Author: Kanayan Tamar

L’Orient-Le Jour, Liban
9 avril 2015

> par le photographe Vartan Dérounian

Dans le sillage des nombreuses manifestations qui vont jalonner la
commémoration du centenaire du génocide arménien, le 24 avril, un
livre parfaitement dans le ton et le mouvement. En devanture des
librairies, un ouvrage combinant photographies et textes sur le camp
des refugiés d’Alep (1922-1936) sous le titre de Mémoire arménienne
par Vartan Dérounian (127 pages, Presses de l’Université
Saint-Joseph).

Aperçu sur l’auteur, d’abord. Un homme dont la caméra est la plume…
Vartan Dérounian (1888-1954) est l’un des meilleurs photographes du
Proche-Orient de l’entre-deux-guerres. Ses albums d’inspiration
orientaliste sont consacrés aux paysages et monuments archéologiques
d’Antioche et d’Alexandrette ainsi que la vie dans les steppes
syriennes.

Tout en n’ignorant jamais ses attaches arméniennes, on le voit dans
ces pages, il se livre à une sorte de reportage sur le vif, qui
s’étale sur une quinzaine d’années, pour témoigner des souffrances et
des affres de l’exode. Ces photographies, regard douloureux, content
l’histoire des réfugiés arméniens arrivés en Syrie au début des années
1920. Miracle de la vie, ils vont survivre et s’intégrer dans une
société dont ils ignorent même la langue. À travers ces photographies,
d’une intense charge émotionnelle et parfaitement maîtrisée dans l’art
de croquer le dicible et l’indicible, on retrouve là l’oeuvre non d’un
simple photographe, mais d’un humaniste.

Un reportage poignant qui présente le camp des réfugiés d’Alep, de la
misère noire des débuts jusqu’à la construction de nouveaux quartiers,
mettant en scène le quotidien des déracinés qui travaillent, tout en
s’attachant à leurs valeurs et héritages ancestraux, à leur
réinsertion dans une société nouvelle qui leur est totalement
étrangère. Travail minutieux et fidèle à la réalité que Vartan
Dérounian exécute en toute conscience et concision pour inscrire à
jamais, dans le passage du temps, ce lieu d’une mémoire dont il se
fait le vibrant et lucide passeur.
À côté de ces images d’une saisissante éloquence, les plumes de deux
spécialistes de l’histoire du génocide arménien, Raymond Kevorkian et
Vahé Tachjian, ainsi que Jean-Claude David. Les mots, la pensée et les
témoignages de documents historiques de trois écrivains pour
accompagner ces images parfois insoutenables où l’être lutte pour son
entité, son identité et sa dignité.

Journal La Marseillaise
April 9 2015

> nouveau temps fort au #MuCEM

Écrit par La Marseillaise

Entre histoire et mémoire, entre connaissance et reconnaissance, entre
1915 et 2015, le MuCEM propose, du 9 au 13 avril, un nouveau temps
fort. >, s’inscrit dans le
prolongement d’activités autour de la question arménienne, et du
centenaire du génocide arménien.

Ce jeudi 19h, auditorium Germaine Tillion du Mucem, soirée littéraire
avec Vahram Martirosyan et Pinar Selek. Rencontre animée par Thierry
Fabre. Entrée libre. Une soirée placée sous le signe de la
littérature, d’une mise en récits du monde, à la recherche de signes
pour contribuer à dénouer les noeuds de mémoire…

Vendredi 20h30, auditorium Germaine Tillion du Mucem, Goradz Karoun
(Le Printemps perdu), un spectacle d’Anaïs Alexandra Tekerian et
Kevork Mourad. Cent ans après le génocide arménien, une mère se voit
obligée d’expliquer le passé troublé d’un peuple à sa fille. 15 euros,
tarif réduit 11 euros.

Samedi 11 avril 17h30, auditorium Germaine Tillion du Mucem, hommage
au réalisateur Serge Avédikian, projection de court-métrages. 5 euros,
tarif réduit 3 euros.

Dimanche 12 avril 15h, auditorium Germaine Tillion du Mucem Hommage à
Robert Sahakyants, le > arménien. Programme de 7
court-métrages (durée totale : 56 minutes), réalisés en cellulo
classique, ils sont ici présentés de manière chronologique. 5 euros,
tarif réduit 3 euros.

Lundi 13 avril 19h, auditorium Germaine Tillion du Mucem
Rencontre-débat Avec Gaïdz Minassian (journaliste au Monde) et Vincent
Duclert (historien). Documentaires, reportages, JT… Au fil des
commémorations du génocide et des événements d’actualité, la question
arménienne fut largement évoquée à la télévision française durant les
dernières décennies. Ce Temps des Archives sera l’occasion de
replonger dans l’histoire des relations entre la France et l’Arménie,
ainsi que dans celle de la communauté arménienne de France. Entrée
libre dans la limite des places disponibles.

Mediapart-France
10 avril 2015

Génocide arménien: lundi sur Mediapart,

Armenian Church commemorates Beheading of St. John the Baptist today

12:43 11/04/2015 >> SOCIETY

The Saturday following the Holy Feast of the Glorious Resurrection of
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Armenian Church commemorates the beheading
of St. John the Baptist (also known as The Forerunner), qahana.am
reports.

The writers of the Gospels, St. Matthew and St. Mark, have explained
the history of beheading of St. John the Baptist, who had baptized
Christ, and gave the good news of His Coming (Mt 14:1-12; St. Mk
6:14-29).

According to the Evangelists, King Herod arrests and imprisons St.
John the Baptist as a result of John’s condemnation of the king’s
marriage to Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. Herod wants to
put John to death, but fears the Jews, because they considered John to
be a prophet. On Herod’s birthday, fascinated by the dancing of the
daughter of Herodias, the king makes an oath to give her anything for
which she asks. Following her unforgiving mother’s instructions, she
asks for the head of St. John the Baptist on a platter. The king,
realizing he has been fooled, grants the request.

St. John the Baptist is one of the greatest saints in the Armenian
Church. We entreat his name as an intercessor during the divine
services, generally following the name of St. Mary.

According to tradition, St. Gregory the Illuminator, brings the relics
of St. John to Armenia from Caesarea, and buries them near the town of
Moush, after which the famous Monastery of St. John the Baptist is
built. Tradition also tells us that the head of St. John the Baptist
is buried underneath the Holy Altar of the Gandzasar Monastery in
Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

St. John the Baptist remains as one of the most popular saints among
the Armenian faithful.

KIM KARDASHIAN EXPLORES HER ROOTS WITH TRIP TO ARMENIA

The Moscow Times
April 9 2015

American reality television star Kim Kardashian has touched down in
Armenia for a trip to her ancestral homeland, with rapper husband
Kanye West also coming along for the ride.

Kardashian, who also traveled with her sister Khloe and daughter North,
was treated to a royal welcome at the Zvartnots International Airport,
according to photos published Wednesday by the Daily Mail.

Women wearing traditional Armenian dress greeted the family, offering
bread and salt to their visitors — a tradition usually reserved for
dignitaries, the Daily Mail reported.

The Kardashian-West family then traveled to the city’s Marriott Hotel,
where they were met by cheering crowds.

“Armenia we are here!!!!! We are so grateful to be here & start this
journey of a lifetime! Thank you to everyone who greeted us! I can’t
wait to explore our country and have some yummy food!,” Kardashian
wrote on her Instagram page.

The trip will be a chance for Kardashian to “see my heritage and learn
about my ancestors,” she said in a separate Instagram post. Her father,
Robert Kardashian, was born into an Armenian-American family in the
United States.

Kardashian also has ties to a number of other countries through
her ancestors.

British Prime Minister David Cameron revealed in an interview last
month with Heat magazine that he is the 13th cousin removed of Kim
Kardashian.

Cameron, who is currently running for a second term in office,
is reportedly related to the Kardashians through a shared ancestor
called Sir William Spencer, who was born in Britain in 1555, Heat said.

AVRIL 1915, LE GENOCIDE DES ARMENIENS EN BD

Rappel

Partout dans le monde, le 24 avril est le jour de commemoration du
genocide des Armeniens. En bandes dessinees, plusieurs auteurs se
sont deja penches sur le sujet, comme Frank Giroud et Paolo Cossi
(2013) qui ont publies de nouvelles oeuvres sur le meurtre de masse
planifie par les responsables ottomans, peu connu du grand public
et dont la dont memoire est toujours menacee par un negationnisme
d’etat. (lien plus bas).

Parution aussi en ce mois d’Avril du Fantôme Armenien en BD chez
Futuropolis, sur des dessins de Thomas Azuelos, par les journalistes
Laure Marchand et Guillaume Perrier, auteurs de La Turquie et le
fantôme armenien(Actes Sud),

Pour ce recit de bande dessinee documentaire, Laure Marchand,
Guillaume Perrier et Thomas Azuelos ont suivi le voyage de Christian
Varoujan Artin, depuis Marseille jusqu’en Turquie, sur les traces de
sa famille. Varoujan, 54 ans, vit a Marseille où 10 % des citadins de
la cite phoceenne ont des racines en Armenie. Militant, il s’occupe
d’animer le centre Aram pour la reconnaissance du genocide et assure la
preservation de la memoire et de la culture de la diaspora armenienne,
comme son père et son grand-père avant lui. Il decide de monter une
exposition de portraits d’Armeniens en Turquie, pays des bourreaux de
ses ancetres. Avant 2014, Varoujan n’avait jamais envisage d’aller
en Turquie, au risque de >. Le voyage jusqu’a cet > representait
donc un enjeu très fort pour lui et pour sa femme, Brigitte Balian, qui
l’accompagnait. Mais ce n’etait pas seulement un pèlerinage. Varoujan
et Brigitte ont egalement rencontre les descendants des Armeniens
qui ont rechappe aux massacres et sont restes en Turquie en 1915. Car
aujourd’hui ces Armeniens kurdes, turcs, alevis, musulmans, sortent de
l’ombre, racontent leurs histoires et aspirent a retrouver une identite
perdue. Le fantôme armenien revèle aussi l’embarras actuel des Turcs
d’aujourd’hui, enfants des tortionnaires qui ont recu en heritage une
conscience atrophiee et qui ne

PASSING SILK ROAD THROUGH ARMENIA IS BENEFICIAL FOR CHINA AND IRAN: MP

11:41, 10 April, 2015

YEREVAN, 10 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. The interests of China and Iran coincide
on the issue of building the Great Silk Road, the China’s largest
project, and focus on Armenia. Armenia is the most preferable for
these states in the issue of the highway route choice, because in
the case of relations with Iran, Azerbaijan is not in a good position.

The MP of the National Assembly Gagik Minasyan stated about it at
a meeting with the journalists, talking about the vision of the
Armenian-Chinese and Armenian-Iranian relations.

“China is trying to accomplish the implementation of the Silk Road
project with a great bunch of roads, as the construction of only one
highway is the most risky. In this point, Armenia has an advantage,
because if we assume that one of the highways must pass through
Iran, here there are not many roads and the highway must cross either
Armenia or Azerbaijan. Iran has good neighborly relations with Armenia,
which cannot be said about its relations with Azerbaijan.

Thus, passing the Silk Road through Armenia is more beneficial for
China, so that it doesn’t have any problem related to the return of
its investments”, – Minasyan noted, Armenpress reports.

POPE FRANCIS CALLS SUFFERINGS OF ARMENIAN PEOPLE MARTYRDOM

by Ashot Safaryan

Friday, April 10, 11:28

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, according to
Catholic news.

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.”

ARMENIA’S ENERGY SECTOR IN CRISIS

11:53 * 10.04.15

Management expert Harutyun Mesrobyan believes that mismanagement is
the cause of the crisis in Armenia’s energy sector.

“Villagers use bricks of dry dung as fuel, they do not use gas. It
means the energy sector is in crisis and the money receipts are
decreasing. Consumption is decreasing in all the sectors because
greedy policy always has such consequences,” Mr Mesrobyan said.

As a management expert he point out an approach, that is, a result.

Only when results are produced, the question of their cost is raised.

No results mean a failure. And people are indignant at the quality
of gas services and cost of gas supply.

The gas price for consumers is about twice as high as the supply
price. No country, including European countries, as well as Georgia,
Belarus and Ukraine, is practicing it.

“I often hear about gas losses reaching 7-8 percent, whereas they are
3-4 percent in other countries, which is part of the production cost.

The question is: what is the cause of such losses?”

As to his opinion of the purchase of gas for Russian rubles, Mr
Mesrobyan said:

“Self-respecting countries prefer not quoting in USD terms. As to the
USD crisis and the international financial crisis, it creates problems,
and many businesses are seeking to leave the USD zone.

“We have had a number of problems. One of the facts is gas consumption
decreasing year by year. If you sell something at a very high price,
people try alternatives,” Mr Mesrobyan said.

Speaking Iranian gas transit through Armenia, he said:

“Armenia has for a long period been a transit country, including
railway communication. Armenia’s problem is that a very bad and
uncompetitive state government system, which causes many more problems
than produces results.”

ZHOGHOVURD: SAMVEL KARAPETYAN PUTS FORWARD PRECONDITION FOR PURCHASE OF ENA

11:35 10/04/2015 >> DAILY PRESS

Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, owner of Tashir Group
of Companies, has put forward a precondition for the purchase of the
Electric Networks of Armenia, Zhoghovurd reports.

He said that the deal will be concluded if, by some means, a third
side assumes the payment of a part of the company’s debts.

According to unofficial data, ENA has debts of over 300 million
dollars, and this sum does not include the liabilities towards energy
producing companies. Thus, the sale and purchase deal of ENA, including
the debts, will total around 500 million dollars, and this makes the
deal unprofitable.

Source: Panorama.am