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The Ancient Land of Armenag
Story of an Armenian Girl (Part one)
by Serpouhi Tavoukdjian
Armenia is my country, though I must
acknowledge Turkey as my birthplace. In ancient times Armenia
occupied the vast territory in Western Asia between the Black
and Caspian Seas, south of the Caucasus Mountains, and east of
the Mediterranean. Within its boundaries were the sources of the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, also Mr. Ararat, on which the ark
rested after the flood. According to tradition this was the site
of the garden of Eden.
But through the years, Armenia has been a
mere pawn on the chessboard of the nations. Its fertile lands
have been seized as spoil of ruthless warfare or deliberately
stolen. Its cities have been ravished, its villages destroyed,
and its peaceful, industrious people heartlessly massacred.
Today it is only a small land containing about 31,000 square
miles, has no seaport, and is financed and controlled by Soviet
Russia, though known to the world as the S. S. Republic of
Armenia.
Ancient Armenia was the center of one of the
oldest civilizations in the world. Its people were of the Aryan
race and pure Caucasian blood. Their origin is lost in the mists
of antiquity, but according to their own tradition, they are
descendants of Togarmah, a grandson of Japheth, who settled in
that locality after the ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat.
This is the way the story goes: About 2,300
years before Christ, Haig, the son of Togarmah, went with the
rest of the descendants of Noah to find a new home for himself
and his posterity in the country of Shinar. Here the people, for
fear of another flood, attempted to build the tower of Babel.
Haig and his sons distinguished themselves by their wisdom in
planning, and by their diligent work in the building of this
tower. But when image or idol worship began to be practiced
among their brethren, this was repulsive to them, and therefore
they left the plains of Shinar and returned to the home of their
nativity, the land around Mt. Ararat.
Belus, the leader in idolatry in Shinar,
when he learned that Haig and his large family had withdrawn
from his authority, pursued them with a large force of armed
men. Haig, hearing of the proposed attack, mustered all the male
members of his family who were able to fight and all other who
were willing to cast their lot with him, armed them as best he
was able, and set out to meet the enemy.
He charged his little army to attack that
part of the enemy's force where Belus commanded in person.
"For," said he, "if we succeed in discomfiting
that part of the army, the victory is ours. Should we, however,
be unsuccessful in our attempt, let us never survive the misery
and disgrace of defeat, but rather perish, sword in hand,
defending the best and dearest right of reasonable creature-our
liberty."
The battle was joined. After a bloody
conflict, Belus fell by an arrow discharged by Haig, and soon
his army was dispersed. Thus the Armenians fought their first
battle for freedom of conscience. Among their own people, they
call themselves after this hero, Haigs (Haiks), and their
country Haiasdan (Hayastan). Haig, when he died, was succeeded
by his son, Armenag, and it is though that the name Armenia came
from this prince.
In the earliest days of recorded history,
the Armenians occupied this same territory. Xenophon describes
their manners and customs. The Bible mentions that the sons of
Sennacherib escaped "into the land of Armenia."
Ezekiel also refers to the land of Armenia under the name of
Togarmah, as furnishing Tyre with horses and mules. And the
"kingdoms of Ararat" were among the nations summoned
by Jeremiah to aid in the destruction of Babylon.
Tradition says that Christianity was
preached in Armenia early in the first century by the apostles
Thaddæus and Bartholomew; also that their king Abgar held
communication with Jesus Christ. But it is a historic fact that
in 303 A.D. their king, Tridates, and the whole nation became
known as Christian under the preaching of ST. Gregory, called
"The Illuminator." The Armenian Church is thus one of
the oldest Christian churches in the world.
As a Christian nation surrounded by heathen
nations, the Armenians have for twenty centuries been almost
constantly under persecution-in earliest days from the Persian
fire worshipers and in later days from the Mohammedans. Their
country has been invaded successively by the caliphs of Baghdad,
the sultans of Egypt, the khans of Tartary, the shahs of Persia,
and the Ottoman Turks. All these invasions have been accompanied
by fierce persecution and great suffering. But the Armenian
people have held tenaciously to their Christian faith even to
the present time.
In the middle of the fifth century, Armenia
lost her independence, and came under the rule of feudal chiefs
who were subject to the kind of Persia. At this time the
Persians were planning the conquest and conversion of the whole
world to their religion, and so the Persian king sent a letter
to the Armenian princes, setting forth the excellence of fire
worship and the foolishness of Christianity, and ordering the
Armenians to give up Christianity and engage in fire worship.
A great council of bishops and laymen of the
church was held, and a reply of refusal was drafted and
unanimously adopted. Eghiche, an Armenian historian who wrote in
the fifth century and one of the bishops who signed the refusal,
has kept alive for us the text of this remarkable document.
After answering at some length the arguments
of the Persian king against Christianity, they said in
conclusion: "From this faith no one can move us-neither
angels nor men; neither sword, nor fire, nor water, nor any
deadly punishment. If you leave us our faith, we will accept no
other lord in place of you; but we will accept no God in place
of Jesus Christ; there is no other God beside Him. If, after
this great confession, you ask anything more of us, lo, we are
before you and our lives are in your power. From you, torments;
from us, submission; your sword, our neck. We are not better
than those who have gone before us who gave up their goods and
their lives for this testimony."
The king of Persia was amazed and enraged at
the boldness of this reply, for Armenia was a small country in
population, and stood alone without allies against the great
power of Persia. A Persian army of 200,000 was promptly sent
into Armenia to subdue it. The battle was joined on the plain of
Avarair, under Mt. Ararat. Soon the small Armenian force was
defeated, and their leader, Vartan, killed.
But the obstinate resistance offered by the
Christians—men, women, and children alike—convinced the king of
Persia that he could never make fire worshipers out of the
Armenians. As the old historian quaintly expresses it: "The
swords of the slayers grew dull, but their necks were not
weary." Even the high priest of fire saw that the Persian s
had undertaken an impossibility, and thus advised the king:
"These people have put on Christianity, not like a garment,
but like their flesh and blood. Men who do not dread fetters,
nor fear torments, nor care for their property, and, what is
worst of all, who choose death rather than life,-who can stand
against them?"
So the scroll of the centuries unrolled, and
my people lived and suffered and died for their faith during the
troubled years. Then came the worst scourge of all, the
conquering sword of Mohammedanism, wielded by the hand of the
heartless, bloodthirsty Turk.
At first it was the Turkish plan to absorb
subject peoples by intermarriage, and thus take the world for
themselves—and Allah and Mohammed. But the Armenians refused to
submit to this program. Though their conquerors took their
strongest young men for soldiers in their armies and as husbands
for Turkish girls, and though they took their fairest daughters
into Turkish harems, they found to their dismay that an Armenian
was a Christian no matter in what environment, and a Moslem they
simply could not make out of him. But the Turks were persistent.
As we read the history of those bloodstained years, it seems
that humanity could not endure what the Armenians endured. They
could be killed, but they could not be coerced in matters of
conscience.
Then the fires of persecution burned low for
a time. My people are a thrifty, hardy, ambitious race. In the
highlands, which were their home, they were farmers, and owned
great herds of cattle, sheep, and horses. Also, they had much
ability in business lines, and many of them came to the towns
and cities, and thus by degrees they spread over a large part of
the Turkish Empire until most of the towns in Turkey had a
progressive and peaceful quota of Armenian citizens. They were
tolerated by the Mohammedan neighbors, and though, of course,
they had no political influence, they were really powerful in
that the trade and commerce of inland Turkey were largely in
their hands. Wherever they went, they established their schools,
and many of their brightest young people became leaders in the
professions-lawyers, doctors, and teachers.
True, they were no allowed to carry arms
except when conscripted for service in the Ottoman army, but
many of them were released from this service by the payment of
exemption money, and as a people they strictly confined
themselves to the arts of peace.
There came to the Turkish throne in 1876
Abdul Hamid. To this cruel ruler belongs the credit of forming
for Turkey a new policy in dealing with her subject peoples. He
proposed to strengthen Turkish supremacy, not by seeking to draw
into the nation the manhood of the conquered race, but by
utterly destroying that manhood. However, he faced a strange
situation. The Turks made up only forty per cent of the
population of the Turkish Empire. Could they hope to cope
successfully with such a situation? By the help of Allah and
Mohammed, yes! But they must hold a firm hand. Of all his
subjects, the Armenians were by far the most progressive,
industrious, and capable. Therefore Abdul reasoned that they
were his greatest menace, and against them he gave his first
order for annihilation.
The instruments he used to work out his
purpose were the Kurds, a turbulent shepherd race of nomads.
Thus his own skirts would be clear, and he could say that the
massacres were merely local disturbances-revolts by the
Armenians against the government, which must be put down.
However, he armed the Kurds with modern rifles and arranged for
them to receive some instruction in military tactics. Their task
was to murder the Armenians; their pay was the privilege of
raping their girls and women and robbing the homes and shops of
the men they killed.
The Armenians resisted at first and with
some success. But Abdul Hamid re-enforced the Kurds with regular
troops, and caused it to be proclaimed that this was "a
holy war," a war of the Moslem against the cursed infidel.
Then Moslem fanaticism, ever smoldering, burst into flame and
blazed high. Massacres broke out against the Armenians in the
east, west, north, and south of the empire. The streets of
Constantinople ran red with their blood before the protest of
civilized people and governments of the world compelled the
heartless ruler to call a halt.
But by that time the Armenian race had been
so depleted that even this zealous guardian of Islam admitted
that they could not conceivably again menace the Ottoman power
for at least a generation. Perforce the "holy war" was
over. But the work of extermination still went on quietly in
outlying districts, where the new did not leak out to a
protesting world.
After a reign of thirty-two years, Abdul
Hamid was deposed in 1908 by a military group in Constantinople
calling themselves the Young Turk Party. They shut him up in
Salonika, there to spend the remainder of his infamous days, and
proclaimed a liberal program of reformation throughout the
harassed country. This gained them the sympathy and help of
Europe. But in time their so-called reforms relapsed into a
resuming of the old policy toward their subject peoples.
Their watchword became, "Ottomanize!
Ottomanize! Ottomanize! Turkey for the Turk!" With them was
born the inhuman "deportation" scheme for the purpose
of eliminating the Christians of their territory who could not
be safely massacred under the watchful eye of Europe. They would
put the non-Turkish population unceremoniously over the frontier
somewhere-anywhere-and lay Moslem hands upon their property.
But this policy was not put into actual
operation to any great extent until June and July of 1915,
shortly after Turkey entered the World War on the side of
Germany. This, of course, resulted in the declaration of war
against her by the Allied nations, and thus was removed the
restraining hand that had, in a measure, especially in the
centers of population, kept the Armenian people from outright
massacre.
And so the deportation began. It is my
experience during this sad time that I wish to tell you. But
before beginning the story, I will ask you to keep in mind
throughout its telling three things:
First, that the Armenians were driven from
their home and killed, not because they had broken laws or
rebelled against the government or done anything wrong, but
simply because they were Christians and refused to deny Christ
and accept Mohammedanism, the religion of the Turk.
Second, that the Moslem has a background of
intense and centuries-old hatred for all "infidels,"
as he calls those who follow Christ. He believes he can do no
better deed, nor greater service to his Allah and to his
Mohammed, than to kill these infidels. Such an act is not murder
in his code, but a real deed of honor and religious zeal.
Third, that in my heart, where the hurt lies
buried deep, there is neither hatred nor resentment toward those
who mistreated me. Their religion teaches them to hate me, to
make me suffer, to take my life. I pity them. My religion
teaches me to forgive unkindness, and to requite it with
kindness and service. I hope to return to Turkey some day and
demonstrate by my daily walk among her people, and by ministry
to her sick and suffering, the loving mercies of a Savior who
died that all men might live.
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