24 April commemoration event in Yerevan and around the world.
Turkey has infuriated Armenians by choosing to mark the centenary of
the wartime Gallipoli landings on exactly the same date, a move
deliberately designed to overshadow remembrance of the genocide.
Gallipoli has never before been commemorated on that day.

President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an also ignored an invitation from the
Armenian president, Serž Sargasyan, for him to come to Yerevan. The
Armenian government is expected to welcome the statement when
Sargasyan, who attended the mass, returns from Rome.

`This is the first time a mass was dedicated to the Armenian genocide
victims in St Peter’s,’ said commentator Ara Tadevosyan. `The pope’s
acknowledgement that ours was the first genocide of the 20th century
is very important. It’s another sign that the civilized world is
accepting what happened to us despite all the pressure from Turkey.’

The pontiff’s decision to bracket the mass killing of Armenians with
the crimes perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism gives the Vatican’s
`highest sanction’ to genocide recognition, said Theo van Lint, a
professor of Armenian studies at the University of Oxford. `I think
it’s very important to realise he gave space to the leaders, the heads
of the Armenian church and Armenian Catholics, to fully give their
view of events. It’s very clear that the pope accepts that it is a
genocide.’

The pope was joined by Kerekin II, Sargasyan and other dignitaries.
Allowing Armenian leaders to speak in St Peter’s Basilica was
described as a `strategic move’ by Van Lint.

Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, a researcher on Armenian history at the School
of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London, said the ceremony
also demonstrated the pope’s efforts to put peripheral Christian
groups at the centre of the Catholic church. `This is the first time
that Armenia is the centre of attention of Catholic life and the
Christian world,’ he said. `It’s meant to draw attention to the
Christian east.’

Pope Francis also declared a 10th-century Armenian monk, St Gregory of
Narek, a `doctor of the church’. The mystic and poet is celebrated for
his writings, some of which are still recited in Armenian churches.

Britain will be represented at the Yerevan genocide centennial by the
Conservative MP John Whittingdale, the chairman of the
British-Armenian all-party group. The UK representation at the
Gallipoli anniversary will be led by the Prince of Wales.

The Associated Press in Ankara contributed to this report

Chris Bohjalian urges Obama to follow Pope Francis’ example

17:15, 12 April, 2015

YEREVAN, APRIL 12, ARMENPRESS. Chris Bohjalian, the famous American
Armenian writer, the author of one of the US bestselling book The
Sandcastle Girls, has reflected on the Divine Liturgy dedicated to the
100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide offered by Pope Francis in
St. Peter’s Basilica today and expressed his admiration with the
statement made by the Pope.

As reports “Armenpress”, the prominent American-Armenian author made a
post on this on Facebook and particularly underscored: “So proud that
Pope Francis called the Armenian Genocide a Genocide. Murder cannot be
hid long: The truth will out. I encourage President Obama to show the
same spine and moral compass now.”

Previously it was reported that in his sermon during the Divine
Liturgy dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
offered in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis called the mass killings
and massacres of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915 a
Genocide. He said that the slaughter of the Armenians was the first
genocide of the 20th century.

Among other things, Pope Francis said the Armenian killings were the
first of three “massive and unprecedented” genocides that was followed
by the Holocaust and Stalinism. He said others had followed, including
in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.

The Pope welcomed the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh
Sargsyan, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians His
Holiness Karekin II, the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram
I and the Catholicos Patriarch of the House of Cilicia Nerses Petros
XIX, who attended the liturgy.

Pope Francis also honored the Armenian community at the start of the
Mass by pronouncing a 10th-century Armenian mystic, St. Gregory of
Narek, a doctor of the church. Only 35 people have been given the
title, which is reserved for those whose writings have greatly served
the universal church.

GEORGE CLOONEY, MEET KIM KARDASHIAN… IN ARMENIA

Huffington Post
April 9 2015

Posted: 04/09/2015 3:59 pm EDT
Kristy Khachigian , Former Director, Orran USA

What does rock band System of a Down, George Clooney, sci fi thriller
“1915” and the Kardashian’s annual family trip all have in common?

By marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide each can
help to eliminate denial, and eradicate genocide worldwide.

This week the most well-known Armenian in pop culture plans to visit
the country of her heritage for the first time. My question still
stands, Kourtney and Kim, will you take Orran?

Even more importantly though, will you call attention to the 100th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide?

On this visit the Kardashian’s have one chance to use the 100th
anniversary to invoke an end to denial of the Armenian Genocide. Many
say denial of this first modern day genocide led others to take place
including the Jewish Holocaust, and in Rwanda, Sudan and Cambodia.

Hitler himself referred to the Armenian Genocide in 1939 in
planning the Jewish holocaust when he said, “Who speaks today of the
extermination of the Armenians?”

100 years ago 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by neighboring
Turkey. Despite being well-documented, this event is denied by Turkey
and the Obama Administration. Millions of Armenians all over the
world are planning events to commemorate this poignant anniversary.

Birthright Armenia is leading a campaign for individuals to put “A”
and “G” on the back of their hands and share via social media.

Heavy metal rock band System of a Down led by Serj Tankian just
launched its #wakeupthesouls tour. Drummer John Dolmayan told Rolling
Stone magazine, “we want to help prevent what happened to the Armenians
happening to other people.”

“1915” is a sci fi thriller which comes out later this month.

Co-writers/directors Garin Hovannisian and Alec Mouhibian say the
movie is about “denial, what happens when the past is ignored.”

I truly believe April 24th signifies a monumental opportunity for
Armenians. It is the one and only time we can educate the world of the
atrocities that took place in 1915, forcing an end to the denial. And,
we can use this event to urge individuals, world organizations and
governments to work toward an end to all genocide.

Everyone can play a role. What if 100 members of the U.S. Armenian
Congressional Caucus (doesn’t Armenian Genocide Caucus have a better
ring to it?) stood on the steps of the Capitol with A and G tattoos
on their hands to pressure President Obama to use the word “Genocide”
in his April 24th proclamation? What if every high profile Armenian
used their social media platform to recognize the 100th anniversary?

Rumor has it that George Clooney may visit Armenia later this month
(his wife Amal Clooney is representing Armenia for reparations before
the European Court). He recently joined the efforts of 100 Lives,
an organization started by Armenians to combat genocide and advance
human rights.

Anyone who sympathizes with the atrocities of genocide should recognize
the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. If there are at least
1.5 million Tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram photos, each would
represent a life lost in 1915.

My family will come together in San Francisco on April 24th
to commemorate the Armenian Genocide. We do so in memory of our
grandfather, Ohannes (John) Khachigian, who lost his mother, sister
and brother to starvation and disease as a result of being driven
into the Syrian desert from their ancestral home in the village of
Chomakhlou in central Turkey.

There are millions in this world who don’t know what happened to
the Armenians in 1915. I urge anyone who thinks genocide should be
a thing of the past to use the 100th anniversary to denounce it.

Join us.

THE HOLY FATHER ADDRESSES THE PATRIARCHAL SYNOD OF THE ARMENIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

States News Service
April 9, 2015 Thursday

VATICAN CITY

The following information was released by the Vatican Information
Service (VIS):

This morning Pope Francis received in audience twenty bishops of the
Synod of the Armenian Catholic Church, who will attend next Sunday’s
Holy Mass to be celebrated for faithful of Armenian rite in St.

Peter’s Basilica, during which St. Gregory of Narek will be proclaimed
a Doctor of the Church.

In the discourse he addressed to the bishops, the Holy Father remarked
that on Sunday they will raise a prayer of Christian intercession for
the sons and daughters of your beloved people, who were made victims
a hundred years ago, and invoked Divine Mercy so that it might help
all, in the love for truth and justice, to heal every wound and to
expedite concrete gestures of reconciliation and peace between the
nations that still have not managed to reach a reasonable consensus
on the interpretation of these sad events.

Francis greeted all the clergy and lay faithful of the Armenian
Catholic Church, many of whom have accompanied the bishops to Rome in
these days, as well as those who live in the countries of the diaspora,
such as the United States, Latin America, Europe, Russia, Ukraine,
up to the Motherland. He added, I think with particular sadness of
those areas, such as that of Aleppo, that a hundred years ago were
a safe haven for the few survivors. In such regions the stability of
Christians, not only Armenians, has latterly been placed in danger.

Your people, whom tradition recognises as the first to convert to
Christianity in 301, has a two thousand-year history and preserves
an admirable patrimony of spirituality and culture, united with
a capacity for recovery amid the many persecutions and trials to
which it has been subjected. I invite you always to cultivate a
sentiment of acknowledgement of the Lord, for having been capable of
maintaining fidelity to Him even during the most difficult periods. It
is important, furthermore, to ask of God the gift of wisdom of the
heart: the commemoration of the victims of a hundred years ago indeed
places us before the darkness of the mysterium iniquitatis.

As the Gospel tells us, from the depths of the human heart there
may emerge the darkest powers, capable of planning the systematic
annihilation of one’s brother, of considering him an enemy, an
adversary, or even without the same human dignity, he observed. But
for believers the issue of the evil committed by man also introduces
the mystery of participation in the redemptive Passion: a number of
sons and daughters of the Armenian nation were capable of pronouncing
Christ’s name to the point of shedding their blood or of death
by starvation during the interminable exodus they were forced to
undertake.

The painful pages in the history of your people continue, in a certain
sense, the Passion of Christ, but in each one of these there is also
the germ of the Resurrection. There is no lack of commitment among
you, Pastors, to the education of the lay faithful to enable them
to interpret reality with new eyes, in order to be able to say every
day: my people consists not only of those who suffer for Christ, but
above all of those who are risen in Him. Therefore it is important
to remember the past, in order to draw from it the new lymph needed
to nurture the present with the glorious announcement of the Gospel
and with the witness of charity. I encourage you to support the path
of continuing formation of priests and consecrated persons. They are
your first collaborators; the communion between them and you will
be strengthened by the exemplary fraternity they may observe in the
Synod and with the Patriarch.

The Pope expressed his gratitude to those who made efforts to alleviate
the sufferings of their ancestors, making special reference to Pope
Benedict XV who intervened before the Sultan Mehmet V to bring an
end to the massacre of the Armenians, and who was a great friend
of the Christian Orient: he established the Congregation for the
Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Oriental Institute, and in 1920
he inscribed St. Ephrem the Syrian among the Doctors of the Universal
Church. Francis continued, I am pleased that our meeting takes place
on the eve of the same gesture I will have the pleasure of performing
on Sunday regarding the great figure of St. Gregory of Narek.

To his intercession, I entrust in particular the ecumenical dialogue
between the Catholic Armenian Church and the Armenian Apostolic
Church, aware of the fact that the ‘ecumenism of blood’ has already
been achieved through the martyrdom and persecution that took place
one hundred years ago, he concluded. I now invoke the Lord’s blessing
upon you and your faithful, and I ask you not to forget to pray for me.

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
April 11 2015

Armenian Defense Minister to pay official visit to Lebanon

11 April 2015 – 7:22pm

Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan will pay an official visit to
Lebanon today where he will hold talks with Lebanese Prime Minister
Tammam Salam, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defence
Samir Mokbel and the Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Jean Kahvadzhi.

Ohanyan will also visit the Armenian peacekeepers serving in the
Interim United Nations forces in Lebanon.

POPE SPEAKS OUT ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Catholic Culture
April 9 2015

Catholic World News – April 09, 2015

The Armenian genocide of 1915 “places before us the darkness of the
mysterium iniquitatis,” Pope Francis said as he met on April 9 with
a group of bishops of the Armenian Catholic Church.

The Armenian bishops were in Rome for the April 11 ceremony in
which the Pontiff will proclaim St. Gregory of Narek as a doctor
of the Church. The Pope prayed that this ceremony, taking place on
the feast of Divine Mercy, might “heal every wound and to expedite
concrete gestures of reconciliation and peace between the nations
that still have not managed to reach a reasonable consensus on the
interpretation of these sad events.”

The Pope paid tribute to the Armenian people, whose conversion
to Christianity in 301 marked the beginning of a long and proud
history that gives today’s Christians “an admirable patrimony
of spirituality and culture.” But he remarked that today some of
the Armenian Christians living in the diaspora are once again in
danger, citing particularly those in places like Aleppo, Syria,
“that a hundred years ago were a safe haven for the few survivors”
of the genocide perpetrated by Turkish rulers.

Pope Francis expressed a keen interest in ecumenical talks between
the Catholic Armenian Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church,
“aware of the fact that the ‘ecumenism of blood’ has already been
achieved through the martyrdom and persecution that took place one
hundred years ago.”

KIM KARDASHIAN LAYS FLOWERS AT ARMENIAN MEMORIAL

Reuters
April 10 2015

(Reuters) – U.S. reality TV star Kim Kardashian, visiting her
ancestors’ homeland of Armenia, placed flowers on Friday at a memorial
to the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman soldiers.

Wearing a flowing red outfit, Kardashian laid red tulips near the
eternal flame of the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex on the
outskirts of the capital Yerevan.

She and her sister Khloe then stood in silence in honour of the
victims and spent about 10 minutes near the eternal flame.

Kardashian arrived with her rapper husband Kanye West, their child
North West and Khloe on Wednesday and were greeted by hundreds of fans.

Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan received Kardashian and her family
in Yerevan on Thursday.

“It was an honor to meet the Prime Minister of Armenia, Hovik
Abrahamyan who expressed how proud they are that we are proud Armenians
and we have not forgotten our roots! #NeverForget,” Kardashian wrote
on her Instagram account.

The 100th anniversary of the mass killings in World War One will be
commemorated by Armenia on April 24.

Armenia, some Western historians and some foreign parliaments refer to
the mass killings as genocide. Muslim Turkey accepts many Christian
Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning in 1915, but it denies
that up to 1.5 million were killed and that it amounted to genocide.

(Reporting by Hasmik Lazarian; Writing by Polina Devitt; Editing by
Timothy Heritage and Tom Heneghan)

DEPO INVITES AUDIENCE TO THINK ABOUT TURKEY’S ARMENIANS, PAST AND PRESENT

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 10 2015

April 10, 2015, Friday/ 16:34:41/
by RUMEYSA KIGER / ISTANBUL

A new exhibition at the Depo art and culture center in Ä°stanbul by
artists Nalan Yırtmac and Anti-Pop points a finger at the brutality
experienced by Armenian people living in the Ottoman Empire and
in Turkey.

On display since April 4 on the first floor of Depo in the Tophane
neighborhood, “Without knowing where we are headed…” invites the
audience to reflect on both the past and the present day.

The exhibition is made up of portraits of 100 Armenian intellectuals
who were among the more than 200 significant figures from the Armenian
community who were arrested on April 24, 1915, upon the order of
Talat Pasha, the interior minister of the time.

These intellectuals, most of whom were arrested in Ä°stanbul one day
before the Allied landings in Canakkale (Gallipoli), were taken to
two concentration camps in Cankırı and AyaÅ~_, near Ankara.

According to the exhibition catalogue, “These arrests constitute the
first step of the Committee of Union and Progress government’s decision
of deportation, which soon evolved into genocide. Following the arrest
of approximately 250 people [starting] the night of the April 23 and
lasting through April 24, a massive police operation was set in motion
targeting 2,500 people over the course of a couple of days.”

Yırtmac picked 100 of these opinion leaders and made new portraits
of them. “This work pulls them out from under the generic heading of
‘arrested and cast-out Armenians’ and turns them into people with
familiar names and faces, the active participants of the cosmopolitan
Ottoman intellectual milieu,” she explains in the catalogue.

She produced the portraits in her own language based on photographs
from the few publications that have survived to present day.

On the wall right across from the portraits, another powerful work
by Anti-Pop links these killings with a recent one, the assassination
of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007.

“The work created by Anti-Pop immediately after the assassination of
Hrant Dink on Jan. 19, 2007 is exhibited alongside these portraits,
drawing attention to the agonizing continuity between 1915 and the
massacre of Dink. On one side there are intellectuals arrested and
killed 100 years ago, and on the other a revolutionary who paid with
his life only a few years ago for believing that Turks and Armenians
would reconstruct their own identities on healthy grounds and live
in equality and freedom,” the artists explain.

The show aims at coming to terms with the great catastrophe experienced
in the Ottoman state and Turkey, “to bow our heads and mourn together,”
they say.

A letter dated May 30, 1915 written by an Armenian prisoner at
the AyaÃ…~_ camp, Sımpas Purad, is also featured in the show’s
catalogue. It reads: “Last week, from among us, Agnuni, Khajag,
Zartaryan, Cangulyan, Dagavaryan and Sarkis Minasyan were summoned
by Ankara and they set on the road. We do not know their whereabouts
now. I grieve, because although we suffered so much hardship under
the autocratic regime, we are still being unjustly persecuted in
this era of freedom and constitutionalism. Was this the fortune to
befall those who suffered and toiled for the sake of the motherland
all those years?”

Journalist, political activist and educator Karekin Khajag also wrote
to her wife and family: “My Dear, They’re sending me far, so far away
from you, towards Dikranagert [Diyarbakır]. With me, are the following
prisoners of AyaÃ…~_: Agnuni, Zartar, Sarkis Minasyan, Dr. Dagavaryan
and Cihangul. At the Eregli train station, I met an Armenian who
promised me to deliver this letter to you. Look after yourself and my
girls Nunus and Alos well. We don’t know why they brought us here,
but I have great hope that we will see each other once again. So,
goodbye, I’m kissing you and my sweet girls. Yours, K. Khajag.”

“Without knowing where we are headed…” will continue until April
26 at Depo. For more information, visit ,
and nalanyirtmac.blogspot.com.tr.