RAFFI the PROPHET

[gurgen]

We just got unlucky, getting stuck between the muslim cancer.

[Vigil]

We just got unlucky, getting stuck between the muslim cancer.

 

No I do not think that it is about religion, but rather its about being near the Turkish cancer. Relgion is always made for the purpose of unity and just gets twisted when people, who have a already nomadic culture, twist it to meet their agenda of conquest.

 

For example why is it that Armenians were not forced to accept Islam in Iran or some Arabic countries? Why is it that Turkey is the only one that imposed it on its Non-Muslim population?

 

 

JS: Can you describe some of your research on the Muslim Armenians, the Hemshin?

 

BV: Hagop introduced me to Temel, the main person who speaks it here. In the

northeast corner of Turkey, there is a large group of Armenians that

converted to Islam. In the eastern half of that, a lot of them still speak a

local dialect of Armenian. Adjarian actually worked with the non-Muslim ones at the turn of the century. Those mainly ended up in Abkhazia, which is just north of that region. They are interesting for many reasons. They have been cut off for a

long time. By virtue of converting to Islam, their ties to Armenia were

severed. This meant no more Armenian educational system, no Armenian

alphabet. Their conversion preceded the nationalist movement, so they never

experienced the nefarious influence of nationalism and literacy, where their

local speech patterns were tinkered with by school teachers.

For someone interested in how things used to be, they are invaluable. And

then there is the confrontation between the Islamic culture and their

traditional Armenian culture. We worked a lot with Temel and his wife about

8 years ago, and we now have a small research group of people who are

interested in these people. We are having a conference about them in Holland

in the Fall. Part of the plan is to organize a research expedition. I want to have a

linguist, an anthropologist, a sociologist, a photographer, an art

historian, and a geographer go around to the villages and do what we can the

way people did in the 19th century. I want to do recording in every village,

because every one we know about is a bit different than each of the other

villages. Hagop hears rumors about some of the more westerly ones still speaking

Armenian, so I want to check that out. But again, you need to bring the

right people. There is a guy in Holland who is German, but his wife is one

of the western Hemshinli, so she has a lot of Armenian in her Turkish but

doesn't speak Armenian.

 

JS: I know you ask this question, "what makes them Armenian?" There was a

forced conversion to Islam, but this comes down to the core of questions

around national identity.

 

HH: Even the Turkish nationalists among them acknowledge that they were

previously Christian. They say that before the coming of Islam, Christianity

was the proper religion, so it was acceptable to be Christian until the

coming of Islam when they would have to convert.

Because they lived with Armenians before, they acquired Armenian Christianity as well as some words, but the language they speak is pure

Turkish now, they have no Armenian blood, and there are different levels of

denial. Some people deny more, some people acknowledge Armenian

connections-they don't have a single story.

 

BV: When I spoke about them at the University of Michigan, the Turkish

professor, who is German, approached me and he was very angry. I had

presented linguistic evidence that they are Armenian-it is very clear to

anyone that is objective, but I wanted to give evidence anyway. He was very

offended, and he said "These are just Turks who said they are Armenian so

they would be treated better by the government." Of course, this makes no

sense at all, and this was from someone that was German, and not Turkish.

They started the conversion in the 16th-17th century and went on as late as

1915.

 

JS: How do the Armenian audiences react?

 

BV: I think normally they are titillated to hear that such a group exists.

Some people get angry or outraged, but that's true no matter what topic you

discuss. My take on it is, they are whatever they are, it is just

interesting to study how their culture and language work now, and if you are

interested in history to look at what you can reconstruct from the current

situation about how they used to be. I am not really interested in forcing

them to call themselves one thing or the other. Identity is an extremely

complicated thing, and you can't just decide one way or the other based on a

whim.

 

JS: And Hovann Simonian is working on a book on this topic?

 

BV: Yes, he is a student at USC working on a book on the Hemshinli, and

Hagop has written a nice chapter for it, which is in part about the

place-name reform in Turkey.

 

HH: I have a letter that goes back to 1916 from Enver, which says "it is the

proper time to speedily change those names which are in foreign

languages-Armenian, Bulgarian, and Greek-and change them to Muslim names."

He is trying to hold on to the Muslim groups as kindred people, as a single

force against Christians and infidels, which they had just declared a jihad

against.

 

BV: This shows the power of language. The most powerful thing is the most

simple, which is the change from "Anatolia" to "Turkey." Now people outside

of Turkey think that's the land of the Turks because of the name. You'd

think people could see beyond the name, but that's not how it works.

Beyond that, they changed 30,000 place-names from 1916 to the mid-1960s. Now

they all look Turkish or Muslim, which means that no outsider will never

even think-unless someone tells them-that this is anything other than a

Turkish place. For my students who don't know anything about the Armenians,

they often take what they see on a map today or what they read in the paper

as being how things are.

So something like a name change is extremely effective, although my friends tell me that people in Turkey still remember the old names. So right now we

are in a pivotal time, where everything has been wiped out but people still

have memory of how it used to be. But once you make the switch to the next

stage, that's it.

 

JS: Hovann is also a coauthor of a great book on this topic, with Prof. R.

Hrair Dekmejian. Are these people going to be impacted by the pipeline that

is going to be built in northeastern Turkey? Will the purchase of the

property along the route disrupt these people?

 

HH: They live on a mountain range near the Black Sea, and the route will

pass south of that.

 

BV: This brings up something I will mention briefly. I spoke at NAASR about

ways in which you can convey important Armenians issues to students. With

the pipeline-which illustrates nefarious things about our government, the

Turkish government, and the oil companies-they actually have that as a main

plot points in one of the James Bond movies, where you can see the pipeline

going up over Armenia. That's something that non-Armenian students can

relate to. You can show them the map, or show them the part where they

depict the Azeris as being Christian. They depict an Orthodox priest in a

cave church in Azerbaijan, which makes it seem like they are Christian. I

personally don't care if people are Christian or Muslim, but that has a

subliminal effect on people watching.

 

This is a excerpt from a article entitled...

 

The Armenian Language and Armenian Studies: An Interview With Linguistics Professor Bert Vaux

By Jason Sohigian

The Armenian Weekly, June 5 and 12, 2003

 

Basically Prof. Vaux studies the Armenian language and its different dialects. He stumbled upon a group of Turkified Armenians, who were forced to accept Islam during the late 16th to early 20th century. This group retains some of the Armenian Language, but writes with the Turkish Alphabet. This just outlines the extent of the Turkish infection that Armenians had to deal with, but we should not blame Islam that is incorrect.

 

Turkified is not same as Islamified. Arabs have their own alphabet, culture , and religion, but Turks dont.

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[bellthecat]

Basically Prof. Vaux studies the Armenian language and its different dialects. He stumbled upon a group of Turkified Armenians, who were forced to accept Islam during the late 16th to early 20th century. This group retains some of the Armenian Language, but writes with the Turkish Alphabet.

"Stumbled upon" is not really the right phrase to use - they have been known about for centuries.

I'd like to see the entire article if you can post it. I'm sure plenty others would be interested in seeing it too.

[Vigil]

Yes, that is the wrong phrase to use and I apologize. Its the same with when Europeans/Americans refer to the "Discovery" of America as opposed to replacing "discovered" with encountered. The first places the one who is the discoverer in a authority position, while the latter dipicts both parties as equals.

 

Anyways, here is the articles link. I would post it but it is very long, but anyways enjoy.

 

http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:kaX_0...&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[Vigil]

Oh I would like to clear up in my previous post. It is obvious that contemporary Turks have a alphabet, but it is not of their creation. The creators are the Europeans, which they butchered and that is why they also in my opinion are hypocrits and do not actually have a alphabet. It is ok for Europeans to use the alphabet due to the fact that they have a right to, but Turks do not. The reason that I make this point clear is because I do not want to contredict myself. Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[Anonymouse]

Yea, Armenians were just misfortunate. Soon, Armenians will have emigrated from Armenian en masse, and the diaspora will have assimilated and alas Turkey will extend to the Caspian, all these marginal Armenians taking there last breaths will have become quiet. It's not "zovits zdov hayastan" its dzovits dzov turkia". Oh boy oh boy, can't wait for all this to unfurl, should be an interesting future, a really nice topic for any future historian after this event.

[Vigil]

Yea, Armenians were just misfortunate. Soon, Armenians will have emigrated from Armenian en masse, and the diaspora will have assimilated and alas Turkey will extend to the Caspian, all these marginal Armenians taking there last breaths will have become quiet. It's not "zovits zdov hayastan" its dzovits dzov turkia". Oh boy oh boy, can't wait for all this to unfurl, should be an interesting future, a really nice topic for any future historian after this event

 

I doubt that will happen!

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[GuitARA]

Yea, Armenians were just misfortunate. Soon, Armenians will have emigrated from Armenian en masse, and the diaspora will have assimilated and alas Turkey will extend to the Caspian, all these marginal Armenians taking there last breaths will have become quiet. It's not "zovits zdov hayastan" its dzovits dzov turkia". Oh boy oh boy, can't wait for all this to unfurl, should be an interesting future, a really nice topic for any future historian after this event.

I think you may have needed the disclaimer - pun intended.

 

Cleverly written, that was fun to read.

[gurgen]

Turkified is not same as Islamified. Arabs have their own alphabet, culture, and religion, but Turks dont.

That's all fine and dandy, but even the Arabs have profited repeatedly and gladly in history from our weakness to take our land away.

 

It's ofcourse very nice that they have culture, but it's not gonna help us when we are getting conquered. How many times did Persia conquer us anyway? Iran now still has some lands belonging to Historic Armenia I believe.

[Vigil]

That's all fine and dandy, but even the Arabs have profited repeatedly and gladly in history from our weakness to take our land away.

 

It's ofcourse very nice that they have culture, but it's not gonna help us when we are getting conquered. How many times did Persia conquer us anyway? Iran now still has some lands belonging to Historic Armenia I believe.

 

Your right, but my point is that they edleast have not persecuted us to extent of Turks.

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[bellthecat]

Anyways, here is the articles link. I would post it but it is very long, but anyways enjoy.

 

http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:kaX_0...&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Thanks Virgil. Interesting stuff (more for the non-Hemshinli content). Somehow, I imagined Vaux to be much older. The guy seems to have an unfortunate obsession against Prof. James Russell. This bit caught my eye.

 

BV: They also give him the benefit of the doubt-I think humans are designed

to be this way. They assume that other humans are acting rationally. At the

Kars conference at UCLA about a year ago, he was talking about the main

Armenian church there and the carvings around it. Some of the Soviet

scholars there were very angry at what he said, which was partly justified

and partly not.

He had made up what he was saying about the significance of the images on

the church, and they didn't like the fact that he couldn't substantiate what

he was saying. But they were also annoyed that he was talking about

Christian imagery of a sort they didn't agree with. One of the got up and

said it was just "men," and not Gregory the Illuminator or whoever James was

saying it was.

So each side was not entirely justified in this case, but then James

launched into an incredible tirade against them in front of everyone, and

then another one in private in the hallway. It was the usual arguments for

him, that the Soviet Armenian scholars are all Nazis or were poorly trained.

JS: So what can the community do with Harvard or with the Armenian Chair?

BV: They can go to the Dean or the President. I am sure there are Armenians

that are well-placed enough that they can meet with the President. They can

let him know what's been going on with the chair, and what they think are

reasonable goals or activities for a chair-that have nothing to do with

academic freedom.

 

I've seen a video of the Ani conference and the lecture he mentioned. Anyone who has actually seen the reliefs on the church would never say they are "just men". The silly "soviet-era" response to Russell's thesis was so juvenile and anti-academic that no matter how strong the response by Russell was to it, it could never have been too strong! If that Armenian couldn't stomach hard and justified criticism then he should have shut up, or at least not made his reply to Russell's lecture into an unscheduled mini presentation of his own.

[bellthecat]

(Off topic - but who cares about Kurds anyway! )

 

I decided to have another watch at that lecture.

 

The "soviet scholar" was called Rafayel Matevossyan. At the end of Russell's lecture he went up to the podium to "reflect on a couple of points". (i.e. he wanted to do more than just ask a few questions). His words were in Armenian, but from the English summary it was mostly about saying that the relief carvings are not of the Apostles and St. Gregory, but they are all lay people, and are members of the Bagratuni clan, and the snakes are actually symbols of the Bagratuni dynasty.

 

At the end of the "reflection" an obviously annoyed Russell got the chance to reply and dismissed everything he had to say, saying that such an interpretation flies against every other piece of evidence, and implied that it was typical of the type of academia in which Matevossyan came from.

 

You can read about the church here.

[Anonymouse]

I doubt that will happen!

It's already happening

[Vigil]

It's already happening 

 

Ok so how do you want to stop it? As long as you think like that we already lost, but yes your a realist and most are just oblivious to the observations.

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[StealthSwine]

In Georgian, Somekhi var, Kurdi var.

 

meaning...

 

Armenians and Kurds are the same...

 

and for a European Armenian, it is clearly truth...

 

Any of you been to Armenia? the people dont stand in line, the people dont clean up after themselves...

 

The ones that are intelect, are intelect...the ones that arent, are humble, but still, not like the rest.

[koko]

What about the georgians themselves? Vratsi var!!!! Edited March 20, 2004 by koko

[Vigil]

In Georgian, Somekhi var, Kurdi var.

 

meaning...

 

Armenians and Kurds are the same...

 

and for a European Armenian, it is clearly truth...

 

Any of you been to Armenia? the people dont stand in line, the people dont clean up after themselves...

 

The ones that are intelect, are intelect...the ones that arent, are humble, but still, not like the rest.

 

So coming from you this should be considered a reliable source?

 

Also their is nothing wrong with Kurdish people in fact I think they are more cultured than Turks. One must ask yourself why they too hate Turks oh wait it must be due to civil war.

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[gurgen]

In Georgian, Somekhi var, Kurdi var.

 

meaning...

 

Armenians and Kurds are the same...

Sure, let's believe the sayings of a nation of heroin addicts

[Vigil]

In Georgian, Somekhi var, Kurdi var.

 

meaning...

 

Armenians and Kurds are the same...

 

and for a European Armenian, it is clearly truth...

 

Any of you been to Armenia? the people dont stand in line, the people dont clean up after themselves...

 

The ones that are intelect, are intelect...the ones that arent, are humble, but still, not like the rest.

 

Also this coming from a Georgian is blasphemy considering that much of their culture is Armenian in origin, but this is only true if I consider you as a legitimate source, which I do not.

Edited May 31, 2004 by Vigil

[koko]

Also this coming from a Georgian is blasphemy considering that much of their culture is Armenian in origin, but this is only true if I consider you as a legitimate source, which I do not.

 

Agreed! Well said Vigil!

Edited March 20, 2004 by koko

[Arpa]

It always seems to me that Armenia and its history is encircled by vultures.

Why do other cultures always try to connect themselves to Armenian Lands?

Your characterization of those groups as vultures may only be partially right and better apply to some than others. Vultures, even if at times described as birds of prey are not really such, they are rather scavengers and nature's garbage disposers. They don't hunt and kill by themselves, they only help themselves to already killed and rotting carrion after the beast of preys such as lions and wolves had already killed and had eaten the lion's share, so to speak. Yes some of the above do fit the picture as they would only partake of the loot after the victim has been felled and rendered helpless. And if we characterize them as vultures then it follows that they are preying on us after we are dead.

 

Here is an itresting picture..

 

http://wildwnc.org/af/turkeyvulture.html

 

The Armenian word for vulture is ang@gh/angegh. THere are several towns and villages known by this name the most famous of which is where Tork of Angegh hails from. The judges are still out to decide whether the towns were named after the bird or visa versa, but it is a fact that the region has and always had the highest concentration of vultures, ang@ghs. When speaking of Tork Angegh one must emphasize that the cheap interpretation of the name that is often tranlated even by so called experts as Tork the Ugly based on the assumption that "angegh" may also mean without beauty is totally wrong. If it were so then Tork would have been named T-gegh Tork.

 

While searching for info on Angegh look what I found!!!

 

Go to the general topic of History and look for "Hindus of Armenia"

[StealthSwine]

bah. Georgians are nothing, backstabbers.

 

but, they still are more european. and kurds, they are also another barbaric race, and saying that kurds are more cultured than turks...haha.

[Anonymouse]

In Georgian, Somekhi var, Kurdi var.

 

meaning...

 

Armenians and Kurds are the same...

 

and for a European Armenian, it is clearly truth...

 

Any of you been to Armenia? the people dont stand in line, the people dont clean up after themselves...

 

The ones that are intelect, are intelect...the ones that arent, are humble, but still, not like the rest.

Why do you double-space in your posts? Is there some hidden requirement I am unaware of?

[StealthSwine]

no.

 

To me, it looks more organized and cleaner.

 

It is my own type of writing.

[Anonymouse]

Fair enough. Now if we could have taught Armenians, Kurds and Turks to double-space from each other, none of this would have happened.