‘TREASURED OBJECTS’ BRING WHISPERS FROM DISTANT HOMES
Posted by Nanore Barsoumian on August 30, 2012
When I climbed the wooden stairs-barefoot, as required-to the second
floor of the Sefik Gul Kultur Evi, the cultural house in Kharpert
(Harput), I was on high alert: One of the historic objects laid out
on shelves and tables was bound to betray its current owners. I had
found nothing on the first floor. A baby crib, hanging at chin-height
from the wooden ceiling, invited me into a sunlit room. Intricately
woven rugs decorated the floors, and walls.
Knee-high sofas claimed their spot against the wall opposite the
door. A round silver tray was at the center of the room; on it
four silver plates, evenly spaced. I carefully lifted each plate,
turning them around and over in my hands for close inspection, like
I had done in the room next door. I finally found it: the Armenian
inscription. “Kurdlu Stepan 1287,” it read. The letters were Armenian,
the numbers Arabic. The plate was engraved in 1870, 140 years before
I laid eyes on it. My co-travelers huddled around, staring at the
plate. Camera shutters clicked. It was raining when we returned to
our van. Realizing I had left my sweater behind, I ran back to the
house. I kicked off my shoes and returned to the room. I picked up my
sweater and froze before the plate. “I can’t leave you here. Can I?” I
thought. The plate remained a plate, silent but rebellious… “You
hold your ground,” I muttered, turned around and rushed to the van.
IMG 4315 resize 300×200 ‘Treasured Objects’ Bring Whispers from
Distant Homes
The letters were Armenian, the numbers Arabic. The plate was engraved
in 1870, 140 years before I laid eyes on it.
A plate here, an inscription on a house, a half-ruined church, and a
crumbling fortress speak of bygone times when Armenians thrived in the
Kharpert region. According to figures collected by Ottoman Minister
of Interior Talaat Pasha-one of the masterminds of the Armenian
Genocide-in 1914, 70,060 Armenians lived in the province of Mamuret-ul
Aziz (Elazig), where Kharpert is located; by 1917 no Armenians were
left in the villayet.* They were either killed or deported. Very
few-among the survivors- were able to hold on to their possessions.
“What would people choose to carry with them, if they could? Who
are the people who could salvage and transport more than the shirts
on their backs as they were driven from their homes? In some cases,
the items tell stories of Turkish neighbors’ loyalty and bravery,
keeping things safe, hoping for the owners’ return. In others, a few
pieces remained when survivors returned to a ransacked home. A small
number of families were spared the deportations or migrated earlier,”
wrote London’s Armenian Institute director, Susan Pattie, who co-edited
Treasured Objects: Armenian Life in the Ottoman Empire 100 Years Ago
(Armenian Institute: 2012) together with Vazken Khatchig Davidian
and Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian.
The 72-page book tells the stories of various Armenian possessions
once displayed at London’s Brunei Gallery of the School of Oriental
and African Studies. The featured items include objects and tools
(coffee grinders, colander, lunch box, water pipe, sewing machine,
backgammon board), photographs, clothing and textiles, trousseau
and wedding clothes, jewelry and silver, personal items used at
the hamams or baths (tass, bath clogs), religious items, documents
(diploma, land deed, birth certificate, a letter from Victor Hugo
to his Armenian translator), books, and ceramics. The photographs of
the items are accompanied by descriptions on their usage at the time,
and sometimes with the accounts of their owners.
“Each object has a story to tell and through them, we learn more
about Armenians as individuals and as a people,” wrote Pattie. “The
narratives behind these objects are an essential part of [their]
oral histories,” she added.
0011 242×300 ‘Treasured Objects’ Bring Whispers from Distant Homes
The cover of ‘Treasured Objects’
Kurdlu Stepan’s plate stayed behind in Kharpert. I doubt we’ll ever
discover what happened to its owners, or how it reached its current
residence.
But take, for instance, Takouhi Mayrig’s nightdress. Its journey
began in Smyrna and-with its owner and her descendants-continued on
to Athens, then Volos, Alexandria, Latakia, Trieste, Cairo, Haifa,
Jerusalem and, finally, London. A photograph of the nightdress
accompanies Denis Finning’s memories of his grandmother.
A 150-year old rug from Eskishehir was once owned by Sonia Marcar’s
paternal grandfather, Onnig Hougasian, who had a successful business
growing and exporting silkworm seed. In 1915, Hougasian was rounded
up with other intellectuals and community leaders. “In the middle of
one night, Sonia’s father Sarkis woke up to find his father beside
his bed saying a prayer with his hand on Sarkis’s head. Behind him
Sarkis could see two officials with red epaulets. Onnig was never
seen again. Somehow, without their father and with a new baby,
the family made the journey from Bursa to Istanbul and safety,”
reads the description beside the photograph of a beautiful rug,
and the portrait of a man, Onnig, gazing down.
A tin-coated copper plate dating back to 1761/2 once served a
purpose at church in the village of Kamarek. Now it hangs in Stepan
Sarkissian’s study room. His friend bought the plate, along with a
hamam tass (a bowl, also featured in the book), in a “dark bazaar” in
Turkey. “I consider them among my most valuable items,” he wrote. “They
link me to places (the village) and people (the woman who owned the
tass) and I try to imagine the times when these items were for use
rather than display.”
“There is also a darker side to this imagery-what happened when the
church was emptied of its congregation and the woman separated from
the tass? Who entered the abandoned places and took possession of
these items only for a descendant to pawn or sell these as unwanted
items?” he added.
A pair of scissors is among my most valuable possessions. My mother
purchased them-along with a water pot, two hamam tasses (both engraved
with names and dates: 1896, 1910), and a couple of coins-from the late
Asbed Donabedian, an antiquarian, writer, and teacher in Beirut. The
11-inch iron scissors originated somewhere in Cilicia. Aside from a
simple design, there are no markings on the scissors. I have inspected
them closely, numerous times. One can see the markings the ironsmith
left behind while hammering them into shape. As far as I know,
the scissors journeyed from Cilicia to Beirut, then on to Montreal,
and finally, to Massachusetts.
Old pots, plates, photographs, documents, clothing, jewelry, and
tools-they float around with us, sometimes with the descendants of
the original owners, but more often with new owners, or even alone.
They change hands, and the stories around them acquire new chapters.
We value them because they tie us to places and to a life much
different than now. They are the remnants of what was once a home in
a distant place and time.
*Sarafian, Ara. Talaat Pasha’s Report on the Armenian Genocide.
London: Gomidas Institute, 2011.