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April
24, the day Armenians around the world commemorate the Armenian
Genocide, is a reminder of the duality of human nature - of the
good and evil in man eternally at war - but that there is also
something in the human spirit that fights on… (incidentally, we
just read the marvelous story about Kasparov in today's NY Times….)
And
also, that it is human to put down on paper what has passed, to
understand with the long perspective - this act of recording
history, of recounting….
Under
cover of war, in 1915, an entire people were uprooted from their
ancestral homelands in Anatolia and sent on deportation marches
that would ultimately claim upwards of a million souls.
Father Grigoris Balakian was arrested by the Turkish government on
April 24, 1915, along with 250 intellectuals and leaders of
Constantinople's Armenian community. This was the beginning
of his odyssey - against all odds and avoiding what would have
been certain death in Chankari and Ayash, Balakian managed to
escape. He was a formidable man: a devoted priest and
humanist, a skilled writer, linguist, and orator able to negotiate
with the most ruthless Ottoman officials in order to procure food
for starving compatriots or to pose as a German official to avoid
capture and record events that only foreigners were privy
to. The story is Kafkaesque: Balakian details his thrilling
and remarkable escape and the grotesque cavalcade
of petty pashas, corrupt officials and unforgiving villagers who
were all complicit in the events described. Also, the
recounting of the deportations, mass burials, executions, looting and
plunder visited upon the Ottoman Empire's Armenian subjects.
His
grandson, Peter Balakian, the author of the best-selling memoir Black
Dog of Fate, and the erudite Aris Sevag translated the recent
release of Balakian's seminal book in English. It is an
unfortunate fact that Armenian Golgotha continues to be
relevant in a time when similar atrocities occur (Cambodia,
Rwanda, Darfur). But perhaps the most important aspect of
Balakian's account is that he bears witness, like so many of the
greats of survivor literature, like Elie Wiesel, like Primo Levi….
And that he never loses his spirit - he foresees an independent
Armenia - this genocide was a crucifixion that would be followed
by resurrection (and so the name Golgotha). Balakian
writes how he and Armenian compatriots, meeting in secret,
"got so excited that we started to draw the borders of
tomorrow's liberated Armenia on a map…." The book is
also about something eternal and human - hope.
Read:
Armenian
Golgotha, Grigoris Balakian
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