Land of Nairi, Where Are You?

April 23, 2015

2592

On a cool September evening, I sit under the trees in the central park of the city of Mush. The zephyr blowing from the fields of Mush is humming a lullaby while blowing the green leaves here and there with a gentle whistle. I am lying down, a Turkish-Armenian phrase-book under my head and a dictionary in one hand. I look at the sky between the trembling leaves: the blue sky, blue as the mirror-like surface of the lake of Van.

A mere hundred years ago, and for several thousands of years continuously, these fields and valleys, these mountains and canyons, this soil, this green meadow on which I am lying, were Armenian, Armenia, Greater Armenia.

The city of Mush and the plain of Mush were important centres of Armenian political and cultural life until 1915, when the Armenians, the native population, were literally annihilated over the course of a few days. Gegham Ter-Karapetyan, the member of parliament for Mush in the last Ottoman parliament, would call the “the massacre of 80-90,000Armenians from around 100 villages” one of the “most bewildering and horrific episodes” of the Armenian Genocide.

One of the most beautiful scenes in the Armenian Highlands is the start of a new day on the plain of Mush. From the top of the mountains encircling the city, it seems not that mist has covered the town, but that the fertile valley of the Aratzani River in front of you is a blue lake. This indescribable beauty has entered into Armenian folklore. The people still associate the etymology of the name Mush with the mist (which is “mshush” in Armenian) – as if the ancient Armenian goddess of love, Astghik, brings the mist with her so that it cloaks her nudity while she bathes in the Aratzani.

I turn to lie on my stomach and open the map on the green grass of the central park in Mush, searching for the village called Arak, at the base of the Armenian Taurus Mountains. Tomorrow morning I am going to the Msho Arakelots monastery (the Monastery of the Apostles of Mush). We come across this name frequently in the history books. The mini-bus driver who had taken me to Arak from Mush helped me find one of the villagers, Aydın Sumer, who leads those interested towards the solitary Msho Arakelots Monastery on the curve of the slope of Mount Tzirinakatar, in the Taurus range.

The road to the Arakelots was difficult. We had to climb several kilometres up the mountain on foot in the September heat. There are several springs on the way. We sat down, cleansed ourselves, drank water, chatted, and then continued once more. Father of four, Aydın divides the history of his village into two: now –şimdi– and the time of the Armenians–Ermenilerin zamani. He had heard from his grandfather that the Armenians of Arak had had seven watermills on the brook flowing from the mountain.

He spoke Turkish very slowly, so that I could understand. Sometimes he repeated it twice, gesticulated to explain, looked at me and asked, “Anladın?” meaning, “Do you understand?”

I had read in a book that Msho Arakelots was founded by St. Gregorythe Illuminator – the patron saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians – in 301, with several relics of the twelve Apostles having been placed in the monastery. According to tradition, Movses Khorenatsi, “the father of Armenians historians” (the first Armenian chronicler) was buried in the courtyard of the monastery complex.

There are two Armenian church structures left in Turkey that bear the name “Arakelots” (“pertaining to the Apostles”). One of them is the Msho Arakelots monastic complex, at a distance of several kilometres from Mush, and the second, the Sourp Arakelots church, built in the tenth century during the reign of King Abbas Bagratuni in the town of Kars, when it was the capital city (from 928 to 961) of Bagratid (Bagratuni) Armenia, until the capital was transferred to Ani, all of this at a time when the Turkish-speaking tribes had not reached the Armenian mountains.

“There was a time when Kars was a vivid city, where prosperous Armenians lived by their thousand-year-old churches, which are still steady in all their intact charm,” wrote Nobel Prize-winning Tukish writer Orhan Pamuk in his novel, Snow. On the cover of the novel is an image of the Arakelots church, covered with snow. Pamuk conveys the city’s past – its glory days of Armenian activity – and its troubled present.

At the start of the twentieth century, the Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents depicted Kars in his poetic novel, Land of Nairi: “The Arakelots is the greatest and dearest wonder, the adornment and amazement of this ancient city… What the soul is to the body, what the eyes are to the brain, what the heart is for a man’s physique – that is what the Arakelots is for this city of Nairi [a metaphor for Armenia, in reference to an ancient name for the land]. What Notre Dame is for Parisians, the Arakelots is for the dwellers of this city.”

Charents goes on: “Northward from the fortress, nestled in the descending slope of a hill, like a grey stony bird, perches the Arakelots church. The church looks like a bird when you view it from above, from the fortress. But, viewed from head-on, it resembles a priest – an old, stony priest, who seems to have found a seat on the slope of the hill, who has remained sitting there for ages, and who will remain sitting while the world spins round. And in this endlessly-spinning world, the Land of Nairi remains.”

Aydın suggested we sit down once more on the journey to the Msho Arakelots monastery. We had already negotiated half the distance. The plain of Mush once again spread out before us in all its charm and simplicity. Aydın pointed out the former Armenian villages of Berdak, Arak, and Tigrevank in the surrounding areas.

We caught our breath and continued our journey up the mountain. At times like that, perhaps in order to distract oneself from the difficulty and weariness, one’s mind travels into the past and remembers something, or wonders where it will be tomorrow. And so, one day I was in Bitlis when one of my colleagues called from Yerevan. “I am in Bitlis right now. I will call you later.” From the other side of the Araxes River I hear, “Bitlis, lucky you. My family comes from around there. Can you bring a handful of soil and some pebbles?”

In Bitlis you remember William Saroyan.

In one of his short stories he remembers his grandmother, Lucy, with the utmost clarity. “My grandmother even in America lived in her Bitlis.”

When Saroyan visited Bitlis and returned to Fresno, he told his family what he had seen: “The city was ruined and only the fortress was standing. There was one Kurd, over 80, and he remembered my father. He was the one who showed me my family home. The house was ruined, but there was a hearth. There were people with me – Kurds, Turks. I told them to go. I wanted to be alone.”

Later Saroyan would write about his poet father Armenak Saroyan, who had passed on at an early age, and about his birthplace. It was one of his notable short stories, Bitlis.

One evening the youngest brother of Saroyan’s father, Sedrak, rode down the street on a bicycle. He leaned the bicycle on the wooden curb of the street and came close.

“Where did we live back then?” I asked.

“You were born here,” he answered. “You have lived all your life in this valley.”

“And where did my father live?” I asked.

“In the old country,” he answered.

“What was the name of the city?”

“Bitlis”

“Where was the city?”

“In the mountains. It was built in the mountains.”

“And the streets?”

“The streets were cobbled, they were crooked and narrow.”

“Do you remember my father in the streets of Bitlis?”

“Sure, he was my brother.”

“Have you seen him?” I asked. “Have you seen my father walking down the streets of the city, which was built in the mountains?”

One last effort, and the dilapidated Msho Arakelots opens up before usat the base of the mountain’s summit. After its construction, the church was renovated in the Middle Ages, probably in the 10-13th centuries. Today the Saint Tadeh belfry is still partially erect, while only the ruins are left of the walled monastic complex. The Kurds have also destroyed part of it, hoping to find gold.

For centuries, the Msho Arakelots monastery was one of the most important religious centres in the Armenian region of Taron. It had withstood earthquakes and attacks by different conquerors, but it could not withstand the massacres ofthe Young Turks. In 1915, the monastery was subjected to attacks and pillage. The last abbott, Hovhannes Vardapet, was killed.

After the genocide, Msho Arakelots was abandoned.

After taking photographs, searching for inscriptions on the partially-standing walls, and some rest, I descended the mountain, together with Aydın.

I have been to Ardahan, Kars, Ani, Karin, Kharbert, Tatvan, and Van dozensof times. And each time I return home, I empty stones and soil out of my green backpack for my friends.

We returned to Mush in the car of one of Aydın’s relatives. Then he suggested going to the shop of one of his friends, Can Yımaz, where we drank a few cups of tea with lump sugar. Can said that there are Armenians in Mush – to be more accurate, Kurds whose grandmothers or grandfathers are Armenians. He told me he would introduce me to some of them.

That same evening I got to meet some of them atthe Park Lokantası restaurant in Mush, including the owner, Abdurahman or Abo, who kneeled and prayed at the evening hour, performing the namaz. Abo joined us after the namaz. The evenings in Mush are also extremely pleasant for drinking tea under the trees.

Of all the crypto-Armenians that I have met in Western Armenia, Necmettin Akdaş spoke the best Armenian. He also introduced himself by a second name, Armen Galustyan. He related the history of his family. As we were chatting around the tea table, other crypto-Armenians approached us, the majority of whom did not know any Armenian or only knew a few words.

“I was seven years old when I found out that I am Armenian. I found out by chance. One day, on the way to school, a Kurd shepherd beat me in front of the children and said that I am an Armenian. I heard the word ‘Ermeni’ that day. After returning home, I asked my grandfather, ‘Grandpa, am I a Kurd or an Armenian?’. My grandfather told me for the first time that we are Armenians. Then he related everything. He was seventeen years old at the time of the genocide and remembered everything well. At the age of seven, I started to learn Armenian with my grandfather’s help. My grandfather would say, ‘When you grow up, you must go to Soviet Armenia, go to Khor Virap, Etchmiadzin, and Garni …’. After the independence of Armenia, I came to Armenia, went to Khor Virap, Etchmiadzin, and Garni,” said Necmettin.

Except for Aykan, Necmettin’s eighteen-year-old son, the other residents of Mush gathered around the tea table understood almost no Armenian and were watching us, melting the successive lumps of sugar on their tongues and sipping their tea. Necmettin said that they spoke mostly Kurdish at home. Of their sons, Aykan or Hayk spoke Armenian. He had been to Armenia. He had started to learn Armenian with his father’s assistance and that of a dictionary.

Almost 150 families around Mush acknowledge that they are Armenian, although the majority of them do not know Armenian. “We make the sign of the cross on the dough with our fingers when baking bread. We have good relations with each other. We are together in times of sadness or joy,” Necmettin continued.

The Armenians have been Islamised since the time when the Armenian Highlands were invaded by the Turkish-speaking peoples. It is difficult to give exact numbers of how many Armenians, in trying to preserve their lives, converted to Islam in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth century. Their numbers were probably not high, as it is difficult to believe that it would have been possible to avoid the genocide planned and implemented by the state through converting to Islam.

Turkish historian Selim Deringil has said, “Initially the Ottoman authorities released those exiled Armenians who converted to Islam. Subsequently however, accepting Islam no longer saved the Armenians, because their conversion was considered insincere”. In response to the question as to how many people had converted in order to save their lives, Deringil has said, “In the nineteenth century, from 20,000to up to 150,000people and, in 1915, it is unclear”. That phenomenon continued even after the genocide and, as a result, Armenian blood flows in the arteries of present-day Turkey.

Today, part of the crypto-Armenians no longer hide their past, although they continue to bear Muslim identities, speak Kurdish, and attendmosques. The names of Armenian villages were changed decades ago, but even today the Kurds use the old Armenian names: Gharsik, Norshen, Komar, Karmirkhach, Khoronk. “After the killing of Hrant Dink, the local Armenians began to speak more openly about their Armenian roots. It was Dink who announced in the paper that whoever is Armenian can inform the Agos offices about it,” Necmettin said.

Turkish historian Selim Cohce connects the presence of tens of thousands of people at Dink’s funeral to the crypto-Armenians, considering it to be a sign of an awakening. “Those Armenians who had kept their identity secret under the names of Ahmet, Mehmet, and so on, deliberately revealed themselves during the funeral. The expression, ‘We are all Armenians, we are all Hrant’ is evidence of that.”

In May of 2008, Dink’s compatriot from the town of Malatia, the well-known musician Kâzım Akıncı, announced that he had Armenian roots and had petitioned the Court of First Instance to have his name and religion changed. Akıncı had stressed that he had hidden his Armenian identity for years for security reasons. However, after the murder of Dink, he had decided to return to his Armenian identity and be called Sarkis Nersisyan. The musician, who lives with his mother, has said that for years his parents had hidden the fact that they were Armenian even from him, out of fear. “It pains me that for years my family has kept this fact secret even from me, out of unnecessary fear. I wish to return to my roots.”

In an interview a few weeks before the murder, Dink said, “Today there are thousands in Turkey who are brave enough to state publicly, to write books and articles, that their forebears were Armenian. It is very important for me to work on this issue and find those lost ones, to revive those who are dead.”

Many decades ago, during the years of his patriarchy, the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey, Archbishop Shnorhk Galustyan, referred to the “secret, Islamised Armenians” and to the issues of the remaining Armenians in Western Armenia and the provinces of Turkey. In the Soviet Consulate in Istanbul, just seven months after being elected patriarch in 1961 and being so ordained, Archbishop Shnorhk noted “the severe political situation in Turkey and the difficulties in that respect for the Armenian population”. The Patriarch stressed that, “The condition of the Armenians living in the Anatolian region is particularly difficult. That segment of the population is being subjected to all possible forms of persecution by the authorities and is now facing severe deprivations”. The Patriarch asked that their repatriation to Soviet Armenia should be organised “at the earliestopportunity.”

A decade later, Patriarch Shnorhk emphasised, “The Armenians of Anatolia are like a mine: the more we dig, the more we will find.”

In 1988, the Turkish newspaper Tercüman noted that the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey had said in a speech in Jerusalem that one million Armenians had been forcibly Islamised in Turkey and that they must be saved. Patriarch Shnorhk divided them into three groups. Firstly, Armenians who voluntarily became Muslims and have become Turkified. Secondly, those Armenians who live in Kurdish-populated areas and have kept their national and religious identity. For example, the Armenians in the Khnus province of Erzurum marry within their own kind and keep their identity. Thirdly, Armenians who have been forcibly Islamised, who have not forgotten their past and, migrating to Istanbul, have written “Armenian” instead of “Islam” in their passports. The Patriarch has said that, had the genocide not occurred, the Armenian population would have been more than ten million.

In September 2006, Aziz Dağcı and several compatriots from the town of Sassun formed the Association for Social Co-operation, Culture and Harmony of Armeniansof Sassoun,Bitlis, Batman, Mush, and the Vilayets, Villages and Districts of Van. In the spring of 2008, the association applied to the cadastre and real estate department of the provincial administration of Batman (at present Sassun is one of the regions of this province), demanding the registry of the churches (converted to barns) and the graveyards of the villages of Gomk and Ardsvik on Mount Maruta in inventory registers, thus ensuring their protection by the state. The monastery of the Apostle Surp Petros (St. Peter) is at the foot of the mountain and the Surp Astvadzadzin church (Holy Mother-of-God) is at the top. The provincial administration of Batman replied: “It has not yet been possible to make an inventory of the historic-cultural monuments in the villages of Sassun. The provincial administration has received no application or protest concerning the destruction of the churches and graveyards as a result of human intervention or their being used as barns. The monuments in question were abandoned around a hundred years ago as a result of the Armenians leaving the area and consequently the climatic effects on the destruction of the churches and graveyards must be considered as only natural.”

In June 2010, Salahhaddin Gültekin, who had hidden his Armenian identity for decades, applied to a court and changed both his name, to Mihran Prkich, and his religion, adopting Christianity. In November, Mihran, born and bred in Dersim (present-day Tunceli), founded the Union of Belief and Assistance of Dersim Armenians together with sevenfriends.

“We are the grandchildren of three brothers born before 1915 named Sarkis, Harut, and Poghos,” he said in Yerevan where he had come for the first time. “From the start, all those around us knew we were Armenians. I learnt that I was Armenian at the age of seven. During our years at school, if there was a conflict, they called us ‘son of Armenians’ – and that was a form of insult. I remember that the elders of the family spoke Armenian with each other and, when they spoke Armenian, they kept as far away from us as they could, so that we could not hear and know that we were Armenian. However, those around us would not let us forget our identity,” he said.

Even if people forget about their Armenian roots, from time to time they are reminded by their neighbours. The Turks and the Kurds have relayed what happened to the Armenians from generation to generation. Turkish historian Halil Berktay has written that 1915 has been kept in the memory of the common people and, moreover, amongst many Turks and Kurds, those memories are not always negative, but they are sometimes “heroic” and inspiring. Today you can come across houses in different regions of Turkey with swords hanging on the walls, which they say have Armenian blood on them. Some are proud of that, others are ashamed.

One Wikileaks document says that, even after one century, the Turks are afraid of their own history and the hidden presence of Armenians. In 2004, when personnel of the US Embassy in Turkey visited those areas which had been highly populated by Armenians before the genocide, they were surprised that the local population continued to be well aware of what had happened to the Armenians. The embassy staff was also surprised at the number of people with similar physical characteristics to Armenians and the willingness of the people to talk about 1915.

In recent years many tens of people have taken on Christianity and returned to their Armenian roots. There have been several books written, films made, and articles published about them.

The lawyer Fethiye Çetin’sbook, My Grandmother (Anneanam), was noteworthy in the process of breaking down the Armenian taboo in Turkey. Çetin’s maternal grandmother, Hranush, to whom the name Seher was given, was one of the thousands of Armenian women who were kidnapped and Islamised during the years of the Armenian Genocide. Before departing this life, Hranush-Seher related her past to her granddaughter and, years later, Fethiye rewrote it, actually clearing the way for hundreds of similar stories of converted crypto-Armenians. Subsequently, Çetin and sociologist, Ayşe Gül Altınay published her booklet Grandchildren in which 25 Turkish citizens who had lost their Armenian identity, or were hiding it, recounted their family histories.

In his book, New Bride, the Turkish writer Kemal Yalçın,who lives in Germany, writes about an Armenian beauty named Siranush who was saved during the genocide by the well-known Kurd Agha Nuri from the Adıyaman district, who subsequently married her. Their youngest son, Mehmet, recounts episodes from his mother’s life. “My mother’s real name was Siranush. After she married my father, they called her Hanım. In her youth, my mother frequently told my older brothers and me, ‘Now just call me Siranush once, let me hear it’. When I used to call her Siranush, she would hug and continuously kiss me and cry. As a child, seeing my mother’s tears would also make me cry, although I did not know why my mother was crying. Sometimes my mother would talk and converse with mountains, birds, stones, the earth, and flowers. I did not understand the language with which she spoke. Whenever I asked, she would stroke my head and say, ‘This is my mother and father’s language, your uncles’ language, the language of the Armenians.’ The language of the Armenians was the language of my mother’s tears.”

… I am walking in the streets of Kars on a wintry evening, walking past the places described by Charents. I stop in front of a two-storey black stone building. Perhaps this is Bochka Nikolai’s tavern? I enter a restaurant on the street formerly called Loris-Melikyan, which leads towards the railway station. Perhaps this is Telefon Seto’s cafe? Perhaps this two-storeyed building on Alexandryan Streetis the office of the most honourable wealthy man in the city, General Alosh? Perhaps this is Yegor Arzumanov’s wine-house?^{(Bochka Nikolai, Telefon Seto, General Alosh, and Yegor Arzumanov are among the main characters of Charents’s Land of Nairi).}

The snow has completely covered Kars, the leafless trees, the roofs, the dome of the Surp Arakelots church, Vartan’s bridge, the castle commanding the city, the graves strewn in the courtyard of the museum, on which the Armenian inscriptions begin with the same lines:

“Here lies…”

The cries of the small girl left on the death march, the December wind blowing on the Kars plateau, the song of the Armenian priest on Aghtamar’s Church of the Holy Cross, and the evening zephyr blowing in from the lowlands of Mush, are piercing my bones, deafening my ears, and making my head spin.