My Grandmother by Fethiye Cetin

[Armenak]

Nice euphemism in the first paragraph.

 

BOOK REVIEW; 'MY GRANDMOTHER: A MEMOIR' BY FETHIYE CETIN

 

Today's Zaman

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar...7&bolum=111

June 2 2008

Turkey

 

As a girl, Turkish lawyer Fethiye Cetin knew her grandmother as an

adored Muslim matriarch by the name of Seher. Then she learned that

Seher had been born an Armenian Christian, HaranuÅ~_, who, several

decades before, had been seized from the clasp of her mother by a

World War I Turkish gendarmerie corporal officiating over a column

of Armenians being marched out of Anatolia.

 

"My Grandmother," now out in a translation by novelist Maureen

Freely, is Cetin's compelling account of her gradual discovery of

the deep contradiction between her proud nationalist education and

the realities buried deep in Turkish society. The bare narrative

offers few moral and historical judgments, few dates, no maps, no

politics. There is also no discussion of whether the disappearance of

the Armenians of Anatolia was the result of a genocide or massacres

or civil war. Surprises abound: for instance, Seher came to feel great

affection for the corporal as a new father. Asked why it all happened

by Cetin, all the grandmother can ask back is, "What should I know?"

 

The fast-selling original of the book is part of a genre in modern

Turkish literature that tries to make amends for the gaping hole

left by the Armenians in the country's public history. The theme is

dominant in both Orhan Pamuk's recent "Snow" and Elif Å~^afak's "The

Bastard of Istanbul." Cetin's book is already required reading for

students in progressive Turkish institutions like Sabancı University

in Ä°stanbul. Along with occasional recent exhibitions and conferences

about the lost Armenians, these are part of a trend in Turkey that

is grappling with a history of denial, nationalism and fears of

political consequences.

 

Altogether eight Armenian girls ended up as new-minted Muslims in

the small Turkish town where Cetin's grandmother found herself. Even

her brother Horen survived to become known as a shepherd called

Ahmet. Initially working as domestic servants, then as free wives

and mothers, they kept alive customs like colored candy-bread, which

they would share at Easter without letting the children know why;

they labored under discrimination enough already. Everyone in town

knew they were of Armenian origin. Their official papers registered

them as "converts," but they were mocked in the streets as "converts'

sperm" or the "leftovers of the sword." The family is convinced this

was why one talented relative was unable to take up a place in a good

military school.

 

Translator Freely, in a valuable introduction, reckons there could

today be 2 million such descendants of Armenians among Turkey's

population of 75 million. More than 30 other ethnicities still

survive, and this new proof of the impossibility of repressing its

inherent multi-ethnicity helps explain the shrillness and sometimes

schizophrenia of Turkey's one-nation ideologues. Cetin argues that

all in Anatolia are of "impure blood."

 

The pain of the Turkish Armenians is not yet over. As a lawyer, Cetin

represents the family of murdered Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor

Hrant Dink, cut down in January 2007 by a young man inspired by this

same deep-rooted nationalism, and hailing from Trabzon, an eastern

Turkish city with a history of ethnic trauma. As Cetin's grandmother

warns her children, telling them not to be afraid as they pass by a

cemetery, "Evil comes from the living, not the dead."

 

"My Grandmother: A Memoir" by Fethiye Cetin , With an introduction

by Maureen Freely, Published by Verso, ISBN: 978-1844671694, $14.71

in hardcover.

[Yervant1]

AL-MONITOR: TURKISH WOMAN'S SEARCH GIVES VOICE TO ISLAMIZED ARMENIANS

17:55, 24 Nov 2014

In an interview with Al-Monitor Fethiye Cetin, a human rights lawyer
from Turkey, reflected on her courageous journey of coming out of
the closet about a hidden Armenian grandmother. Cetin was born in
Maden, Elazig (an eastern province of Turkey) in 1950. Her maternal
grandmother, Seher, chose Cetin to reveal her long-hidden secret:
she was an Armenian rescued from the 1915 death march by a soldier
and adopted by his family. Her real name was Heranush, and in 1915
she was about 10 years old. After the Armenians left, their towns'
names were changed, as were orphans' names. Seher was raised as a
Turk and Muslim. After Seher passed away in 2000, Cetin published
an obituary for her in the weekly Agos, the voice of the Turkish
Armenian community.

In 2004, Cetin published a groundbreaking book, "My Grandmother,"
narrating her grandmother's story, which was then translated into 13
languages. In 2009, she published her second book, "The Grandchildren"
[translated into three languages], this time interviewing grandchildren
of the hidden Christians in Turkey. Her latest book, "I Feel Shame,"
explains her doubts and concerns about the Hrant Dink case, in which
she served as the Dink family's attorney.

Al Monitor: It has been 10 years since "My Grandmother" was published.

It was a groundbreaking book. After a decade, how do you see its
impact on Turkish society and politics or beyond? Also, how did the
book affect your personal life?

Speaking about the impact of the "My Grandmother" ten years after
the book was published, Cetin said: "The events of 1915 were taboo in
Turkey; it was not spoken of in public or private. There was a painful
silence. There was silence about the Armenian genocide, and there was
silence about Islamized Armenians. I was in prison for protesting
against the military regime as a young student for a short time in
1980. We were brave and loud in our resistance. We sang, shouted our
slogans. In our small cell, we formed strong bonds of friendship as
the women of resistance, yet whenever this issue of Armenian roots
came up, we only whispered. That is what led me to come out in the
open decades later [in 2004] and publish this book. I wanted it to
be heard loud and clear. I believed I owed it to my grandmother and
others who survived the events and whose lives and identities changed
completely and they never got a chance to talk about it. Most of the
grandparents have passed away now. We do not know what they lived
through but we know their silence. I believe genocide is not just
the number of people who have been massacred, but it is also the
greatness, the intensity of silence in the society about it. The
deeper the silence, the deeper the human tragedy becomes."

"For me, personally, the book was perceived positively. I was not
persecuted. Earlier, famous authors such as Orhan Pamuk faced charges
for touching on a similar issue, but my book was received positively.

And this gave us hope to break the silence. After my first book,
"My Grandmother," people started questioning their own family trees.

Indeed, in Turkey, only a few families have family trees. However,
after the book, young people started asking questions. They realized
some of their family stories did not add up and should be questioned.

Some said, "Yes, it is odd my grandmother had no living relatives,
could she be of Greek or Armenian origin?" They started investigating.

We still cannot gauge the exact number of grandkids of Islamized
Armenians today, but from their stories came the second book,"
she said.

"After the publication of "My Grandmother," my family divided into
two. One group was upset with me, asking, "Why are you opening up old
stories now?" "Why are you revealing our identity in the public eye?"

They were concerned about possible negative reactions. The other half,
particularly the younger generation, was accepting and curious. That
gives me hope," Cetin added.

Asked why she chose not to use the word 'genocide' in the book, the
author said: "I did not use the word because my grandmother did not
use it. I wanted to remain true to her story in that book. Using the
word "genocide" would therefore have been my own interpretation. My
goal was to showcase her story. I did not want to pass judgment
on how we now should understand them; I wanted to present her life
and experiences. And I think that is why the human story of the book
connected with people. People even from ultra-nationalist backgrounds
in Turkey still stop me on the street today and tell me how it made
them question their own family trees and brought them together with
relatives they never knew existed, I think because it was just a
human story exclusively and it was the first to pull the covers off
a hidden part of history.

http://www.armradio.am/en/2014/11/24/al-monitor-turkish-womans-search-gives-voice-to-islamized-armenians/
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/11/turkey-united-states-islamized-armenians.html#ixzz3JvrFHSfj