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

sources and materials for their memories. Compatriots and relatives gather around them, drink the littlebit of water from the homeland, strew some soil brought back on the graves.... The connection withthe past is ritualized in quite spontaneous and very natural way.These flowers were brought from the outskirts of the Khastur village of Alashkert in 2007 by the formerKhasturis Rafael Simonyan, who distributed them among his countrymen. Gyozal Hovanisyan’s familyalso received some of these flowers, and “they gave us a small bouquet with love as a sacred part of theirfamily”. Rafael Sahakyan established “Hayrenakanch” (The call of the homeland) newspaper, and periodicallypublishes stories about his travel experience to the “Ergir” in different issues.Another example of ritualizing past memories and publicizing past events is the annual celebration dedicatedto the rescue of the villagers of Musa Ler (Musa Dagh). The event takes place around the memorialsituated in fifteen kilometers from Yerevan, on each Sunday following September 20, when the villagers,who lived at the foot of the Musa Mountain, located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, organizedtheir defense and were able to resist attacks of Turkish army for forty days. Every year on that day, theThe “Hayrenakanch” newspaper.94