The Native of Tigranakert

He was thought to be a bad man, because he quarreled with his wife and fought with his neighbors and at work. People were afraid of him. When he came home from work, anyone who was outside in the neighborhood ran home. They knew that he had a bad temper and thought he was a drunkard. Anything — a small gesture, an insignificant word, a look in somebody’s eyes — could drive him crazy and he would start a fight.

Of course, they were afraid. He was tall and had immense strength, which wasn’t always controlled. He was a kind of ancient hero, or rather, an anti-hero in most people’s eyes. They thought he was bad, even evil. But it was not so. They just hadn’t seen him at nights, drinking and sobbing in an old, sad melody. They didn’t know his tragedy — and his whole life was a tragedy. 

One might ask why he was crying. Why, indeed? What personal tragedy had he suffered to cry this way? Was it personal? 

It was the pain of a whole nation flowing out of him at nights, a nation killed, robbed, raped and driven out of its native lands. It was the pain of millions of orphans, widows and parents, displaced and scattered across the world to become migrants their whole lives. He had suffered both national and personal tragedies. 

He was middle-aged, but it was the 10-year old boy inside him who cried, the boy who had himself buried his family members in their garden. 

This is the story of Tigran, my husband’s grandfather, a genocide survivor. 

***

He was trembling from head to foot, trembling from pain, from rage, from shock, while digging tombs for his family members. He would tremble thus only once in his later life — from excitement, when his aunt, his only surviving relative, would find him a few years later.  

He was digging and crying for his family. He had seen his pregnant sister killed, he had seen his… he had seen everyone. Only he and his cousin had survived, because they had managed  to hide from Turks under the dead bodies.

Before burying them, the cousins kneeled down to kiss them, to close their scared eyes and to say goodbye. Then, the two orphans wiped their eyes and left, forever closing their garden door. 

On the way to the unknown, they met some Kurdish people. The latter offered that the two orphans stay with them. Tigran stayed. His cousin, the elder, continued his way. They parted there. What happened to Tigran’s cousin is unknown. 

As for Tigran, he would be tossed from one place to another. 

First, he was adopted by a Kurdish man and stayed with him for a couple of years, almost forgetting his mother tongue. 

Later, when the first wave of the genocide in Tigranakert ended, Armenian adult survivors started to seek with ransom Armenian orphans, adopted or taken as servants by non-Turkish Muslims.

His aunt, learning of his whereabouts, came to the Kurdish man who had adopted him. He denied that his adoptee was Armenian. His aunt brought the Quran and bade the man to swear it was true but he could not. She put a gold coin in his hand and took Tigran with her back to Tigranakert.

We cannot know how difficult it was for Tigran to return to his home city — to the place where his whole family was killed. There were few Armenians left, and they used Muslim names to hide their true identities and save their lives. 

Soon after, the persecutions resumed. Tigran was thrown into jail but managed to escape, along with other Armenian refugees, and made his way to Syria. But before leaving, he killed a few Turks — whether as an act of revenge or self-defense, we don’t know.

In Syria, he married a 14-year-old Armenian girl named Ovsanna. A few years later, they moved to Iraq looking for construction jobs. They first reached northern Iraq and then Baghdad, living in the tents of an Armenian camp with other genocide survivors. Several years later, the Iraqi government allowed them to build houses. As it was a small plot of land, five or six families had to share a house, each owning only a room. By that time, Tigran had five children: four sons and a daughter. In that one room, they barely made ends meet. 

***

When asked what his surname was, he answered Tashchyan, because the men in his family had been ‘tashchi’ (stonemasons). He was a stonemason and a builder, like his grandfather, father and uncles. 

His forebears had been well-off, with a large farm and house, fields, trees and herds. They were self-sufficient and never harmed others. Their family had been large, with many children whose lively playing stopped only at night. 

Tigran lived with these memories all his life, remembering his family, their house, their garden and the happy years of his childhood. He would drink at night to bury the pain of his heart, not finding peace until his death. 

Unfortunately, the last years of Tigran’s life were sad, like his destiny in general. In his fifties, he was attacked by a group of Iraqi Turks who worked with him, due to ethnic hatred. From behind, they struck him with a metal stick, leaving him permanently blind. His sons would travel to Iran to retrieve a special remedy, but that stopped once relations between Iran and Iraq worsened.   

Tigran Tashchyan died at the age of 82 in Iraq. His children lived most of their lives in Iraq, and some of the grandchildren a part of their lives, but after the wars in 1980 and 2003, they left the country. Most of Tigran’s descendants live in America now, some in Europe and a couple remain in Iraq. Only one grandson moved to the Republic of Armenia after 29 years in Iraq and 15 years in America. 

***

This article was originally published in Armenian at Granish.

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Ani Toroyan

Ani Toroyan is a translator based in Armenia. She has a master’s degree in English language and literature and has published a few book translations in both Armenian and English. Yet the most important thing she has done is starting Hrayrq, a dance group in Gyumri with a group of friends, to spread knowledge of Armenian folk (ethnographic) dances and preserve our cultural heritage.

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• The Native of Tigranakert - January 14, 2025