Daily Life in the Abyss War and Genocide General Editors: Omer Bartov, Brown University; A

DAILY LIFE IN THE ABYSS War and Genocide General Editors: Omer Bartov, Brown University; A. Dirk Moses, University of Sydney In recent years there has been a growing interest in the study of war and genocide, not from a traditional military history perspective, but within the framework of social and cultural history. This series offers a forum for scholarly works that reflect these new approaches. “The Berghahn series War and Genocide has immeasurably enriched the English- language scholarship available to scholars and students of genocide and, in particular, the Holocaust.” —Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions For a full volume listing, please see back matter DAILY LIFE IN THE ABYSS Genocide Diaries, 1915–1918 Vahé Tachjian berghahn N E W Y O R K • O X F O R D www.berghahnbooks.com Published in 2017 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2017, 2019 Vahé Tachjian First paperback edition published in 2019 This publication was made possible by a generous grant from the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Name: Tachjian, Vahe, author. Title: Daily life in the abyss : genocide diaries, 1915–1918 / Vahe Tachjian Other Titles: War and genocide ; v. 25. Description: New York, NY : Berghahn Books, 2017. | Series: War and genocide ; volume 25 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016054890 (print) | LCCN 2016057538 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785334948 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781785334955 (eBook) Subjects: LCSH: Armenian massacres, 1915–1923—Personal narratives. | Pogharean, Grigor—Diaries. | Tavukjian, Nerses, 1870–1934–Diaries. | Armenians—Syria—Diaries. | Armenians—Turkey—Diaries. | Armenians—Relocation—Syria. Classification: LCC DS195.5 .T223 2017 (print) | LCC DS195.5 (ebook) | DDC 956.6/20154—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054890 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78533-494-8 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-065-2 paperback ISBN 978-1-78533-495-5 ebook CONTENTS R List of Illustrations and Tables vi Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Diarist, his Environment, and the Reasons for Keeping a Diary 15 Chapter 2 The Deportees in the Region of Bilad al-Sham: A Race Against Time at Breakneck Speed 51 Chapter 3 The Circle of Salvation in Extreme Conditions: Money-Food-Connections 80 Chapter 4 Descriptions of the Deportees’ Decline: The Deaths of Shoghagat, Hagop, Krikor, Diruhi, and Many Others 128 Chapter 5 From Forced Islamization to Emancipation: Two Historical Episodes and their Contradictions 155 Afterword 184 Glossary 199 Index 201 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES R Illustrations Figure 0.1. Map of the Ottoman Empire. Map prepared by Eric Van Lauwe. x Figure 1.1. Ayntab, Vartanian school. Graduating diploma given in 1912 to Krikor Bogharian (Source: Haigazian University Library, Beirut) 20 Figure 1.2. A view from Hama in the 1920s (Source: AGBU, Nubarian Library, Paris) 33 Figure 1.3. The Bogharian family, early 1920s. (Source: Annie Kambourian family collection, Paris) 44 Figure 2.1. A view from Hama in the 1920s (Source: AGBU, Nubarian Library, Paris) 57 Figure 2.2. Krikor Bogharian (Source: Krikoris Bogharian family collection) 65 Figure 2.3. A view from Hama in the 1920s (Source: AGBU, Nubarian Library, Paris) 74 Figure 3.1. Krikor Bogharian’s Lebanese identity card, 1926 (Source: Haigazian University Library, Beirut) 86 Figure 3.2. A view from the region of Hama in the 1920s (Source: AGBU, Nubarian Library, Paris) 99 Figure 3.3. Aleppo, 1923. (Source: Grégoire Tafankejian collection, Valence) 108 List of Illustrations and Tables vii Figure 4.1. A view from Hama in the 1920s (Source: AGBU, Nubarian Library, Paris) 137 Figure 4.2. Father Nerses Tavukjian (Source: Gevork Sarafian, ed., Պատմութիւն Անթէպի Հայոց [History of the Armenians of Ayntab], vol. 1. Los Angeles, 1953) 132 Figure 5.1. Krikor Bogharian (Source: AGBU, Nubarian Library, Paris) 163 Figure 5.2. Father Karekin Bogharian (Source: Krikoris Bogharian family collection) 172 Figure 5.3. Aleppo, ca 1923, Armenian religious leaders. (Source: Mihran Minassian collection) 176 Figure 5.4. Homs, 15 November 1933. (Source: AGBU, Nubarian Library, Paris) 179 Figure 6.1. Ruins of Baalbek (Beqaa Valley, Lebanon), August 24 1928. (Source: Krikoris Bogharian family collection) 195 Tables Table 3.1. The price of wheat in the Hama district, December 1915– October 1918. 89 Table 3.2. The price of bread in the Hama district, December 1915 –April 1917. 90 Table 3.3. The price of flour in the Hama district, December 1915 –April 1918 91 Table 3.4. The price of yogurt in the Hama district, January 1916–April 1918. 92 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS R This book was essentially written during my tenure as a research fellow at the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin. I thank my colleagues from those years, as well as the staff of the Center’s library, for their collaboration and support. The English translation of my book would not have been possible without a financial grant graciously provided by the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund, for which I thank the members of the Fund’s staff and jury. I also express my gratitude to the Hrant Dink Foundation’s History and Memory Research Fund for awarding my work the historical research prize established by the Foundation. Many different individuals contributed to my project with advice and assistance of various kinds, for which I am greatly indebted in particular to Taner Akçam, the late Krikor Chahinian, Nanor Stepien, Michel Paboudjian, Vahram Shemmassian, the late Vazken Yacoubian, Nazan Maksudyan, Eric Van Lauwe, Hans-Lukas Kieser, Kevork Bardakjian, Gabi Jancke, Vartan Tashjian, Arsen Guidanian, Nadine Méouchy, Mihran Dabag, Peter Hrechdakian, Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, Toros Toranian, Mohamed Al Dbiyat, Rosemary Russell, Krikoris Bogharian, and Hovan Simonian. I am grateful to Berghahn Books for its willingness to publish my work. I thank its senior editor, Chris Chappell, for very competently pre- paring the text for publication. I also thank the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, from whose suggestions I profited greatly in revising the text. I am also grateful to Rebecca Rom-Frank and Alina Zihharev of Berghahn Books. Acknowledgments ix My gratitude also goes to the former director of the Nubarian Library, Raymond H. Kévorkian, its current director, Boris Adjémian, and a member of the Library’s staff, Megerditch Basma. I am indebted to the people at Haigazian University who kindly put Krikor Bogharian’s personal archives at my disposition. My thanks go especially to those responsible for the University’s Derian Armenological Library, Vera Gosdanian and Sonia Sislian. I thank Archbishop Shahan Sarkisian, the Armenian Prelate in Aleppo, who—at a time when the city was not in the deplorable state it finds itself in today—offered me an opportunity to carry out research in the Aleppo Prelacy Archives. The conversations I had with the Archbishop in the course of my work unfailingly proved to be both inter- esting and useful. Mihran Minassian’s contribution to the preparation of this book was fundamental. It was thanks to him that I gained access to the original version of Father Nerses Tavukjian’s diary. With his many suggestions, comments and criticisms, and elucidations of various points, his help in securing primary materials, and his final review of the whole book, Mihran constantly contributed to developing and enriching my research. I also thank G. M. Goshgarian, who proved to be an invaluable inter- locutor with whom I discussed a great many of the problems raised by my work. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my wife Elke Hartmann. My conversations with her were enriching and a source of inspiration, and my work took final form under their direct influence. In that sense, Elke made a fundamental contribution to this book. Figure 0.1. C B l a c k S e a a Tiflis s Istanbul Samsun p Trabzon i Baku Map the Ottoman of Empire. Map prepared Lauwe. Eric by Van Amasya Kars ura a Chorum K Arax n Angora Yerevan Bursa Yozgat Erzinjan Sivas Erzurum S e Gürün Harput a Van Izmir Kayseri Bitlis Tabriz Konya Hajin Zeytun Malatya Diyarbekir Marash Sis Akçaköy Adana Ayntab Birejik Mardin Tarsus Urfa Mersin Kilis Ras al-Ain Iskenderun Munbuj Mosul Musa Dagh Meskene Shedadiye Antakya Aleppo Rakka O Markade r o n t es Hama Der Zor T i g Salamiyya r i Homs s E u p h ra M e d i t e r r a n e a n t Beirut es S e a Damascus Baghdad Irbid Deraa Ajlun Jarash Salt Amman Jerusalem Karak Tafila Basra Cairo Maan Persian SINAI e l 0 300 km i PENINSULA Gulf N INTRODUCTION R Beginning in May–June 1915, when the plan for the Armenian genocide was put into practice under the Ottoman authorities’ supervi- sion, the region of Bilad al-Sham saw an influx of tens of thousands of Armenian deportees. There is no precise information as to how many people there were in this mass of deportees, and I do not intend to enter into the debate about numbers here. What is certain is that those who arrived in this area represented a sizable proportion of the Armenian population of Cilicia and the towns and villages to the east of it. The new arrivals in the area also included human wrecks from Central and Western Anatolia as well as the Armenian High Plateau.

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