Speaking to One Another

176 Pages·2010·2.23 MB·English

Speaking to One Another:
Personal Memories of the Past
in Armenia and Turkey
Wish they hadn’t left
LEYLA NEYZİ
Whom to forgive? What to forgive?
HRANUSH KHARATYAN-ARAQELYAN
Published by:
Institut für Internationale Zusammenarbeit
Des Deutschen Volkshochschul-Verbandes (dvv international)
ISBN 978-3-88513-780-1
Project coordinators: Matthias Klingenberg, Vanya Ivanova, Nazaret Nazaretyan
Editor (Turkey section): Liz Erçevik Amado
Editor (Armenia section): Nouneh Dilanyan
Translator from Armenian to English: Samvel Simonyan
Design & Layout: Maraton Dizgievi
Cover photo: © Parajanov Museum Yerevan
Photographs (Turkey section): © Sibel Maksudyan
Print: MAS Matbaacılık A.Ş.
Hamidiye Mahallesi, Soğuksu Caddesi, No: 3 Kağıthane-İstanbul-Türkiye
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Speaking to One Another:
Personal Memories of the Past
in Armenia and Turkey
Wish they hadn’t left
LEYLA NEYZİ
Whom to forgive? What to forgive?
HRANUSH KHARATYAN-ARAQELYAN
“Adult Education and Oral History Contributing
to Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation”
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Contents
Foreword ..................................................................................................................................................................7
Acknowledgements ...............................................................................................................................................9
Introduction: “Speaking to One Another:
Personal Memories of the Past in Armenia and Turkey” .............................................................................11
Research in Turkey: “Wish they hadn’t left”:
The Burden of Armenian Memory in Turkey - Leyla Neyzi ......................................................13
“Wish they hadn’t left”: The Burden of Armenian Memory in Turkey .....................................................15
Loneliness of Galileo: Grandpa, Who are these Gavurs? ..............................................................................22
How to Come to Terms with Phantom Pain ....................................................................................................27
Of Men and Family Secrets .................................................................................................................................31
Sosi’s Green Eyes: Why am I different? ...........................................................................................................35
What Was Wrong Came From Above ..............................................................................................................39
What if My Mother is Armenian? ......................................................................................................................44
A wedding and a curse: How did this village end up like this? ..................................................................47
Shame and blame: How come my granddaughter doesn’t speak Armenian? .........................................52
The Three Poles: What are We, Brother? .........................................................................................................56
Fear of Losing a City .............................................................................................................................................59
I Didn’t Love You to Forget You .........................................................................................................................62
The Charm of Ararat ............................................................................................................................................67
The Story of the “Night People” ........................................................................................................................71
Research in Armenia: Whom to Forgive? What to Forgive? -
Hranush Kharatyan-Araqelyan ..............................................................................................................75
Brief Historical Summary ....................................................................................................................................77
“Whom to forgive? What to forgive?”: Sources of “Oral Stories” ...............................................................79
“Private Stories” ...................................................................................................................................................81
Recalling Memories ..............................................................................................................................................83
Ritualization of Past Memories ..........................................................................................................................91
“Ergir’s soil is strong, Ergir’s fruits are sweet, Ergir’s water is clear as the eye of a crane” .................96
The Past in the Present and The Present in the Past
(“My father’s name is Serob, my mother’s name is Sose”) ..........................................................................99
“Thanks great God, that my baby died clean, she died innocent, no Turk used her” .........................108
“Their faces are not bristled, the Sultan ordered to kill boys with bristled faces”
(From the story of Avetis Keshishyan) ...........................................................................................................112
Water, Fire, Desert ..............................................................................................................................................115
Massacre, Slaughters, Get-away, Exodus, Deportation, Yeghern, Genocide ..........................................120
“They lost no less than ours, there is no doubt about it” ..........................................................................122
“Well, they are human too” .............................................................................................................................125
To Speak or to Stay Silent, to Tell or not to Tell
(“My parents were avoiding speaking about this”) .....................................................................................128
“I don’t know...” .................................................................................................................................................133
“My dear Almast, write it down, write it down” ..........................................................................................135
“My father used to tell me at home” ..............................................................................................................145
“Our house was demolished...” .......................................................................................................................154
Table of the respondents ..................................................................................................................................167
Foreword
The project “Adult Education and Oral History: Contributing to Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation” was
launched in August 2009 by the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education
Association (dvv international) in partnership with Anadolu Kültür and Armenian Centre for Ethnolog-
ical Studies “Hazarashen”, with the financial support of the German Foreign Office. The main objective
of the project was to contribute to the reconciliation process in this region by initiating an open dialogue
through professional oral history research.
This project is an extension of the efforts of dvv international in one of its main spheres of work – adult
education – in dealing with the past and sensitive issues in recent history. For more than fifteen years,
dvv international has been engaged in contemporary witness and reconciliation work, as well as oral his-
tory as a means to deal with the recent past. This is how the dvv international History Network, which in-
cludes a number of successful projects in various regions, was created.
In Russia, the project was mainly concerned with the reconciliation between former soldiers of the
German armed forces and the Red Army. In South Eastern Europe the focus was on interactive meth-
ods of teaching and learning about the recent past; one of the methods used being oral history (www.
historyproject.dvv international.org). In Uzbekistan, methods associated with contemporary witness
work (world café, biographical method, interviews with contemporary witnesses) from the projects
in the Russian Federation were adapted and used for the processing of the Soviet past in Central
Asia. The Uzbek dvv international project, which took place for the fifth time last year in Tashkent,
is part of the project series “History and Identity” initiated by dvv international in cooperation with
DAAD, FES, GI and the German Embassy (www.istoriya.uz). The goal is to contribute to successful
awareness raising by bringing multiple perspectives about the past to the forefront.
In Armenia, an Armenian-Turkish workshop was held for the first time on the topic of Oral History titled
History and Identity - Building Bridges for Dialogue and Understanding in October 2008. Civil society represen-
tatives, historians, anthropologists and oral historians from both countries participated in the worshop.
The concept for the current project was developed at that meeting and we are now pleased to share one
of its results.
We would like to express our gratitude to Leyla Neyzi and Hranush Kharatyan-Araqelyan, the main sci-
entists from the two countries, the two partner organizations Anadolu Kültür and the Armenian Cen-
tre for Ethnological Studies “Hazarashen” from Turkey and Armenia respectively, the German Academic
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Exchange Service (DAAD) in both countries involved in the selection process of the students, as well to
all the experts and students who put heart and professionalism to make this project possible. We would
like to say a special thank you to Sibil Çekmen for all her efforts in preparing the booklet for publication!
Matthias Klingenberg, Vanya Ivanova and Nazaret Nazaretyan
dvv international team
www.learningtolisten.de
http://www.dvv-international.de
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Acknowledgements
This book is the product of collaborative work, and there are many individuals we owe thanks, without
whom this research would not have seen the light of day: Hranush Kharatyan-Araqelyan and Leyla Neyzi
would like to thank the German Federal Foreign Office and dvv international (International Institute of
the German Adult Education Association) for funding this project. At dvv international, we owe special
thanks to Matthias Klingenberg, Project Coordinator and Head of Asia Department, dvv international
Bonn; Nazaret Nazaretyan, Country Coordinator, dvv international Armenia; and Vanya Ivanova, dvv
international Regional Office South Eastern Europe for making this project possible. We would also like
to thank our partner organization in Turkey, Anadolu Kültür, and Osman Kavala in particular, as well as
our partner organization in Armenia, the Armenian Center for Ethnological Studies “Hazarashen,” and
Ara Gulyan in particular.
Many individuals contributed to the project by attending the workshops we organized in Turkey
and Armenia. We would like to thank Anush Hovhannisyan from the Institute of Oriental Studies,
Armenian National Academy of Sciences; Lusine Kharatyan and Gayane Shagoyan, from the Institute
of Archaeology and Ethnology, Armenian National Academy of Sciences; Mikayel Zolyan from Yerevan
State Linguistic University after V. Brusov; Samvel Karabekyan from Yerevan State University; Christina
Koulouri from the University of the Peloponnese; Günay Göksu Özdoğan from Marmara University and
Nazan Maksudyan from Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, for their participation and intellectual support.
The students from Armenia and Turkey who participated in the camp in Dilijan, Armenia were an
integral part of the project and the research process. We would like to thank Victoria Asatryan, Anna
Maria Aslanoğlu, Lusine Avagyan, Elif Ege, Mariam Grigoryan, Seda Grigoryan, Sevak Harutyunyan, Nane
Khachatryan, Avedis Kheshishyan, İsmail Keskin, Nora Mildanoğlu, Nayat Muratyan, Sait Öztürk, Anna
Poghosyan, Mehmet Polatoğlu, Mühdan Sağlam, Hasmik Sahakyan, Özgür Taşkaya, Norayr Yerznkyan
and Dilan Yıldırım. Attaching high importance to their participation in the student camp, we appreciate
also their contribution to the process of fieldwork.
We carried out the research in Turkey by mobilizing a group of highly committed assistants and students.
Leyla Neyzi would like to express her gratitude to her assistants Ezgi Güner, Haydar Darıcı and Sibel
Maksudyan for their hard work in every stage of the project, their intellectual and moral support, and
the pleasure of their company. Ezgi Güner and Haydar Darıcı conducted interviews and contributed to
the writing of the text; Sibel Maksudyan took all the photographs, and contributed to the book design.
Many students, including those who took the course on Oral History at Sabancı University during Fall
2009, contributed significantly to the research. Leyla Neyzi would like to thank Şeyma Afacan, Ramazan
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Aras, Yasin Aras, Welat Ay, Cenk Cengiz, Emily Coolidge, Seval Dakman, Seda Doğan, Burcu Ege, Elif Ege,
Sinem Esen, Tevfik Karatop, Selen Kızıltoprak, Aslı Menevşe, Nora Mildanoğlu, Nayat Muratyan, Özge
Nam, Esra Olcay, Berat Meryem Örnek, Levent Özata, Sait Öztürk, Eda Tarak, Nora Tataryan and Ayşegül
Yayla.
Hranush Kharatyan-Araqelyan would like to express her gratitude to Anush Hovhannisyan, Mikael
Zolyan, Gayane Shagoyan, Ara Gulyan, Lusine Kharatyan, who, in addition to taking part in the
workshops, brought their professional advice to the analysis of the Armenian section of the book.
Sometimes difficult moments of the joint discussions were always mitigated by the good hearted humor
of dvv international Armenian office representative Varuzhan Avanessyan to whom we are grateful.
The authors are also deeply grateful to all the interviewees who agreed to narrate their lives, voluntarily
and readily answered the questions of the researchers and generously opened their homes to us.
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