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ARNOLD REISMAN: ON AN ARMENIAN MANIFESTO CIRCA 1923
History News Network
Dec 6 2010
[Arnold Reisman is an engineer and a retired professor of operations
research at Case Western Reserve University. Born in Lodz in 1934,
he came to the United States after World War II and is the author
of numerous books about Holocaust refugees in Turkey, including
Turkey's Modernization: Refugees from Nazism and Ataturk's Vision
(New Academia, 2006).]
Recently a friend showed me a booklet which I found intriguing. It
includes a most interesting and incisive account of what had been
happening among, and to, the Armenian people up to 1923. The original,
was written by a most knowledgeable Armenian activist of the time,
Hovhannes Katchaznouni. He was a powerful leader in the Dashnagtzoutiun
(English: Armenian Revolutionary Federation) and was the first prime
minister of the Armenian state in 1918 proclaimed by the Armenian
National Council in Tiflis (Tbilisi), as the ruling Armenian body was
known at that time. He "was in power as the head of government ... for
thirteen months. He was among the founders of the Dashnagtzoutiun
Party and one of its top leaders. He was the prime authority of
Armenia and the Dashnagtzoutiun Party and served on the Armenian
committee conducting the peace talks with the Turks in Trabzon,
and Batoumi." "He knew every Party secret before, during, and after
the founding of the ill-fated Republic." "Few were in a position to
know more, nor to express themselves with greater clarity, logic,
and foresight than Hovhannes Katchaznouni."
The booklet is a translation of a report Katchaznouni delivered to an
Armenian Congress in Bucharest in 1923. Referred to as his Manifesto
with a translated title: Dashnagtzoutiun Has Nothing to do Anymore,
it was self-published in the same year. Translated from the original
Armenian into Russian, the report was first published as a book in
Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia, in 1927 and only 2000 copies were printed.
When I searched for a copy of any edition of the Manifesto for myself,
I learned that only a few libraries in the United States carry any of
the books in any language and as of this writing, Amazon.com shows none
for purchase. The Armenian version cannot be found on the shelves of
any library anywhere in the world even though some still list it in
their catalogs. Allegedly the copies were removed from the libraries
in Europe by the Dashnagzoutiun members for political reasons.
A copy of the Russian edition was located in Moscow's Lenin library by
Mehmet Perincek, a young Turkish scholar who translated the Russian
version into Turkish. So I borrowed my friend's copy and read it
thoroughly. What I read blew me away. However it was published
in Turkey as an English translation of a Turkish translation from
Russian published in Tbilisi (Soviet Georgia) while the original was
in Armenian. Because of all the iterations I naturally I wanted to
check its validity.
Still searching, I found a version of the Manifesto on line. It is
a truncated edition but most significantly it was translated from
the original by Matthew A. Callender and edited by John Roy Carlson,
published by the Armenian Information Service in English in 1955,
and is offered by the University of Louisville. The report/book has a
total of 24 pages, some dedicated to commentary obviously postdating
the original Manifesto.
The Turko-English edition contains a response Katchaznouni wrote to a
"detailed" letter he received from "NN a personal friend and ... party
comrade concerning the report ... submitted to the Party Convention."
He writes:
Dear NN,
I received your letter on June 22.
You say: 'Though it was not possible to destroy your report before
it was read, I wish it would soon be forgotten. And I find it useless
and harmful to open this subject to a discussion.
This suggests that Dashnag party loyalists would not want others to
see the report and such a letter might have been the catalyst for the
removal of editions from library shelves and possibly the destruction
of existing copies.
Two of the editions were reviewed by this author on a per-paragraph
basis. While the 1955 and the 2006 English editions of the Manifesto
are found to be consistent in spirit on matters pertaining to the
Armenian-Turkish issues there are some points on which text could
be found in one but not the other. No conflictual information has
been located. The Turkish- English edition states that the Manifesto
"evaluates the tragic incidents as incidents of war and open heartedly
declares that they [the Armenians] have been tools in the hands
of foreign powers." Scholars, opinion makers, policy and decision
makers, as well as concerned people at large should find the report
of great value regardless of the edition since it comes from a most
knowledgeable and a credible source.
The full review can be downloaded from SSRN as
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1712564
Posted on Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 6:54 PM
http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/134237.html
From: A. Papazian
History News Network
Dec 6 2010
[Arnold Reisman is an engineer and a retired professor of operations
research at Case Western Reserve University. Born in Lodz in 1934,
he came to the United States after World War II and is the author
of numerous books about Holocaust refugees in Turkey, including
Turkey's Modernization: Refugees from Nazism and Ataturk's Vision
(New Academia, 2006).]
Recently a friend showed me a booklet which I found intriguing. It
includes a most interesting and incisive account of what had been
happening among, and to, the Armenian people up to 1923. The original,
was written by a most knowledgeable Armenian activist of the time,
Hovhannes Katchaznouni. He was a powerful leader in the Dashnagtzoutiun
(English: Armenian Revolutionary Federation) and was the first prime
minister of the Armenian state in 1918 proclaimed by the Armenian
National Council in Tiflis (Tbilisi), as the ruling Armenian body was
known at that time. He "was in power as the head of government ... for
thirteen months. He was among the founders of the Dashnagtzoutiun
Party and one of its top leaders. He was the prime authority of
Armenia and the Dashnagtzoutiun Party and served on the Armenian
committee conducting the peace talks with the Turks in Trabzon,
and Batoumi." "He knew every Party secret before, during, and after
the founding of the ill-fated Republic." "Few were in a position to
know more, nor to express themselves with greater clarity, logic,
and foresight than Hovhannes Katchaznouni."
The booklet is a translation of a report Katchaznouni delivered to an
Armenian Congress in Bucharest in 1923. Referred to as his Manifesto
with a translated title: Dashnagtzoutiun Has Nothing to do Anymore,
it was self-published in the same year. Translated from the original
Armenian into Russian, the report was first published as a book in
Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia, in 1927 and only 2000 copies were printed.
When I searched for a copy of any edition of the Manifesto for myself,
I learned that only a few libraries in the United States carry any of
the books in any language and as of this writing, Amazon.com shows none
for purchase. The Armenian version cannot be found on the shelves of
any library anywhere in the world even though some still list it in
their catalogs. Allegedly the copies were removed from the libraries
in Europe by the Dashnagzoutiun members for political reasons.
A copy of the Russian edition was located in Moscow's Lenin library by
Mehmet Perincek, a young Turkish scholar who translated the Russian
version into Turkish. So I borrowed my friend's copy and read it
thoroughly. What I read blew me away. However it was published
in Turkey as an English translation of a Turkish translation from
Russian published in Tbilisi (Soviet Georgia) while the original was
in Armenian. Because of all the iterations I naturally I wanted to
check its validity.
Still searching, I found a version of the Manifesto on line. It is
a truncated edition but most significantly it was translated from
the original by Matthew A. Callender and edited by John Roy Carlson,
published by the Armenian Information Service in English in 1955,
and is offered by the University of Louisville. The report/book has a
total of 24 pages, some dedicated to commentary obviously postdating
the original Manifesto.
The Turko-English edition contains a response Katchaznouni wrote to a
"detailed" letter he received from "NN a personal friend and ... party
comrade concerning the report ... submitted to the Party Convention."
He writes:
Dear NN,
I received your letter on June 22.
You say: 'Though it was not possible to destroy your report before
it was read, I wish it would soon be forgotten. And I find it useless
and harmful to open this subject to a discussion.
This suggests that Dashnag party loyalists would not want others to
see the report and such a letter might have been the catalyst for the
removal of editions from library shelves and possibly the destruction
of existing copies.
Two of the editions were reviewed by this author on a per-paragraph
basis. While the 1955 and the 2006 English editions of the Manifesto
are found to be consistent in spirit on matters pertaining to the
Armenian-Turkish issues there are some points on which text could
be found in one but not the other. No conflictual information has
been located. The Turkish- English edition states that the Manifesto
"evaluates the tragic incidents as incidents of war and open heartedly
declares that they [the Armenians] have been tools in the hands
of foreign powers." Scholars, opinion makers, policy and decision
makers, as well as concerned people at large should find the report
of great value regardless of the edition since it comes from a most
knowledgeable and a credible source.
The full review can be downloaded from SSRN as
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1712564
Posted on Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 6:54 PM
http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/134237.html
From: A. Papazian