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Raffi Bedrosyan

Raffi Bedrosyan

Raffi Bedrosyan is a civil engineer, writer and a concert pianist, living in Toronto. Proceeds from his concerts and CDs have been donated to the construction of school, highways, and water and gas distribution projects in Armenia and Karabakh—projects in which he has also participated as a voluntary engineer. Bedrosyan was involved in organizing the Surp Giragos Diyarbakir/Dikranagerd Church reconstruction project. His many articles in English, Armenian and Turkish media deal with Turkish-Armenian issues, Islamized hidden Armenians and history of thousands of churches left behind in Turkey. He gave the first piano concert in the Surp Giragos Church since 1915, and again during the 2015 Genocide Centenary Commemoration. He is the founder of Project Rebirth, which helps Islamized Armenians return to their original Armenian roots, language and culture. He is the author of the book "Trauma and Resilience: Armenians in Turkey - hidden, not hidden, no longer hidden."
Raffi Bedrosyan

Latest posts by Raffi Bedrosyan (see all)

38 Comments

  1. nobody is preventing armenians from living in turkey. and armenians have a country to call their own, which they had not before 1915. so i am confused as to what needs to be returned? what losses are you actually claiming here, 2000 year old churches?

    • Theox before 1915 there was a large Armenian, Greek and Assyrian population living in Anatolia itself, under Turkish occupation, that had lived there for nearly 3k years way before any Seljuk Turks came in 1070.. These peoples had land, wealth, livestock, businesses, schools, churches etc. In 1915, a plan was implemented by the Young Turk regime and ALL WAS TAKEN AND BASICALLY STOLEN, THROUGH FORCEFUL DEPORTATION WHERE BY THE MAJORITY WAS OUTRIGHT MURDERED..The purpose of this crime was theft. The denial of this crime is to avoid the return of the lands and the wealth that was stolen..

      I STILL HAVE DEEDS TO THOUSANDS OF ACRES OF LAND STOLEN BY TURKS. THAT’S WHAT WE ARE ALL TALKING ABOUT..

    • “nobody is preventing armenians from living in turkey.”

      Actually Ottoman and CUP Turks prevented Armenians not only living in their own country, Western Armenia, but Turks prevented Armenians from living anywhere at all – by exterminating approximately 2 million of them.

      And you need to work on your confusion: obviously you have access to the web. You can deprogram yourself from the warped word view you received from your Turkish Ministry of (mis)Education.

    • Did you read the article? or do you pretend not to understand the meaning of the legislations passed by the Parliament in Ankara? If you claim not to understand the meaning, then why did your government found it very important to seal the ‘armenian case’ with legislations, and banning armenian from returning to their homelands……
      You say that none is preventing Armenians to living in Turkey, well what do you think would be the reaction of the people of Zeitun, my grandfather’s town, in Cilicia, if I decide to settle there, claiming what is rightfully mine?
      So please be serious in your response, and think before getting angry. Whatever solution , if ever, comes between Turkey and Armenia, should be based on Universal Human Rights and respect. There are surely myriads of problems, issues that need to be solved, before we can sit around a table, you and me, drinking sweet wind and eating kebab, singing and enjoying God’s gifts…. It all starts with good intentions….

    • theox,

      What is your definition of a loss and compensation?

      Even the Turkish presidential palace at Cankaya is stolen Armenian property. Its rightful owners, an Armenian businessman and his family, were dispossessed in Turkish style and perished during the Armenian Genocide. How did you think the property ended up in Turkish hands? You thought it was purchased in fair trade? Or do you think it’s not a loss for the family who owned it? Or do you think anything Armenians have created or own is automatically a Turkish possession?

      What losses are we talking about? All losses. They don’t start or end with ancient churches. Thousands of businesses, lands, farms, orchards, houses, financial assets, not to mention the loss of human life. Are you sure you are confused? I think you should be ashamed instead.

      “and armenians have a country to call their own, which they had not before 1915. so i am confused as to what needs to be returned?”

      What’s confusing is this sentence of yours. If we have a country then nothing was stolen from us? Or did YOU gift us our country? It exists despite all the odds, despite all the efforts to annihilate the Armenian nation. Please explain how one can view current Armenia as compensation by Turks for Turkish theft and murders.

  2. Theox,

    If the Turkish government can go around the world claiming 2,000 year old Greek and Roman antiquities, it should be prepared to disgorge its ill gotten gains.

    Raffi,

    Thank you for this well written and highly informative piece.

  3. Thank you Raffi for this informative piece. I hope to see many claims for return of assets generated.

  4. “” When the Armenian communities raised funds worldwide to restore the Surp Giragos Church in Diyarbakir as a working church, the Turkish state refused to provide any funding.””

    Your article is flawed in may ways.I know for a fact that the Diyarbakir council provided more than a million dollars for the renovation. Is the Diyarbakir council not part of Turkey? How did they provide this money if they didn’t have a budged allocated from the state budget? I can criticize so many things that’s why you do not stand any chance in your claim

  5. the ox,

    you mean if tomorrow I return to Kars where my grandparents-built house still stands and re-claim all that’s been stolen by the Turks—the house, the nearby backyard where my grandfather tilled the soil, our personal properties inside the house all left in haste before genocidal Turks arrived, bank accounts, etc. Turkey will not prevent me from living in it?

    What if 8 million Diasporan Armenians someday return to their ancestral provinces of Van, Erzrum, Kharberd, Bitlis, Digranakerd (Diyarbekir) and Sebastia (Sivas), where their ancestors were mass murdered and deported from, will Turkey not prevent them from living in them?

    • “What if 8 million Diasporan Armenians someday return to their ancestral provinces..”

      Can somebody help with the math?
      If the Ottoman Empire had an estimated Armenian population between 1.6-2 million (according to the 1912 estimates by Toynbee) and an estimated 1.5 million were victims of genocide, how does one arrive at 8 million direct decedents in 2012?

    • Zeki,

      When you do the math and find out how population in Turkey from 13.6 million (1927) can skyrocket to 74.7 (2011), you will not need anyone to help you with the math to calculate the increase of diasporan Armenian population. By diasporan Armenians, I mean Armenians who survived the Hamidian massacres and genocide by Ottoman Turks and built a new life in the countries that accepted and sheltered them.

  6. Rafi Bedrosian has taken pains and prepared in an essay format the LIST of near all,or even probably all real estate, riches confiscated by the Ottoman turkey and then legalized(sort of) by successor govt.s of the Ottoman Turkey.
    However, there are some other issues involved much more important-this is my view-I respect his and /or others.
    1. Armenians should first of all DEMANDE BLOOD MONEY FOR THE 1.5

  7. I don´t know why all of sa sudden my above post was interrupted!!!!
    May I go on please?1.5 million of our ancestors put to death ,whether killed/murdered in their habitats and/or like my grandfather and uncle ON DEATH MARCH TOWARDS THE SYRIAN DESERTS.
    for this has precedent(the jewish one,as well as claims by Armenianattorneys,namely Vartges Yeghiayan from New York Life and AXA insuracne companies) .Latter though very small compared to the main above 1.5 million lives destroyed indeed but a PRECEDENT, nonetheless,as the Jewish one.
    As rgds land Real estate -that includes not omnly personal properties by public Armenian asssets such as Churhces monasteries ,schools and hospitals,these will -in my view-divert MAIN ABOVE BLOOD MONEY ISSUE.I shall explain why. Firstly most of those have been totally erased from face of the earth only one percent or even less standing(meaning the churches monasteries etc.,9 some schools or hospitals either altered into other public buildings or else destroyed .
    More importantly Armenians -unfortunately did not live in Western Armenia(Anatolia) in specifically concentrated areas,but dispersed rather quite widely.Take a look at the map that shows where they were located in red dots where the killings took place. One reason why when such a debate is started with turks and they are cornered,they will say O.K. come and resettle there.
    Something we should never agree to,since they imagine this ,nay they MEAN THIS to be under their sovereignty-Flag so to say.No we do not wish to be submitted to yet another GENOCIDE.Consider-and please don´t forget what happend only WEEKS AGO IN TAKSIM SQUARE IN ISTANBULLA!!!!
    Moreover,never forget that on most of those lands now some ,anywhere from 14 to 16 million Kurds(previously dubbed by Turkey as ¨mountain turks¨¨ are well rooted. Impossible to throw them into Black sea or Mediterranea -so to say- They ar e there and Armenians must come to terms ABOVE ALL WITH KURDS IN bELIUM OR ANY OTHER country where they have their parliament or supreme Council in Diaspora.
    Turkey,rather great Turkey-made so by ¨allies¨ will only give in when we Armenians have mustered REAL CLOUT AND AS ONE ENTITY ,half in Homeland and half in Diaspora Lodge our Cliams at ICJ and other int´l instances, such as U.N. etc., that also well concerted with the K u r d s.
    We cannot expect them to budge unless we show BOTH HUMAN AND M A T E R I A L Strength(resources).Otherwise they will like in the past see us as a Fragmented lot dispersed all over the world without head or tail,SO TO SAY
    A non entity,sorry to say.
    thence WE MUST SERIOUSLY THINK ,DECIDE AND REALIZE OUR :-
    Diaspora Supreme Council and this RECOGNIZED BY gOVT. OF ARMENIA as Li Irav (full fledged) PARTNER,WITHOUT ANY FEAR OR HESITATION.
    Why should Armenia fear to declare that WE CONSIDER AND APPROVE OF THIS SUPREME COUNCIL OF THE ARMENIAN DIASPORA as such????
    I shall gladly go on for further info,but please reaad my few last months articles in ……www.armeniannews.info……. wherein I ahve detailed my Theses which is not new,have developed re developed many a time over.
    Have my friends still there in Beirut and Paris…
    best to my dear compatriots,who care really wish for AMALGAMATION, COOPERATION , RE-ORGANIZATION and not make do with present status quo.

  8. “The murdered people cannot be reclaimed nor returned. ”

    Regarding the above sentence,please see mr. H. Sassounian’s article ‘Two Faces of Turkey: Veneer of Gentility Masking Ruthlessness’:
    http://armenianweekly.com/2012/04/17/two-faces-of-turkey-veneer-of-gentility-masking-ruthlessness/#comments

    “Not counting the value of the properties, lands, and other assets confiscated from Armenian victims of the genocide, Garapedian assessed as $15 billion the restitution value of the 1.5 million Armenians who had perished.Her estimate is based on Germany’s $60 billion restitution payment since 1952 for the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. ‘

  9. Yes – it was alot more than a few churches. As indigenous inhabitants, more than 2 million Armenians lived in Anatolia/ancient Armenia since well before pre-history – at least 4000 years, but likely even more. Their claims on the land were and are, deep and historic. They owned, farmed and cultivated vast tracts of Anatolia, not just small dots here and there, and produced all the food for the empire for a millenium. The ‘Turks’ sat on Armenia like an octopus and directed a military, imperial force that lived off the labor of the conquered peoples, while doing none of the work themselves. That was their contribution…to feed and grow wealthy from those who lived under their tentacles. Their subjects did everything for them, including designing and building some of the most amazing and beautiful buildings in the world, like the Blue Mosque…as well as palaces, like the Dolmabache. It’s high time for Turkey to recognize the contributions made to the country by its Armenian citizens, and return to them what rightfully belongs to them, as part of the apology they will make for conducting a horrific campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing that led to the destruction of an entire people – on their own land.

  10. about blood money;

    i find it wrong to actually set a value to lives of people

    moreover,
    because of all the deaths, if you consider the potential and the actual cultural and other types of information lost – to which it is very difficullt, practiically impossible to set a value on….

  11. I do not find anything wrong with the blood money.Every penny will help my nation & survival.

    • alright then…go ahead, set a dollar figure on your murdered grandparents and relatives

      how much ?

    • Blood money is OUR RIGHT, is a weapon & means, which cannot absolutely be set aside.Jews did not lose A HOMELAND.Value can always be decided at the proper time.

    • what does homeland have to do with blood money ?
      blood money is given for people murdered, not for homelands

      do you consider the historic homeland gone, so you want it’s value’s worth ?

      by the way, what i am discussing is completely different than all those losses that Raffi talks about in his article – those are pretty much automatic

      additional compensations must be made
      but, i think most people want compensations for the wrong things

    • What is your point LNG?Argument for argument’s sake or discussion to come into an understanding?
      Yes & of course Western Armenia homeland is gone.What else?
      I claim not only blood money but GENOCIDE BLOOD MONEY.

  12. LNG,
    Please…before you post/write,see what others have commented on above article.And I refer to Vtiger( just above another and then his.
    Wherein he quotes Garapedian , who has assessed that Jews since 1952 have received 60 billion dollars…

  13. In 1969, the United States landed on the Moon, which is an Armenian property. The USA should give it back to its sole owners.

  14. Zeki
    Who cares what you say!! This is the Armenian universe and welcome to the club

  15. Zeki,

    Do Turks like you know such a thing as natural progression? Can you in turn help me with the math? If 2-2.5 million Armenians (the Armenian Patriarchate estimate) were living on their ancestral lands for thousands of years before 1915 and now only 60,000 survive, what in your Turkish view could have happened to these native people? Also, if Armenians were left untouched, what approximate number could live in a modern-day Turkey after almost 100 years? For this you’d first need to educate yourself on natural progression as well as familiarize yourself with the savage barbarity of your Ottoman predecessors.

    • Well said Ani:

      In case Turkish Ministry of misEducation has failed yet another one their students, below I provide various estimates – as a public service to our dear Turkish guests.

      Armenian Population Growth Estimates

      Starting Year: 1895 (when 300,000 Armenians were massacred)
      Ending Year: 2011
      Starting Population: 2 million (the number that were exterminated in total)

      Population Growth Rate: 3%
      Ending Population: 61 million

      Population Growth Rate: 2.5%
      Ending Population: 35 million

      Population Growth Rate: 2%
      Ending Population: 20 million

      Population Growth Rate: 1.5%
      Ending Population: 11 million

      NOTE: the following Natural population growth rates are for Armenia SSR.
      Year 1960: 3.56%
      Year 1970: 2.49%
      Year 1980: 1.68%
      Year 1987: 1.78%

      The growth rate fell sharply after 1987 and went negative: we all know why.
      It has slowly started recovering since then.

      Year 2010: 0.23%

      Clearly, if left undisturbed, the approximately 2 million Armenians that Ottoman and CUP Turks exterminated (1895-1923), would have naturally grown to anywhere from 10 million to up to 60 million MORE Armenians in the world.

    • Ani, natural progression or inflation is what I’m trying to work out. Where did you extract the 2.5m population figure from? Even Kevorkian and Paboudjian (1992) estimates of 1,914,620 are considered at the upper end. Then factoring in genocide of 1.5m that leaves a population of 414,620. Calculating natural progress of this population between 1918 and 2012 provides estimates of diaspora of 1.7m (1.5% population growth) or 4.2m (2.5% population growth). Even at phenomenally high growth rates of 2.5% (which is equivalent African rates growth rates i.e. on average 5 children per family), that falls far short of your 8m decendents from the Ottoman empire?

  16. Dear Ani,
    There is -so far – no Armenian unanimous wish /desire to FORM, Reform into one Entity.And as long as we do not learn to cooperate, we shall have to endure such empty ,rather veno,mous remarks by turks or rather turco azeris..
    I was a bit relieved few mintues ago when on one of Armenia T.v. channels (Epi ketron or Ketron , the newscast quote as Iran claiming( they are beginning to counter-act as to Israeli-Azeri alliance and latter getting weapons from Israel…that and I quote¨¨THERE ARE CLOSE TO HALF MILLION IRANIANS OF TALISH ORIGIN WITHIN AZERBAIJAN,NEXT TO IRAN AND THEY MIGHT BE GRANTED IRANIAN CITIZENSHIP by us¨¨¨
    tHIS SORT OF DIPLOMACY IS WHAT MAKES ONE PROUD OF HAVING DIPLOMATS…

  17. When the Seljuks first arrived in Anatolia/Armenia, the vast majority of the population was entirely native Armenian. They interacted with these natives, saw their amazing buildings and churches, and decided to hire them to build mosques and turbes for their own use. WIthin 100 years, virtually every Seljuk had Armenian blood. There is no other way. The tradition of taking non-Turkish brides continued among the general population and amongst the ruling elite, including the sultans. Over the course of time, many Armenians converted and blended in with their new rulers. The ones who clung to an Armenia identity after 1000 years of Turkish rule were undoubtedly a rather steadfast bunch. The people who decided to destroy them had nothing to do with Anatolia or the original Turks who arrived long ago. Their goal was theft, pure and simple – of land, of buildings and of wealth. They even sent much of it out of the country for safekeeping. So, while human beings are irreplacable, at the very least, Armenians should be returned the property and the financial assets that were stolen. If there is ever going to be a change in attitudes, this is essential and would would be a good way to start.

  18. Turkification? Sure. Same way any nation a century or more ago tried to consolidate their presence against others, and lets be honest, there were many “others”. Same way Armenians have “Armenized” what they call their ancestoral lands at some point or other, ask Azeris. Problem is someone forgot to tell them this is a new century.

    • Ask your Seljuk Turk ancestors. Where were they before they invaded in 1000 A.D. ?

      Ask Azeris ? What is an Azeri ? Turkic tibes that had invaded Caucasus from East and Central Asia were simply known as Tatars or Muslims before 1918. They came up with the ingenuous idea of stealing the name of Northern Iranian province Azarbaijan to create a fake history that they had been there all along.

      Same fake history manufacturing process of claiming Armenian churches and Khachkars were created by their imagined Christian ancestors is in full bloom today.
      Apparently they forgot that their fictitious Christian ancestors had created Nakhichevan’s Khachkars when they destroyed all 10,000 of them.

  19. Please read…Meanwhile the Turkish General Staff Archives for Military History and the Strategic Studies Center (ATASE) are still closed… & Turks claim that their archives are open.

    Army reveals documents from 1938 massacre
    ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News
    The Turkish General staff has handed over some 10,650 documents to the Dersim sub-committee of Parliament, which is investigating the violent massacre against Alevi rebels in the eastern province of Tunceli (formerly known as Dersim) that occurred between 1936 and 1939 and resulted in the death of 13,800.

    The sub-commission currently possesses 20,000 documents in total, including a document which affirms that rebels succeeded in crashing one out of 15 war planes sent to the region.

    The documents also revealed that the Turkish army launched a black propaganda campaign against Seyit Rıza, the leader of the uprising and chief of a Zaza tribe in the region. Among other things, the campaign claimed that he was uncircumcised, and also tried to dissuade support from the rebel leader by convincing the public that he was originally Armenian.

    “Prisoners who were sent to western provinces will be executed and the uncircumcised boys will be given Armenian names and banished to Christian countries. Unmarried girls of Tunceli will be married to Turkish men and Turkish girls will be married to the men of Tunceli. People of Tunceli will be replaced in the following spring month. The fact that hanged Seyit Rıza was uncircumcised would look unpleasant in the eyes of the public and that has become an inspiration and propaganda material for opportunists…” read one of the documents issued on Dec. 30, 1937.

    Another document issued on Sep 11, 1937, said Rıza had surrendered with his two abettors to the military officials. The document said Rıza was exhausted the day he surrendered and demanded to testify the following day.

    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/army-reveals-documents-from-1938-massacre.aspx?pageID=238&nID=19115&NewsCatID=338

  20. Murat:

    The difference being that some nations, like Armenians–are largely believed to be indigenous, autochthonous to the particular habitat, while others—like Turks and TurkoAzeris, are proven aliens. If you think we’re wrong, show us any trace of Turkish presence in Asia Minor before the Battle of Manzikert of 1071 fought by the invading Seljuk nomads.

    Re: Azeris, it is ridiculous even to raise an issue of any existence of such a nation before 1918.

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