The `Great Calamity’ Hoax: What `Medz Yeghern’ Actually Meant
for the Survivors
Posted by Vartan Matiossian on
January 4, 2013 in Opinion
`All those human-like monsters who executed the Medz Yeghern and
tainted their hands with the innocent blood of the Armenians.’
Yervant Odian (1920)
During the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the word yeghern had
already entered dictionaries of Modern Armenian and literary texts with the
primary meaning of `crime.’ It was used, both alone and within the phrase Medz
Yeghern, as one of the names of the pogrom of Adana in 1909.
[image: 1×1.trans The `Great Calamity’ Hoax: What `Medz Yeghern’
Actually Meant for the Survivors]
Yervant Odian
The echoes of this massacre had barely died out when a large-scale
program of extermination was put into practice by the Ottoman-Turkish
government. Along came the words yeghern and Medz Yeghern. This
article will discuss their use in some of the many texts penned in the
first two decades years after 1915.
The genocide was still in progress when the word yeghern was used to
describe it outside the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1918. One of
the first instances of its use was a book published by Archbishop
Mushegh Seropian in Boston. In 1916, he invoked a `criminal
fraternity’ as responsible for the extermination: “The Turkish
execution of the German method’ is perhaps the best adjective to
characterize the last Armenian yeghern. I do not know what name must
be applied to that criminal [ vojrakordz] fraternity, Turko-German or
German-Turkish?…’ Note the use of the words `last Armenian
yeghern,’ implying that there were previous `Armenian yeghern,’ such
as Adana. The mention of a `Turkish execution’ eliminates any concept
of passivity that could be tied to a `calamity,’ but involves a
`criminal,’ an active perpetrator, actually labeled `criminal
fraternity.’ Seropian quoted German chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg a few
pages later, commenting: `This declaration would be enough proof
before history of the German commission of a crime [vojrakordzutiun]
in the yeghern of the Armenian extermination.’1 Clearly, the
accusation that Germany had committed a crime related to the Armenians
could not have been framed in terms of a `calamity.’
It is already noticeable that the word yeghern had acquired a meaning
that went beyond `crime,’ as the use of the words vojrakordzutiun and
yeghern in the same sentence seem to show. Its approximate translation
as `pogrom’ may have already been surmised in this period.
Yervant Odian: `I come from those infernal places of the Yeghern’
Other books and articles published outside of the Ottoman Empire may
have also used the word yeghern, whichresurfaced there only after the
end of the war. On Nov. 21, 1918, famous satirist Yervant Odian
(1869-1926) published an article in the daily Jamanak upon his return
to Constantinople after three and half years in exile in Syria. `I
come from those infernal places of the yeghern, where the Zohrabs,
Aknunis, Khajags, Zartarians, Siamantos, Varoujans, Sevags,
Daghavarians-the Brain of a whole nation-were shredded to pieces by
the hands of the worthy heirs of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan,’ he
wrote.2
This telling paragraph conveys the idea that the `worthy heirs of
Tamerlane and Genghis Khan’ first killed off the intelligentsia-a
crime that was a manifestation of a great, unmitigated evil. It may be
complemented by the following paragraph written by Odian in March 1920
about turning April 24 into an Armenian day of commemoration. Here,
the fallen emperors of Germany and Austria are named alongside the
Young Turk triumvirate as having an equal part in `execut[ing] the
Medz Yeghern.’ The meaning of the phrase is clearly indicated by the
reference to the `enormous crime’ in the next sentence: `Thus, every
year, all churches, all schools, all national institutions will recall
the memory of the great Armenian martyrdom, reading anathemas of
malediction to the Wilhelms, the Franz Josephs, the Envers, the
Talaats, the `Cemals, and all those human-like monsters who executed
the Medz Yeghern and tainted their hands with the innocent blood of
the Armenians. That day, let all preachers, all speakers, all
teachers, and all newspapers remember once again the enormous crime
[vojir]and pillory of its authors. Let the whole Armenian nation mourn
and cry over its martyrs.’3
The first book on the victims of `Medz Yeghern’
At the beginning of 1919, Simon Kapamadjian (whose whereabouts during
the genocide remain unknown) published a 48-page booklet that appears
to be the earliest instance when the words Medz Yeghern appeared on
the cover of a book, in this case, as a subtitle: `The Victims of the
Medz Yeghern with Their Pictures, Poems and Articles of Our Best
Writers (…).’ The main feature was a section of pictures and brief
biographies of 20 well-known victims of the genocide, and a catalogue
of 94 others. The author apologizes at the end of the section,
writing: `The idea of having committed an injustice weighs over me
when I think that it was impossible to present here many talents
hidden in deep corners of the provinces who were victims of the MEDZ
YEGHERN. I hereby confess the insufficiency of my means and I ask my
noble readers not to ascribe this involuntary flaw to any ulterior
motive. I pay my deep homage to all the fallen, as well as to those
bright intellects who were extinguished by savage criminals [
vojrakordz].’4
It is clear that Kapamajian had a `great crime’ foremost in his mind
when he wrote Medz Yeghern. His reference to the `bright intellects
who were extinguished by savage criminals’ leaves no doubt that he
followed his dictionary of 1910 and understood yeghern according to
his own definition of `breach of political or moral law, evil, harm’
cited in our previous article.
Bryce, Morgenthau, and `Medz Yeghern’
The pictures of the well-known victims of the genocide were published
in Constantinople in 1919 as a poster under the title `Medz Yeghernin
zohere’ (The victims of the Medz Yeghern).5 The poster was most likely
printed for the first commemoration of the arrests of intellectuals on
April 24. At that time, the literary weekly Shant published a special
issue that included an article on writer Roupen Zartarian, signed by
Zohrab Garon (Hovsep Keshishian), and starting with the following
sentence: `One of the famous figures of the brilliant Armenian
literary phalanx, who became the victim of the Medz Yeghern, in his
highest degree of fecundity (…).’6 The context for the phrase
appears in a piece in the same issue by another survivor, the writer
Mikayel Shamdanjian (1874-1926): `The Turkish yeghern had materially
succeeded, but had failed in essence. Many, many went to fill the road
to perdition and I believe that those few who saw death and survived,
returned more empowered.’7 `Turkish yeghern’ can only be understood as
an action like a `crime,’ `atrocity,’ or `massacre,’ and not, as in
the previous cases, as a passive event like `calamity.’
The same year, Shamdanjian published his memoirs under the title `The
Tribute of the Armenian Mind to the Yeghern: Thoughts and Feelings
from an Exile,’ while Yenovk Armen would translate the memoirs of U.S.
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau into Armenian, with the title `The Memoirs
of American Ambassador Mr. Morgenthau and the Secrets of the Armenian
Yeghern,’ and Peniamin Bedrossian would translate the British `Blue
Book,’ published by James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, with the title
`The Blue Book of the British Government on the Armenian Medz Yeghern
(1915-16).’ In 1922, Hagop Sarkissian, the translator of Ittihadist
Parliament member Hagop Babikian’s report about the massacre of Adana,
would refer to his friend, writer Ardashes Harutiunian (1873-1915), as
a `victim of the unspeakable Yeghern.’8
Aram Andonian: `Horrible Yeghern’/`Fearful Crime’
The use of these words by survivors continued. Writer Aram Andonian
(1875-1951) indicted the `whole Turkish people’ for `monstrous crimes’
in the first page of his memoir Medz Vojire (The Great Crime),
published in 1921. They carried `the entire responsibility for this
horrible yeghern,’ he wrote in his introduction. `But the Armenian
martyrdom lacked principally a voice of conscience and piety, a cry of
resistance on the part of the millions who constitute that people who
carry the entire responsibility for this horrible yeghern. Five years,
those five years of terror! During those five years not a single Turk
ever raised a voice of protest against those monstrous crimes [vojir]
committed on behalf of the whole Turkish people in the hell called the
Ottoman Empire. On the contrary, everyone was given to a sort of
sadistic pleasure while a whole people was being killed with a
barbarity unknown to history.’9
The first sentence of Andonian’s paragraph is particularly relevant,
because the sentence is backed by the English translation published in
1920 (The Memoirs of Naim Bey), which cannot be said to have been
altered with any purpose: `What is principally lacking in the records
of Armenia’s martyrdom is the voice of conscience on the part of the
millions who constitute the nation that is entirely responsible for
this fearful crime. ’10
Kevork Mesrob: `One of the first victims of the Medz Yeghern’
Historian Kevork Mesrob published a 60-page exposé of Turkish denial
in 1922. He introduced documents from the Armenian Patriarchate
related to the assassination of the prelate of Erzinga (Erzincan),
Very Rev. Sahag Odabashian, in December 1914 with the following
statement: `Very Rev. Odabashian was one of the first victims of the
Medz Yeghern, whose assassination may be regarded as one of the proofs
that confirm that the Turkish government had previously decided and
organized the massive killing (chart) and annihilation of the
Armenians.’
Mesrob undoubtedly meant `Great Crime’ when he made reference to one
of the first victims of the Medz Yeghern.One document, a report by the
prelate of Sebastia, Rev. Knel Kalemkiarian, incidentally noted: `The
first travelers who crossed the scene of the yeghern noted the traces
of European horseshoes, only used by the horses of officials.’11 The
`scene of the yeghern,’where the ecclesiastic had been killed, was
what is called `crime scene’ in plain English.
Garabed Kapiguian: `Yeghernabadum’
Writer Garabed Kapiguian (1876-1950) wrote an account of the massacres
and deportations in his native region of Sebastia. First serialized in
1919 in the periodical Yeridasart Hayastan of Providence, R.I., his
account was published in book form in 1924 under the title
`Yeghernabadum of Lesser Armenia and Its Great Capital Sebastia.’ The
neologism yeghernabadum indicated the `story of the crime,’ while the
word yeghern was used three times, in all cases with the meaning
`crime,’ when talking of Odabashian’s killing:
(1) `…[He] becomes the victim of such an absolutely political
yeghern, Turkish treason’;
(2) `Rev. Vaghinag, prelate of Karahisar, reports by telegraph this
great yeghern to the Armenian Prelacy…’;
(3) `The yeghern was so absolutely the result of the conspiracy of the
Turkish government…’12
Grigoris Balakian: `Yeghernakordz Ittihad fugitives’
In 1922, in Vienna, Very Rev. Grigoris Balakian (1875-1934) published
the first volume of his memoirs, The Armenian Golgotha: Episodes of
the Armenian Martyrdom. From Berlin to Zor 1914-1920 (the second
volume would be posthumously published more than 35 years later).
The recently published English translation has omitted his emotional
preface, entitled, `To You, Armenian People,’ and dated August 1922,
where Balakian used the word yeghernabadum four times in the first
three pages:
`This bloody book is your holy book. Read it without getting bored,
don’t doubt at all of this yeghernabadum, and don’t think that the
writings are tendentious exaggerations.’
`I have expected in vain since the armistice that more able people
executed this hard duty. However, with the exception of foreign
eyewitness missionaries and the brief travel notes of a few Armenian
exiles, the yeghernabadum of your inenarrable martyrdom has not been
published so far.’
`Yes, I did not want to write because my heart and my pen felt weak to
write down your yeghernabadum that blackens the bloodiest pages of
human history.’
`Because all those who shared with me the thorny road to the Armenian
Golgotha asked me to write the inenarrable yeghernabadum of their
suffering and exile.’13
There is no doubt that yeghernabadum again indicated the `story of the
crime.’ The conceptual frame of Balakian’s text revolves around the
analogy of the Armenian annihilation with Christ’s journey and
crucifixion. The use of images such as bloody book, martyrdom,
bloodiest pages of history or Golgotha ensure that the author is not
talking about a calamity.
After quoting German Field Marshal Colmar von der Goltz’s 1914
suggestion to deport the Armenian population of the Ottoman-Russian
border, Balakian wrote: `But as we will unfortunately see, what which
had seemed impossible to everyone at that time, and even become a
subject of derision, became possible during the World War, as did a
litany of other tragic [yegheragan] and criminal [yeghernagan] events,
as well as widespread human slaughter unprecedented in the annals of
mankind.’ He was well aware of the difference between yegheragan and
yeghernagan; a few pages later, he would refer to `what horrible pitch
the frenzy of the Turks could reach and what criminal
[yeghernagan]consequences it could have…’14 Frenzy can, most likely,
lead to criminal and not calamitous actions.
To close the circle, it is worth quoting the following: `Still, the
course of the Armenian political parties toward the Turkish government
was always friendly and never conspiratorial, as the major criminal
[yeghernakordz]Ittihadist fugitives responsible for shedding Armenian
blood are now endeavoring to show, of course in the hope of gaining
exoneration for their great crime [ vojir].’15
Needless to say, someone who sheds blood is the perpetrator of a crime
[ yeghern-a-kordz] and not of a calamity.
Mardiros Sarian: `The Greatest Yeghern of all times’
In 1933, a survivor from Smyrna, Mardiros Sarian (unrelated to the
homonymous Soviet Armenian painter), published a rare booklet with a
conversation he had overheard in February 1916 from his room in the
`Turque Hotel’ in Konia, where he had first been deported with his
family (in the same manner as deported Armenian intellectuals had
found lodging in Armenian or Greek homes in Changr for a few months
before meeting their fate). He had written down his notes in 1918; the
text remained unpublished for 15 years.
The conversation was held between an Ottoman military officer called
Hüsni Bey (later revealed to be Albanian of origin), and a Young Turk
official, Nejib Bey, in the presence of several other Turkish
officers. Hüsni Bey had gone `from Konia to Tarsus, from Adana to
Osmaniyeh, from Islayeh to Aleppo as far as Deir-er-Zor.’16 After
describing the atrocities he had seen on his way, he questioned the
purposes of the Ottoman government. This prompted Nejib Bey to reveal
the plans of the Ittihad Party in considerable detail and characterize
the ongoing annihilation as a fait accompli. His lengthy response
provoked a counter response from Hüsni Bey, in which he applied the
adjective `greatest’ (medzakuyn)to the extermination: `Out of the
2,000 year history of Christian martyrdom, we were the ones who earned
the title of those who had horrifically exceeded all tyrants and
monsters in the unheard of numbers of our victims and torments caused,
while the Armenian nation is seen as the 20th century’s greatest hero
and greatest victim and has been found worthy of admiration, even of
adoration. Are we then to go on stubbornly believing that in view of
this, the greatest yeghern, the fait accompli you have made so much of
has any power?’17
Nazaret Piranian: `The Yeghern of Kharpert’
We will end by referring to Nazaret Piranian’s The Yeghern of
Kharpert, published first in installments in the daily Baikar of
Boston, Mass., and appeared as a book in 1937. Writer Yervant Mesiayan
noted in his preface: `Nazaret Piranian is warning to us `Don’t ever
forget.’ This warning comes from the reminiscences of the terrible
yeghern, which undoubtedly lighten fair passions of vengeance and
fury, but also a deep awareness of Armenian fate, which we may rule
just if we keep aflame in ourselves the sense of justice spiked by the
Crime [Vojir] and the idea of right.’18 Indeed, `passions of vengeance
and fury’ could have only been lightened up by an action that
generated them: the crime that also spiked a `sense of justice.’ It is
clear that yeghern and vojir were used here as synonyms.
The abovementioned examples illustrate how the combined forces of
`evil’ and `crime’ imparted a particular power on the meaning of Medz
Yeghern and accounted for its widespread use in the decades to
follow. This is the reason that a word much less used than vojir in
everyday language took its place with the meaning `Great [Evil]
Crime.’ The survivors had no need to coin a phrase to say `Great
Calamity’ when the word aghed (`catastrophe, disaster, calamity’)
already fulfilled that function.
Notes
[1] Archbishop Mushegh, Haykakan mghdzavanje: knnakan verlutzumner (The
Armenian Nightmare: Critical Analyses), Boston: Azk, 1916, p. 70, 73.
2 Yervant Odian, `Voghjuyn dzez’ (Hail You), reprinted in Teotig, Hushardzan
nahatak mtavorakanutian (Monument to the Martyred Intelligentsia), Los
Angeles: Navasart, 1985, p. 16.
3 Yervant Odian, `Azgayin nor tone’ (The New National Anniversary), Jamanak,
March 21, 1920, reprinted in Azg-Mshaguyt, April 24, 2010.
4 Simon Kapamadjian, Hayastani Kaghandcheke (The New Year Gift of
Armenia), Constantinople: Simon Kapamadjian Bookstore, 1919, p. 12
(capitalized in original).
5 `Matenagitakan (1915-1921)’ (Bibliography, 1915-1921), Haykashen
taregirk, vol. I, Constantinople, 1922, p. 397.
6 Zohrab Garon, `Ruben Zardarian,’ Shant, April 26, 1919, p. 293.
7 Mikayel Shamdanjian, `Ittihati hayajinj nopan’ (The
Armenian-Exterminating Crisis of the Ittihad), Shant, April 26, 1919, p.
299.
8 Hagop Sarkisian, `Artashes Harutiunian (hishatakner)’ (Ardashes
Harutiunian: Reminiscences), Haykashen taregirk, vol. 1, Constantinople,
1922, p. 266.
9 Aram Andonian, Metz Vochire. Haykakan verjin kotoratznere yev Taleat
Pasha (The Great Crime: The Last Armenian Massacres and Taleat Pasha),
Boston: Bahag Press, 1921, p. 5-6 (emphasis added).
10 The Memoirs of Naim Bey, second edition, Newtown Square (Pa.):
Armenian Historical Research Association, 1964, p. IX (emphasis added).
11 Kevork Mesrob, `Trkahayern u turkere (1914-1918). antip u pashtonakan
pastatughter’ (Turkish Armenians and Turks [1914-1918]: Unpublished and
Official Documents), Haykashen taregirk, Constantinople, 1922, p. 119-20.
12 G. Kapiguian, Yeghernapatum Pokun Hayots yev norin medzi mayrakaghakin
Sebastio (Story of the Yeghern of Lesser Armenia and Its Great Capital
Sebastia), Boston: Hairenik Press, 1924, p. 48.
13 Krikoris tz vard. Balakian, Hay Goghgotan. Drvagner hay
martirosagrutenen. Perlinen depi Zor 1914-1920, vol. I, Beirut: Planeta
Printing Press, 1977, p. 17-19 (second printing of the 1922 edition).
14 Grigoris Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, translated by Peter Balakian
with Aris Sevag, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, p. 21, 24 (Balakian, Hay
Goghgotan, p. 61, 68).
[1]5 Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, p. 38 (Balakian, Hay Goghgotan, p.
81).
[1]6 Mardiros Sarian, Fe d’agombli yev Astudzo dem paterazm. Polis Nuri
Osmaniyei mej Ittihatakanneru gaghtni voroshumnere. hayots bnajnjman
sharzharitneru masin (Fait Accompli and War against God. The Secret
Decisions of the Ittihadists in Nuri Osmaniyeh, in Constantinople: On the
Motives for the Annihilation of the Armenians), Paris: n.p., 1933, p. 4.
17 idem, p. 40.
18 Nazaret Piranian, Kharperti Yegherne (The Yeghern of Kharpert),
Boston: Baikar Press, 1937, p. [II].
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