Goghtan District
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SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL OF RESEARCH ON ARMENIAN ARCHITECTURE (RAA) FOUNDATION Dr. A. Mutafian (Prof.), Paris; Dr. M. Hasratian (Prof.), Yerevan; Margrit Bünemann-Hakhnazarian (architect), Aachen; Dr. H. Suruzian (Prof.), Cairo; Dr. L. Zekiyan (Prof.), Venice; Dr. P. Chobanian (Prof.), Yerevan; Dr. A. Ghazarian (Prof.), Moscow; Prof. N. Sargissian, Yerevan; M. Lalayan, Yerevan; J. Manoucharian, Los Angeles, California; Dr. Rouben Galichian (Prof.), London; Dr. M. Balayan (Prof.), Stepanakert GOGHTAN DISTRICT HOVHANNES HAKHNAZARIAN Published under the patronage of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Yerevan 2013 UDC 941 (479.25) Hovhannes Hakhnazarian Goghtan District / H. Hakhnazarian.-Yerevan: Research on Arme- nian Architecture, 2013.-200 pages + 16 pages of coloured inset. The book presents the memoirs of Hovhannes Hakhnazarian, a sur- vivor of the massacre of the Armenians perpetrated by the Turks in his native town, Agulis, Goghtan District (Nakhijevan), in December 1919. He provides a brief history of the district, particularly reporting details relating to this slaughter. Hovhannes Hakhnazarian’s work is especially important for the study of the history of the extermination of Nakhijevan Armenians by the Turks and Azerbaijanians between 1918 and 1920. ISBN 978-9939-843-08-7 © Research on Armenian Architecture, 2013 A FEW WORDS For many times, I have had the chance of enjoying the sight of the mountains of Goghtan District, towering aloft in serene magnificence, with their summits shrouded in mist, from the southern bank of the river Arax. Hiding myself in the gorges or on the mountain slopes, I could see Agulis, Tseghna, Bist, Ramis and Paraka from afar with their gardens, nostalgia for my paternal house rending my heart to pieces: I was so close to it, but at the same time, it was something unreachable and dis- tant for me. My father, who had a miraculous escape from the massacres of Goghtan between 1919 and 1920, fought in Garegin Nzhdeh’s army for the liberation of his homeland when still a young boy. Stripped of his home, native land and dear ones, he went through an unspeakable mental torture which he suffered with dignity. In the mean- time, he found enough moral strength to build a new life, dedicating himself to the culture and education of the Armenian nation. These memoirs represent the fulfillment of the very last moral duty he had set before himself. Nowadays Armenia is living through a period of self-cognition and independence that came to follow the 70 years of slavery under the Soviet rule. The present book of memoirs, which is entitled Goghtan District, casts light on one of the dark periods of the history of the Armenian nation. I would like to extend my gratitude to all those people who assisted me in the accomplishment of this work. Particularly cordial thanks are due to literary critic Andranik Sarian, who willingly assumed the proof- reading of the Armenian original of this work. Armen Hakhnazarian 3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Hovhannes Hakhnazarian was born in Agulis Township of the historical Armenian district of Goghtan in 1900. He received primary education at the local school, after which he entered Gevorgian Seminary of Echmiatzin, where he studied from 1912 until 1918 (his father Martiros Hakhnazarian, a graduate of the same Alma Mater, worked as a Senior Inspector there). Between 24 and 25 December 1919, the Tatar bandits put their centuries-old neighbours, the Armenians of Agulis, to unspeakable carnage. Dr. Hakhnaza- rian’s family fell victim to this slaughter, from which only his elder sister was saved thanks to the fact that she was studying in Tiflis at that time. Himself hav- ing a narrow escape from these massacres, Hovhannes Hakhnazarian went through a true odyssey the account of which constitutes the last chapter of the present work. In 1920 Dr. Hakhnazarian left for Tabriz, whence he moved to Czechoslo- vakia. In 1922 he entered Karls University of Prague with a scholarship granted by the Czech Government. Having received a doctoral degree in Historical Studies and Philosophy, he continued his studies at the same university, majoring in comparative linguistics and classical languages for four years. Between 1933 and 1935, Hovhannes Hakhnazarian taught at Teheran’s Haykazian-Kushesh-Davtian Armenian National School, where Professor of Linguistics Ruben Abrahamian worked as an Inspector. Parallel with teaching practice, Dr. Hakhnazarian learnt the Persian language, acquiring an especially good command of Middle Persian through the support of Prof. R. Abrahamian (the monograph he wrote about the latter is the most eloquent account of their close friendship). In 1936 Persia’s Ministry of Enlightenment invited Dr. Hakhnazarian to teach Linguistics at the State University of Teheran (in the same year, all the Armenian schools of the country closed on Reza Shah’s order and reopened only in 1942). When Prof. R. Abrahamian left for Armenia in 1944, Dr. Hakhnazarian was invited to assume his post of Inspector at Kushesh-Davtian School. Between 1950 and 1951, he initiated the foundation of a male secondary school that was a branch of this institution. In 1953 to 1954, he established Mariamian Female Secondary School under Margar Sargissian’s patronage. Due to the Persian Armenians’ failure to repatriate to Armenia, a great num- ber of Armenians flooded into Teheran from various districts of the country. As a result, their number greatly increased in the capital beginning with 1947. To meet the spiritual needs of these people and provide them with proper education, Dr. Hakhnazarian founded a number of national schools such as Abovian, 4 Shahaziz, Danayi, Hur, Hakhnazarian, etc. He also proved of immense instru- mentality in the publication of text-books for these schools. A university professor, the curator of the same university and a member of the Supreme Committee at the Ministry of Education, Dr. Hakhnazarian was held in great esteem in the country’s political circles. Thanks to the high popularity he enjoyed, he easily smoothed away any problems facing the Iranian Armenian national schools. Dr. Hakhnazarian conducted courses in contemporary and classical Armenian at the Faculty of Letters of Teheran’s State University. Generally speaking, from the very first day of his working practice until his retirement in 1965 and even until his death on 19 July 1978, Dr. Hakhnazarian took a most active part in almost all the public events held by Persian Armenians. Hovhannes Hakhnazarian is the author of two historico-philological works on the monasteries of St. Thaddaeus and St. Stephen the Proto-Deacon and First Martyr: the former was published in the “Hur” magazine (1971), and the latter was included in the 10th volume of the series entitled “Documenti di Architec- ture Armena” (Ares, Milan, Italy). In 1969 Hovhannes Hakhnazarian represented Teheran State University at the solemnities held in Yerevan in commemoration of Armenian national poet Hovhannes Tumanian’s 100th birth anniversary. His impressions were later sum- marised in an extensive piece of writing published in the second volume of Raffi Year Book (Teheran, 1970). Dr. Hovhannes Hakhnazarian worked on the present book dedicated to his native district and village for many years. This work is an attempt to offer an all- embracing history of Goghtan, intertwined with the author’s memoirs which make it very interesting and close to the reader’s heart. While reading his memoirs, we come across a great number of prominent per- sonalities who lived in the pre-Soviet period and played an important role in the history of the Armenian people. We ourselves are of the opinion that the most valuable part of the work is the one dedicated to the massacres perpetrated in Agulis and the adjacent villages on 24 to 25 December 1919. Representing an eye-witness account of this harrowing carnage, it casts light upon the events that marked this period. One cannot help reading the tragic story of the slaughter of the author’s fam- ily and his nation without tears and a beating heart. He had a miraculous escape from this massacre to be able to convey the account of this tragedy to the com- ing generations. A tragedy that seems the repetition of the Great Genocide of the Armenians... Andranik Sarian 20 July 1983 5 LETTER TO MY FATHER-IN-LAW Yerevan, June 2013 Dear Father-in-law, I am aware that you suffered a serious life-long trauma, and as many of your genera- tion of Armenians, you were not ever able to talk about your experiences. During the four final years of your life, you wrote down the story of Goghtan, an Armenian dis- trict in Nakhijevan,1 recording the disaster that befell your family and the whole Armenian population in your hometown, Agulis, in 1919. You put it down during the 1970s, when you were alone with your memories and reminiscences. There was no internet and no possibility of quick worldwide communication. You lived in Iran, an Islamic country which welcomed its Christian minority and became a second Motherland for many Armenian refugees, albeit with no possibility of contacting other intellectuals across the border, in the small country of Soviet Armenia. At the end of your book you hope that the terrible events that began in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 and reached the Armenian population in Nakhijevan in 1919 to 1920 will be ever record- ed objectively. What you could not have imagined was that in February 1989 traumatic events, simi- lar to those in your homeland, were to recur against the Armenians in the cities of Sumgait and Baku, as renewed Azerbaijani pogroms, culminating with the struggle in Karabakh (Artsakh). As a result of these conflicts, all Armenian cultural monuments were destroyed by the Azeris not only in your home town of Agulis, but also all over Nakhijevan.