Description
By (author) Yesayan, Zabel; Translated by Minassian, Arakel
:
Haig Toroyan’s account of his journey from Dikranagerd (Diyarbakir in modern-day southeastern Turkey) along the Euphrates River to Mesopotamia and Iran is a unique and hauntingly detailed account of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Recounting first the ominous final months of 1914, Toroyan is employed in Jarabalus by a sympathetic German Army Sergeant, Otto Oehlmann, as his assistant and interpreter, on a mission to transport arms to Iran. Posing as a Syrian Catholic Arab, Toroyan keeps notes on the atrocities he sees being committed against his own people but knows he cannot reveal his true ethnicity. He records the stories of the refugees he meets, as well as the conversations he can have with Turkish soldiers, unaware they are speaking with an Armenian.
In the summer of 1916, Haiyg Toroyan told his story to celebrated Armenian writer Zabel Yessayan, who had herself escaped from the round-up of intellectuals in Istanbul in April 1915. Yessayan published his testimony in 1917 in Western Armenian.
With this translation, Haig Toroyan’s testimony, the first full-length eyewitness account of the Armenian Genocide ever published in Armenian in the wake of 1915, is available in English for the first time.
Table of contents:
Translator’s Preface
Editor’s Preface and acknowledgements
Translating Hokevark or the Untranslatable Life-form: A Prefatory Attempt Among Prefaces by Maral Aktokmakyan, PhD
Testimony and Authorship: Zabel Yesayan’s The Agony of a People by Marc Nichanian, translated by Tamar M. Boyadjian, PhD
Note on Transliteration
Introduction by Zabel Yesayan
Chapter 1: Dikranagerd, November 1914. Economic Boycott. The Burning of the Bazaar. Military Requisitions and Mobilization.
Chapter 2: Jarabulus, December 1914 to November 12th, 1915. The Condition of the Armenians Until February 1915. The First Signs of Enmity. The Attempt to Massacre 2,000 Armenian Workers. The Incident of the Loggers.
Chapter 3: The Deportations in Cilicia: Zeytun, Dört-yol (Chork Marzvan). Hajn. Aintab.
Chapter 4: The Story of a Wealthy Village. The Sight of the Arriving Refugees. The Collapsed Woman. Nighttime Assaults. A Complaint to the Turkish Authorities.
Chapter 5: An Armenian Mother. Children Are Sold Off. The Role of a Greek Woman.
Chapter 6: The Distribution of Bread. The First Corpses on the Euphrates. Seventy Children Drowned.
Chapter 7: Episodes from the Deportations of Armenians from Armenia. Dikranagerd. Mardin. In Resulayn. In Tell Abyad. In Edessa Arap Pinar.
Chapter 8: The Plain of Suruç/Suruj Plain (Armenian cemetery). Jarabulus’ Bazaar. The Image of the Nizib khan.
Chapter 9: The Transportation of the Population by Train. Water… Water… A Woman from Yerznga, and the Deportation of Yerznga. The Story of Chemeshgadzak.
Chapter 10: The Deported Population on Foot Towards Aleppo. A Bride’s Escape. The passage of Seventy Armenians from Erzrum (the Deportation of Erzrum).
Chapter 11: Groups of Armenians passing through Birecik. Murad, Murad, You Have Fulfilled Our Wishes.
Chapter 12: Aleppo. Turkish and Armenian Committees for Settling the Deportees. The Behaviour of Aleppo’s Armenian Population. The Condition of Aleppo’s Armenian Population. A General Picture. The Passage of the Armenian Intellectuals. Zohrab and Vartkes.
Chapter 13: The Edessa (Urfa) Resistance. The First Steps of Deportation. The Armenians Are in Revolt. Negotiations. A Turkish Army Besieges the Armenian Quarter. 15 Days of Fighting. Edessa Ruined. The Former Situation.
Chapter 14: A Wedding Among the Kurds. A Temporary Order Concerning the Property of the Exiled Armenians. The Birecik Armenians Convert to Islam, yet are Stil
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