Six years ago, when Publish America agreed to print Giants of the Earth, it culminated a personal project that took me on a 1969 mission into Turkish-occupied Western Armenia in search of an aunt lost in the 1915-23 genocide.
It was a mission of tragedy knowing that just 50 years earlier historic Armenia had been under the assault of the genocide-driven Ottoman-Turkish government.
My aunt died six years before I prayed at her mountaintop gravesite in Keghi province, overlooking a tributary of the Euphrates River.
While encouraged to complete the memoir that remained unfinished after nearly four decades, it was at the urging of my late cousin, Rev. Vartan Kassabian, that I was inspired to complete the dormant project into published book format for future family generations.
When the Baltimore publishing firm was absorbed last year by America Star Books, the 160-page memoir was temporarily shelved by the new company until recently. Thanks to the new publishing outlet, Giants of the Earth was placed on its online bookstore, citing generated public awareness and global interest in the 100th observance of the Armenian Genocide.
The genocide issue was addressed by Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church along with many world leaders who called on Turkey to recognize the Ottoman-Turkish genocide that resulted in the massacre of more than 1.5 million Armenians.
My mission took me to Sepastia, Erzerum, Lake Van, Bitlis, Moush, Bingol, Keghi, Khoops, Malayta, and Kharpert, and through the Pontic-Manzur mountains and across the Mourad River.
With the help of Kerrin Wuchter, a special services coordinator at Star Books, interested readers can now acquire Giants of the Earth by visiting http://www.americastarbooks.net/9781615820009.html.
In addition to Kerrin’s assistance, my longtime friend Hrayr Toukhanian, the noted film director and producer of “Assignment Berlin,” a docu-drama on the assassination of Talat Pasha, regrouped my previously produced 32-minute video encompassing my mission into barren Western Armenia. Without the support of Star Books Publishing and Toukhanian, this renewed project would not have seen the light of day. The abridged video can be viewed by going online to restored linkage: https://youtu.be/AiNDannZYRU
Hrayr’s film features the assassination of the despot Turkish Minister of the Interior Talat Pasha. It premiered here in 1982 at the Masonic Temple—focusing on the ARF’s assignment to Soghomon Tehlirian that he kill the mastermind of the Armenian Genocide. Avenger Tehlirian gunned Talat down on the streets of Berlin on March 17, 1921.
The 1982 produced movie on the killing of Talat was the first to show the story to public audiences on the silver screen and later developed as a full-length video.
The entire filming and production of “Assignment Berlin” took place in Detroit.
Notables who have read Giants of the Earth and praised it include University of Michigan Professor Dennis Papazian, a former national grand commander of the Knights of Vartan; John Evans, former ambassador to Armenia; and U.S. Senator Carl Levin. In a speech on the Senate floor, the Michigan senator said that anyone who denies that Ottoman Turkey carried out a genocide “should read Giants of the Earth. It was genocide.”
Mitch Kehetian is a retired editor of the Macomb Daily and former board trustee at Central Michigan University.
Mitch Kehetian
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- Telling Tehlirian’s Story: ‘Assignment Berlin’ Director Hrayr Toukhanian Honored - December 5, 2016
I wrote a short story that includes reincarnation, dark humor, and a nexus to the Armenian genocide. This story is the second in my book “The Black Knight’s God: Horror Anthology {PublishAmerica, 2006}. If anyone could help me to get this story made into a cartoon, I will in your debt.