DIYARBAKIR, Turkey—A major exhibition displaying Diyarbakir’s former multi-cultural character will open Jan. 14 at the “Sumerpark Amed” Art Gallery in Diyarbakir.
Created by Osman Koker of Birzamanlar Yayincilik, the exhibition is titled “Cultural Diversity in Old Diyarbakir” and reunites the lost peoples of Diyarbakir with the new inhabitants of the city through more than 200 photos from the early 20th century. The photographs show scenes from daily life as well as the physical architecture of those days.
Data from researchers and travelers show that at the beginning of the 20th century, the population of the city was about 35,000, half of which were non-Muslim. In addition to the largest group of Apostolic Armenians, the communities included Syriacs, Chaldeans, Catholic and Protestant Armenians, Orthodox and Catholic Greeks, and Yezidis. Documents show that the non-Muslim groups had a strong say in the economic life of the city. The 1914 edition of Annuaire Oriental, for example, shows that all 12 jewelry firms, 10 of 11 stonemasons, all 9 copper traders, all 10 firms producing silk fabric, and 29 of the 38 merchants dealing in cotton, gallnut, silk, grains, and wool were Armenian. Catholic and Protestant schools existed alongside Armenian and Syriac ones; newspapers were published in Armenian; and various theatre companies, and Armenian and Syriac bands attested to the colorful life of the city.
Prepared in Turkish, Kurdish, and English, the exhibition will open on Sat., Jan. 14 at 4 p.m., and remain open until Feb. 7.
The Metropolitan Municipality of Diyarbakir, in collaboration with Birzamanlar Yayincilik, Anadolu Kultur, and Global Dialogue, are sponsoring the exhibition.
From the Poetry Collections: ” A Poetic Soul ShIned of Genocides” , 2008
page18
Genocide Victims in My Family in Diyarbakir
The story of our family. My grandfather, Mihran Dabbaghian (head of the customs department), left for work and was never to be seen again. His uncle, Garabed Dabbaghian, famous lawyer/judge, given the short name Natick Effendi (“Mr. Speaker” in Turkish)—he and all his extended family where slaughtered in Diyarbakir. We still have the official papers that state we are owners of many lands in Diyarbakir.
Other related families are the Abrahamian (changed their surname to Sabri to save their life—we recently discovered that their real surname name was Abrahamian before the massacres of 1915), Chilingirian, Kazandjian, Ouzounian, Misakian, and Simsarian* (owners of silk factory in Diyarbakir).
My granduncle’s wife, Katrina, the only survivor from Yousif Karagulla’s family (feudal lord in Mardin), had a brother, Numan Karagulla, who was graduated from the medical school Harvard or John Hopkins (1905?), and married to an American woman named Stella. They raped his wife in front of him then slaughtered him, his wife, and their son Philip. The genocide survivors are American citizens. There are endless stories, so which one to tell?
My father’s family in Baghdad never experienced the same situation. However, in Turkey, his two cousins (from the Ohanessian family) who were medical students in Vienna (Austria) vanished when they came home in April to Diyarbakir for the Easter holiday.
page 23, also from Diyarbakir
Hovanes Ouzounian: My grandmother’s brother-in-law. He was a merchant, surviving by his intellectual ability till the last part of the massacres. At the end, when he saw all relatives massacred they advised him to change his religion to become Muslim. When he decided to convert, the Turkish authority refused because his wife, Gadhar, could no conceive. He decided to adopt my elder uncle Khosrof, to be his son so that his conversion to Islam would be accepted. He then came to Mosul (Nineveh) north of Iraq, and opened a wine factory (Hadba Wine Co. sometime in the 1920s). The factory continued production till it was closed in the year 1964.
The Turkish fatwa or legal opinion at that time indicates that even if you want to change your religion, you cannot do so if you do not have an offspring. At the end, many Armenians started to become Muslims, but some were not accepted unless they give their daughters, sisters to marry the governor’s son or to become a second wife. It was well-known that Armenian girls where pretty, educated and said to be good homemakers. When their kin refused, they where deported or killed.
Sylva Portoian, MD
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* I have small piece of silk cloth from Samsarian’s Silk Factory…My mother’s aunt left late, she was able to carry with her. i remember her large wedding box where she use to put her jewels and cloths (bukhcha).
My Childhood Genocide Stories Heard from Granny
My childhood stories
Is another horrific type,
Repeated in my ears
Listen, yet, of dawn till dusk.
Real, actual, factual stories,
Not fictions and dreams,
Not about Cinderella,
Neither about queens nor kings.
Seen and heard endlessly
Almost every day,
In many seasons,
With desolate ends to say,
Throbbing in minds,
Cannot be vanished yet
By only one, say,
“Was this a grant,
For the genuine prayers,
Asking their saints
To keep them alive,
Even just for days?”
The stories were about
How they left their land,
What they had in hand,
How their men stabbed,
Vanished, disappeared,
How people avoided to
Help their countrymen.
Since they were different
Ethnically, culturally,
Not to forget their known faith,
Had shrines before their date.
Before the genocide,
They were very human.
How they changed overnight,
Killing the unarmed
In senseless countless sums.
Those who slashed the unborn out,
Continued slaughtering young lads!
How they crushed the skulls!
How they insulted merciful faith round!
Forcing us to change.
To follow their faith.
These horrible stories,
How we can forget?
Impregnated in our minds
Since childhood, remained.
We kept dreaming,
Devils and dead ends.
Now we are getting old;
We understand the souls.
Surely more in sour,
How unlucky ancestors
Died in unforeseen horror!
Hairs on our skin cannot bend,
Tremors in our hearts can’t rest.
We cannot feel, safe to berth,
All childhood, nice dreams tearfully left.
Fears entered,
Cannot be repelled;
That was real stories
Long left unspelled!
Sylva-MD-Poetry
I am Armenian and I’m reading “The Thirty-Year Genocide.” In it I found out more about the atrocities of Bursa (where my father’s family was from) and Diyarbekir (where my mother’s family was from)
Thank you for your post and poetry.