ARMENIAN GOLGOTHA - Vartkes Sinanian

I was a little boy living in Nicosia, the capital of the Island of Cyprus. Hagop Oshagan, the famous Armenian novelist and literary critic was a close friend of my father and was a frequent visitor to our house. At that time Oshagan was working on his novel "Remnants" which was based on the Armenian deportations and massacres in the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Oshagan wanted to include my mother's ordeal during the Smyrna holocaust in his novel but my mother tearfully resisted his pleas. At one point Oshagan turning to my father remarked that the enormity of the crime perpetrated by the Turks was so overwhelming that he doubted if ever anyone would have the courage to attempt to depict that catastrophe of such magnitude with all its disastrous consequences. Gregoris Balakian's "Armenian Golgotha" translated from the original Armenian to English by his grand nephew Peter Balakian with Aris Sevag comes as the closest documentation of that darkest period in our people's history. It opens a window into a disturbing country during World War I when the world was oblivious of the tragedy unfolding in the Ottoman Turkish Empire. It is also a strong reminder of a terribly frightening chapter of our bloody history. The memoir is a comprehensive account of the killing fields and the bloodbath that followed as well as the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population as seen and miraculously endured by a victim who was arrested and exiled on that dreadful night of April 24, 1915, in Constantinople along with hundreds of intellectuals and clergy. Among those well-known intellectuals who were arrested that fateful night were Krikor Zohrab, Vartkes, Daniel Varoujan and Siamanto who were later murdered. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were wiped out - Anatolia became a nightmare landscape littered with human skulls and limbs of men, women and children. This diabolical plan was the work of the Interior Minister Talaat and his henchmen Enver, Jemal and Behaeddin Shakir. The once prosperous and vibrant Armenian population of the towns and villages were deported to Der Zor "that graveyard without tombstones "in the north of Syria." The Ittihad government had caught us in one net in a single night" he writes "We move towards our graves, nameless and unknown to be buried forever."
The author of the book Gregoris Balakian was born in 1876. He was one of the outstanding clergymen of his generation. Educated at Sanasarian College in Erzerum he later went to Germany for higher studies. He was ordained a priest and served as an emissary of the Holy See in Europe. After surviving the Armenian Genocide he was elected prelate of Marseilles in the south of France until his death in 1934. His escape through the killing fields in disguise as a German is a suspenseful narrative which he wrote as a fugitive in a vineyard in Cilicia.
Unfortunately the Armenian leadership considered the Ittihad government as their ideological comrades who had come with the ultimate aim of democratising the entire country. They were unaware of the murderous plan which was unfolding around them. Writing about Khachadour Maloumian (Agnouni) the political leader who was one of the early victims he writes "The unfortunate Agnouni being idealistic and honourable man, could not comprehend how Talaat could plot against him cynically - the same Talaat whom he had sheltered in order to save Talaat's life while risking his own during the counter revolution". Yet another incident which comes to our mind is the case of the prominent member of the Turkish Parliament Krikor Zohrab who expressed disbelief about Talaat's hand in his arrest. Zohrab was at Talaat's home the night before his arrest playing cards with him and to Zohrab's astonishment Talaat had kissed him goodnight before departing. Even when the death's shadow was chasing them they were naive of the danger lurking around them. Talaat had issued an order which precisely said "It is necessary to eradicate the Armenians. For if 1,000 Armenians are left alive by some misfortune before long they will become 100,000 and again they will be trouble for the Turkish government." Talaat had a mission to accomplish in most heinous way.
Balakian is witness of the hundreds of thousands of his countrymen sent by carts and by foot to the scorching Syrian desert to be raped, decapitated and die from hunger and thirst. He writes "Hundreds of chetes (irregulars V.S.) attacked from all sides, cutting and hacking off legs and arms with axes and hatchets, ripping them off partly or entirely and crushing heads with rocks. Then the bodies were thrown half alive, or in the throes of death into prepared ditches and covered with lime. Those were partly sticking out of the dirt and the lime made the heavenly arches resound with their cries of agony; more dirt was poured on them until they were buried alive." It is the horrific story of blood and tears, death and mourning all over. It is mind-numbing in its brutality and savagery. It reminds us of Dante Alighieri's classic "Inferno" - the journey through different levels of hell encountering all forms of chaos in each, which precisely reflects our people's Golgotha. In "Inferno" though the sinner reaps what he saws while in our case the "open wound" is left unhealed.
"Armenian Golgotha" is a memoir of horror and endurance. About a century later our grief and outrage have not diminished and we are so traumatized that the past is still very present in our lives. It reveals the enduring power of the Armenian people and its faith in resurrection even under critical circumstances. It is also the ultimate rebuke to those who deny the Armenian Genocide.
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