DETROIT, Mich.—When students question the exploits of the heroic Armenian defense of Van against the military might of the oppressive Ottoman-Turkish government, Hourig Toukhanian-Jacobs has an answer that honors the creed of Vanetsi descendants.
“They were ordinary people, the unknown heroes of the defense of Van,” Jacobs said in her address at the annual Herosamard Celebration of Detroit’s Vasbouragan Avak-Vanig Chapter at St. Sarkis Church. “It’s a story we must pass on to our future generations.”
In 2010, Jacobs walked the same path of her massacred ancestors during a pilgrimage to Turkish-occupied Western Armenia.
“The old city of Van was destroyed, but not its spirit. We can still honor those people, ordinary but devout to their faith and identity,” the Beirut Djemaran graduate shared at the November Thanksgiving Week rally.
While majoring in foreign language education at Wayne State University, she never lost her fluent Armenian and always embraced her Vanetsi heritage.
In outlining the 1915 defense of Van and honoring the memory of patriot Aram Manoogian, who went on to serve as the first president of the May 28, 1918 Republic of Armenia, Jacobs emphasized the role of the Vanetsi. “When the Russian army finally reached Van, their generals were amazed to learn that ordinary people, with no military training, had successfully repulsed the advancing Turkish army and collaborating Kurdish tribes, and the valiant role the women of Vasbouragan played in its defense.”
Even back then Van had hospitals, pharmacies, and chemists, and they were able to create their own gunpowder to defend themselves from the Turks and Kurds, Jacobs said.
She also outlined the strict strategy of the city’s defense, and how its people made it work: “The people of Van and Vasbouragan had certain advantages that helped them survive the Turkish plan of genocide. Their minds and hearts were prepared by the writings of Raffi, Khrimian Hayrig, and many others. These great men had instilled the patriotic movement of fighting for self-defense, along with the political parties that supplied the guns and training to our young civilian Vanetsi heroes.”
While on the pilgrimage to historic, barren Armenia in 2010, Jacobs prayed for the souls of her family in Kharpert and the village of Goms, the birthplaces of her parents.
In reviewing the landscape that was once the proud city of Van, and after “seeing the rugged terrain that was in Vasbouragan, one could understand and appreciate the difficulties the Armenians encountered while trying to defend the city and villages,” she said. “It was truly a ‘Herosamard,’ or the battle of the heroes.”
As a fluent linguist in her native Armenian, French, and Spanish, Jacobs recognizes the need to educate young Armenians that “our people had no army, no government to guide and protect them. The defense of Van was a self-defense against the Turkish military. And these ordinary people saved thousands of lives. Those of us here today and in the diaspora are the descendants of the Herosamard. We need to tell the story how people rallied to save Van from Turkey’s plan to massacre Van’s survivors before the Russian army came to their rescue.”
At the closing of her address, Jacobs also emphasized that Van served as the birthplace of “the ancient state and civilization of Urartu. “We Vanetsis have been around for centuries. This organization will keep that in focus. If we forget our past, how can we look to the future?”
Jacobs is currently a teacher for the ARS language program in Detroit, and with area adult education classes. She is in the final editing stage of a grammar book designed to teach the Armenian language. She’s also preparing CD’s to teach conversational Armenian to high school students and adults.
Motion picture director Hrayr Toukhanian, the producer of the docu-drama “Assignment Berlin,” filmed segments of the Herosamard Celebration for posting on the Muse Pictures and Vasbouragan websites.
Community activist Paul Bardizbanian, the chairman of the Detroit Vanetsi Chapter, applauded Jacobs for focusing on the future while honoring the past, when ordinary people stood up to repulse the Turkish army.
He closed the program by calling on the audience to “salute our senior Vanetsi member, 97-year-old Oghig Mooradian, a survivor of the genocide.”
In return, the smiling sprightly Oghig snapped a military salute to her fellow Vanetsis declaring, “We won. We survived.”
Mitch Kehetian
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We salute our courageous Vanetzis and cannot and will not forget.