Dear Editor,
Through the years as a practicing journalist, I have read just about every book on the tragedy that struck our ancestral homeland in 1915 and how to this very day the Turks refuse to admit that it was a genocide.
I’ve used the researched material penned by our scholarly authors to speak out in the newspapers I reported for and managed in Michigan and Ohio. In October, I started reading Armenian Golgotha: An Eyewitness Account of the Armenian Genocide. Every detail was chilling, yet enlightening on how the Ottoman Turkish gangsters were able to nearly eradicate our ancestors from every nook and corner of the Armenian homeland.
As has been reported in the Armenian press, Armenian Golgotha is recognized as one of the most important eyewitness accounts of the genocide. I was chilled by the work of Grigoris Vartabed Balakian, who by a miracle survived the genocide to record the murder of a nation in his masterfully written Armenian Golgotha.
Balakian’s account was first published in Armenian, in 1922. Thankfully the masterpiece eyewitness memoir was finally published in English in 2009. The translation was carried on by his grandnephew, Prof. Peter Balkan of Colgate University, and Aris Sevag, a former editor of the Armenian Reporter and now an editor with the national AGBU News Magazine.
While Balakian was in Detroit recently for a book signing, I personally thanked the acclaimed poet for diverting from his literary career to fulfill a pledge at translating the 509-page Golgotha memoir written by his revered uncle. Grigoris Vartabed Balakian died in 1934.
Armenian Golgotha is must reading for every Armenian family. As the descendants of genocide survivors, we must know what actually happened and how the criminal minds of the Ottoman Turkish government carried out this crime against humanity. We must, if we are to achieve justice for our people.
Armenian Golgotha belongs in every college and university campus library. In 1969, I journeyed through the ravaged homeland—from Sepastia to Erzanjan, Erzerum, Moush, Bitlis, Lake Van, Keghi, Kharpert, and Malatya. All I found were the ruins of our massacred homeland in depopulated, Turkish-held Armenia.
Armenian Golgotha took me back to the historic homeland, and I shed tears for our people.
Grigoris Vartabed Balakian’s memoir is about the heart and soul of Armenia.
I salute Peter Balakian and Aris Sevag for their dedication at translating Armenian Golgotha into the English language.
Read Armenian Golgotha.
Mitch Kehetian
Allen Park, Mich.
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Hye, the ARMENIAN GOLGOTHA, by Grigoris Balakian is phenomenal… for him to have lived through the Turkish Genocide of the Armenian nation and then to write it for posterity, amazes me.
I would think this book is worthy of publishing in many other languages – to be the tool for the world
to end the cycles of Genocides. The Ottoman Turks violation of humanity is horrendous, unforgettable for any surviviors – justice must be served – Genocides must be stopped. Even into today, the subsequent Turkish denials indicate, still, the mentality of the Turkish leadership even since the Genocide who have not any shame, any compassion, any recognition of their nations’ reputation – who came as hordes from the mountains of Asia – bt yet have not joined the civilized peoples on our planet – albeit the hundreds of years the Turks have established the Armenian’s lands as their own – even to taking the Armenian culture as their own (Turks evidenly had none). The
current pursuit of Turkey’s ‘road map’ indicates their ingrown hatred of a people whom their forbears
had sought to eliminate from the face of the earth! Hence, this Turkish Genocide of the Armenian nation, as evidenced by the Protocols and more, is ingrained in their leaderships’ relentless pursuit to accomplish now the elimination of the fledgling Armenian nation. I am certain that the world’s nations see all this – politically, oily, militarily, more, these same nations yet, by not entering the fray also add to the issue – for by not speaking up, by not taking the morally honest positions against the Genocide perpetrator – this non-action, speaks as if they acquiese (sp?) to the Turkish desparate
stance against the fledgling nation of Armenia. Morality is needed to end the cycle of Genocides.
If not, where, when the next Genocide – another peoples like the Darfurians – to suffer man’s inhumanity to man… Manooshag
P.S. I recently read a copy of CRIME OF VENGEANCE by Edward Alexander, a copy in my son’s office, which tells of Telilarian’s trial in Germany. It may be out of print, but if available, it is a must read.
Howsomever, I was reading the section about the German court trial, and one of the witnesses for Telilarian – Grigoris Balakian. We have been in our history blessed with so many great patriots… I’ve added Grigoris to my list. M
My profound thanks to Mitch Kehetian and Manooshag for their heartfelt appreciative remarks. Reactions like this underscore the value of all the time and effort Peter Balakian and I put into producing this English version of Armenian Golgotha.