Speaking to One Another - The International Raoul Wallenberg ...

say (singing), “I would go to gravestones of my father and mother, walk in our houses” (From the storyof Vazgen Ghukasyan); “In the spring time my mother would take me with her, sit on the green, sing,worry, mumble. When I remember it, my mother’s heart was hungry, that is why she sang, her country,her world was taken away... My mother was very sick, she would say “sister, get up and let’s go and sing,collect some khavrtsil” 1 , she would say brother, I would not be able to, but should go, go to our house,when I die I will get over there. This is how she died”. (From the story of the Nranhat, Grish Badalyan’ssister). Those, who recounted these memories never, saw a Turk. These are witnessed accounts containingfragments of storytellers’ biographies, not secondary memories, at the same time they are verypersonal and not the “product” of social or collective views. And they could not be as such, because asit was said “the topic was taboo” in Soviet Armenia and, quite naturally, the population of the countrydid not accumulate social ideology and experience toward Turkey and Turks, so people’s stories actuallyfor most part are individual. This is an important confirmation, because, despite this fact, these storiesare in many respects similar, i.e. individual and family stories of the survivor Armenians from differentparts of Turkey have much in common, and as the collected accounts reveal, they have created acommon attitude. This is important since it affirms that the common attitude was formed without public/socialmemory factor, and is rather based on each one’s personal experience. 2To return to the issue of genocide publicity in Armenia we should mention that in the sixties the memoriespartly “went beyond families”, and in the eighties the young generation, again partially, stoppedbeing the direct bearer of “family memories”. I will dare to say that they stopped being the “prisoner”of them. After the 1965 rallies, the construction of the monument for the victims of the Genocide inYerevan, 3 the bringing public processions of April 24 to proper order, monuments were built and booksand articles were published by the initiatives of individuals and groups, despite active or passive resistancefrom authorities. This was facilitated, to a certain extent, by the publication of the “Anlreli Zangakatun”[Never-abating Bell-tower] poem by Paruyr Sevak; the relatively public, kind of street- and saloon-discussions by Hovhannes Shiraz; and the publication of some of his poems. The works by ParuyrSevak and Hovhannes Shiraz were circulated from hand to hand, being recited at the meetings ofstudent groups and in the homes of people. During this very period those survivors who were alreadyreaching a mature age, along with their second generation, were making timorous attempts of publishing“from beneath” those memories that were torturing them.1 Sort of wild herbs that used to put in their food.2 During the first years of Soviet rule those few materials that were accessible, to this or that extent, as a publication on thetheme, were partially available through poetry (Hovhannes Tumanyan, Yeghisheh Charents), and partially through scientificworks: in 1928-1929 Bagrat Boryan compiled a source-book: “Armenia, International Diplomacy, and USSR”. In relationwith territorial claims presented to Turkey by Stalin in 1946-1951, historiography partially raised the problem of territoriesthat were abandoned by Armenians; however, on the one hand, this phenomenon was not presented comprehensively andon the other, these discussions were completely out of the context of survivors, who neither directly participated in discussions,nor even had the capacity of mass or public expression of their views at that time. The problem remained in the domainof high politics and the public was mostly unaware of the sufferings of particular persons.3 The monument devoted to the Genocide victims was opened on November 28, 1967.85