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UVM SENIOR TREKS BACK INTO HER ARMENIAN PAST
BurlingtonFreePress.com
June 10 2013
Written by Chris Bohjalian & Idyll Banter
Just how small is this world really? Sarah Aghjayan, 21, has been going
to the University of Vermont since the autumn of 2010 and will begin
her senior year there this September. Our paths have never crossed
in Vermont. Yet last month we met seven time zones to the east in a
now largely Kurdish section of Turkey.
Sarah and I were two of seven Armenian-American pilgrims on a journey
into the geography of our past. I've chosen the word geography
carefully. Her father, George Aghjayan, was with us and he was quite
literally charting our route via GPS and locking in the coordinates.
Once upon a time - actually, up until 98 years ago - this part of
Turkey was a land of Turks, Kurds, Assyrians and Armenians. In
the Armenian Genocide that began in 1915, three out of every
four Armenians in the Ottoman Empire - 1.5 million people - were
systematically slaughtered and the hallmarks of their culture here
all but obliterated. Over the course of one week in May, the seven
of us traveled from village to village to see the remains of the
monasteries and churches, some massive, and the communities that
anchored this part of Historic Armenia.
And among the places we visited was a tiny Kurdish community now called
Yazibashi. A century ago, when it was populated with Armenians, it
was known as Sakrat. The hamlet is a far cry from the Boston suburbs
where Sarah grew up, her family diehard Patriots fans and her father
an executive with a software company that specializes in structured
finance. But some of her Armenian roots are here. This is where her
great-grandfather, Giragos Der Manouelian, was born. All that remains
of the Armenian church in Sakrat today is a part of the altar, a stone
arch, but this is the very church where Giragos was baptized. The
arch towers over a small barn and a single-story cement block home.
"I never knew my great-grandfather," Sarah told me, "but I've heard
my dad recount numerous stories of him, so this was a very special
experience for me. It's very emotional for me."
This was Sarah's second pilgrimage with her father: "I make these
journeys to learn more about my family's history. It's not everyday
that Armenians get to visit the remote villages of our ancestors and
speak with the people who live there now." Usually, she said, the
villagers are gracious. When we were in Sakrat last month, the farmer
who owns the land that once was the Armenian church insisted that we
stay and share glasses of thick tahn - a yogurt drink - with him.
None of us brought up the reality that much of this land once belonged
to Armenians, because that wasn't why we were there. This was about
what Thomas Moore calls the "care of the soul," not real estate. As
we sipped our tahn, George and Sarah wanted to be sure that our
translator conveyed to our host how grateful they were that he was
preserving the arch. He wasn't tearing it down, he wasn't allowing
it to sink further into the earth.
That's one of the things that made the journey so poignant: Most of
the time, there is no one or no group looking after these remnants.
Moreover, the ruins we saw were often parts of active, thriving
communities as recently as 98 years ago. This wasn't Pompeii. These
weren't medieval castles in Scotland. There may still be people alive
today who sat in some of these pews.
Which perhaps explains what Sarah said was her favorite moment on the
trip: Our visit to Ktuts Island in Lake Van, and the ancient monastery
there that's now home only to thousands of seagulls. "Armenians have a
knack for picking the most beautiful locations for their monasteries
and churches, and that one takes the cake," she said. "The monastery
was in decent shape, which made the experience even better; there
was no heart-wrenching destruction to it."
Ruins, according to Moore, "show us that something remains of beauty
in a thing when its function has departed." It's a part of the reason
we're drawn to them. This was Sarah's second journey to her ancestral
homeland. It's clear that it won't be her last.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130609/COLUMNISTS03/306090006/?nclick_check=1
BurlingtonFreePress.com
June 10 2013
Written by Chris Bohjalian & Idyll Banter
Just how small is this world really? Sarah Aghjayan, 21, has been going
to the University of Vermont since the autumn of 2010 and will begin
her senior year there this September. Our paths have never crossed
in Vermont. Yet last month we met seven time zones to the east in a
now largely Kurdish section of Turkey.
Sarah and I were two of seven Armenian-American pilgrims on a journey
into the geography of our past. I've chosen the word geography
carefully. Her father, George Aghjayan, was with us and he was quite
literally charting our route via GPS and locking in the coordinates.
Once upon a time - actually, up until 98 years ago - this part of
Turkey was a land of Turks, Kurds, Assyrians and Armenians. In
the Armenian Genocide that began in 1915, three out of every
four Armenians in the Ottoman Empire - 1.5 million people - were
systematically slaughtered and the hallmarks of their culture here
all but obliterated. Over the course of one week in May, the seven
of us traveled from village to village to see the remains of the
monasteries and churches, some massive, and the communities that
anchored this part of Historic Armenia.
And among the places we visited was a tiny Kurdish community now called
Yazibashi. A century ago, when it was populated with Armenians, it
was known as Sakrat. The hamlet is a far cry from the Boston suburbs
where Sarah grew up, her family diehard Patriots fans and her father
an executive with a software company that specializes in structured
finance. But some of her Armenian roots are here. This is where her
great-grandfather, Giragos Der Manouelian, was born. All that remains
of the Armenian church in Sakrat today is a part of the altar, a stone
arch, but this is the very church where Giragos was baptized. The
arch towers over a small barn and a single-story cement block home.
"I never knew my great-grandfather," Sarah told me, "but I've heard
my dad recount numerous stories of him, so this was a very special
experience for me. It's very emotional for me."
This was Sarah's second pilgrimage with her father: "I make these
journeys to learn more about my family's history. It's not everyday
that Armenians get to visit the remote villages of our ancestors and
speak with the people who live there now." Usually, she said, the
villagers are gracious. When we were in Sakrat last month, the farmer
who owns the land that once was the Armenian church insisted that we
stay and share glasses of thick tahn - a yogurt drink - with him.
None of us brought up the reality that much of this land once belonged
to Armenians, because that wasn't why we were there. This was about
what Thomas Moore calls the "care of the soul," not real estate. As
we sipped our tahn, George and Sarah wanted to be sure that our
translator conveyed to our host how grateful they were that he was
preserving the arch. He wasn't tearing it down, he wasn't allowing
it to sink further into the earth.
That's one of the things that made the journey so poignant: Most of
the time, there is no one or no group looking after these remnants.
Moreover, the ruins we saw were often parts of active, thriving
communities as recently as 98 years ago. This wasn't Pompeii. These
weren't medieval castles in Scotland. There may still be people alive
today who sat in some of these pews.
Which perhaps explains what Sarah said was her favorite moment on the
trip: Our visit to Ktuts Island in Lake Van, and the ancient monastery
there that's now home only to thousands of seagulls. "Armenians have a
knack for picking the most beautiful locations for their monasteries
and churches, and that one takes the cake," she said. "The monastery
was in decent shape, which made the experience even better; there
was no heart-wrenching destruction to it."
Ruins, according to Moore, "show us that something remains of beauty
in a thing when its function has departed." It's a part of the reason
we're drawn to them. This was Sarah's second journey to her ancestral
homeland. It's clear that it won't be her last.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130609/COLUMNISTS03/306090006/?nclick_check=1