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'LEFTOVER' TURKISH-ARMENIAN VOICES
William Armstrong - [email protected]
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/leftover-turkish-armenian-voices.aspx?pageID=238&nID=37619&NewsCatID=386
ISTANBUL - Hurriyet Daily News
'My Grandmother' by Fethiye Cetin (Verso, 2008, pp 144, 25TL)
'Varsen Oruncakcıel: The Last Remaining Arapgirtsi' interviewed by
Mayda Saris (Birzamanlar Yayıncılık, 2011, pp 107, 25TL)
Fethiye Cetin grew up believing she was of "pure" Turkish stock,
until one day her aging grandmother, Seher, took her aside and revealed
that she had in fact been born an Armenian Christian, originally named
Heranuş Gadaryan. Plucked from a death march as a young girl in 1915,
Seher was raised as a Muslim by a Turkish gendarmerie commander and
his wife, only to become aware of her true origins later in life. Some
estimates suggest that there are hundreds of thousands of "hidden"
or "Islamized" Armenians still living in Turkey, so this story may
not be as unique as it may first seem. What is certainly remarkable,
though, is that Cetin's elegiac account of her grandmother's story
found a wide audience when it was published in Turkish in 2004,
(going into its tenth print run in 2012).
The first section of "My Grandmother" offers gentle, sepia-tinged
descriptions of Fethiye's rural upbringing with her family in the
eastern Turkish province of Elazığ: her beautiful sisters; her
grandfather whose mood always depended on how full his stomach was;
her grandmother, the charismatic matriarch of the family, powerful
but taciturn, as if always harboring the secret that would one day be
revealed to Fethiye. The central revelation in fact doesn't come until
midway through the book, but when it does Cetin writes that what she
heard "did not fit with anything I knew. It turned the known world
on its head, smashing my values into a thousand pieces." Seher, or
Heranuş, was one of the "kılıc artığı," the "leftovers of the sword"
of that traumatic period; only one of her sisters was also spared,
while the rest of the family was killed off. The second part of the
memoir consists of Cetin trying to digest the meaning of this heritage,
and also trying to forge a reunion of the two sides of a family which
now - like so many Armenian families - is "scattered like pomegranate
seeds" across the world.
It's a quietly powerful work, modest but courageous. There are no
unnecessary fireworks or forced emotions. There's little in the way
of direct politics and no recriminations: I don't think the word
"genocide" is mentioned once in the entire book (and that's not
because of Turkish laws against these things). It's simply a human
story, told in a very humane, unshowy way.
An ostensibly similar, (though slightly less high profile), book is
"The Last Remaining Arapgirtsi," published in 2011 in the form of an
extended interview with 95-year-old Varsen Oruncakcıel. Oruncakcıel
was born in the village of Arapgir in the eastern province of Malatya,
and was just one-year-old when the events of 1915 took place.
Over the course of the book, she gives simple, unembellished
descriptions of both the difficulties and the joys of a long life
spent between Arapgir, Malatya, and Istanbul. Family photographs are
included, and while they show a lot of frowns and furrowed brows, they
equally show a lot of smiling and celebrations. Although profoundly
affected by the tragic shadow of 1915, Orancakcıel describes her life
as being "colorful" - full of music, dancing and entertainment.
Perhaps what is most striking about the book is this gentle confounding
of the easy presumptions one might have about the nature of her story.
Neither of these books is concerned directly with the events of 1915,
but it is their account of the effect on the "leftovers" that makes
them interesting.
December/26/2012
From: Baghdasarian
William Armstrong - [email protected]
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/leftover-turkish-armenian-voices.aspx?pageID=238&nID=37619&NewsCatID=386
ISTANBUL - Hurriyet Daily News
'My Grandmother' by Fethiye Cetin (Verso, 2008, pp 144, 25TL)
'Varsen Oruncakcıel: The Last Remaining Arapgirtsi' interviewed by
Mayda Saris (Birzamanlar Yayıncılık, 2011, pp 107, 25TL)
Fethiye Cetin grew up believing she was of "pure" Turkish stock,
until one day her aging grandmother, Seher, took her aside and revealed
that she had in fact been born an Armenian Christian, originally named
Heranuş Gadaryan. Plucked from a death march as a young girl in 1915,
Seher was raised as a Muslim by a Turkish gendarmerie commander and
his wife, only to become aware of her true origins later in life. Some
estimates suggest that there are hundreds of thousands of "hidden"
or "Islamized" Armenians still living in Turkey, so this story may
not be as unique as it may first seem. What is certainly remarkable,
though, is that Cetin's elegiac account of her grandmother's story
found a wide audience when it was published in Turkish in 2004,
(going into its tenth print run in 2012).
The first section of "My Grandmother" offers gentle, sepia-tinged
descriptions of Fethiye's rural upbringing with her family in the
eastern Turkish province of Elazığ: her beautiful sisters; her
grandfather whose mood always depended on how full his stomach was;
her grandmother, the charismatic matriarch of the family, powerful
but taciturn, as if always harboring the secret that would one day be
revealed to Fethiye. The central revelation in fact doesn't come until
midway through the book, but when it does Cetin writes that what she
heard "did not fit with anything I knew. It turned the known world
on its head, smashing my values into a thousand pieces." Seher, or
Heranuş, was one of the "kılıc artığı," the "leftovers of the sword"
of that traumatic period; only one of her sisters was also spared,
while the rest of the family was killed off. The second part of the
memoir consists of Cetin trying to digest the meaning of this heritage,
and also trying to forge a reunion of the two sides of a family which
now - like so many Armenian families - is "scattered like pomegranate
seeds" across the world.
It's a quietly powerful work, modest but courageous. There are no
unnecessary fireworks or forced emotions. There's little in the way
of direct politics and no recriminations: I don't think the word
"genocide" is mentioned once in the entire book (and that's not
because of Turkish laws against these things). It's simply a human
story, told in a very humane, unshowy way.
An ostensibly similar, (though slightly less high profile), book is
"The Last Remaining Arapgirtsi," published in 2011 in the form of an
extended interview with 95-year-old Varsen Oruncakcıel. Oruncakcıel
was born in the village of Arapgir in the eastern province of Malatya,
and was just one-year-old when the events of 1915 took place.
Over the course of the book, she gives simple, unembellished
descriptions of both the difficulties and the joys of a long life
spent between Arapgir, Malatya, and Istanbul. Family photographs are
included, and while they show a lot of frowns and furrowed brows, they
equally show a lot of smiling and celebrations. Although profoundly
affected by the tragic shadow of 1915, Orancakcıel describes her life
as being "colorful" - full of music, dancing and entertainment.
Perhaps what is most striking about the book is this gentle confounding
of the easy presumptions one might have about the nature of her story.
Neither of these books is concerned directly with the events of 1915,
but it is their account of the effect on the "leftovers" that makes
them interesting.
December/26/2012
From: Baghdasarian