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DIASPORIC REPRESENTATIONS: A STUDY OF CIRCASSIAN AND ARMENIAN IDENTITIES IN GREATER SYRIA

by

Kari S. Neely

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Near Eastern Studies) in The University of Michigan 2008

Doctoral Committee:

Professor Kevork B. Bardakjian, Chair Professor Anton Shammas Associate Professor Carol Bardenstein Associate Professor Andrew J. Shryock UMI Number: 3305049

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2008 For Nico Sevan, who made this difficult but also necessary. If any one thing made me connect to these authors and their works it was looking at you, my child, and thinking about theirs; lost, orphaned, emaciated, murdered. I wish for you perpetual happiness and that you may never know loss.

11 Acknowledgements

Kevork Bardakjian: Thank you for being honest and direct. Your support made all the difference.

Valerie Anishchenkova: a trusted and willing advisor whose thoughtful insight and calming voice influenced my writing and my mood.

Bryce Adams: for enduring still unknown tribulations expanding his knowledge of horses and opera for my benefit and whose own knowledge on marginal subjects continues to be a source of motivation, inspiration, and argumentation.

Brad: for always being there

Ara Sanjian: a fount of Armenian knowledge that I endlessly tapped.

Gerald Papasian: Armenian operas expert, thanks for his personal insight.

Levon Abrahamian: thanks for a fascinating chat about rabiz music and lectures in Yerevan that I was fortunate to attend.

Jaimoukha: a helpful advisor in all things Circassian. Thank you for providing the world your knowledge.

Gerard Libaridian, Sako, Carol, Hrant Dink: for not being afraid of the truth

Jonathan Rodgers: the best Middle Eastern librarian and search expert

Allen, Raji, Carol, Helen, Layla, CJ, and Deb: for support

Raji: for unswerving belief in me when I had my doubts

Khaled: for loving your mother tongue and hating your accent

John: you remind me that it's the moment that matters, and I now like the moment

All my students: for helping me remember its all about learning

in Table of Contents

Dedication ii

Acknowledgments iii

Chapter One: Introduction 1

Chapter Two: Villains and Enemies: Constructing the Self through 27

Others

Chapter Three: Religious Diasporic Representations: Genocide and 61

Profanation

Chapter Four: Hijras: Horses Die and Accordions Wail 132

Chapter Five: Spectacular Embeddings: Armenian Operatic 209

Performance

Chapter Six: Repatriation: The Dream Frustrated 249

Chapter Seven: Conclusions 287

References 298

IV Chapter One

Introduction

There are Cossacks in the holy lands who torment Muslims lulled to sleep on the melodic sounds of the accordion. Church bells ring near a small shop in Aleppo where a man rolls falafel and mint in a nearly transparent piece of lavash after writing his brother an "inch bes es?" at the local internet cafe. The territorial location of ethnicity has broken down all over the globe, not just in major urban centers such as London and New

York but in the countries of Greater Syria, too. It is neither a recent development nor only the product of elective immigration. Instead, the region has been an ethnic mosaic since the time it was carved up into mandates after WWI. Separated by tremendous distance, the worlds of the Caucasus and Southern Anatolia are intimately connected to

Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria because of the presence of two diasporas; Circassians and

Armenians. Both groups were forced from their distant homelands in the late 18th and early 19th centuries due to protracted wars between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

After genocides and displacement, the Circassians and then the Armenians found themselves living among Arabs in a predominantly Muslim society that treated its citizens according to a classification system based on religion; the millet system of the

Ottoman Empire.

This project began as an attempt to understand the position of minorities within the region of Greater Syria where an Arab and Muslim population forms the normative

1 culture. Armenians were the first group selected for inclusion because of my knowledge of Western Armenian and my interest in Christian groups within the Middle East.

Armenians are a unique subset of the larger Christian body as they constitute a diasporic group with no claims of indigeniety to the region. Unlike the majority of Christians within Greater Syria1 who define themselves as Arabs, the diasporic Armenians do not share the same national histories with their host communities. How, then, did the

Armenians come to reside in Greater Syria? A brief overview of Armenian history is in order to situate this study of Armenian diaspora within the larger frame of Armenian history.

Homeland to Genocide to Greater Syria: A Brief History of the Armenian

Dispersion

The history of Armenians is deep, rich, complicated, tragic, and formally exists outside of

Greater Syria until the mass emigration of refugees from the Ottoman Empire were driven into the Eastern Syrian desert at Deir Zor in 1915. According to traditional

Armenian history, 301 AD marks the start of the Christian Armenian nation under the leadership of Trdat III. In 451 AD Armenians break away from the Universal Church over a debate on Christology resulting in the formation of their own, national church with its own dogma and a unique Armenian language liturgy. As a national church, the

1 The scope of this dissertation is limited to Greater Syria as defined as the region now composed of the nations Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. While there are Circassians and Armenians located within Israel/Palestine, their literary production is scant and not included within this study as they are not writing against the same social/cultural backdrop of a normative Arab/Muslim population but rather a Jewish cultural context. 2 New historical research estimates the true conversion to have happened around 314 AD. Establishing the date of 301 allows Armenians to make the claim of being the first nation to convert to Christianity.

2 Armenian Orthodox Apostolic Church maintains a separate and distinctive identity that has safeguarded Armenia from incorporation into larger Christian bodies such as the

Byzantine Empire. From this point in the fifth century, Armenian national history and religious history blend within the territorial space of the "homeland" of Armenia.

Depending on the map imagined, this homeland comprises portion of the territories stretching from the southern Caucasus encompassed by the modern Republic of Armenia today and into the region of Eastern Anatolia currently occupied by Turkey.

Additionally, the Southeastern region of Turkey known as Cilicia that encompasses the territory bounded in the north by the Taurus Mountains and the South along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea extending inland to the modern border of Syria around, but not including, Aleppo has been populated with Armenians from around the beginning of the

11 century when the Kingdom of Cilicia, also known as Little Armenia, saw the flourishing of a Western Armenian culture that, due to the geographical distance from the

Armenian Plain, would continue to develop as a separate and unique culture. From the

Medieval period, the differences between Western and Eastern Armenias and Armenians continued to crystallize, embodied in divergent dialects, orthographies, and cultural traits influenced by empires and different cultural milieus.

In the 19th century the cultural centers of Armenian culture fell outside of the space typically thought of as part of the historic homeland of Armenia. In the East, Tiflis with imperial Russia as its social influence was the cultural and intellectual center. In the

West, Constantinople under the Ottoman Empire was the creative and political center for

Western Armenians. The political situation of the Western Armenians was thought and was proved to be more tenuous than that of Eastern Armenians. As early as 1860 with

3 the Christian massacres in Lebanon and Damascus, the plight of Christians within the

Empire became grave. The massacres were not aimed at the Armenians but the Ottomans showed little concern about the violence committed against their Christian subjects.

Decades later, the Hamidian or Armenian massacres of 1895-1897 were specifically directed towards the Armenians living in the Eastern provinces and are said to be the result of Abdul Hamid's policy of pan-Islamism. After the successful coup of the Young

Turks against Abdul Hamid supported by Armenians, a counter-coup in 1909 briefly reestablished the Sultan and a massacre of Armenians occurred in Adana, thought to be an act of retribution against "disloyal" Armenian subjects.

By this point, the predicament of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had drawn international attention. But it was too late. Armenians once again became the target of the Ottoman state apparatus as the Empire crumbled under the military pressures of

World War I. Seeking a means to justify what would come to be known as the first genocide of the 20th century, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) pointed to the

Eastern Armenians residing and fighting in Russian forces against the Ottomans as a subversive force influencing Armenians in Eastern Anatolia and throughout the Empire.

Their loyalty in question, in 1915 the Empire under the leadership of the CUP, citing issues of national security, massacred the Armenian men living in the Eastern territories and forced those who survived, along with the women and children, into the Syrian desert. In addition to the provincial Armenians, the intellectuals, artists and dignitaries in the metropole were rounded up and executed in April of the same year.

Thus, the Armenians entered the region of Greater Syria as refugees, mostly women and children, weak and starving with no knowledge of Arabic and were forced to

4 rebuild in this new social context. How they would renegotiate their identity in relationship to this new context while coping with the impact of such grave trauma is the subject of this dissertation.

Seeking a Comparison: Methodology

The desire to do comparative work was sparked by reading The Nature and

Context of Minority Discourse edited by David Lloyd and Abdul JanMohamed. Struck by the amount of work that was dedicated to single minority groups within this edited volume, yet seeing the contributors' desires to combine their experiences into ideas and theories which could be shared, I sought a project that would compare minorities within the region of Greater Syria, informing the questions that should be asked and looking for unified ways of dealing with the issues of identity politics within this complex and multicultural region. Minority studies conducted in the Middle East previous to mine were of a number of types. First, there were typologies which do little more than provide the reader with a list of traits for the various groups such as their populations within specific countries, the languages they speak, religious affiliations, etc. Sometimes a brief history of each group within various states will also be given. Other studies focus on a singular minority group and provide a detailed history or analysis of a particular feature of the group conducted by a researcher or scholar. These studies are usually undertaken by historians and/or anthropologists. The last broad category that is undertaken is the non-scholarly works that carry out the study of the writer's own community; in other words, Jews writing about Jews, or Chaledeans studying Chaledeans. While each of

3 JanMohamed, Abdul R. and David Lloyd (eds). The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990.

5 these approaches provides a different vantage point and understanding of minorities within the region, there had not been a significant work that attempted to compare two or more minorities in Greater Syria to determine different strategies for integrating or adapting, especially through an analysis of literary texts.

Taking Armenian Christians as my first minority group, I tried to determine which group or groups could provide a comparison to how identity politics function within the region of Greater Syria. As religion has been, and continues to be, the chief means of negotiating identity within the region, selection of a non-Christian minority to contrast with the Armenians, holding as many other identity characteristics constant as possible was necessary. I needed a non-Christian, non-Arab, linguistic minority preferably bilingual or polyglot, having become a diaspora due to genocide or massacres.

Initially, Kurds were a possible consideration but were eliminated because, unlike

Armenians, they do not constitute a true diaspora within Greater Syria. Instead, Kurds are indigenous to the region and, in effect, occupy part of their homeland. While some scholars attempt to expand the definition of diaspora to include a situation like the Kurds who do not have political autonomy within their homeland of Kurdistan, use of the Kurds would have constrained the type of comparisons I could potentially make with a true diasporic group whose homeland was and is elsewhere and who are truly deterritorialized.

In such a way, the diasporic element of identity became a motivating factor in terms of finding a comparison for the Armenians. Although considerable differences are present with Armenians, the Hanafi4 Muslim Circassians5of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon

Cornell, Svante E. Small Nations and Great Powers A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Caucasus world. Richmond, Surrey, England: Curzon, 2001.

6 became the logical choice. Circassians are a linguistically unique group, physically different from the Arabs, who have sustained massacres classified by the group as meeting the criteria for genocide.6 And while the circumstances of the Circassian dispersions differ in that they were coerced from their homeland in the northern Caucasus after protracted (1763-1864) warfare with invading Russians and Cossacks, whereas

Armenians were abruptly and unexpectedly forced from their homeland in Eastern

Anatolia by the Turks and Kurds over the course of a few brief years (1915-1918); both groups enter Greater Syria as traumatize diasporas needing to rebuild their community.

Armenians came directly to the region, driven into the Eastern Syrian desert stopping first at Deir Zor and then making their way to Aleppo, Damascus and Beirut where large populations of Armenians remain today. Some Armenian refugees went as far as Cyprus from where they were directed to destinations such as France and the United States.

The Circassian route to the Arabic speaking world was as not direct as the

Armenians'. Instead, many Circassians were relocated to Anatolia and remained there.

Others were moved to the Balkans as a bulwark to the independence movements that were starting in the late 19th century. Circassian irregular troops were deployed in the region during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878:

The Ottoman army provided them [Circassian irregulars] with rations, 16-shot

Winchester repeating rifles, and ammunition. In return, the Circassians

performed all the functions normally attributed to irregular cavalry. They scouted

Circassian is the term employed in Western scholarship for the group of peoples in the North Caucasus along the region of the Kuban River. The groups and tribes that fall under this designation is contested. However, I use the term to include the following groups that are labeled Cherkess or oȣjZ& within the region of Greater Syria: Adigha, Cherkess, Shapsugh, Kabardians, Bzadough and Abkhaz There are a few eastern Caucasian tribes that are also present within Greater Syria, primarily Chechen and Daghestanis who may also be further particularized into tribal affiliations. 6 The term genocide is discussed in Chapter Two.

7 the enemy army, fought skirmishes with Cossacks and Russian regular cavalry,

went forward on picket duty or on patrols in the advanced guard, raided, and

ideally acted as a cavalry screen for the Ottoman army.7

As the region sunk deeper into revolt, many Circassians were relocated to other imperial hinterlands such as Greater Syria. Therefore, the majority of Circassians in Greater

Syria have been displaced at least twice and arrived as late as the early 1900s but with their population centers firmly founded before the establishment of any nation state following the European mandates. For this reason, today, Circassians assert their status as original citizens of states like Jordan and Syria and see Circassian history as an integral part of the larger national histories of the region. Additionally, as Muslim subjects within the Ottoman Empire, Circassians were and continue to be conscripted into the military. In fact, the Circassians in Jordan have constituted a powerful military force and are a part of the elite ceremonial guard who protect the king.

Diasporic Positionality: Internal and External Identity Maintenance

Historical differences aside, the entrance of Circassians and Armenians into

Greater Syria as diasporic groups ethnically and linguistically distinct, having sustained significant demographic changes allows for a discrete starting point or points of origin for the diasporic line. For nascent communities the desire and need to narrate these origins or stories of beginnings are common. The emerging (diasporic) positionalities8 defined

7 Reid, James J. Crisis of the Ottoman Empire Prelude to Collapse, 1839-1878. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2000. My definition of positionality is informed by the following article by Anthias as well as its usage in fields like anthropology and education where the research defines their position in relationship to the

8 as the networks of power relationships that act upon the subject and allow for certain actions and behaviors and ways of being are a result of embedding in a new social milieu with different social actors and institutions. The literature that both Circassians and

Armenians produce grapples with emerging positionalities of the groups and informs us about not only the minority group itself, but the way that it is perceived, the power relationships in which it is engaged, and how these mold and constrain attempts at articulating identity/identities that will both conform to these external representations of their diasporic selves (accepting the classification systems and positions into which they are embedded through the host communities) as well as attempts to maintain a sense of continuity with homeland positionality and identities.

I utilize the term positionality in tandem with identity throughout the work. It is difficult to escape the use of the term identity when discussing minorities and diasporas.

However, the hesitation about its usage stems from the rather static implications that arise from it. Positionality as used by researchers when trying to locate themselves within their field of research has also been applied to subjects. Whereas discussions of identity politics usually recognize the multi-directional process of constructing identities in relationship to others, rarely do they emphasize the imposition or ascription of identity through a multi-layered process.

Positionality forces an awareness of both the external and internal components of identity construction and maintenance. In other words, both individuals and diasporas must articulate who they are in terms of the self, in terms of their own subjectivity, while at the same time defining that self against the set of others with whom they interact or

subjects/informers involved in their research: Anthias, Floya. "Where do I belong?: Narrating collective identity and translocational positionality" In: Ethnicities, Vol. 2, No. 4, 491-514 (2002).

9 have relationships. For example, the Circassians are oft described as a loose affiliation of linguistically unique hierarchically complex tribes (Bzadough, Shapsough,

Adigha/Adyghe, Kabardian, and the now extinct Ubykh, for example) who have and do reside in the Northwestern Caucasus around the region of the Black Sea and Kuban

River. Since their rather late conversion to Islam in the 16th century, this religious identity has been one of the two principle external identity demarcations. Being Muslims sets them apart from regional Christian groups (i.e.; Georgian, Armenians, and Ossetians) and the invading Orthodox Christian Russians, atheistic Soviets, and now the Russian

Federation. The second external identity demarcation of language established a division between the Western Circassians with the Eastern Daghestanis and Chechens who speak unintelligible languages though share similar religious traditions with the Circassian tribes.

Once these external identities were established, a need to articulate a particular set of cultural features that are shared within a group, internal identity maintenance, is necessary. The use of Circassian languages (Adyghe and Kabardian, the two literary languages; Abkhaz; Abaza and the extinct Ubykh) creates a sense of unity among the tribes even though these languages are further subdivided into dialects associated with the individual tribes and villages. For example, within Jordan there are speakers within the

Adyghe language of the Shapsough and Bzadough dialects. Additionally, culturally specific traits that contrast with other regional ethnic groups cement internal cohesion.

For example, the oral code of conduct referred to as the khabza/khabsa that regulates social interactions between Circassians bonds them together across villages and dialectical differences. Their strong preference for exogamous marriages, requiring that a

10 man find a bride outside his village and with no connections to his family through several generations, insures greater internal unity.

However, upon arrival in the Ottoman Empire, the way that Circassians saw themselves as a unique ethnic group needed to be rearticulated to reflect the new ethnic landscape in which they found themselves. The Ottoman system rendered their Muslim identity meaningless in establishing a unique identity and instead, encouraged assimilation into the normative Muslim community or ummah. They would and do need their own method of maintaining external differences in light of this shift in positionality and specifically in terms of external identity. What is chosen as demonstrable of external identity also needs to conform to what is present and "authentic" within the homeland in order to establish a sense of continuity. The verb authenticate differs from validate within this dissertation. To authenticate something is to confirm a sense of tradition to it, to imply a sense of continuity and fixity; whereas to validate means to recognizes the right to exist and to give meaning unspecified meaning to it. While it is inevitable that certain cultural neologisms will emerge after decades of distance from the homeland, these cannot, though often attempted, be authenticated through a connection with the homeland.

Instead, the community members and writers seek to utilize those markers that were brought out of the homeland and which have been sustained in diaspora with minimal deviations from the original. These items may appear trivial and insignificant.

But the ability to identify traits, characteristics and customs which legitimatize the group while at the same time distinguishing it in these two territorial realms (homeland and diaspora) is sometimes more difficult than would appear, especially when their Muslim

11 identity no longer marks them as distinct in relationship to their Turkish and Arab counterparts who also are predominantly Muslim. Their linguistic differences maintained a distinction that could not be sustained because to function within society knowledge of

Turkish and later Arabic was necessary. Maintaining use of the various Circassian languages could maintain a distinction but would also reify the differences among the tribes. Instead, Circassian writers particularize their Muslim identity as being Islamic but yet unique in terms of a specific national Circassian history in conjunction with the maintenance of the khabza which abrogates the Qur'an (for many Circassians) in terms of social interactions. For example, the khabza emphasizes gender equality and therefore there are fewer social restrictions on gender mixing at social gatherings—dancing is a form of courtship. Furthermore, many Circassian women do not wear hijab, or head coverings. Muslim religious identity not providing differences except when abrogated by traditional social mores set down in the khabza, a set of cultural symbols that were shared by the various tribes in the homeland and could be transported to this new cultural space were used to further demarcate Circassian identity such as the accordion and tribal dances and horses and horse culture.

Analogous to the Circassian case, Armenians enter Greater Syria with a sense of

Armenianness but also with regional identities and local dialects though the distinctions are less pronounced. Dialects are mutually intelligible but remain the source of regional affiliation and numerous jokes for the Armenians. Linguistically, what was more pressing for the Armenians was the divide between urban and rural Armenians of

Western Armenia. Those Armenians in the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire spoke their dialect of Armenian and might have knowledge of Turkish to facilitate their

12 interactions with other ethnic groups in the region. However, the urbanite Armenians were more likely to know Turkish and European languages. The need to educate the refugee population in the Western dialect of Armenian became one means of unifying

Armenians. Thus, many refugees, especially children, had the burden or learning not only Arabic to facilitate their daily interactions with the local populations, but also

Armenian to understand other Armenians from different regions who might not understand Turkish. In this way, many of the Armenian communities in Greater Syria became polyglot communities. For example an Armenian would grow up speaking

Armenian in the home, Arabic in the street, a European language such as French or

English in their Christian schools, and perhaps Turkish with grandparents. Even today, families in Aleppo speak Armenian, Arabic, know Turkish from their satellite television, and one to two European languages.

For Armenians, the shift in their positionality was not as great as for the

Circassians. Previously Ottoman subjects, their rights and representations were not significantly altered in the Arabic-speaking milieu. One primary difference arises from this territorial relocation. More Armenians came into contact with different Christians and the need to demarcate the boundaries between the Christian groups is reflected in their literary production.

Another difference between the Armenians and the Circassians affecting a difference in their positionality is the location of their population centers within the region. As previously mentioned, the Armenians found themselves living in or near the larger urban centers of the region: Aleppo, Beirut, and Damascus. The Circassians, on the other hand, were relocated into the regions of Jordan principally around what would

13 become Amman and Jerash and throughout lesser known regions in Syria. This becomes important when we consider that Armenian writers were more likely to have experienced and been affected by the Lebanese civil wars starting in the 1950s, hitting a fevered peak in the 1970s and 1980s and now seemingly renewed in this decade.

Narrative Goals in Terms of Positionality

With this theoretical and historical background established, I now turn my attention to the goals of these diasporic authors and the narratives that will be discussed within this dissertation.

As the two diasporas relocate to Greater Syria, they share two goals. First, they want to affiliate with their host communities without becoming fully assimilated.

Second, they want to downplay their victimization and present a solid collective body to the host community. Because of the differences in their positionality, the narrative strategies they utilize are different.

Circassians

Circassians affiliate with Muslims in the host community through the use of their shared, sacred histories. By selecting the historical novel as their genre of choice, the

Circassians narrate their histories emphasizing the emigration from the homeland due to religious persecution. Writing in Arabic to an Arabic speaking audience, the intended reader associates the Circassian emigration with the early ummah hijra from Mecca to

Medina. In such a way, Circassians history is embedded in the larger sacred history of the Islamic ummah. Yet at the same time, the unique history of the Circassians marks them as distinct within this normative Muslim social context. Those authors who

14 continue the histories of the Circassians within Greater Syria link Circassian history with national histories of the new states of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Thus, Circassian diasporic history becomes inextricably linked to the sacred history of Islam and the specific histories of the Arabic speaking states of Greater Syria. The representations the

Circassians present to their Arabic speaking audience are of a strong, cohesive Circassian collective that has continued to fight religious persecution of infidels.

Armenians:

Armenians positionality guides them to different narrative techniques. Entering the region as victims, the first generation of genocide survivors narrate their experiences of relocation, not the atrocities that they had endured. In so doing, Armenian fortitude in the face of near annihilation becomes the focus. Speaking in a memoir style, the voices of children and women recount the struggles of rebuilding from refugee camps and orphanages. For example, the author Seza (Siranoysh Seza Zarifean) who published the monthly Eritasard hayuhi (1932-1934, 1946-68) where she presented feminist issues facing the Armenian diasporic community, sheds light in her short stories on the anguish of women as they worked to gain the financial means to reclaim their children from the orphanages . Saddled with the responsibilities of men lost in genocide, Seza discusses the limited options Armenian women had (marriage to successful Armenians in other locations, relocating to the new Soviet Armenia with their children, working tirelessly and alone until financially able, etc.). From the point of view of children, Andranik

Tsarukean's now famous novelistic memoir Men without Childhood: Mankut'iwn

Bardakjian, Kevork. A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920: with An introductory history. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2000, p 500.

15 chunestol mardik again directs attention towards the goals of integrating within the society and coping with disconnects with their families and histories lost to the Genocide.

Kevork Bardakjian, in his analysis of the work suggests "There is something cruel about the atmosphere in which these orphans grow up, alienated from themselves and society at large, and given willy-nilly to their instincts for survival."11 Similarly, Simon Simonian located in Aleppo writes his memoirs as a child of genocide survivors. The crucial role that children played as cultural liaisons or interlocutors between the generation of survivors who never assimilated linguistically nor fully recovered from the trauma is articulated in the belief of his father that no Armenian had the right to laugh because of the genocide that had occurred.

The subsequent generations that grew up with little to no memory of the genocide focus on affiliating with their host community and its cultures. Unlike the Circassians, the Armenians' positionality is also a product of their urban locations within the region.

In fact the bulk of Greater Syrian diasporic writing comes from Lebanon and as such has been greatly affected by the civil wars that have ravaged the country since the 1950s. By associating the contemporary state of war and the victimization felt by the populace of

Lebanon, Armenian writers allude to the Armenian genocide creating a type of literary palimpsest of temporal and spatial references. Narrating the traumas of the Lebanese civil wars as the top level of the palimpsest, the obfuscated bottom layer of the specific

Armenian history of genocide periodically is visible and bubbles to the surface. In this

Tsarukean, Andranik. Men without childhood. Translated by Elise Bayizian and Marzbed Margossian. New York : Ashod Press, 1985.

Bardakjian, Kevork. A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920: with An introductory history. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2000, p 248.

16 way, the various audiences of Armenian texts are encouraged to identify themselves with this victimized diasporic group and its history.

Languages and the Audiences they Construct

One of the major differences between the Armenians and the Circassians that emerges as a product of their positionality is the level of linguistic assimilation and the potential audiences to which both groups can write. Circassians have almost completely assimilated to Arabic. Retention of the Circassian languages did little to create a cohesive body. Residing in an Arabic-speaking region, the pull towards assimilating to the Arabic language is two-fold. First it facilitates daily interactions. Second, it allows for proper Islamic religious practice.

On the other hand, complete assimilation to Arabic for Armenians is less than desirable. The Armenian language is a source of pride and is, in effect, a form of homeland for diasporic Armenians. Use of Armenian (either dialect) connects

Armenians to their deep history that predates their conversion to Christianity. Within their Christian identity, Armenian allows them deeper understanding of their unique liturgy performed in the classical language. Armenian affords them space them to compose fictional texts in a language that is rarely penetrated by outsider audiences.

Thus, Armenian writers are freer to express themselves with fewer concessions made to the cultural norms of the normative host communities, unlike their Circassian counterparts composing in Arabic. It is no wonder that the desire to continue to

With the exception of M.I. Quandour who writes in English, all other Circassian writers in this study write in Arabic.

17 compose in Armenian is present. What is curious is the total lack of fictional works

1 -5 composed in Arabic.

In order to understand the lack of Armenian Arabic fiction, I began to ask members of the community "Why don't Armenians write in Arabic?" However subjective, the best response I have received was from a man at a local Armenian club in

Aleppo. He asked me "Why would we bother writing our stories to Arabs. What power do they have to make a change in our situation?" If you want to write something meaningful you write to your people and those with power. In this case, English and

French are languages which speak to power, Arabic is not.

This anecdotal story illustrates the importance of audience in terms of authorial narrative goals. Looking at the texts produced by diasporic Armenian authors of Greater

Syria reveals a couple of things. Sonia Nigolian, a poet and novelist in Beirut, writes in

French as a linguistically assimilated individual. Her text, a palimpsest as discussed above, truly hones in on the similarities between the peoples of Beirut and the victims of the Armenian genocide. She implies that only as a victim was she capable of identifying and empathizing with her grandmother, a survivor of the genocide. Experiencing violence and trauma in Beirut becomes a form of vicarious reenactment of trauma imagined to have occurred against her ancestors.

Kevork Ajemian is the only author in the study that provides us with texts in two different languages: Armenian and English. Also a resident of Beirut, Kevork Ajemian writes A Time for Terror in English which is open to the larger English speaking population of the region and beyond and attempts to explicate the Armenian position

1 At the time of this writing, there are no substantial professional published fictional works by Armenians originally composed in Arabic.

18 within the region, the desire for revenge associated with Turkish denials of the Genocide, and the history of Armenian terrorist organizations. His texts in Armenian, while taking up similar themes as his English texts, are far more didactic in nature and chide his fellow

Armenians for their lack of action, apathy and spinelessness. The English texts, while showing some splintering within the ranks of the Armenian collective, do not hold the same kind of divisive writing that is present in his Armenian.

Finally returning to the Circassians, there is one author who has written in

English, M.I. Quandour, a Jordanian Kabardian who was educated in the United States after attending English language schools in Jordan. The first three volumes of his

Circassian Saga, a five volume history of his family's emigration from Circassia into

Chechen territory and ultimately to Jordan, were commissioned by the Soviets to be a mini-series for Soviet television. He wrote the works in English with the intention of their translation into Russian, which they were, but with the mini-series never being filmed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the intended audience of the miniseries was to be a mixed Russian and Circassian audience, his treatment of the Russian-

Circassian history, while historical accurate, as Quandour has a PhD in history, is evenhanded in is depictions of the Russian military. However, the final two volumes of the Saga, no longer commissioned or funded by Russian sources14 allow him to write

Russian villains that are less nuanced and that appeal more to his Circassian audiences.

Outline of Chapters:

Quandour knew that the final volumes would, like the first three, be translated into Russian. The Trilogy, as the first three have been titled after a combined binding, have greater sales in the Russian. Therefore, he knew that Russian translations and audiences would be reading these novels, as well.

19 Keeping these narrative goals in mind in relationship to the positionality of the group and the language of composition and the audience/s those languages create, the following chapters delve into the techniques of renegotiating diaporic identity within the context of Greater Syria.

Chapter Two: Villains and Enemies: Constructing the Self through Others

Chapter Two is an exploration on the limits of Armenian and Circassian identity through the creation of villains and enemies against which authors narrate their contemporary positionality. The following texts serve as the basis of discussion: Rasim

Rushdi's Jan, Birzaj Samkugh's Perdition of Emigration, Kevork Ajemian's A Perpetual

Path, Seza's "An Immigrant Boy," M.I. Quandour's Revolution, Vehanoush Tekean's

"Essence" and Atom Egoyan's Ararat. The construction of villains leads less skilled writers to fall into the narrative trap of relying upon a basic binary of villain/hero to define external dimensions of their identity. For diasporic groups, a complex network of power relationships determines which historical villains can be narrated and in which ways. As discussed above, Armenian positionality within the region does not encourage the writing of the Turkish villain. Armenians understand the genocide in political terms couched in religious identity. When discussing the genocide they are careful to label the perpetrators as Turks and Kurds with no reference to their religious identity. While

Kevork Ajemian does mention Turks as enemies of Armenians, he does not define them as Muslims.

20 Both Armenians and Circassians select historical villains that were intimately connected to the violence they endured. These historical figures are not the larger than life individuals known in Western scholarship. While students of Near Eastern Studies may be familiar with Jevdet Bey (the general overseeing the Ottoman administration in the area around Van) he is no Enver Pasha. Similarly, the Circassian villain General Zass receives marginal mentions within Western histories of the Russo-Circassian wars but makes appearances in a number of the Circassian historical novels. The traumatic legacies Zass ingrained in the Circassian collective memory provide nightmarish visuals for the Circassian reader just by reading the name.

The construction of these enemies and villains can be used for positive constructions of the community. First, within the text, the villain can be controlled and subjugated to the will of the collective. Second, the villain allows for creation of positive heroes. Third, the binary of villain/hero is broken by two artists, M.I. Quandour and

Atom Egoyan. Their nuanced renderings of Turks and Russians potentially break the reciprocal dehumanization15 present in the communities.

Chapter Three: Religious Diasporic Representations: Genocide and Profanation

As diasporans move into the holy land and lose contact with the homeland a shift occurs. The holy land, now lived in, becomes accessible, and the homeland and the collective are seemingly transcendent. Thus the sacred and the profane planes are

15 Russian literary tradition also breaks with the reciprocal dehumanization with many of the famous writers such as Lermetov and Pushkin writing celebrations of the Circassians. However, these were also somewhat exotic representations as well that freeze the Circassians within this historic moment. M.I. Quandour's Circassian Saga provides a spectrum of both Russian and Circassian identities that allows for more realistic representations of both groups.

21 inverted. Building upon the established issues of external identity for Circassian and

Armenian diasporas in Chapter Two, this chapter looks at the fundamental element of

Greater Syrian identity, religion, and how it becomes renegotiated for diasporas while maintaining continuity with the religiosity of the homeland.

Coping with the issues of 1) deterritorialization of the religious and national space of the Armenians in the homeland 2) the shrinking space of religious praxis in diaspora for Armenians, 3) the need of Circassians to both emphasize their Muslim identity while particularizing it and 4) the desire to have the question of suffering addressed are the main themes of the chapter. In the end, the centrality of renegotiating identity in light of the Genocide for both groups is established.

The following texts are analyzed: Ulfat Idilbi's Grandfather's Tale16 Sonia

Nigolian's Images have Snags, and Edward Pochayean's "One of the Immigrants."

The focus then shifts from comparison of narrative strategies to two case studies which illustrate unique methods for the groups.

Chapter Four: Hijras: Horses Die and Accordions Wail

While the historical novels of the Circassians are movements away from the homeland, the narrative strategy employed by the authors is to take diasporic cultural elements that have become important to their identity because of their new positionality in Greater Syria and embed them in the historic homeland, thus validating and authenticating both the cultural symbols and by extension the diasporic identity.

Specifically, the chapter looks at two primary symbols: the horse and the accordion. .

16 Idilbi is a Daghestani but an explanation of her inclusion as a Caucasian is given in the chapter.

22 For example, the accordion which has become symbolic of Circassian music in Greater

Syria is placed in the homeland to be brought forward into the diaspora. Meanwhile the horse as a symbol for the resistance is slaughtered en masse upon the deportations.

Additionally, I illustrate how Circassian authors create a space for homeland desire in their narratives even during active warfare. This desire is necessary to maintaining a connection with the homeland in diaspora. The following texts are analyzed: Rasim Rushdi's Jan, Zahra Omar's Exit from Susruqah, Birzaj Samkugh's

Perdition of Emigration, and M.I. Quandour's Kavkas: the Trilogy.

Chapter Five: Spectacular Embeddings: Armenian Operatic Production

Rather than the "homeland" authenticating the diasporic identity, Armenian

th operas, produced in the two Armenian cultural epicenters of the 19 century

(Constantinople and Tiflis) are embedded within the partial homeland of Soviet Armenia to validate its status as capital and new center of Armenianness. Additionally, the potential for Armenian operas to connect the Armenians with the host communities is discussed. In Greater Syria the lack of an indigenous operatic tradition coupled with the active presence of Armenians in the arts does not encourage professional stagings of

Armenian operas. Instead the folk opera Anoush that celebrates a rather generic though definitely Armenian community has been performed in numerous nonprofessional venues. Meanwhile in diasporas with established operatic traditions, such as the example provided of the United States, professional productions of Armenian national operas open up a space for recognition of the diasporic community and its history, gives Armenian opera professionals a chance to break into this more competitive artistic market and, most

23 importantly, gives the Armenian community a chance to host Armenian and non-

Armenian dignitaries.

Chapter Six: Repatriation: The Dream Frustrated

Finally, in this chapter a return to the comparison methodology is possible as both diasporas realize the dream of repatriation to new configurations of the homeland. I address the multi-phase process of repatriation that is depicted as frustrated and a disappointment if not worse in the texts that were surveyed. On the mild side, diasporans experience culture shock instead of acceptance. On the extreme, Armenian repatriates experienced suspicion and became part of the Stalinist purges that resulted in exile to

Siberia.

First, through Seza's "An Immigrant Boy" I demonstrate the general optimism about a return to Armenia in the face of financial strains shortly following the Armenian genocide. Then Tsarukean's "Grade School" depicts the internal debate that rages about repatriation, from the point of view of the Armenians. Finally, through Quandour's

Revolution and Ajemian's The Perpetual Path the reality of the encounter between homeland compatriot and diasporan results in a realization that both positions have been corrupted and that there is no longer a territorial center for identity authentication.

Authentication lies outside of territoriality after all. Most repatriates return to the diaspora, resigned to the continued separation of the homeland and the collective body.

Conclusions:

24 This dissertation is significant in that it is one of the only comparative studies of minorities within the Middle East that analyzes the way that the groups are embedded within power networks of the region. Greater Syrian identity politics are predicated upon religious identity because of the legacy of the Ottoman Empire's millet system.

Acknowledging that power within the region is constantly in flux, diasporic positionality examines the external identities of Armenian and Circassian diasporas as defined for them by the power structures of the region and how they negotiate those representations through affiliation with the host community while particularizing their identity through the use of unique cultural symbols. Those cultural symbols are then authenticated through their association with the homeland and pre-Genocide communities even if they do not have historical depth. Again, Circassian use of the accordion, a cultural neologism, is given historic depth through Circassian hijra narratives and serves to authenticate Circassian diasporic identity.

Issues of languages and the potential audiences they create determine the kind of speech and the goals of the group which can be met. Because Armenians have not produced fictional works in Arabic, this dissertation serves as an introduction to texts which are unfamiliar to non-Armenians. The focus of the Armenian canon has not been works produced in Greater Syria. Poetry has been privileged over prose. Thus, even within the Armenian community a novel such as Kevork Ajemian's The Perpetual Path is not well-known and has not been translated. Likewise the secondary sources on

Circassian literature are limited in Arabic and in English. Far more has been written in

Russian but focusing on the literary production of the homeland and not on diasporans.

Therefore, this work also serves as an entrance into the study of Circassian diasporic

25 fiction. Specifically, secondary sources on Birzaj Samkugh's Daya' al-ightirab and

Rasim Rushdi's Jan in Western languages are not available. Both writers also writing scholarly works on Circassian history in Arabic, these historical novels expand our knowledge about the attitudes of Circassians about their position within Arab histories as original citizens in Greater Syria.

There is still more work to be done and I am fraught with remorse that I am not the polyglot that my subjects are. I would then naturally expand my work to include those texts written by the largest Circassian diaspora, the Turkish diaspora. If I had unlimited time and resources, I would also incorporate those Armenian texts which were composed under the emerging state of Turkey to see how they compare with the

Circassians. A study comparing Armenian and Circassians in a similar way but against

Turkish culture would be fascinating and would yield interesting comparative results with this one. Another direction that I have desired pursuing is the exploration of a group without a true homeland, the Druze, to see how they territorialize their history and past.

But for now, I invite you into the margins of the margins of the world to hear the voices of the Armenians and the Circassians as they define who they are for you. Keep in mind sometimes these are the representations that they want you to see, and other times these are the representations that were meant for themselves. It is not my intention to criticize or to open a door for any other outsider to do so. This study was conducted with much love and with many tears shed for the victims of both groups. I hope they find the justice and the peace for which they long.

26 Chapter Two

Villains and Enemies: Constructing the Self through Others

The positionality of the groups in Greater Syria makes the narration of genocide and villains a difficult topic as it forces a feeling of collective victimization in the face of enemies. In a region where a strong and active presence is valued, victimization is thought to be a sign of weakness. Avoiding depictions of powerlessness and vulnerability in constructing historical villains associated with their genocidal traumas and dislocations, Armenians and Circassians share narrative strategies that utilize their enemies in ways that are constructive of their diasporic identity, rather than destructive and that place the collective in an active subject position instead of the passive place to which they have been relegated in history. This chapter begins with a basic description of an internationally recognized definition of genocide and the histories of the Armenian and Circassian Greater Syrian diasporic lines. An analysis of narrative strategies both groups employ in the construction of their villains and/or enemies is undertaken to illustrate how the positionality of the groups informs their narratives.

Genocide: Armenian and Circassian understandings of the term:

Armenians endured and survived the first genocide recorded in the 20th century at the close of World War I. Western Armenians, located throughout the territory now

27 known as Turkey where the Genocide took place, were murdered, executed, and deported via death marches and caravans to the Syrian desert and then to points beyond.

Subsequent Turkish denials claim that the Armenians posed a threat to the empire's national security during this time of war. Their support of the enemy Russian forces as their co-religionists is the primary evidence of this alleged treachery. It is recognized that there were some Armenians in the Eastern provinces who did fight with the Russians.

However, these claims do not provide an explanation for the executions of intellectuals living within Constantinople. Because the first internationally accepted definition of genocide composed by the United Nations was written in 1948, some question the merits of calling this wanton destruction of human life genocide. Looking at the definition which appears in Article 2 of the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the

Crime of Genocide", it is evident that the situation the Armenians suffered constitutes an act of genocide. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• (a) Killing members of the group;

• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about

its physical destruction in whole or in part;

• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.l

1 http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html

28 While memories are fragile and body counts are given to distortion on all sides of such terrible acts of war, relying on this standard definition, Armenian claims of genocide are easily verifiable from such simple sources as Western newspapers that chronicled the deportations and relocations within Greater Syria. For example, Richard Kloian compiled American news articles in his edited volume The Armenian Genocide: News

Accounts from the American Press, 1915-1922 that demonstrates both the atrocities and their aftershocks through the pages of among other papers, The New York Times.

Presentation of graphic photographic evidence of death and emaciation only cement the disgust and outrage that linger within and outside the community, but are unnecessary to mount a case of genocide. It falls outside the scope of the current project to validate the materials presented as historical evidence of genocide. However, this basic knowledge of the history of the Armenian Genocide coupled with that already presented in the introduction is necessary to appreciate the legacy of trauma that continually bubbles to the surface of the multilayered Armenian texts presented here within.

The Circassians' diasporic dispersion into Greater Syria is more complicated and protracted than that of the Armenians. Predating the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the tragic history of the Circassians is also partially a result of the power plays between the

Ottoman and Russian Empires. Beginning in the 16 Century, the Circassians located in the homeland of Circassia, stretching from the Black Sea across the Caucasus into the region of Daghestan in the East, sustained continual Russian advances into their

2 Kloian, Richard Diran. The Armenian Genocide News Accounts from the American Press, 1915-1922. Richmond, Calif. (P.O. Box 5436, Richmond 94805): Distributed by ACC Books, 1985. See also: Armenian Assembly of America. The Armenian Genocide and America's Outcry A Compilation of U.S. Documents 1890-1923. [S.l.]: Armenian Assembly of America, 1985.

3 The New York Times, until recently, refused to refer to the Armenian massacres as genocide.

29 homeland. Recent converts to Sunni Islam, Circassian conversion drew suspicion as a political tactic to maintain differences and gain support from coreligionists. The linguistic differences underlying the decentralized nature of the Circassian tribes and their rather equalitarian nature (though a social hierarchy was maintained) did not foster a resistance that could shake off the relentless assault of the Russian military complex. In spite of this, Circassian tribes persevered in their determination to remain on their ancestral lands for centuries as more and more villages met their fate. Depopulation has not changed a lot except in the methods of "clean up". Typically, Russian military units composed of Cossacks would attack the Circassian auls or villages, massacring the men who tried to defend their families at a distance; the troops would enter the village, and depending on the general, would continue to massacre those who were present and did not flee, or would force the population from their homes through the burning of the village or other such methods. The Czar actively pursued a policy of repopulation of these regions with loyal ethnic minorities from other regions, such as the Cossacks and

Tatars. Once these populations were established in the region, the Russian Czars invested money in the new outposts securing them and making them unrecognizable to their former residents. News of such events would spread as would terror in the more southern populations of the Caucasus.

Because the Daghestanis and more Eastern tribes did mount a more audacious campaign against the Russian advance, once defeated, the Russians could focus their attention to eradicating the pesky presence of the Circassian tribes in the Western region of the Caucasus. However, in terms of Circassian history, the resistance of the

Daghestanis under the leadership of Sheikh Shamil had such a profound impact on the

30 political relationships in and outside of the territories, it cannot be ignored. The defeat of

Shamil in 1859 marks the rapid escalation of the policy of depopulation of the Western

Caucasus, or the homeland of the Circassians. The Russians were no longer burdened with the suppression of the Eastern tribes and could concentrate on their true goal which was clearing a corridor through the Western Caucasus. While the northern regions had already undergone unremitting massacres and depopulations, the populations had not been systematically resettled in the way that the heartland of Circassia would be.

In a political move that has never been fully explicated through documentation, the two foes, Russia and the Sublime Porte, came to an emigration agreement that appears to have suited both their interests. The Ottomans agreed to absorb the

Circassians who would be expelled from the Caucasus, transporting them across the

Black Sea into Ottoman lands. The Russians would present the Circassians with the option of emigration to Dar al-Islam or continued military occupation. This historical moment is vitally important to the way that different Circassian groups see and write their histories in diaspora. As presented, the options are remain and be killed or emigrate and do not return. Either option, if they should be called that, does not allow for the possibility of an autonomous existence in the homeland. In the historical narratives, the prolonged debates that raged among the Circassians through a process that is attested in

Western sources from travelers within the region, followed the ancient oral code of the

Circassians, the khabza that does not compel a man or his tribe to war. Such a decision must be independently made and a social structure that encouraged debate and consensus worked against this group. Unable to mount the kind of counter-offensive necessary to change the foreseeable future, massive waves of Circassians emigrated from their

31 homeland. Entire villages, with the exception of the elderly, infirmed, and bull-headed, started their mass caravans to the Black Sea. They had been promised safe passage and for the most part, this was kept. But nothing was to stop the other tribal groups that were now residing in the region from stopping the caravans to pillage and profit from the retreating groups. The real treachery occurred once the Circassians turned up on the

Black Sea in the region around Sochi. It was here that the Circassians attempted to both resist the Russians through a military presence (kind of like a parting shot) and to flee their impending doom. Tragically and perhaps maliciously, arriving on the beaches of the Black Sea did not end with the passage they sought to the Holy Land. Inadequate provisions could not be stretched to meet the needs of such enormous populations who waited, in some cases months, for transport. There, on the beaches, hundreds of thousands died. Those who did make it upon ships were not guaranteed a happier fate.

Diseases insured that the fish in the Black Sea were well fed with the numerous

Circassian bodies thrown overboard to reduce the strain on the already overcrowded ships. Even the fortunate healthy Circassian who managed to board a ship had yet another obstacle to avoid, several of the ships, probably due to the fire hazard of exceeding the carrying capacity of the ship, caught fire with the entire crew and passengers dying in either the fires or drowning. Their numbers now greatly reduced, many of the Circassian tribes, still maintaining themselves at the level of villages, were resettled in the Balkans as a safeguard against the new revolts in the region that resulted in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1877-78.

32 Part of the terms of the emigration agreements, according to Circassians, was exemption from conscription for a period of upwards of fourteen years. Defying this proviso, the Ottoman military quickly conscripted these able-bodied Muslim men to defend the periphery of the now crumbling empire. As non-Muslims were not allowed to serve in the military, the need for a new pool of Muslims was met with the arrival of these Circassian Muslims who, unfamiliar with Turkish or other languages that could have aided communication, were left to fend for themselves within a foreign military system. In the hour of need, the Circassian men were rounded up for conscription and taken away from the rebuilding of the diasporic lines. Such struggles are retold in the pages of Circassian fiction found within in this work. The way that Circassians utilize the symbols of these stories to define who they are in relationship to the Russian foes they left behind, the tenuous political allies of the Ottomans, and the rivalry of their coreligionists, the Bedouins, who would dominated their lives in diaspora all inform the new positionality of the Circassians as they enter the territorial space of Greater Syria.

Narrative Strategies of Villain construction:

First, all the authors included in the study construct villains that are direct agents of the traumas sustained by the group. Few representations of distant yet powerful foreign actors are present within their texts, for example the Czar rarely makes an appearance, nor does Enver Pasha. Writers more easily recall and construct the images of villains directly experienced by the collective such as General Zass and Jedvet Bey, both discussed below. They directly inflicted terror upon Circassians and Armenians,

33 respectively and therefore created a visual legacy of terror, sometimes unspeakable, that is transmitted from generation to generation. As one website declares, General Zass became the boogie man of Circassian children's' nightmares. The stories their parents and grandparents told of his inhumane treatment of Circassians were and are ingrained in the collective memories of the group. By including references to these historical villains within their novels, the authors quickly marshal the shared fears of his/her communal reader. As will be illustrated, the oral histories of the group require only a reference and the rest of the terror is supplied by the mind of the reader. For the outsider, such oblique and disconnected references devoid of details, leaves wonder to the historicity of the figure. For example, when reading Rashid Rushdi's novella Jan, the references to

General Zass, discussed below, did not explain the severity of his tactics against the

Circassians that are now part of their collective memory. Finding information on

General Zass was difficult as he is not a well-known Russian military general on the order of General Yermelov. While there is a need to establish the reality of these claims, the trauma of the event, if too graphic and unspeakable becomes, for some writers, relegated to allusions and nothing more. With increased distance from the trauma, greater willingness to narrate graphic, violent events can shift to a preoccupation bordering on becoming pornographic violence.

Within certain cultural contexts, the narration and depiction of violence leans towards the pornographic. Images of emaciated refugees lying on urban streets as the world passes by, decapitated heads in buckets, mass graves overflowing, fill the walls of exhibits demanding recognition of genocides committed in every corner of the globe.

Such pornographic displays of violence, while well-intentioned, and meant to demand the

34 recognition of the violence and the cessation of any future violence also serve to numb the public to the reality of such traumas. Similar depictions occur within texts, fictional and non-fictional, as well. Here, the veracity of the claims can be more vehemently challenged. Therefore, the substantiation through other source documents is often made.

In this particular case study, the Circassian battle scenes narrated by Rashid Rushdi and

M.I. Quandour utilize footnotes to verify the plausibility of such events. Other authors, taking literary license, borrow stock horrific images and insert them within their own narration of traumatic events. The best example of this is Atom Egoyan's borrowing of

Siamanto's (Atom Yarjanian) image of naked virgins being burned alive under Ottoman rule in the Adana massacres of 1909 in his famous poem "The Dance":

The twenty beautiful brides fell to the ground exhausted...

"Stand up", they shrieked, waving their naked swords like snakes...

Then someone brought to the mob a barrel of oil...

O, human justice, let me spit at your forehead...!

They anointed the twenty brides hastily with that liquid...

"You must dance", they roared, "here is a perfume for you which even Arabia

does not have..."

Then they ignited the naked bodies of the brides with a torch,

And the charcoaled corpses rolled from dance to death...

In my terror I closed the shutters of my window like a storm

35 And approaching my lonely dead girl I asked:

"How can I dig my eyes out, how can I dig them out, tell me...?"

Siamanto was among the artists and intellectuals rounded up and slaughtered in

Constantinople on April 24, 1915. Egoyan appropriates this image of the naked maidens being doused with oil and ignited in his film Ararat. This image, though out of place during the genocide in Eastern Anatolia, nonetheless was used, not as a factual reference, but because it has become emblematic of the horror of aggression against Armenians.

Circassians reference three primary villains in their historical narratives: General

Zass, a German general in the Russian army who directly commanded the troops and enjoyed inflicting sadistic acts against the mountain populations; Yermolov, the much celebrated commander-in-chief deployed in the Caucasus; and his assistant, Villiaminov.

Military leaders, such as these, who expand their cruel activities outside the battlefield are more likely to become villains and symbols of oppression, intolerance, and injustice.

Those who are associated with visually compelling images and stories are etched in the minds of the ethnic collective indefinitely. They come to embody both the fear and hatred of the community. The German-born General Zass is such a figure who has become the quintessential villain of the Circassians. While other generals who are more popular and important within Russian history are treated and villainized4 by the

Circassians (Yermolov and Viliaminov are discussed below), the visual element of the following citation and its circulation within the Circassian community make General Zass

41 use the term villainization instead of the term demonize or demonization as that implies a necessarily negative outcome. Within this chapter, the discuss is centered on the creation of a villain in opposition to the community or hero, but it does not necessitate a complete negative image or demonization. For example, M.I. Quandour utilizes Imam Shamil, the Avar resistance leader from Daghestan as a villain in opposition to his central character, Kazbek.

36 a more powerful symbol and therefore villain than the others. His very direct involvement, decapitating the Circassian corpses on the battlefield, places blood directly on his hands. There is no question of his guilt in the crimes against the recalcitrant

Circassians:

Zass, near his encampment, on top of a specially prepared small hill, fixed

Circassian heads on top of lances, with their beards flying in the air. It was very

disturbing to see this scene. One day Zass, agreed to remove the heads from the

lances after the request of a guest lady. We were also his guests at the time. When

I entered the study room of the General, I was struck by a strong, disgusting

smell. Smiling, Zass told us that there were boxes in which the heads were placed

under his bed. Then he pulled a big box in which there were couple big-eyed,

horribly looking heads. I asked him why he keeps them there. He replied: "I boil

them, clean them, and send them to my professor friends in Berlin for the study of

anatomy.

This report sounds like other stories of "the evil general" and the inhumanity outside of the battlefield. Deployment of such grotesque images is thought to confirm the righteousness of the victim's position in history. Correspondingly, juxtaposing the embodiment of the invading forces in such a sadistic general as Zass potentially redeems and commends the Circassians' place in history as they attempt to resist the personification of evil. At first the veracity of this image of General Zass's impaled heads, so widely circulated on websites without sourcing, seems questionable. However,

Attributed to Dekabrist Lorer http://www.circassianworld.com/reports.html

37 there is at least one historical source that also references the event. Mayroslav Shkandrij validates this claim while indicting General Viliaminov in the process:

A witness to these battles reported that 'The day's trophies were several corpses

of mountain people, whose heads had been severed and wrapped in sack-cloth.

For every head General Veliaminov would pay a chervonets (three roubles) and

the skulls would be send to the Academy of Sciences. General Grigorii Zass also

collected tribesmen's heads, impaled them on stakes around his house, and sent

some to anatomists in Russia and Berlin'.6

Other atrocities of Zass are recorded by Russian and Western sources, though his involvement in the Russian campaigns in the Caucasus is more of a side-note mentioning reasons for the failures of the mission than any real development of him as an historical figure. General Zass takes a backseat in history to Yermolov and Viliaminov or even the

Czar. These figures, while being powerful on the international stage, were not present in the day-to-day campaigns of the Caucasus and therefore do not provide the same kind of memory terror that Zass did and does for Circassians. The presence and terror of Zass remains in the collective memory and therefore, he appears in two of the four Circassian historical novels but only as a minor character.

While websites on the Circassian genocide circulate the graphic image of

Circassian heads impaled on staffs, none of the authors narrate this particular predilection of the deviant general. For Circassians, it is assumed, mention of the name recalls the traumas associated with the figure. Sometimes leaving the gore off-stage allows the reader to imagine something worse. However, considering that all of the Circassian texts

Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire from Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times, MQUP, 2001, p 49.

38 are written in Arabic, these non-specific references do not allow the non-Circassian reader to fully experience the trauma of the group. Further historical research is required of the reader to supply the full historical narrative of the traumatic event.

Second, villains can be written in order to tease out the enemies within the group.

Both Rashid Rushdi's novella Jan and Kevork Ajemian's The Perpetual Journey flush out internal villains (Circassian and Armenian, respectively) through the construction of external enemies or villains. Sometimes, the outcome is that the original external villain is humanized in the face of the treachery of the internal villain. For example, Rashid

Rushdi's novella Cfe-: Jan focuses on the military battles of success for the Circassian forces. He foregrounds Circassian military leaders while showing the unswerving patriotism of his central character, the young maiden Jan. His use of the historic figure

General Zass allows him to show corruption amongst the Circassian tribes that originates from the outside, not from within:

He took it upon himself to get close to one of the amirs whose name was Ali, and

he had a familial relationship with Amir Arslan. And General Zass had already

been able to buy this man, promising him a handsome reward if he were to kill his

relative Arlsan.

The temptation for monetary gain corrupts Ali and he devises a plan to kill his relative.

Ali gives Amir Arslan provisions and provides him with accommodations to stay, setting

All translations of Perdition of Emigration are my own. Rushdi, Rasim. Zhan: Sharkasiyah. [Amman, Jordan] : Maktabat al-Shabab wa-Matba'atuha, 1988, p 38.

39 him up for an ambush. Arslan is shot five times and he is thought dead. He finds a way to get back to his men. He dies and General Zass manages to get his body and:

He ordered the body exposed, and left it in the forest so that the dogs and wolfs

would mangle it.8

Arslan's soldiers witness this and then bury the pieces of the corpse that remained. The enemy within, here Ali, motivates other characters and strengthens their resolve to resistance. The act of treachery becomes a source for vengeance for the other characters in the novel; General Zass prolonging their resistance much like secondary sources say his tactics prolonged the overall conflict. Ali illustrates that the invading infidel can corrupt the group as people have their price which is often met by the outsider. In order to preserve the group, the invading forces must be stopped otherwise the group will continue to turn on itself. This motif occurs in other novels, as well. Within Quandour and Samkugh's works there are references made to "Russian" generals who are "outed" as Circassians because of, first, their use of Circassian languages and their physical appearance. These are more extreme examples of affiliating with the enemy to the point of "passing" for them.

Similarly, the Armenian writer Kevork Ajemian writes Armenian characters who have become so embedded within the Soviet apparatus as to become Russian or Soviet, turning on their compatriots. In his Armenian novel, A Perpetual Path9, Ajemian unleashes his disgust for such traitors; Armenians turning on their weakened brothers due

8 Ibid. 9 Ajemian, Kevork. A Perpetual Path (Zuiphpdmljmh Uuihwtqwph). Giligia, Aleppo, 1975.

40 to fear, as a means of personal gain, for any inexplicable reason, and draws comparisons with the stock villain of Armenian culture, the Turk. Consider the following quotes:

#mppn u^uiqnjp ^ni_uhtiui|ni| huiurthpA. Imguih tp. qurdpn ujuipinuiqphL,

qnjuiuihLt^, puipA.puiliui^ hi. ti2lu^L: ^u\ hui]n...p.p tiniuiuuiuigni.ilp.li iftg

hlipqpAip l[n ifhihpuiptp uiUghui]^ li^uiqnjph ifp. iqmmpuilipnihi:

Despite the fact that the Turk had no culture he had been able to assert his will to

exist, to rise and reign, whereas the Armenian in his humiliation .. ..comforted

himself with the delusion of a past culture.10

And referring to Armenians involved in the deportations of Stalin:

fchiipp ^thh. i]hp2uivqbu urju ifuipnjiqp, hi n^ ui^ qbpifuitiuigh, uiliq|]iuigh

quiif 3>puitiuuigh UniAihuq: Uj^hurj ifuiprijiq, ptht qn qnpbui&hhli Jiphtig

Juouuib hurjbpttitb- uiuipphp huijbptti iln: Pnjnp ifhb ni ihnpp

uihinni_phiMihpn kiuipuib thti qhphup ohuifuiuuiqhti, Kiouhpnij huiuqhpA

ppjiuuinlihui quili hi ifuipqqurjp.u uqqpmlipubpni. uitinitini[: t;i qHiinuihuifc

bhti qjiphlip uiliuiuinniui& dnr[ni[nipi}h ifp uiuifuipr}qui]p.u hi.

uuiruxnbpailiuiti pifuihui(£n]pubpni_ti: f^mpphti huiiluip uiquitinLpJiilili ni_

guipijp pifuihui&ijp hhti ijhpguiujtu:

Ibid, p 82.

41 After all, these people were not the Turks, nor Germans, nor English nor even

French. But they were Armenian men, even though they used an Armenian

different from the ones they used. All governments big and small had restrained

or deceived them in the past even though they spoke in the name of Christian and

human principles. And they entrusted them to the inhuman and godless whims of

a godless people. After all killing and murder and massacre were a whim for the

Turk.11.

In these two quotes, Ajemian's primary objective is to bring into disrepute those treacherous and perfidious Armenians who submitted to the Soviet apparatus like sheep and in so doing slaughtered other sheepish Armenians. One of the goals of Ajemian's A

Perpetual Journey is to connect the centuries of abuse of the Armenians to their

"spineless" nature, thus advocating active resistance to acts of aggression. Vengeance becomes a refrain in the work and more than advocated by this interesting and curious historical figure, Kevork Ajemian. This novel, written in 1975 during the Lebanese Civil

War can be read as a manifesto of the controversial group the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), a Marxist-Leninist militant organization with ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), of whom, Ajemian was thought to be a founding member. Indeed, the novel from which the next quote is taken, A Time for

Terror, discusses the internal politics of ASALA and its historical decline during the late

1980s because of internal schisms. Written in English and taking into consideration his broader English speaking audience, Ajemian while still blunt and direct writes a more subdued declaration that does not deride and disparage his Armenian compatriots:

11 Ibid, p 18.

42 For more than a hundred years the Turks have been massacring us. They've

thrown us out of our own country and occupied it themselves. They declared war

on us. Now that we have finally organized to fight back, you expect us to restrain

ourselves, to respect human values and rights. Compared to what they have done

to our people, and are still doing...

There are some sweeping generalizations being made but with more factual information about the history of the Turks and Armenians. Therefore, it is far more palatable to a

Western, English speaking audience. In the first set of quotes, Ajemian's choice of writing in Armenian allows him to be freer with his heavy-handed approach to both the

Turks and whom he deems apathetic Armenians who allow themselves to be ruled by even the likes of Turks without culture, to use his ideas. Both Ajemian and Rushdi's goals are similar: to promote a cohesive collective, unswerving in their loyalty to their common cause, a goal shared by most diasporas. Interesting for this study, ability to write a truly didactic piece demanding such allegiance and condemning those internal enemies is more readily done in a minor language like Armenian, even an intrepid figure like Kevork Ajemian couches his speech when composing in English.

Moving to more positive self constructions, diasporic writers also develop villains as foils to their internal heroes. The next several examples illustrate various methods of this approach: external villain/internal hero, internal villain/internal hero, particularized and humanized villain/quotidian internal hero. In the first case (external villain/internal hero) there is a danger in writing a monolithic, essentialized villain. If the writer limits and dehumanizes his villain, the resultant formation of the hero is also likely to be

12 Ajemian, Kevork. A Time for Terror A Novel. Dulles, Va: Books International, 1997, p 8.

43 something other than human and attainable. Thus, typical villain/hero construction is inhumane villain to superhuman hero; both equally inaccessible to the common reader.

However, diasporic writers are writing in dialogue with previous texts and their writing, like the following example is a reaction to previous depictions and representations. For instance, Birzaj Samkugh in v'j^1 £.W= Perdition of Emigration undercuts the typical representations of General Zass and his legacy through the use of a local hero

Muhammad Aashih, in effect diminishing his terror by debasing him:

,„

And in that night, the man heard, in addition to him, he was talking about

Muhammad Aashih, the famous Circassian hero, who had already worn out the

Russian military units, with his successful attacks, so that it was possible, in one

of those battles to take prisoner General Zass, one of the most insolent Russian

leaders in the Western front who surrendered for him humbly. But Muhammad

Aashih refused the surrender of the General, and released him.

Power and agency is restored to the Circassians. Not only is General Zass, this creature of Circassian nightmares, taken prisoner by a Circassian within this passage, but he also surrenders "humbly'V^JJ which contrasts with his "insolent"/^ reputation.

Furthermore, the Circassian hero, representing the people, does not succumb to pride or vengeance and instead, releases him. Thus, the General and by extension the Russian

13 Samkugh, Birzaj. Daya' al-ightirab. Dimashq : Dar 'Ala' al-Din, 1998-2000. 14 Ibid, p 136.

44 forces, are brought low before Muhammad Aashih, elevating his status among the community while devaluing the legacy of a tyrant.

M.I. Quandour's epic work encompasses a multitude of villains and heroes, usually written in pairs to distinguish heroic and cultural features of the tribe. One relatively unique method Quandour uses is the juxtaposition of historical heroes with quotidian heroes from his family. As a historian trained in the United States who does copious amounts of research before writing his historical novels, it must be disturbing to encounter the misattribution of regional heroes for local ones. In a unique move,

Quandour includes historical figures such as Imam Shamil (also included in Ulfat Idilbi's

Grandfather's Tale discussed in the following chapter) who was an Avar from Daghestan who lead the Daghestani and Chechen uprisings (1834-1859) against the Russians but pairs them with local heroes, here with this example, Quandour's ancestor Kazbek.

Taking the supernatural qualities typically attributed to a figure like Imam Shamil,

Quandour demonstrates their more human side which calls into question their motivations and their heroism.

[Shamil] knew everything; he had a system of runners traveling the length and

breadth of his kingdom. Nothing happened without his knowledge of it within

hours. Thieves were punished by hand-chopping; adulterers with death;

backsliders with torture.

He was Allah's instrument. He would destroy the Infidels.15

Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 574.

45 Shamil would levy taxes on his devoted (or not so devoted but terrified 'subjects')

and the war would go on forever.16

Quandour establishes that in addition to being attributed the status of hero within Western historiography associated with the Caucasus, Imam Shamil, for the people he led was also a tyrant, using Islam to justify his heavy-handedness. As will be shown, Idilbi also challenges the glorification of Imam Shamil within her novel. But Quandour goes a step further. He posits an alternative from his own family, Kazbek. This ancestor was the equal of Imam Shamil, capable of becoming a warrior when necessary and justified, but also given to human concerns and the traditions of his people, the Circassians:

His last thoughts as he drifted into sleep were that Arslan didn't know—to the

Chechen, cutting down a single tree was as much a sin as cutting down a man. A

woodsman went into the forest with his axe hidden under his cloak, so as not to

offend the very ancient spirits who had dwelt in the region long before any other

religion came. He always took the bare minimum for his needs, out of respect.17

Here the Circassian connection to ancient traditions are retained in the hero and are not supplanted with the fanaticism of radicalized Islam that has been levied at the hero Imam

Shamil. To further this distinction between the two, Kazbek goes on a spiritual journey to Mecca, performing the hajj. To make this journey personal, Quandour gives the reader no details about that journey. The reader does not follow Kazbek to Mecca. He learns about Kazbek's pilgrimage through details such as his descendents staying with the same

Bedouins when they arrive in Mecca. For Quandour, this is how religion should be, personal, not used as a banner under which to fight, not used for politics. In this way,

16 Ibid, p 576. 17 Ibid, p 480.

46 Quandour challenges the regional heroes that have supplanted his local ones and reinserts his familial history as a true source of quotidian heroism rooted with the culture and peoples of Circassia.

Finally, there are two excellent examples of informed and conscious constructions of villains that retain the historical legacy of trauma and violence while not embodying that inhumanity within a person or a nation that becomes a generalized, monolithic and essentialized representation. Although the vitriol that is levied against Turks and Azeris by some Armenians can be understood, the danger of the reciprocal and retributive dehumanization is that it becomes cyclical and the violence perpetual. Instead, the nuanced understanding of enemies and villains in the works of Atom Egoyan and the previously discussed prolific M.I. Quandour demonstrate a means out of the cycle while still acknowledging the history of the trauma and its impact on the Armenian and

Circassian diasporas. Interestingly, both texts were intended for film and were composed in English.

First, I turn my attention to what is or will become one of the classic fictional texts on the Armenian genocide, Atom Egoyan's film Ararat. Produced by a Western

Armenian born in Egypt but living the majority of his life in Canada, Atom Egoyan's

Ararat is well-known and has been viewed by Armenians all over the world. In its conception, the film was not only for a Western Armenian audience but an inclusive

1 8 international audience. Egoyan's desire to educate others on the Genocide while also providing the Armenian community with a film and text that could be collectively shared 18 Seemingly taking Spielberg as a mentor; Egoyan produced, wrote, and directed Ararat after his initial success as a director, like Spielberg's undertaking of Schindler's List, at about the same age as Spielberg. Moreover, Spielberg's film was meant to be for a larger audience than Jews or Jewish Americans regardless of language issues. Egoyan references Spielberg and the legacy of Schindler's List in interviews about Ararat.

47 makes the film part of the larger canon of Armenian texts, even if the film is not produced entirely in Armenian. To relegate Ararat to Canadian film seems unfair.

Admittedly, Egoyan does include uniquely Canadian elements in his film. But its reception within the larger Armenian audience globally, the lack that it fills within the body of Armenian texts broadly writ should not be ignored. The viewership for the film transcends that of any novel that has or would be written on the subject. Love it or hate it, Armenians are aware of the film and issues surrounding it.

Again, the celebrity of director Atom Egoyan, nominated for numerous awards, most for The Sweet Hereafter (1997) and the relative success of Ararat make Armenians more willing to embrace the film as a site of recognition, if nothing else. Though the film was not shown throughout the Middle East, the distribution by the major Armenian publishing houses and bookstores along with the access that Greater Syrian Armenians have to Armenian channels from Armenia where the movie aired, not to mention the black market of DVDs insures that there are probably more Armenians that have seen this movie than have read a book on the genocide. For this reason, its impact on the community, its importance to the community as the first large-scale feature film (not documentary) about the genocide played to an international audience is important to the way in which diasporic Armenians, today, have come to see themselves; it is a factor in their positionality. Moreover, as many outsiders are exposed to the genocide through this film, Armenians are forced to react to the film as a source on their history and identity.

Therefore, it has become a part of their identity, especially for North American

Armenians but also those diasporas in the Middle East.

48 Typical to Egoyan's style of screenplay writing, Ararat is a complex film with complicated plot lines. The movie has been described as a film-within-a-film. The traditional story of the Armenian genocide as told by the community is the subject of the film-within-the-film also entitled "Ararat" and is directed by the director Edward Saroyan played by the famous French Armenian singer, Charles Aznavour. The making of

Saroyan's film is the subject of Egoyan's Ararat as he explores the personal relationships of the figures involved in its production.

Chief among these intertwined plots are the stories of the art historian, Ani

(played by Egoyan's wife Arsinee Khanjian) who is brought into the film project as both a fact checker as well as a the person who will help them include the historical figure of

Arshile Gorky into the historical resistance of the Armenians at Van located in Eastern

Anatolia. Arshile Gorky is a famous Armenian painter and genocide survivor who initially denied his Armenian identity.

Ani's son, Raffi, struggles with his relationship with his freedom fighting father and his love interest, his step-sister, Celia, who's father has either committed suicide or was murdered by her step-mother, Ani. Due to the use of the film-within-a-film that is set in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, Egoyan must write and cast at least one

Turkish character, Ali, a Canadian actor of Turkish descent who portrays the historical figure of Jevdet Bey, the evil Turkish official who oversees the administration of Van.

Through the clever use of layering, literally writing a character over a character, Egoyan creates an onscreen palimpsest in the singular body of Ali. In such a way, Egoyan forms a villain (Jedvet Bey) for the audience to demonized along with a somewhat sympathetic denier (Canadian Ali).

49 Displacing his own direction onto the film-within-a-film's director, Saroyan,

Egoyan gives the traditionalist in the audience the depiction he craves: the murderous villain hell-bent on the annihilation of the Armenians. In standard fare, Jedvet Bey has no compassion, tortures children, speaks about Armenians as a collective, undifferentiated mass. Saroyan's direction strips him of humanity and shows the

Armenian audience that side of people that makes it easier to understand or accept what has happened to their ancestors. As Saroyan tells Raffi (Ani's son and young stage hand):

Do you know what still causes so much pain? It is not the people we lost, or the

land. It's to know that we could be so hated. Who were these people who could

hate us so much? How can they still deny their hatred, and so hate us even

more?19

Saroyan's film attempts to show this hatred and create a reason for it, but can there ever be an acceptable reason? If real and produced20, one imagines Saroyan's complete film would be full of such scenes as Jevdet Bey's explanation of how to drill the horseshoe into the youth's foot after Gorky is caught running documents for the resistance. But again, what (insight) does such a pornographic display of violence and inhumanity

Egoyan, Atom. Ararat: The Shooting Script. A Newmarket shooting script series book. New York: Newmarket Press, 2002, p 51

20 At a talk at the University of Michigan, Egoyan related a story about an Armenian school teacher who contacted him to ask to permission to edit Ararat so as to create that film, Saroyan's Ararat. In other words, she wanted to put all the "historical" scenes together as a form of "documentary" for her students. She wanted to create the traditionalist film for which many in the community were and are longing. Of course, the pornographic violence that usually accompanies such depiction would not be available for this edition as Egoyan did not supply it, though perhaps stills could be spliced into the film to serve the desired intent.

50 provide a viewer? Seemingly sensing the senselessness of such depictions, Egoyan elects to leave the unspeakable torture off-camera.

Egoyan's Ararat consciously complicates the depiction of Turks through the two dimensions of Ali as himself and Jevdet Bey, suggesting a departure from the monolithic, stereotypical representations of Turks that become generalized and represent the larger

Turkish public, past and present. When a writer constructs a single ethnic and/or historical villain, readers/viewers easily are led to such assumptions as: Jevdet Bey is evil and seeks the destruction of all Armenians therefore this must be the opinion of all Turks.

Commenting on what little impact such typical depictions of Turks have had on the contemporary diasporic generations, Raffi states: "I mean, I was raised with all these stories, evil Turks and everything, so I'm a little hardened to it all. But what you did today.. .it made me feel all that anger again."21

Instead, Egoyan successfully merges and blurs the lines of the contemporary diasporic Turk with the historical character of Jevdet Bey creating a palimpsest of

Turkish state ideologies, allowing the director, Saroyan, to engage in dialogue between past and present. In the first exchange between the traditionalist direct Saroyan and his

Turkish actor, Ali enthusiastically questions why Saroyan never asked about his position on the Genocide and Saroyan supplies no explanation. Ali then states one of the standard justifications for the genocide, the fifth column argument22:

I think the Turks had real reason to believe the Armenians were a threat to their

security. Their eastern border was threatened by Russia, and they were afraid the

21 Ibid, p 52. 22 A term coined after the Armenian genocide during the Spanish Civil War, it has been applied to the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia who sympathized with Russia instead of the Ottoman Empire in which they lived.

51 Armenians would betray them. It was war. Populations get moved around all the

time.

Raffi, representing diasporan Armenians, overhears the conversation and when AH leaves asks the traditionalists (Saroyan) why they/he did not respond to this question when:

.. .the Armenians were Turkish citizens?24 That they had a right to be protected.

It was ethnic cleansing. Mass murder.. .Doesn't it bother you that he doesn't get

the history?25

Saroyan/the traditionalists respond: "Not really." 26 As shown later, the traditionalist perspective mirrors that of the contemporary Turkish state; reticent and unchanging to the point of not even taking the other position into consideration—"the other exists because I exist."

Raffi/diaspora after watching Ali/(past and present Turkey)'s scene feels connected to the communal anger and hatred directed at the Turks and thus feels himself more equipped to understand his father's own need to resist. Wanting to understand his father's actions, he reveals to Ali, the actor portraying Jevdet Bey:

My Dad was killed trying to assassinate a Turkish diplomat. Almost fifteen years

ago. I could never understand what would make him want to murder, what he had

to imagine that Turkish ambassador represented. Today, you gave me a sense of

what was going on in his head. And I want to thank you.27

Ibid, p 50. The underlining is Egoyan's. Ibid. Ibid, p 51. Ibid, p 53.

52 In this scene, the potential is so great, to have the diaspora Armenian population

talk to the representation of the Turkish present (Western diaspora) but with both

carrying all this baggage which Ali addresses:

Look, I was born here, and so were you. Right?

RAFFI nods.

ALI (CONT'D)

It's a new country. So let's drop the fucking history, and get on with it. No-one's

gonna wreck your home. No-one's gonna destroy your family. So let's go inside,

uncork this, and celebrate...

The contemporary Turkish position of wanting to move on without the consequences, without having to make an acknowledgement, is the easy option. Placing the two diasporas out of context, taking the facts, as it were, out of context, Ali/Turkey feels that both parties should move forward, peaceably. But, Ali/Turkey has everything to gain and is asking Raffi/diasporic Armenians to give up their legacy in the face of this denial.

There is nothing personal. In fact, the liberal viewer wants to sympathize with Ali as a character. He is homosexual, and shunned by his partner's father.

Prior to any discussion about the genocide, Ali talks about his acting method and says he only acts on what he knows, believing that when he acts it must come from his heart and not his head. In his heart he wants and needs to believe that his ancestors were not involved in the structured elimination of a people. His denial comes from that desire of the heart, not out of malice but perhaps what can be described as ignorance, a chosen ignorance and denial continued by the sin of omission, not trying to find out the truth, the

53 condemnation of the modern Turkish public by some Armenians. As a fellow Diasporan and citizen of Canada, Ali shares a contemporary existence with Raffi. But both of them

(Raffi and Ali), on both sides of the external ethnicity border maintenance, are stuck in generalizations. Saroyan casts Ali because of his Turkish heritage, or at least Ali perceives it as such. Meanwhile, Raffi believes he needs Ali, needs a Turk, to make him feel the anger to understand his ancestors.

This scheme of diasporic identity maintenance has been tried now for decades and has not resolved the issue. It does serve to maintain the distance between Turks and

Armenians in diaspora. But in all honesty, if the vitriol were given up, would there be any danger of the boundaries between Turk and Armenian breaking down and the identity becoming blurred? Hating the Turk has given Armenians a collective rallying point that, for the moment of reenactment and remembrance, allows the diasporic communities to come together overlooking all the internal divisions of the community.

In that moment of hatred, differences between Dashnak and non-Dashnak, Apostolic and

Catholic, recede into the background. Even after this encounter with "the enemy,"

Raffi does not connect with his father and his legacy because he is still relying on the narration and stories of others (Saroyan's film, his mother's Ani's work on Arshile

Gorky). It is only when he abandons these representations, travels to Turkey to find what it is that is important to him and produces his own film, that he connects with the land and his people directly and he finds a way to believe in something. The result is his own story, his own events, his own film, his own direction. His representation becomes

These are some of the larger divisions within Armenian diasporic communities: political party affiliation and conversion away from the Apostolic church.

54 real and tangible (a literal film); he positions Mt. Ararat (or the symbols of

Armenianness, for him) within his on life, within his own film.

Through the character of AH, Egoyan says that while diasporic Armenians deal with the attitudes of deniers all the time, it should not be the cornerstone of their identity.

The Turk should not become a monolithic, demonized figure upon which the Armenians form their identity. When this is done, it is like the very stripping of humanity that was done to them in order to alienate and dehumanize them; it becomes cyclical retributive dehumanization. Forming a relational identity in reference to a humanless identity such as this construction of the Turk is going to result in a dysfunctional and non- understanding of those true aspects of Armenian identity which were lost to the

Genocide. Raffi understands himself and his legacy better through a connection with these authenticate homeland symbols he experiences on his trip to the Armenian homeland, not with the anger that his father had for Turks. Seeing the interconnectedness of the Armenian generations through the cultural heritage seen in Egoyan's film through the connection of Gorky's painting (the Madonna and Child on the island of Aghtamar rearticulated through the centuries to Arshile Gorky and then through the work of Raffi's mother on Gorky) is more powerful than feeling the hatred directed at an enemy.

Turning to a similar Circassian example of breaking the cycle of hatred, M.I.

Quandour was commissioned to write a historical miniseries about the Russian-

Circassian wars for Soviet television, the product of which is Kavkas: Historical

This is reference to the point in the film where the set director has made Mt. Ararat visible from Van. It is challenged by Ani, the film historian, and she is told it is what people need and want to see, to connect. As a symbol of Armenia, Mt. Ararat is moved to fulfill its role as symbol a representation.

55 Trilogy, composed of three novels: The Sabres ofChechenia, Kazbek, and Triple

Conspiracy. Quandour wrote the novels in English with the intention of translation into

Russian which has been done though the miniseries was never filmed. It is only recently that the works were translated into Arabic to appeal to the Circassian diasporas in the

Middle East. The publishers capitalized on a multivolume set that had a ready audience of Circassians who are interested in the formation of the Circassian diaspora in Jordan, but also a wider Arabic speaking community whose interest is increased by the current political turmoil in the Caucasus connected to Islam.32

The background of the Trilogy explains Quandour's different tactic in Russian character development. He deviates from the singular depiction of a villain with multiple lackeys and sycophants or a faceless military mob, and instead, constructs a complex set of characters in an attempt to represent the varied opinions of the Russian population during the war period. Even within the military (see below) there are differences in opinion while remaining loyal to the Czar. The inclusion of a doctor and scholar enables positive characters who are sympathetic to the plight of the Circassians. Yet the historical reality of the wars in the Caucasus does allow Quandour to write villains, just ones which are more nuanced. His representation of the famous General

31 Hereafter I will refer to the first three novels as The Trilogy while the addition of the final two novels (The Balkan Story and Revolution) will be referred to as The Circassian Saga. The first three volumes were bound into one volume and sold as Kavkas. 32 Both the publisher and Quandour himself reported to me that Quandour has larger sales in Russian than in English. Moreover, the appeal outside of the Circassian community is attested by higher sales of the Arabic translation in the Gulf region than in the Levant where there is a higher concentration of Circassians. The publisher was at a loss to explain the enthusiasm for the work in the Gulf but proudly told me every time he had gone with what he thought was more than enough volumes he had sold out.

56 Yermolov, who made his success in the Napoleonic wars and was then appointed to the

Caucasus, illustrates Quandour's style:

'This is Russia,' he said waving a proprietary hand in the air, as if he owned the

very breath in the lungs of the mountaineers: 'The people who live in it must

obey the laws of our Czar. I don't care if they are Muslumans or pagans,

goddamit. They live on Russian soil.'

This quote confirms the secular nature of Yermolov's strategy, dismissing the religious identity of the groups of Circassians, and even worse, drawing a parallel to paganism.

Secularism has replaced religion for Yermolov. We are commanded not to obey God, but

"the laws of our Czar." Quandour does not indulge in gruesome reenactments of atrocities but cuts to the attitude and beliefs behind such behavior. In fact, historical works are far harsher than Quandour in the treatment of Yermolov :

[H]e replied, I desire that the terror of my name shall guard our frontiers more

potently than chains or fortresses. And he continued to drive ramrods through

prisoner's ears, suction off the women of a defaulting village and applied most

In Russia, for some reason, Yermolov is honoured more than any other general of the Caucasian Wars. This may be the result of Alexander's Pushkin's youthful romantic poem 'The Caucasian Captive', which contains the famous line, 'Bow down, Caucasus, Yermolov is coming!' A village outside Grozny was named after the general and in Moscow there is still a street bearing his name adjoining the prestigious Kutuzovsky Prospekt. Incredibly in 1995 the Russians gave permission for a group of armed Cossacks to take up arms and form a Yermolov battalion in Chechnya (41) Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus

34 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 424. 35 So great was his brutality that memory of it is still alive today: "Yermolov's brutal example was definitive. It ensured that for the next fifty years the Russians would encounter nothing but hatred and suspicion. How long does hate last? One hundred and seventy-six years later, in 1994, Grozny's declaration of independence was signaled by the demolition of Yermolov's statue. Nobody had forgotten. It took three charges to reduce the old general, but he eventually fell" (36-37). Griffin, Nicholas. Caucasus: A Journey to the Land Between Christianity and Islam. University of Chicago Press, 2004.

57 ruthless methods of conquest to the mountaineers, whose only wish was to be

free, and left alone. They did not attack Russia but they were the victims of

Russian colonization in Caucasus.

As mentioned earlier, Quandour also shows diversity within the Russian military.

Yermolov is devoted to Russia and the Czar and submits to the will of the state. On the other hand, his assistant, Viliaminov, while obedient, does not support the policies of the

Czar which he feels run counter to their agenda in the Caucasus:

'You know, I was thinking.. .We soldiers fight and bleed to acquire more

territories for Mother Russia and our Czar. Then some fart comes along after us

and pisses it all away again. This has happened too often in our past. Look at the

peace treaty the Czar signed with Turkey in Bucharest four years ago. Everything

that the commanders before and [424] including Goudovitch won here with

bravery and hardship was handed back with the scratch of a pen. Why do we go

on? Is it worth the trouble?'37

Truly the words of a military man, Viliaminov believes that politicians are ruining the offensive through their policies and negotiations with other countries. He pays lip- service to patriotism reciting and not feeling and believing, "Mother Russia and our

Czar." He also strategically weighs battles instead of seeing them as necessary.

Thus, at least within the Trilogy, the portrayal of Russians, while negative, is more nuanced than if one historical figure were made to stand for the whole as in the above example of Jevdet Bey in Egoyan's film-within-a-film. Quandour gives his reader

36 Ahmed, S. Z. Twilight on the Caucasus. Infinity Publishing, 2002, p 13. 37 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 423-424.

58 both villains and sympathetic Russians in a more inclusive view. The intended audience of the work, a Russian-speaking Soviet audience, is behind these differences.

Independent of a Soviet project, the depiction of the Soviet regime in Quandour's final volume of his Circassian Saga, Revolution (discussed in the final chapter on

Repatriation), is far more unsympathetic and callous with what can be described as stock images of Russian Soviet figures such as Stalin.

In conclusion, by writing historical villains such as Generals Zass and Jevdet Bey, the authors assert their control over both the villain and the construction of their new diasporic identities. In the examples given, General Zass is not allowed to conduct his sadistic acts overtly, but the action is relegated to the background. Samkugh humbles him before the local hero Muhammad Aashih, capturing him. Meanwhile, Yermolov becomes a mouthpiece for the Russian military that has come to honor all commands of the state. These narrative tactics share one thing in common, they demonstrate a control over the inhumanity that the Circassians and Armenians have experienced. The sole deviation from this is the work of Quandour who supplies other Russian characters within his lengthy Trilogy. Quandour, writing with a Russian-speaking audience in mind, is far more sympathetic in his depictions. While his villains are ruthless, they often are given a compassionate side or a justification for their actions. In a way, Quandour psychologizes his Russian subjects as well as his Circassian characters. Quandour's work in tandem with the palimpsest character Ali created by filmmaker Egoyan, expose the reader/viewer to a range of characters. These strategies attempt to breakdown the binaries of

Russian/Circassian, Turk/Armenian or villain/hero.

59 This chapter has addressed external identity maintenance or the demarcation of

Armenian and Circassian identities in this new context of Greater Syria while touching upon the implications of these configurations upon the internal identities of the collective.

The next chapter, "Religious Diasporic Representations," builds upon the idea of victimized diasporas living in a culture of strength and fortitude. How do Armenians and

Circassians differ in their ability to rebuild a new religious identity that allows them to connect with the normative Arab/Muslim culture? How do they view religion and God in a new social context that links religious identity to the political systems? Common goals emerge with different strategies necessary in accordance with their positionalities.

60 Chapter 3

Religious Diasporic Representations: Genocide and Profanation

Coping with genocide, massacres, and loss are reasons for diasporas to reassess religious identity upon arrival in their new host communities. Armenians and Circassians entering a political context predicated on religious affiliation in the countries of Jordan,

Syria, and Lebanon were accorded particular positions because of their religious status.

The legacy of the Ottoman millet system rendered the Armenians a separate religious minority group whose rights (at least some political ones) would be legislated under the various nation states that emerged: Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon all having written laws outlining the rights that Christian minorities and specifically Armenians have. The

Circassians, on the other hand, were absorbed into the normative body of the states as

Muslims. Moreover, because they arrived prior to the emergence of the independent nation states, they are seen as founding members and full citizens of those states.

Apart from a political system that incorporates religious affiliation as a determinant, the region of Greater Syria values strength and power over a valorization of victimization. The Arabs of the region were able hosts to both groups, with the

Armenians in particular citing the level of compassion and acceptance that they received

61 from them. And indeed, reflected in both Armenian and Circassian texts, there are few if any negative words directed towards Arabs. Appreciation of strength is not an indictment of victim status. However, it should be noted that amplifying the history of genocide would not serve political goals within the social and cultural context of Greater Syria as it does within the Western world of Europe and North America.1 Armenians entered

Greater Syria as victimized refugees and visibly so. They were placed in refugee camps close to urban centers such as Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus. On the other hand, the

Circassians' circuitous route from the Caucasus, through Anatolia, into the Balkans, and back across Anatolia into Greater Syria, afforded them time to regroup and revitalize after sustaining their massive personal losses. While victimized, they enter the region in a much better state visibly and in terms of settlements they were given. The actual reasons for their settlement in this region vary but chief among them were the talents that they could bring to the region (at least that is how the Circassians have depicted their own history of entrance to the region). Their background in agricultural techniques, military prowess coupled with their loyalty to the Empire as Muslim subjects, and the manpower they could lend to the construction of the Trans-Jordanian railroad are cited as reasons for moving them to the Arabic-speaking hinterlands. Indeed, their position upon entrance was strong enough that the Bedouins considered them competition and worthy of fighting.

1 Victimization is a way of authenticating minority status in the West that encourages minorities to explore and narrate their histories of trauma and victimization. The political clout victimization can bring is another reason that there might be more writing about genocide within these contexts. However, in the Middle East and Greater Syria, the same kind of writing can be seen as creating a depiction of a weak and demoralized culture which would not be a positive outcome in a cultural region that privileges the strong.

62 The result of these two different new positionalities experienced by Armenians and Circassians in Greater Syria results in two different narrative strategies for accomplishing the same goals: affiliating with the normative culture while deemphasizing their victimized status while not denying it.

1) Circassians being integrated into their new society because of their shared

religious identity as Muslims affiliate themselves through that sacred religious

history. The selection of the genre of the historical novel allows them the

space to create two historical lines: their own particular history of emigration

from the homeland emphasizing their resistance against religious persecution

over their victimization; and the second, the intertwining of their histories

within Greater Syria as inextricable from the broader national histories. In

such a way, they affiliate their past with the contemporary population,

maintain a separate and particularized though still Muslim identity and

combine their contemporary histories with their fellow citizens of state.

2) Armenians enter the Arabic speaking world visibly victimized and marked as

separate. Therefore, their texts, as discussed in the introduction, follow

different generational responses. The generation experiencing the genocide

valorizes the fortitude of the women and children who rebuilt their

community. The second and subsequent generations, located in urban centers,

frequently touched by senseless warfare, narrate the shared contemporary

histories of victimization while alluding to the history of the genocide creating

a type of narrative palimpsest that allows for lacunae and moments of

63 connection without having to sustain continuity between the two sites (both

temporal and spatial).

This chapter then looks at religious issues that are taken up by the writers in their new

position within Greater Syria and delves deeper into the methods used to achieve the goal

of connecting with the larger population, rebuilding the community in a cohesive way

appreciated by the host community, all the while coping with the trauma of genocide and that history.

Sacred and Holy

For Circassian and Armenian diasporans in Greater Syria, emigrating/relocating from the homeland to the holy land restructures what is viewed as holy and profane.

Desiring reunification in the homeland can dominate the thoughts of diasporans to the point of becoming a religion. Instead of seeing God as the central holy entity, the collective and its unification or wholeness is sought and becomes a fundamental pursuit.

This is not to say that God is abandoned, nor religion or religious identity. Rather, the marking of the collective as "holy" relegates God to the profane. The profanation of God and the sacred in the text has implications and allows for the structuring of the collective as holy and thus the diasporic community as superior and separate from the host community.

What impact does profanation have on the depiction of such things as the liturgy, the church, genocide, pilgrimage and ummah? If these areas and symbols are "emptied" of their religious significance, then what is endowed with holiness and sanctified? These

64 are the issues that will be addressed in this chapter where we look at the ways that the

religious maps of identity are transported into a territorial diaspora commonly referred to

as the Holy Land.

Middle Eastern context

The Ottoman legacy makes creating a diasporic identity within Greater Syria unique in

terms of the sharp focus on religious identity predicated on praxis instead of physical and

linguistic differences that one would think more readily apparent. Western perceptions of

religion emphasize the individual's election of religion as a form of identification

whereas in the Middle East, it is ascribed and immediately becomes the primary

institutionalized identity of import, shaping the options, possibilities, and directions of

one's life. Thus, even for an Armenian who openly and publicly espouses agnosticism or

even atheism, his social identity demands he be recognized and religiously classified as

Christian and perhaps Armenian Apostolic Christian. For Christians in Greater Syria,

formal spaces for the performance of this religious and by extension ethnic/minor identity

are limited to the Church. They are open to regulation by the States in addition to the

hierarchy of the institution, itself. In some respects, the Church and the surrounding

areas are stages for the performance and acceptance of minor and "other" status.2

The concept of the ummah transcends the territory of the nation and does not have to represent a territorial expression of the nation. Therefore, the term can be used to refer to the dislocated and fragmented community in a way that "nation" cannot. But when the

Certainly, the breadth of Armenianness is not limited to religious institutions. The prominent role that the Club plays in a city such as Aleppo cannot go unnoticed by the most casual observer. However, these private clubs function differently than the semi-public space of a Church and its visible position widiin a city.

65 shift from the term nation/O^j to ummahfi^ occurs, the process of otherization differs as

does the perception of the self as explained in the following quote by Abu-Rabi:

In the former [nation], the other is other social groupings, while in the latter

[ummah] the community itself is the other vis-a-vis God. This initial division

shapes the relationship between ummah and the other communities it confronts.

Unlike nation, which is a utilitarian project, ummah is founded upon such non-

economic bases (ideals) as virtue and piety. Both communities have almost the

same attributes for their "self's: the self in nation (nation) has the same attributes

as the self in ummah (God). (Hence, the well-known resemblance between

nationalism and religion which gave rise to the discourse of 'nationalism as a

modern religion.) Connection with the center (self) or membership to the

community is enacted in the form of citizenship in the case of the nation; in the

case of ummah it takes the form of worship. The nation seeks homogeneity. The

ummah aspires to expand, yet does not seek homogeneity. Nation requires

compulsory conversion: ummah is by definition unable to impose conversion,

although it is known historically to have encouraged conversion through

social/legal incentives.

The Circassian and Armenian living in territory of the homeland has no choice but to be a part of the collective and cannot escape the identity. However, when the move is made outside of the territory, the individual has a choice to join the ummah which forms and can, in part, restructure that identity to fit the contours of the new society. Membership

3 Abu-Rabic, Ibrahim M. The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought. Blackwell companions to religion. Maiden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2006, p 321.

66 in the ummah is a conscious choice though not always extended to all individuals who

might want membership. The nation is imposed and, with few exceptions, cannot choose

to allow or disallow membership.

When a diasporic population employs the term ummah with a nisba adjective for

the national group; it is conflating these two very similar terms within the Arabic

language, both having the meaning of "community". The primary differences are the

lack of territoriality ascribed to the ummah, the loss of the homogeneity of the nationalist

concept which is reinstated in the term through the nisba adjective, specifying the

national identity predicated upon ethnicity, and the overt religious overtones that are

attributed to the ummah (even though dhimmis are considered part of its composition,

they remain outside of the mainstream). The ummah, unlike the concept of nation or

Arab nationalism, encompasses everything within the Muslim worldview. Its appellation

for the diasporan invokes his own inclusion within the larger collective body, demands

that ethnicity be overlooked in the ummah's desire for heterogeneity.

For Circassians in the Middle East and Greater Syria, host communities and

governments imposed Islamic religious norms which had not been adopted in their

conversion to Islam in the host country. The inexperience with the religion, the lack of

faith among the general population, the use of the religion as a political tool and not a real

faith-based issue are reasons cited by scholars for the lack of compliance with some of

the basic doctrines of Islam like the prohibitions on alcohol and pork. Aware of these

differences, the Circassian authors reference them in order to mark make distinctions between their people and the host communities that they encountered. Along with the

inability to maintain their traditional practices due to availability of:

67 Folk religious traditions among the Bedouins and Circassians, and to a lesser

extent among villagers and urbanites, that did not follow state-sanctioned notions

of Islamic practice were slowly eliminated. For example, whereas the Circassians

had been partially Islamicized by the Ottomans (who ensured that all their males

were circumcised by 1878 and that their secular Circassian names were changed

to Turkish names), on the eve of their immigration to what became Transjordan,

many Circassians arrived in the country carrying with them salted pork and their

traditional alcoholic drink bakhsima (made of fermented barley). Salted pork fell

out of use due to unavailability and local peer pressure, but bakhsima remains

available, albeit among the few. Attacks on Circassian traditions also came from

within the community. Religious members began attacking Circassian customs

including wedding celebrations, dancing, and of course alcohol.

For the Armenians, the rise of nationalism, specifically Arab nationalism, after the end of the Mandates put them in a precarious position.. In the post-colonial states, many looked at Armenians and saw how they had benefited from the European dominated bureaucracy which absorbed many Western educated Armenians who spoke the language of their co-religionists. Perhaps this is the reason that the Armenian writers do not spend time discussing their positions vis-a-vis the states or mandates in their writings.

Massad, Joseph Andoni. Colonial Effects The Making of National Identity in Jordan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, p 212 .

68 The position of minority groups that were manifestly not Arab, or whose sectarian

identity was threatened by the prospect of assimilation into a Sunni-dominated,

Arab nationalist mainstream, was potentially even more marginal and vulnerable

than it had been under the Ottoman system, where non-Arab Sunnis (such as the

Kurds) had been juridically equal members of the Islamic umma, and where many

non-Muslim sectarian groups had had the subordinate, but juridically recognized

and defined, status of millets?

Lacanian Desires

The definitions of holy and sacred typically mean "set apart from" in order to endow the place, thing, or person, with an otherworldliness. The unattainable creates a desire and a longing for the object. Thus, desire may be associated with the sacred and with those things that are holy that must be frustrated and unrequited. On the most basic level, the act of profanation is attainment which ends desire for the object. Within Lacanian theory, desires can never be fulfilled. Therefore, the desire for God, an experience of

God, or the wholeness of the Self that is sought but never fulfilled qualify as Lacanian desires. The desire for the homeland, because the potential for fulfillment is possible may not qualify. If God were accessible, interest would wane. Related to this is the idea and act of faith. The obfuscation or occlusion of something requires the continued belief

Roshwald, Aviel. Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires Central Europe, Russia and the Middle East, 1914-1923. London: Routledge, 2002, p 195.

69 in the thing. For the diasporic individual, the occlusion of the homeland demands a faithful believing in it, its presence, and more importantly the ability to function in it as authentic members of the collective that should be embodied in it. Faith in the unity that is provided by a circumscribed location is not easy from the vantage point of distance, but the plus side is that the awe and mystery are easily established under these circumstances.

Emptying and Substitutions/Palimpsests

The utilization of the religious symbols for the diasporic writer can dictate an emptying of that symbol of its associated religiosity. While the goal of the writer is to retain the thick associations that an individual and/or the community links with the symbol or trope to evoke the full story for its deployment in the new context, at the same time, it can need to be emptied of the meanings in order for it to take on new life within the new territorial/historical context. Its not that the symbol is exactly emptied, but that the new material is inserted into the shell of the symbol. The best example of this will be seen in the use of the /jayy/pilgrimage in the work of Idilbi's Grandfather's Tale.

For the diasporic individual morphing their religious symbol set, connects to religion come through their territories of habitation, the connection to religious spaces within those areas, the generations of practioners within their own families, the symbols deployed in different regions associated with religion, the natural world and its interactions with the sacred, pagan traditions which were absorbed by the ethnic group into syncretic productions of the religions, etc. Religion is a site where these issues come together and are rearticulated by the diasporan as he attempts to find connections between

70 these issues and his current situation. How can a Beirutsi Armenian experience the

Armenian religion in the same way that the Vanetsi did?6 How can the Beirutsi

Armenian have the same kind of faith that the Vanetsi did with his family dead, displaced, and broken from the trauma? In attempting to resolve these issues, the writer struggles to make logical connections where there are none, tries different techniques to tie these images and meanings together when they do not fit into the words or the spaces.

Instead, he writes what is available to him in the ways that make sense at the time, not in a necessarily fragmented way, but one in which there is no continuity, no contiguousness available, no interlocking pieces that snap when butted up one to another. Thus, an ephemeral palimpsest is created between the spaces, the voices, the generations' connections, tenuous, between the temporal and spatial differences that tend to elude fit.

Religion provides one means for smoothing the connections between these temporal and spatial pieces.

At the same time writers are redeploying religious symbols, many try to connect the fragments and scraps of information, images, histories that they have collected globally as members of the diaspora. For diasporic individuals looking at their religions for inspiration, the cultural and symbolic sets produced are double and triple that of other individuals. Religions are connected to histories, cultures, and generations in very intimate ways. Religions connect the communities to global links (the larger ummah, greater Christendom) but with whom they have not met and with relationships that are weak. Everything is doubled if not tripled for the diasporic individual living in

Greater Syria and elsewhere. At the same time that writers are redeploying religious

The terms Vanesti and Beirutsi are the Armenian terms for "coming from the location of Van" or "coming from the location of Beruit". They are the equivalent to the Arabic term Beiruti.

71 symbols, many try to connect the multiple layers of borrowing that lie at the feet of a diasporic writer.

Disclaimer:

As with all texts, the artist must create from his or her own experiences. The desire to see a particular text as representative of the group should be avoided.

Therefore, each of the works presented should draw our attention to the positionality of the individual and the group and the questions that arise are what is of interest and not necessarily the individual responses of the individual. As an example, the first text discussed, Sonia Nigolian's Images a Contretemps, provides her own feelings of exclusions from the larger body of Christendom within Beirut. She reports that her feelings of alienation could be attributed to her status as an Armenian with the IAN of her name always marking her as "exempt". Unable to take part in the religious rites that other Christians, her friends, took for granted, had a personal impact on her. What is important in the analysis is that the external identity of the Armenians became an area that needed to be negotiated in this new positionality within the Arabic-speaking world.

The contact with other Christians required an assessment of the external identity of the

Armenian collective in new ways. While Nigolian's response will be seen below, others had different experiences. For example, Tsarukean in his Men Without Childhood discusses his interactions with Protestant Christians in the orphanage. For him, the childhood desires of leisure over religious obligations took the form of his attendance at the much abbreviated Protestant services. Again, the tension in the text between these

72 two Christian groups is what is of interest and illustrates a shift in the positionality of the group, and not the personal predilections of the writer, however entertaining.

Sonia Nigolian

The Beirutsi-Armenian poet Sonia Nigolian's novel, Images a Contretemps (Images have

Snags)7, compiles religious descriptions structuring a palimpsest of Armenian diasporic identity and contemporary historical stories. At first, the narrative style appears like a one-dimensional collage of familial memoirs. On closer examination, this aggregation of symbols and tales renders a territorial/spatial and temporal palimpsest: the top layer, the narrator's experiences as a diasporic Armenian; the obfuscated bottom layer, her ancestors' lost life in Van. As a palimpsest, Nigolian's Images a contretemps (Images have snags) cannot reconcile the two layers, cannot align the stories to neatly create congruity and continuity. Instead, remembrances and associations of homeland not so much interrupt as interpose the narrator's own temporal line. Borrowing from the title, the narrator's life is snagged by the memories of her grandparents' lost and deterritorialized lives. The effect is similar to Circassian author Zahra Omar's Proustian accounts of the Circassian deportations in Departure from Sursuqa (discussed in the next chapter on Hijras). In her text, Nigolian jars the reader through stream of consciousness narration and forces an awareness of the incongruity of (among other elements) the transposed Armenian religious identity with the different physical and historical terrain of

Beirut.

Nigolian, Sonia. Images a contretemps. Antelias: Catholicossat armenien de Cilicie, 1995.

73 A literary craftsman, Nigolian, paints with words and arouses a desire to experience the sensory life world of Armenian Beirut and Van. Bold strokes of blue hues overlaid upon Beirut's urban landscape infuse the remote location with homey remembrances of a mythic place where kings and princesses danced in a sacred landscape endowed with a sacred history. Layered under this gauzy ephemeral structure of visual enchantment, Nigolian's shared collective recollections of the "homeland" in Van, surface and permeate the diasporic identity with a natural expansiveness of Armenianness that has been lost in the constrained space of urban Beirut. The poetic images of Van blend the public and private with the sacred and profane without boundaries. Mher of

Sassoun celebrates with Ara the Beautiful in the (meta)physical space they both shared; whereas, the experiential, realistic and, at times, gritty visions of the Beirutsi cityscape regiment and restrict Armenian domains. The local community's desire for their worlds

(homeland/diaspora, myth/reality, sacred/profane, poetry/prose,) to organically mingle constructing a composite identity akin to that of the colors of Van frustrates and breeches the imposed compartmentalization of Greater Syrian interpretations of ethnic identity.

Nigolian develops that pervasive Armenianness of Van in the first chapter through the imagery of the narrator's grandmother to later contrast it with elements of Beirut. The first line, "It was once my country of amber and wonders, where the sky was even larger than the ground/// etait unefois mon pays d'ambre et de merveilles, ou le del etait encore plus grand que la terre," directs the reader to the idea of the expansiveness of the territory where she will insert recognizable symbols such as Semiramis8, Mher of

Sassoun (David of Sassoun epic), Vartan (patriotic leader against the Zoroastrian

8 Semiramis, according to legend, was an Assyrian queen who fell in love with the Armenian ruler Ara the Beautiful (1769 to 1743 B.C.) and when rejected tried to physically capture him.

74 Persians), garnet red carpets (Armenian red carpets come from a dye unique to Armenia),

Tarekh (herring from Lake Van), the tanoor9, and Aghtamar (the church on Lake Van).

Much like Circassian writers will be shown to create an idyllic space in which to embed their identity through the use of catalogue-like descriptions that are mostly devoid of characters and actions, we see Nigolian activate her "list" of material culture through the following example:

La musique s'elevait, s'elancait de roche en roche, grimpait au sommet des

montagnes et devalait le long des pentes en avalanche pour enfin s'ecraser dans

nos coeurs.

Un pecheur deversait de son panier les ' Tarekh" ' argentes.

The music rose, sprang rock to rock, climbed to the top of the mountains and

descended along the slopes in an avalanche before finally being crushed in our

hearts. A fisherman poured the silver-plated "Tarekh" from his basket.

Symbols, here Armenian music, are active and personified along with the addition of real human activity. Men and women interact within this landscape and utilize the material culture. The grandmother's memories combine one into the other in a natural way and do not stop to be sorted into categories (religious, mythic, cultural, etc.).10 The grandmother's remembrances of Van create an idyllic never-world where the superhuman elements of myths and legends adhere to the quotidian existence desired by the diasporic

While the tanoor, earthen o,ven, is common throughout the region, the image of the tanoor for baking lavash (the famous paper-thin Armenian bread) is uniquely Armenian. In the Circassian writing of departure narratives, some of the writers come close to writing lists that classify different areas of material culture such as cooking utensils in one paragraph while weaponry is given another paragraph and so on.

75 reader. Important to the purposes of this chapter, religion and the supernatural are not separated from daily life. The reader can both imagine himself in this description as one of the men or women who are actively present and productive while at the same time feel nostalgic and long for the superhuman elements that relegate the overall fantasy to the unattainable. The grandmother furthers the desire for first-hand experience of the homeland by ending her narration with the following:

Un jour petite, tu iras la-bas', dans ces jardins d'eden... ou les troubadours

chantent encore dans les eglises de nos peres..

Nous irons la ou nos morts quetent encore une croix pour leurs sepultures de

poussiere... La, ou nos rois se sont endormis pres,de leurs couronnes...vers

notre terre qui redeviendra un royaume elance vers ces cimes et nos steles, nos

croix diront a tous, le peuple que nous fumes, quand sont venus les jours de

braise, incendiant les arbres, les oiseaux et les coeurs, pour nous jeter sur des

chemins de ronces...nous descendrons les flancs bleus de nos collines et notre

pays renaitra de nos desirs...»

Mais l'histoire se perdait quand soudain le sommeil m'emportait sous des cieux

que je pensais encore plus ensoleilles, que ce ciel de Van tant et tant de fois

raconte, et ses collines coiffees de peupliers.

One day Little One, you will go there, to these Gardens of Eden.. .where the

troubadours still sing in our fathers' churches. We will go where our deaths still

search for a cross for their burials of dust... There, where our kings fell asleep

close to their crowns.. .towards our ground which will become again a slender

kingdom around these summits and our steles, our crosses will tell everyone about

76 the people we were when the days of embers came, setting fire to the trees, the

birds and the hearts, to throw us out on paths of bramble.. .we will descend the

blue flanks of our hills and our country will reappear from our desires..." But the

history was lost suddenly when sleep carried me under skies that I still thought

sunnier, that this sky of Van told so much and so much of the time, with its

capped hills of poplars.

The grandmother implants the desire for a return to this mythic and sacred space

("Gardens of Eden") with its authentic religious identity ("our fathers' churches").

Notice it is the ground that "will become again" rather modestly a "slender kingdom" based both on the geography ("summits") and national history ("steles"). Religion

("crosses") will relate the history ("about the people we were") of the Genocide ("days of embers") and the deportations ("paths of bramble"). The narrator sees grandmother's prophecy fulfilled: the Republic is reconstituted in its narrow geography and the

Genocide is being taught and recognized. However, the last two sections switch tense from the future (speaking of the return) to the past ( "Sleep carried me.. .Van told of the time") and the frustration of desires and nostalgia are felt no matter if an independent

Armenia exists and visits are ever present; the loss remains.

Of course, Nigolian has the hindsight of history on her side to write such foretelling prose, but more revealing for our purposes, she gives the grandmother such poetic words that shroud and obscure the harsh realities of the Genocide. Written in

French and distributed in Lebanon without an obvious Armenian title or subtitle, the casual reader of Images a Contretemps might not connect this passage to the literal history. Such a reader might understand there are painful memories ingrained in the

77 Armenian past, but what they are remains to be uncovered as Nigolian unearths the painful historical layers of the palimpsest, attempting to commemorate the Genocide in a subsequent chapter. Her commemoration cannot penetrate the surface, as her childhood self cannot empathize with her grandmother. Her territorial reality in Beirut, at this point, is not connected to the loss of the Genocide. It is only later, having experience the senseless deaths of Lebanese Civil War, that she can connect the emotions. A similar move is made by another poetess/author, Vehanoysh Tekean's The Cracked Miniature:

Cheghk'uats manrankar,11 a collection of short stories about the civil war. In one story written in Armenian Tekean refers to a Palestinian woman named Suheylan who is tortured by the Israelis:

In order to be able to understand Suheylan, it is necessary to have seen blood­

stained bones, to feel a sense of being deprived of your fatherland (homeland), it

is necessary for your country to have been subjected to the whims of

different/various countries. It is necessary that children be stretched around you

in four directions in bloody silence.12

Here the political similarities and the senseless of warfare enables the diasporan to not only connect with the local community but to reenact or relive in a tragic way a similar experience of the Genocide.

Throughout the first chapter, the grandmother's narration dominated. Idyllic Van and homeland are visible if beyond reach. Now reality will collide with memories,

Tekean, Vehanoysh. Cheghk'uats manrankar. Ant'ilias, Libanan : Kat'oghikosut'ean Hayots' Metsi Tann Kilikioy, 1987.

12 Ibid, p 33.

78 grandmother's vision remains but she is silenced, and Beirut becomes the lens of the eye of an artist painting a double image of religious identity:

L'eglise de "Sourp Nichan" etait peinte en bleu.

Un peu comme le ciel de Van ou peut-etre couleur des prunelles du premier

amour de grand-mere. Pas de ce bleu que je connaissais.

Le ciel a Beyrouth etait plutot d'un azur laiteux. Indefinissable.

The church of "Sourp Nichan" was painted in blue. A little like the sky in Van or

perhaps the color of my grandmother's first love's eyes/irises. Not this blue

which I knew. The sky in Beirut was rather of a milky azure. Indefinable.

In this poetic description, Sonia Nigolian quickly and almost imperceptibly conjures up and blends critical symbols of Armenian identity: the Armenian language (the use of the transliteration of the Armenian sourp meaning "holy"), church/religion, homeland (Van), family (grandmother). Nigolian attempts to relocate and rearticulate this composite identity of Van within the new map of Beirut. The seeming incongruity of the two terrains transforms the symbol set through color. Returning to this beautiful passage, we see that three sites of Armenian identity are colored "blue" and are thus the same for

Nigolian. Later, she equates the fourth, the Armenian language, with ink, specifically blue ink, in lines such as, "Between the blue of ink and the blue of the sea I invent transparencies".14 Beirut does not change this quartet of symbols; the Beirutsi sky remains "blue" and contains religion/homeland/family but with something added to it (for

13 Nigolian, Sonia. Images a contretemps. Antelias: Catholicossat armenien de Cilicie, 1995, p 25. 14 Ibid, p 120.

79 it to become milky requires some addition). Beirut, the diasporic site, does not water- down the identity but instills it with new traditions generating an "indefinable" product, this hybrid Beirutsi "milky azure". Throughout the novel, the narrator searches for that pure, unadulterated "blue" of Van in Beirut, believing it to be the truly authentic

Armenian identity. Looking at these areas of identity, she examines the differences between the Vanetsi and the Beirutsi.

We can turn our attention, now, to Nigolian's compartmentalized Beirutsi religious identity as depicted in the diasporic urban context; hybrid because of that space, and infused with holiness but a distanced holiness different from the homeland. The following excerpted paragraph details the narrator's memories of attending Sourp Nichan in Beirut which she identifies as the only church in her neighborhood. The passage will be used to elucidate the differences between diasporic Armenian religious life with the homeland and the larger Arab Christian identity as written by Nigolian in other sections:

Et les anges venaient. Les anges chantaient, blottis, j'en etais sure, dans

quelques recoins de cette immense coupole, leurs ailes blanches deployees.

Ces messagers de Dieu, que je n'ai jamais pu regarder, de peur de les voir

s'envoler, et parce qu'il ne fallait sous aucun pretexte detourner les yeux, du

pretre en tenue violine et or, qui elevait une hostie sur la tete avant de la

plonger dans un calice ou il faisait couler du vin ambre.

Et ces creatures celestes, envoyees du firmament, dont l'une etait la

plus belle entre toutes, chantaient, d'une voix qui semblait provenir du plus

loin de la memoire.

"Sourp... Sourp..."1

80 Midi sonnait.

Je suis souvent repartie sur la pointe des pieds scruter la coupole... mais

les anges n'y etaient plus.

Et nos dimanches commen9aient a mourir sur le parvis d'une eglise.

On pensait a lundi...

And the angels came. The angels sang, nestled, I was sure, in some recesses of

this immense cupola, their white wings spread. These messengers of God,

whom I never could look at, for of fear of seeing them fly away, and because one

did not, under any pretext, [want] to divert the eyes of the priest in purple and

gold clothing who raised a host to his head before plunging it into a chalice where

it became colored amber with wine. And these celestial creatures, envoys of the

firmament, the most beautiful among them sang, with a voice that seemed to

come from [a place] further away than memory. "Sourp... Sourp Midday

sounded. I often set out again on tip-toes [the point of the feet] to scan the

cupola... but the angels were not there any more. And our Sundays started to die

on the square of a church.

Notice that in Beirut, religion must be "attended" (with its two meanings) in contrast to the images of the supernatural pervading Van. First, religion and religiosity, for many diasporan Armenians, ceases to be a part of their daily lives. Throughout the novel, while the narrator finds sacred aspects in her profane life, to experience her religion, she

"attends" church, including rites at her private non-Armenian Christian school. Diasporic

Armenians "attend" services, going to a place where religion takes place, where as we

81 see, even the sacred envoys (angels) make a conscious intercession in the limited territorial religious space of Beirut rather than residing in the firmament. While

Nigolian uses the term bottis/nestled, they are restricted and constrained within this labeled religious space with an imposter "blue" sky (remembering this is the ceiling of

Sourp Nichan from the previous quote). Thus we can conclude that in the homeland in

Van the angelic intercession may come and go as they please under the "blue" of the sky, like the firmament alluded to in Genesis, because the land is holy, all of it. Whereas, in diaspora, with the mixing of all the peoples, only those areas labeled Armenian provide a space for the interaction of the Armenians with their celestial intercessors. In such a way,

Nigolian situates the Armenian religious praxis to institutionally sanctioned spaces in

Beirut, specifically Sourp Nichan. Even though considered a personal matter, one cannot escape religion's public significance in terms of Greater Syrian ethnic identity.

Compartmentalization of religious observation to these public places corresponds to how religiosity functions within Greater Syria as an external, public and institutionalized part of ethnic identity.

A second meaning of "attend" is "to take care of. The above excerpt demonstrates the need to "attend" the religious identity. The priests must not be distracted by the congregation in order to perform the Eucharist. Merely a "diversion" of the eyes could result in a problem with or corruption of the ritual. The hyper-awareness of the "need" to perform the rite in an "authentic" way is an anxiety in the diaspora. Yet, at the same time, hyper-regulation of the rites does not translate into lay knowledge of them. In another section of the novel, the narrator equates the Eucharist with "mysterious

15 In a moment, we will see a comparison of this intercession with the Arab Christian Mass and its angelic intercession.

82 alchemy." The lack of knowledge, the distance between the laity and the rites through the purposeful obfuscation of them (Fascinated by this crimson curtain embroidered with what was like gold suns sometimes slid by an unknown to me divine hand to veil the altar from us. All was mystery. Whispers and prayers...) in addition to the use of Armenian and specifically Classical Armenian, maintains the need for a priesthood who "attend" the religion, and by extension, part of the Armenian diasporic identity. That mystery keeps the narrator coming back, maintains an interest in the rites and makes her want to attend them (in both meanings). The uniquely Armenian aspects of the rites create a tension when other Christian rites are encountered or during interactions with other, usually Arab, Christians:

J'etais une eleve exemptee.

Exemptee de cours d'arabe.

Exemptee de certains chapitres en liturgie.

Exemptee de retraite religieuse... Exemptee de Primiere Communion.

J'avais aussi une voisine de pupitre. Elle comme moi: exemptee.

Nos deux noms se terminaient par les memes lettres: Une consonne, deux voyelles IAN.

I was an exempted student. Exempt from Arab/Arabic courses. Exempt from

certain chapters in the liturgy. Exempt from religious retreat. Exempt from first

16 Ibid, p 140. Fascinee par ce rideau pourpre brode d'or comme des soleils, qui parfois coulissait, tire par je ne savais quelle main divine pour nous voiler l'autel. Tout etait mystere. Chuchotements et prieres.. .(Nigolian 26)

83 Communion. I also had a desk neighbor who was also exempt. Our two names

18 ended in the same letters: one consonant, two vowels IAN.

Nigolian employs the word exempt with its ambiguous meaning to allow the reader to interpret based on their own positionality the connotation and suggestions for the larger issue of social integration in diaspora. Mentioned in the disclaimer to this section,

Tsarukean's childhood narrator, presumed to be his younger self in Men Without

Childhood: MankutUiwn chUunetsUogh mardik19 recounts a similar situation whereby he is giving the option of attending a Protestant service or the Armenian mass. As a child, he and many others chose the Protestant service because of the brevity.

Tsarukean's interpretation of exempt would be different from the personal reading presented by Nigolian. Re-reading the preceding paragraph, the positive connotation of the word "exempt" can be assessed if replaced with the synonym "restricted". Indeed, the narrator has to suppress her "resentment" at being "exempting" from partaking of

"holiness" on a daily instead of a weekly basis (the only option for the Armenians attending Sourp Nichan). In effect, she is not given full membership into the larger community, but is excluded. In relationship to Arab Christians, like the state, even if

Armenians wanted to assimilate into Arab Christian identity, there would be

"exemptions'Vrestrictions. The host community ties this "otherness" associated with the exemption, the inability to partake in the rites of the religion, to Armenian names, those ending in IAN.

18 Ibid, p 102. 19 Tsarukean, Andranik. Men without childhood. Translated by Elise Bayizian and Marzbed Margossian. New York : Ashod Press, 1985.

84 The narrator's sketch of the Latin mass emphasizes "distance" and the inability to connect with the sacred if even there are more opportunities for such connections:

Nous nous dirigions vers l'eglise qui sentait la cire froide.

La messe etait dite en latin, par un pretre qui ressemblait a Dieu le Pere,

avec une barbe blanche frisottante qui lui arrivait jusqu'a la taille.

Nous chantions en choueur "Je crois en toi mon Dieu" entre odeurs d'encens et

quelques genuflexions, puis venait le temps de la communion...

II ne nous restait plus qu' a attendre dimanche...

We moved towards the church which felt [like] cold wax

The mass was said in Latin by a priest who resembled God the Father, with a

white curly beard which hit him at the waist. We sang in chorus "I believe in you

my God" between the odor of incense and some genuflexions, then came time

from the communion...

Still I resisted feeling resentment at not having the holiness that was offered at

daily communion, it remained for us to wait until Sunday.. .20

A reader might easily overlook the term "cold wax" and its potential meanings. "Wax" while capable of holding a form can also be easily transformed; it is malleable. Wax is used to make "replicas" such as sculptures ala Madame Tussaud's wax museum.

Therefore, "cold wax" connotes an impersonal replica, a simulacrum. For the narrator, the Church feels impersonal (cold) yet familiar (wax) but not the same as her neighborhood church. She explicates the differences through her details: instead of

Nigolian, Sonia. Images a contretemps. Ant61ias: Catholicossat armenien de Cilicie, 1995, p!03-104.

85 Armenian, Latin; instead of Jesus, God the Father ; the priest's eyes are azure which recalls the "blue" of Beirut which is a hybrid, not inauthentic, but with additions much like the additions and alterations that have been incorporated into the non-Armenian rites.

But even if this simulacrum/replica were a successful substitute for the narrator and by extension the Armenian community, she could not fully take part in it because she was an "exempt student". Once inside the church and during the Communion, she is restricted because of her name and her status as "other".

To summarize, Nigolian's description of the narrator's recollection of the

"standard" mass is a microcosm of diasporic identity construction. First, the inferiority and perceived hollowness (otherness) of the alternative rite/identity is established.

Second, a judgment not to assimilate into a culture that is a simulacrum, like Armenian

Christian identity but a hollow substitute, is rejected. Third, the homeland is used to authenticate the hybrid identity which has emerged because of the interaction between the two things being compared.

The move into the Greater Syrian diasporic context creates a need for a rearticulation for the religious identity of both the Circassian and the Armenian populations as they come to see themselves in the light of the new host communities. For

Nigolian, the restricted Armenian landscape in Beirut and the contact with Arab

Christians spins her into an imitation or rearticulation of her grandmother's memories that creates a palimpsest between the homeland and Beirut. She utilizes colors and the angelic connections to demonstrate the differences between the Arab Christians and their

Mass and the memories and naturalness of her grandmother's religious identity. While unspoken, the profanation of the Armenian identity by the host community, a relic of the

21 Many view Jesus as personal and present whereas God the Father is detached and distant.

86 millet system, transforms the way that religious identity is seen by a diasporan. The contours of that new identity are different for individuals, but the ability to see that there is a necessity in maintaining the connection between the homeland religious identity as pervasive and the difference between the circumscribed and inferior practices of the Arab

Christians maintains the separation between the Armenians and the rest of their host community in Lebanon.

Circassians and Ummah Affiliations

Religious identity for the Circassians needs to be retooled after their deterritorialization from the Circassian homeland. No longer defining themselves in opposition to the

Christian Russians, their external identity becomes linked to the larger host community of

Arab Muslims. They are coreligionists with a shared sacred history which should facilitate their acceptance within the sacred body of the ummah. Yet, the Circassians have to negotiate a difficult line. In order to remain a separate ethnic group, integrated but not assimilated, to avoid the subtle forms of Arabization that can take place for non-

Arab Muslims, affiliation with the ummah must at the same time particularize membership within the group. After reading historical novels produced by Circassian authors, this task is decidedly easy and can be done in a number of ways as long as the unique Circassian history is always referenced instead of the shared sacred history of the

Muslims. The goal is to connect the Circassian history with the similar tales from within

Muslim historiography.

The most basic form of this affiliation, and perhaps the weakest is performed by

Zahra Omar, a Jordanian Circassian who published two Arabic novels: al-Khuruj min

87 Susruqah : riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi and its sequel Sawsaruqah khalfa al-dabab.

Perhaps one of the best known Circassian authors in the Arabic-speaking world, her novels are truly artistic and incorporate a unique voice within the Jordanian literary tradition. Outside of Greater Syria, she is not well-known but she clearly is the best known Arabic writing Circassian author. Unfortunately, Zahra Omar died before the turn of the century, but she leaves two excellent novels that will be incorporated into the literary canon of Jordan. In these works, Omar affiliates with the larger Muslim world by asserting the Muslim identity of the Circassians early on, in the prologue of the novel and does not look back. There is no questioning of this religious identity. At the same time, she does not make overt attempts to demonstrate their faithfulness. Characters are not given to drop in prayer at particular hours. Instead, like many Circassians whose expectations were high when they entered Dar al-Islam, she recounts the rejection they felt by the Bedouins who saw them as competition for limited resources first, and coreligionists second.

In other words, Omar asserts a Muslim identity in the historical set up of the novel, in the prologue and emphasizes the uniqueness of that identity by a demonstration of their lack of acceptance within this new territorial space. Her novel, Khuruj min

Susruqah further particularizes the Circassian identity through the use of the Nart Sagas, a collection of epic tales that recount the founding of the Circassian nation through the exploits of demi-gods. The novel itself makes reference to the most cherished of these gods, Susraqah. These Nart tales or epics float, disconnected, among the narrator's

22 'Umar, Zahrah. Sawsaruqah khalfa al-dabab. 'Amman : Dar Azminah, 2001. . al-Khuruj min susruqah : riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi. 'Amman, al-Urdun: Dar Azmanah, 1993.

88 historical narrative or her family's emigration to Jordan. In a dramatic way, the

Circassians continue to be linked to some space outside Greater Syria, to a mythic world that does not receive explanation from the author for the Arabic-speaking audience who does not find itself a part of the specific Circassian ummah.

Another basic way of asserting the Muslim identity of the Circassians is demonstrated in the historical novella, Jan, by Rasim Rushdi a historian. In this very brief work in Arabic, Rushdi opens with a timeline that is given to traditional Western dating. But the minute his protagonist, the beautiful warrior maiden Jan, begins to enter the historical timeline, defending her nation against the Russian infidels, Rushdi shifts to the use of the hijra calendar. One of Rushdi's primary goals is to transfer attention from the history of loss presented in Western sources on the protracted Russo-Circassian war, to the victories that were seemingly impossible for the underdog Circassians. Thus, this movement to hijra time is a means of both controlling the depiction of the events and giving them over to the sacred calendar of Islam. Accordingly, they become part of the sacred history through their sacred dating. The successful defense of the Circassian ummah becomes a part of their unique legacy but also fits within the sacred history of resistance of the infidel.

M.I. Quandour, the only English writing Circassian writer included in this study, a

Kabardian from Jordan, educated within the United States and with a background in writing in Hollywood for such shows as Mannix, also affiliates the Circassian tribes with the larger ummah in much the same way that Omar does, through continual assertion of the Muslim identity. However, Quandour, also holding a doctorate in history, discusses

23 Rushdi, Rasim. Than: qissah Sharkasiyah. [Amman, Jordan] : Maktabat al-Shabab wa- Matba'atuha, 1988.

89 the issue of the Circassians's late conversion to Islam within his five volume Circassian saga. This tome of Jordanian Circassian history that is the true story of his family's departure from the homeland circuitous route into Jordan, frankly discusses the lax nature of Circassian Muslim identity within the homeland territory. His particular view of the

Circassian Muslim identity, his method of particularizing it, is through the use of the oral code of conduct, the khabza which predates Islam and in the view of many Circassians abrogates Islamic social rulings. As discussed previously, the khabza demands gender equality. Depending on the individual interpreting the khabza this might abrogate the wearing of hijab or traditional Muslim head covering. Quandour, in numerous ways, asserts that Circassian culture and traditions come before the practice of Islam.

Moreover, the type of Islam that was initially brought into the region is questioned as well. At the same time, Quandour writes sympathetic Muslim characters who believe that it is only through Islam that the Circassian homeland will be restored.

These are but two ways of illustrating the desire to affiliate with the ummah and by extension the new ummah within the host community while using history and culture as a means of avoiding assimilation. Similarly, Ulfat Idilbi, to be discussed below, uses

Muslim history and traditions to embed her unique diasporan Daghestani historiography and culture into the host community of Greater Syria while developing a connection between the homeland and the holy land. She insists on the inclusion of the Daghestani community in the larger context of Islamic resistance through the character of Shaikh

Shamil. But at the same time that Idilbi's Grandfather's Tale makes these connections, it also marks distinctions between the Daghestanis and their fellow co-religionists. The centrality of the pilgrimage to the homeland in place of the obligatory hajj shows that

90 cultural preservation and attachment are more central to the diasporan Daghestani identity than the larger global identity of Muslim.

Reasons for the Use of Ulfat Idilbi

The selection of Ulfat Idilbi's24 Grandfather's Tale as the central work for this section must be explained. Certainly, Idilbi's ethnic background is Daghestani and not

Circassian. However, scouring the few sources of Circassian writings from the diaspora, we are left with a typical problem associated with minor writing: the lack of artistry due to the small pool of talent. The dearth is compounded by the genocide propagated against them in tandem with pressures for financial success precluding the pursuit of the arts.

Yet, the need and the desire to produce a body of diasporic literature persist with the valiant attempts of intellectuals to write/right the history of the histories of their peoples.

Historians and other academics can and do take up the call and produce works in the vein that we have seen with this Circassian collection. Familiar with the genre of historiography, writers flood the Middle Eastern publishing market with historical novels, the education of the younger generations being thought necessary. However, families rarely provide the devotion and financial support necessary to produce quality belle- lettres. Only successful writers with previous publishing success25 receive communal backing. Writing is what it is, informative though not necessarily inspiring and beautiful.

24 Ulfat Idilbi is one of the matriarchs of women's writing in Syria, according to Miriam Cooke (MEMOIR: NO SUCH THING AS WOMEN'S LITERATURE, Journal of Middle East Women's Studies; Bloomington Spring 2005 1; 2 p. 25-54,165 ). She began writing in the 1930s and has had major success within the region and internationally due to the translations of her works into English. Grandfather's Tale is probably the best known novel included in this dissertation. The readership is expansive because of the translations available. Indeed, like Al-Bazei, I had difficulty locating the original text but could find a copy of Peter Clark's English translation online. In Greater Syria writers have taken on the cost of their first publications contracting with small publishing houses to produce small runs of their novels that they then sell to their friends and family

91 In stark contrast, Idilbi's Grandfather's Tale takes the reader on a pleasurable journey through the nascent diasporic Daghestani world of the Middle East, returning to the lofty peaks of Daghestan, all the while weaving together the narrative structures of the Arab world, the political history of the Caucasus during the Russo-Circassian wars, and the formation of a hybrid Caucasian diasporic community. In her prologue, Idilbi asserts both the factual basis of the "tale" as part of her familial history and acknowledges her fictional embellishments. After spending time with more traditional historical novels that seek to establish facts in resistance to institutionalized historiographies, Idilbi's structured and crafted novel is a joy to analyze and provides a more literary lens through which to view the construction of a hybrid diasporic identity still intimately connected to visions of homeland and historical reality.

Like the Circassian history of 18th and 19th centuries in the Caucasus, the Russo-

Circassian wars dominate Daghestani history with the addition of Sheikh Shamil's heroic resistance. Idilbi's historical novel, then, functions in a similar way to Circassian novels in its attempt to establish a Caucasian diasporic community that can be authenticated through its association with the homeland and its history. She strengthens the association between Daghestanis and the Circassians through the burial of Salih's father in an

Egyptian Circassian cemetery:

'I feel that my hour is at hand. It is not decreed, I believe, that I will be interred in

the soil of my homeland, Daghestan. If I die here, dear friends, bury me in that

becoming their own independent distributors. In this way they build a both a readership and a name for themselves. At that point, a publishing house may elect to sign the writer.

92 land belonging to the Circassians that we have visited together. There I can at

least be among some of the sons of my land and people.

(J*aJ (jl£ La lil xij aJ .(.Jjjbicj (--iiaj C-lijl <_K»J (j£ (_JS> J& jj^V UUjj Jill -LaSI jaJl 4JJJ J JjJajl

Similarly, Salih connects with the larger Caucasian collective when he seeks news from the homeland:

When the time of the pilgrimage drew near in the year 1859 I felt the urge to seek

the company of pilgrims from the Caucasus, and to talk about the Daghestan

revolt and my hero Shaikh Shamil.

^La-aJl «.7j$J ^«1->V jiuJl Jl ±xi£ i3>»2ij J-^1 ilu£ "S ho °[ Ac J J ^iuJl tilt J «jJl ajoijx 4-IJJSI LaL-

...(JxLui jtiuill l^ojr-j (jcj ((jllnifvl^ll ejjJ (jc JjllajJ (JJAUASMII

Notice the use of the more general term Caucasians/ay-^1 instead of possible phrase

"Daghestani pilgrims"/ ai'"'"^1 z)+^. Again, Idilbi draws upon a larger Caucasian identity to form a larger Caucasian diaspora in Grandfather's Tale.

If Idilbi is comfortable asserting such a Caucasian identity in diaspora via their shared "land and peoples" so too can we analyze Grandfather's Tale as a novel addressing the formation of a Caucasian diaspora that includes implications not only for the Daghestanis but also the Circassians. Grappling with the need to particularize their

26 Idlibr Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 115.

Idlibr Ulfat. Hikayat jiddfriwayah. Dimashq: Dar Talas, 1991, p 114. 28 Idlibr Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 180. 29 Idlibr Ulfat. Hikayat jiddfriwayah. Dimashq: Da? Talas, 1991, p 177.

93 Sunni identity within Greater Syria, Daghestanis, such as Idilbi, utilize the homeland and the culture and customs to distinguish themselves. While this is similar to the tropes further developed in the chapter on Hijra narratives following this chapter, the way in which the particularization occurs within the religious domain is particularly sensitive in a normative Muslim context where any potential for shirk could have serious consequences. Discussing the profanation of the sacred hajj and the elevation of the ummah to the realm of sacred could be considered a form of shirk or giving partners to

God and denying the oneness or tawhid of God. Idilbi's Grandfather's Tale more than any of the previous novels relies on religious imagery to convey the differences between

Caucasian and Arab Muslims.

a) Intro to Grandfather

In this section Grandfather's Tale serves as the primary example of the use of religious identity, imagery, and praxis in the construction of Circassian diasporic identity. The central issue is the repositioning of sacred space and how the diasporic individual constructs the sacred/religiosity. Second, the theme of ummah, how the ummah is defined historically particularly within the contemporary context of a pluralistic society allows for the inclusion of a truly spectacularly written text as Ulfat Idilbi's

Grandfather's Tale that addresses the idea of pilgrimage, sacredness/religiosity, and homeland in terms of distance.

Other reviewers, such as Saad Al-Bazei, less familiar with diasporic writing and not analyzing identity construction, find the novel more sentimental than crafted, and

94 eschew the Utopian landscape created within. Al-Bazei admits that his own review suffered from his inability to obtain the original Arabic though the translation, faithful to the original, renders the tale well. Answering the critique of the lack of realism in the novel, minorities and diasporic authors writing in the vehicular language are less given to social criticism than their counterparts. For a Daghestani to complain in Arabic about their social position would be gutsy or spirited.

Instead, when positioning the community within Grandfather's Tale, the need to ameliorate relationships overshadows the desire for social reforms that would establish equality. Social conventions state that there should be no differences between the two communities, Caucasian/Daghestani and the host community, as they are fellow Sunni

Muslims. Writers avoid projecting any other image (real or imagined) through Utopian depictions or a general lack of interactions. Therefore, few representations of local interactions occur in the writing of Circassians. Reading Grandfather's Tale is intimate, in the sense that Idilbi restricts the reader to the domestic sphere of the family only addressing public issues when they impact the family. For example, the relationship between Salih and the Arab from whom he purchases his house does not occur on the level of a dialogue, but rather through reported conversation. Instead, writers shift their focus to their desire to feel accepted by both the host community while remaining separate from it and also desire to be accepted into the body of the collective as imagined in the homeland territory, whether or not an actual return to the homeland happens. In their texts, they imagine the collective body as being reassembled and whole in the

Lacanian sense in some supra-spatial location.

30 Al-Bazei, Saad. (World Literature Today 74 (2): 452-452 SPR 2000) Ulfat Idilbi's short stories provide a considerable amount of feminist critique according to die article by Miriam Cooke.

95 b) Plot summary

Grandfather's Tale may be read as the story of the foundation of a Daghestani diasporic community within the Middle East while their countrymen continue to resist Russian advancement into the Caucasus. Salih's (the grandfather of the tale) father finds himself exiled from his beloved homeland due to a political misunderstanding. He divorces his wife to allow her to stay in the homeland in order to live a "normal" life while he raises his sons in the Holy Land. He reveals to his youngest son, Salih, while on the hajj, that his mother will not be joining them in this new land. Salih, now a hajji, grows and establishes himself in his new world all the while longing for his mother/homeland.

Finally, he travels to see her and his extended family in Daghestan, meeting her approval yet electing to return to his new diasporic family and community.

Superiority

Antithetical to an attempt at neutrally positioning the community, Idilbi espouses an air of superiority in the prologue that continues throughout the novel. As readers, we might view such pridefulness as a Utopian vision of diasporan acceptance and integration depicted in hyperbolic language easily dismissed as quaint and appropriately reverential to her ancestors that went before. Take, for example, the following quote from the prologue:

I remember I once asked my Mother, as she was describing the fabulously high

mountains of Daghestan in the way she had heard them described by her

grandfather, 'Are the mountains of Daghestan as high as Jabal Qasyun?' We used

to live at the foot of Qasyun, which I considered a giant among mountains.

96 Mother laughed and said, 'If another mountain of the same height were to be

placed on top of Jabal Qasyun it would still not be as high as the mountains of

Daghestan.'

I was utterly amazed. My child's imagination was unable to picture such heights.

From that time there developed in my mind a dream to visit the land of Daghestan

and to see for myself those might mountains and yawning valleys (Idilbi 5-6).

;UA2>. QA I «n-ij3l lift l~l».ani Lt£ (J*^' Ujlcj tjjlluiftlj Jlla. ,J <• iinl dulij lijA ,-A\ CJLj (JlM jSil

.JliaJl (JJJ ti^Lac A JMI-^I CliSj '^•>«... ^A USj V^jjluAi (Jia. jlft (Jl« (_»»l b (jllnir.b (J-f> O*—

.(jlimftlj (Jfa» jlft (Jia ^jl (J^-^J ^ * "?^ O^* ^l (jj^"^ U^1 liL^ ^^J Jr—

aia, (-JA J (»3 JAM rlj jJaJl tiUJ iio .(JALill jlxll lift (J^y (j' (J*^'

2aj^ ,„\t l^jUjjj AikLill IfSLia. (jjV (jliuicl^ll :0b SjLj j* cJi*>

A direct factual territorial comparison between the diaspora and the homeland (Jabal

Qasyun and any Daghestani mountain) establishes the preference and superiority of the

Daghestani geography. The awe-inspiring preeminence of the territorial homeland endows a "child's imagination" with a desire to witness this land and territory. The inability to actually see the difference between the two mountains or to physically visit the homeland mountain, that juxtaposition, bestows the homeland with mystery and creates a Lacanian desire for that other space, that now approaching otherworldly position of the peaks of Daghestan. For even if the narrator or the reader finds images in books, these do not allow for the experience of the space, it remains remote and unattainable. By extension, the diasporan sees himself, even if born outside of

Daghestan, as a product of that geography, and thus, as better than the host community.

32 Idlibi; Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 5-6.

97 The implication being that the diasporic identity is different, separate and a cut above the local.

Idilbi introduces her own desires for returning (a pilgrimage) to the homeland, to these real territorial features, that parallels the novel's narrative. Unlike other Circassian prologues (discussed in the chapter on Departures), Idilbi does not reveal if she has returned thus leaving the reader to wonder if she has direct experiential knowledge that informs her writing and she leaves the desire active, unfulfilled, just like the average reader who will never directly experience these peaks.

Ramadan and Recitation

Attempting to embed her narrative of the formation of the Daghestani diaspora within the literary landscape of the Middle East, Idilbi quickly and deftly alludes to the two primary recitations of the region: The Qur'an/ulA11 and the A Thousand and One Nights/ <-«//<-'£2'

33 Just a few pages further into the text, Idilbi moves to a secular form of recitation within the region, A Thousand and One Nights, and illustrates how the grandfather and by extension the family also are similar to the host community in their forms of entertainment, and the method of oral recitation. The grandfather becomes Scheherazade, sustaining and entertaining his guests: '"Then however much we pleaded he would refuse to go on. Instead he would repeat the words of The Arabian Nights, 'Morning overtook Scheherazade and she said no more (Idilbi 32).'"

The grandfather shows his knowledge of regional arabesque storytelling styles and conforms his own recitation to style.

98 emigration to Damascus from Daghestan. Idilbi, thus, positions the establishment of the

Daghestani Damascene diaspora on par with the sacred revelation of the Qur'an by way

of the following lines:

On the first night of Ramadan, Mother gathered us around the stove.

'During this sacred month,' she said, 'between the sunset prayer and the evening

prayer, while your father goes off to recite the special Ramadan prayers, I'm

going to tell you the story of how my grandfather migrated from Daghestan to

Damascus.34

;Ul tlulij (JJiiajl (Jja. Ls-4' 1'"'" "•> (jl i*-»«j _j^ (j-" AJJ Uj> tjj

Qur'anic recitation recounts the migration of the early Muslim ummah from Mecca to

Medina and its triumphal return. Here, Idilbi substitutes her profane "grandfather's tale"

of emigration to Damascus in place of the sacred, traditional recitation of the Qur'an

during the Ramadan celebration positioning the formation of a Daghestani/Caucasian

ummah within this sacred time period of the establishment of the original ummah through

the will of God. Thus, the Arabic reading audience of Grandfather's Tale, familiar

with the Qur'an, recognizes the common theme of emigration or hijra/»j^ and the

appropriateness of Mother's substitution. Idilbi normalizes the diasporic condition of her

34 Idlibr Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 9. 35 - - - - - Idlibi, Ulfat. Hikayat jiddi riwayah. Dimashq: Dar Talas, 1991, p 15. "For purposes of recitation Muslims divide the Qur'an, which is of comparable length to the New Testament, into thirty approximately equal portions of 'parts' {ajza\ sing, juz')- This corresponds to the number of days in Ramadan, the month of fasting, when one 'part' is recited each day. The 'parts' are usually marked on the margin of copies ." Bell, Richard and Montgomery Watt. Introduction to the Qur'an. Edinburgh University Press, 1995, p 57.

99 community, solidly establishes their affiliation within Islam, and will, as illustrated

below, equate the homeland with the holy land in which she now lives. Additionally, this

reference to the month of Ramadan and the recitation of the Qur'an at the outset of the

novel affiliates the Daghestani author and her community with Islam and the unimah and

by extension the host community which is a continuation of the Islamic tradition. Yet, by

the very same narrative technique or structure, Idilbi sets the Daghestani ummah apart

from the broader, generalized Islamic community. Only her family and (by

generalization) the larger Daghestani community share this custom of recitation that

supersedes normal traditions. As in the prologue, she forms an aggregate structure (we

Daghestanis are a part of you, but yet are superior and separate from you) while

distinguishing the community as superior.

Symbols

Having established the connection between the two histories (Daghestani diaspora/early

Muslim ummah), Idilbi strengthens the parallels between them through the use of

comparisons to the prophet Muhammad. While there are numerous figures in early

Islamic history from which to draw, Idilbi only makes use of the historical figure of

Muhammad. Muhammad is a quick and easy symbol for the community, the religion,

leadership. Other historical figures from the ummah might need more explanation for a

lay audience and thus, restricting comparisons to Muhammad, while perhaps less

sophisticated from a religious stand-point, is pragmatic from a literary position.

37 The lack of other historical figures might raise suspicions of the depth of the Daghestani Muslim identity given the claims that Caucasian conversions to Islam were for political rather than spiritual reasons. However, Idilbi's continued use of Muslim tropes, such as the hajj and recitation of the Qur'an, seem to override this assumption.

100 Idilbi need not make any overt comparison for the reader between Salih's father and

Muhammad as the descriptions she provides through the course of her narration are

transparent enough for the normal intended Arabic reader (most familiar with the Qur'an

or at least Islamic history) to draw the necessary connections and see the two as similar.

For example, as Muhammad was exiled from Mecca for political reasons so, too, was

Salih's father. Additionally, like Muhammad, he takes a young bride in his old age

which meets with some criticism. Then, rather than blatantly asserting the comparison,

she uses dialogue to empower/enable Salih's father to connect himself and his

community with Muhammad and the ummah in the following passage:

'My son,' Father said, 'just imagine what hardships our noble Prophet had to put

up with when he migrated, in the fulfillment of his great mission, from Mecca to

Medina. He traveled along this very road on camelback, accompanied only by his

friend Abu Bakr. Allah knows what physical dangers they confronted, with

equanimity and steadfastness, as they strove to ennoble the world of Allah, may

His cause prevail.'38

•Jal jjj] t^jjXall J] <£-a jj^j J^-A (j^=»- Aajhtll llilLuij (JJIJJJ ,j AJLLo jjx AJjS^I ijiij (JA^J i£ ,-U b jy "•"

39

The father's words place not only himself but also the larger Daghestani collective, this branch of the Diaspora, "on this very road" that the prophet traveled. As the father and

son make their spiritual hajj, the father encourages his son (the forming diaspora) "to

38 IdlibH Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 17. 39 Idlibi, Ulfat. Hikayatjiddi riwayah. Dimashq: Dar Talas, 1991, 21-22.

101 picture, image/imagine"/jy^ Muhammad's hardships in the face of his (the diaspora's)

hardships of emigration. The father directs the diaspora (Salih) to imagine Muhammad's

hardships, which is in effect a substitution of the hardships of the Daghestani diaspora for

the early ummah's. One can only imagine in relation to what one has experienced. If

Muhammad and the ummah resisted the persecution of the Meccan nobles through their

hijra to Medina, returning and reclaiming their positions in Mecca, so can they, the

Daghestanis resist the Russian persecution via emigration. In other words, Idilbi directly

maps the Daghestani hijra/emigration to Muhammad's. Turning our attention to the

phrase "this very road'VijJj^l »^* can also be rendered as "this way" or "this method".

The word ALjiJl is used by Sufis to mean a course of conduct in the same sense as the

Sunnah of Muhammad. Thus, Salih and his father and the Daghestani community are

following "this very way" of Muhammad which was ordained by God and by implication

so is the Daghestani hijra/diaspora. The last two sentences, then, sanction the place of the

Daghestani community within the Middle East, within this "holy" space where the

Prophet trod. Idilbi, not subverting the historical reality of the Daghestani diaspora, must

frustrate the father's return to the homeland and thus he differs from Muhammad in his burial in Egypt with his "Circassian brothers". However, Idilbi takes up the idea of resistance and return in the Prophet's career through the historical "nationalist prophet"

Shaikh Shamil.

Certainly, Shaikh Shamil remains a controversial figure that continues to be analyzed against the current political situation within the Caucasus and the resistance that has emerged, not so much like a phoenix from his ashes, but does carry his legacy. Thus, recapitulation of the figure within a tale like Grandfather's Tale has implications for the

102 contemporary diasporic position on resistance, struggle, and nationalism. Idilbi might

even be said to contradict herself in her descriptions of the patriotic leader. Her initial

assessment of his tactics for compliance40 reveal what M.I. Quandour deemed "Tyranny"

that extended even to the brutal treatment of his mother.

Then, perhaps not ready for the shift, the reader encounters the following which at

first reads like an historical account of events moving into the tone of a eulogy:

When he [Shaikh Shamil] asked the Russian government to permit him to go to

Mecca in order to perform the Pilgrimage, they granted the request. That was in

1870. Shaikh Shamil made his way to the Holy Places, but he stayed for only one

year. In 1871 he answered the summons of his Lord and his pure soul ascended

to heaven in a state of blissful content. He had died, not in the land of his

enemies, but, thanks to the munificence of Allah Almighty, in the Holy Land.

There he was buried, near the tomb of the Prophet, upon whom the blessings of

Allah, and the Companions of the Prophet, may Allah be pleased with them. And

may Allah also be pleased with Shaikh Shamil, who was noble and courageous,

an honest believer, a man beyond reproach.

(jl£j 4n1 (jl

) AV \ fie ^ik .oOa.1 j

«Uj£l (^ l^"J f]

JJJS JJCj j&l tjL-o J>uj3l

See the chapter on Villains and Heroes for more discussion on the historical figure of Shaikh Shamil and his depictions within Circassian literature.

103 Idilbi suggests a comparison between the two historical figures by the proximity of the

two graves. Historically accurate, Shaikh Shamil was buried in Jannat al-Baqi (&*& <**•)

near the Mosque of the Prophet (LSJ^ -^-^1) which includes Muhammad's tomb,

previously his residence in Medina. Moreover, Jannat al-Baqi does contain the graves of

many important figures in Islamic history such as the wives of the Prophet and his

daughter, Fatima. Shamil's burial confers a special status to him in terms of his position

in Islamic history, even though he is from remote Daghestan. Daghestan is a part of the

ummah, a part of Muslim resistance against the persecution of infidels, like Muhammad

and his Companions. Today, the legacy of Shamil's resistance persists as conflicts

between Russia and the people of the Caucasus continue to be unresolved.41

While the historical reality of Shaikh Shamil is remarkable, the tension in this

paragraph lies in Idilbi's description of Shamil's soul/^-jj and the verb ^*Wto ascend.

There appears to be an intentional lacuna in the text encouraging the reader to draw his

own conclusion about the reason for the ascension of Shamil's soul into the heavens.

According to traditional sources on Islamic theology, two groups of people have their

souls ascend to heaven after death:

The souls of prophets are in paradise, as are those of martyrs, although there are

disagreements among traditional Muslims as to whether this applies to all

42 martyrs.

41 One of the contemporary leaders of the Chechen resistance movements, Shamil Salmanovich Basayev by virtue of his name conjured up the legacy of Imam Shamil and revitalized interest in the historical events of the 18th and 19th centuries. 42 Source Citation: MARMURA, MICHAEL. "Soul: Islamic Concepts." Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 12. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 8566- 8571. 15 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale. University of Michigan acct #149214. 26 July 2007

104 The absence of the term AM-^'/martyr to describe Shaikh Shamil, his death, occurring as it

did away from the battlefield in the Holy Land, suggests that martyrdom is not the reason

for the ascension. As the rest of the paragraph draws comparisons to the Prophet

Muhammad the subtle insinuation of the status of ^l/prophet seems more likely.

Idilbi's style does not force this particular reading, but for those who see Imam Shamil as

a local hero and a spiritual leader, the veneration that he was given and the accolades he

continues to receive from his descendents in resistance borders on this kind of reverential

title. Within contemporary Western historiography, the biography of Imam Shamil reads

like a prophet. For example, Alexander Knysh's entry in the Encyclopedia of Islam, with

small changes, sounds like the life of the Prophet Muhammad:

The military-theocratic state in which Shamil was the supreme temporal and

religious authority.. .grew much more complex and efficient.. .The dual title imam

and amir al-mu'minin .. .accurately reflected his functions as the principal

interpreter and enforcer of the shgriUa on the one hand, and as the political and

military leader on the other. In addition, Shamil was his own legislator. His

instructions and ordinances on matters not explicitly covered by the shariUa

formed the so-called niZam... Finally, Shamil was also the chief judiciary and

administrator of his state.43

43 Knysh, Alexander. "Circassia" In: Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World edited by Martin, Richard C. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004

105 If conferred with the status of prophet, then what (divine) message did he carry to the

Daghestani people? Did the Daghestani peoples embrace the Nakshbandiyya-

Khalidiyya44 form of Sufism that he was known to espouse? Idilbi never makes mention of this in her novel. As she has not relied on deep historical knowledge of the most basic of Islamic history throughout her text, it should be assumed that this specific form of Sufi

Islam is not at the core of the belief system that she would see as his message of import.

With the aid of hindsight, Idilbi understands Shamil's nationalism and love of Daghestan will be remembered, not so much his spiritual teachings. The basic concept of resistance in the face of the loss of homeland and identity is the message Shamil carried to his people and which continues to today.

Idilbi seeks to fuse the Daghestani resistance with the authenticated and holy resistance of the early ummah. The Daghestani diaspora, much like the ummah, can become an integral part of their new society, can help restructure "Medina" as it were, and forge some kind of particular and unique identity. They are normalized through their association with the foundational community. The mentioning of the national hero also serves to demarcate the external and historical differences of what might be referred to as the Daghestani ummah, like in the other Circassian texts.

Knysh reports the following: "Although formally he was neither head of a hrika nor even the supreme Sufi master of Daghistan (both titles were better applicable to Savyid Djamal Din, whose ascendancy in Suft matters the imam humbly acknowledged), Shamil commanded the practically unconditional loyalty of his followers, the most devoted of whom viewed him as their personal murshid [q.v.]. In a sense, Shamil's whole state was an extended tarika, complete with such trappings of a Sufi" community as the collective dhikr [q.v.] chanted by his muridun on the move and in battle, the periodical khalwa s [q.v.] practiced by the imam and his disciples, the miracles {karamat [q.v.]) ascribed to him by the followers, the supererogatory prayers (up to 20 times a day, according to some testimonies) he assigned to the muridun, the constant spiritual link ( rabita [q.v.]) which Shamil maintained with his closest disciples, and, finally, his communications with the spirit of the Prophet to solicit the latter's advice. All this, however, is true only of Shamil's retinue in Darghiyya and Vedan. 45 Considering that Medina was a multi-ethnic society that functioned under the guidance of the prophet, an outsider, it is replete with examples for a Muslim, ethnic diaspora.

106 For a Daghestani, the comparison between Shamil and Muhammad is easy and natural. Just as Muhammad was the supreme leader of the ummah, so too was Shamil the supreme leader for the Daghestanis or Avaristan. Idilbi does not force the equation between the two but does allow the reader to see the parallels between these two figures and in so doing illustrates the similarities between the histories of Daghestan and the early founding of the Islamic ummah.

Thus, we have seen how Idilbi utilizes comparisons between her characters,

Salih's father and Shaikh Shamil, to equate the early ummah with the Damascene

Daghestani community. In this way, Daghestani history becomes a "sacred" history on par with Islamic history. The use of historical facts, like the formidable position of Imam

Shamil within the larger Muslim world during the 19th Century, further substantiates the, not so much centrality, but importance of the periphery of the Ottoman/Islamic Empire.

Diasporic Daghestanis and also Middle Eastern Caucasians reading Grandfather's Tale can see themselves in this novel and then contextualize their position within larger

Islamic history.

Having sanctified the Daghestani ummah's history, Idilbi further develops the desire for the homeland through the use of the Mother/Child relationship, the central issue Salih wants to resolve in the novel. The frustrated/separated/complicated/physically severed Mother/Child relationship must be read as homeland/diaspora as Idilbi establishes the analogy outside of the text in the

Prologue:

107 In his [Salih] mind any reference to Daghestan called up an image of his mother.

And any reference to his mother brought to mind his homeland of Daghestan.

The two images merged and became one.

Is not the homeland the same as the mother and vice versa?

ialikjj ttji"vmr.b oxXi Al '"'ft*" dij£i LaKj .<-oi Sj_^a 4JAi ,_3 <"ifi.nl (jlioic-lj

47 ?oM ^ ^lj rVl J*

Salih's mother is the homeland. She remains in the homeland when the Ottoman government exiles her husband to Damascus. He divorces her symbolizing the severed ties between the diaspora and the homeland. Through the father's explication of his divorce to his son Salih, the reader learns that the father never stopped loving his wife/homeland. However, in order for her to continue her life and her resistance, he must withdraw from her; he must allow her to draw on her own resources to continue the struggle. The mother is the procreative force that continues to produce the progeny of the nation, both abroad and in her own womb. She validates and attempts to authenticate the identity of her children, provides them with an identity. But she can lose her sight, she must learn to see her children in the proper light, see them for what they are and what they can become.

After the son has completed his development, has established himself, he cannot return to the womb, he is formed and complete, a separate entity from the Mother/womb.

Thus, when Salih/diaspora returns to homeland/Mother he cannot remain but must exist

46 Idhbi, Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 7. 47 Idlibi; Ulfat. Hikayat jiddfriwayah. Dimashq: DaT Talas, 1991, p 12.

108 outside of the homeland/Mother. The mother may only provide her acceptance of the identity, here diasporan, and see the son with new eyes. Salih literally gives his mother new eyes to see himself/diaspora in addition to new eyes with which to view the homeland and its position in the world. It is up to the diaspora to supply this new vision to the homeland, to give it the eyes it needs to see the new reality.

Lastly, the Mother/Child relationship for the homeland/diaspora takes on a special significance within the context of the hajj. The hajj is a place where the ummah unites outside of their territorial homeland to form a (re)union. Thus, when Salih's father takes him on the hajj to tell him the devastating news about the permanent separation from his mother/homeland, it is in Mecca that he can experience her and, interestingly enough, at night while he sits alone:

I carried on whispering to Mother, as if she was there before me in the light cast

by the moon. I could see her in her blue dress which I liked so much, her long

dark plaits hanging over her breasts as she glided up and down, flying, as it were,

between heaven and earth. She came near me and then withdrew. She came near

again, so close that I felt I could touch her. I stretched out my hand to do so but

gradually withdrew until she disappeared altogether in the clouds.48

I^JJJJ Ul J Ui lilj iilMA

i\jt> jiwa ^yic (jUjjjj (juLijlijI (jljbjjJI IAUJJJ. >y CjjlSj ^AJ^JJJ Cijl£ LiJit tjJjS ';~ ~> (jl£ <_$ill (JjjVl

(Jjiia] ^yia. jj£l L_ljJiia JJXJ 3J t-JG Iwln »j (_ia UJJJJ CulS ii_^aj)j\j $.LtuJl (jJJjxlaJ lgjl£ l*'fl" j jlxJ ,_A j

(_^A}J Ig 11) all jjl j J til i nl j-iJI r«ll

48 Idhbi, Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998. 49 Idlibr Ulfat. Hikayat jiddfriwayah. Dimashq: Dar Talas, 1991, p 73.

109 First, a reader can draw parallels between Salih's vision of his mother and Muhammad's

Night Journey to Jerusalem. In much the same way that Jerusalem is the seat of the three major religions and the Night's Journey is a process of returning to this "homeland" of the faiths to rearticulate its dimensions, so too is this a return to the homeland for Salih and a way of re-envisioning himself in terms of "starting a new" in a new land. The passage continues:

I then ceased my whispering. I was confused. I was looking up to the heavens,

my eyes wide open, gazing at the never-ending emptiness. I felt glued to the

ground, motionless. Suddenly I woke up from my confusion, glorified Allah and

recited the verse, 'Say then, take refuge in the Lord of all people and chase Satan

away from your mind.' I was afraid that Satan had appeared to me in my mother's

form and that I had been afflicted by a touch of madness.

Notice that he is "glued" which is an English idiomatic rendering of the phrase "I remained in my place with no movement". The diasporan individual remains in this new space, confined, and does not move. There is no return and no escaping the exile, whereas in the previous quote, the mother/homeland moves between the planes of existence, the sacred and the profane, in between the heavens and the earth. The mother

50 Idlibf, Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 70.

Idlibi", Ulfat. Hikayat jiddfriwayah. Dimashq: Dai" Talas, 1991, p 73.

110 as homeland, and a metaphorical one at that, transcends the dimensions of space. Salih's position in Mecca near the Ka'aba where the past and future ummah is experienced by the pilgrims is analogous to the experience of the diasporan individual who seeks reunification with the homeland, with the collective. Salih sees a small formation of

Daghestan/the Caucasus through the other Daghestani pilgrims and realizes the potential for a future reunification through this vision of his Mother, the symbol for territorial unification. As a child/diaspora has no or limited memory of the homeland and thus cannot visualize its dimensions and shape, a vision of Mother, neatly packaged and understood by all, creates a desire for return. Returning to mother is a return to home/land.

Pilgrimage/Hajj

Idilbi's novel Grandfather's Tale can be read as the preparation for and completion of a pilgrimage to the homeland. Just as the substitution of the recitation of the Qur'an during Ramadan was replaced with the profane history of the Daghestani displacement and establishment of the Daghestani ummah, Idilbi exchanges the pilgrimage to Mecca with the secular pilgrimage to the homeland/Daghestan.

In other words, the hajj of import for the Daghestani becomes the hajj to the homeland. The need for the particularized Daghestani or Caucasian identity, the authentication of the diasporic individual as part of the collective accepted and not rejected by the land or the people is essential to continuity of the new diasporic identity.

The need to create the desire for this larger identity and the preservation of the particular

111 ummah is necessary for the survival of a group whose minority identity is challenged by the political acceptance or tolerance of ethnic difference in the face of religious similarity. As previously stated the means of creating this desire is the literal distance of that space (just like Mecca and Medina are remote spots for the majority of the Muslim populations) and the elusive and occluded nature of it. The fact that Daghestan and much of the Caucasus remained isolated behind the Iron Curtain instilled a desire among the diasporic populations that smoldered instead of extinguishing. In Idilbi's text the fragments of news and information that made its way along the information circuits of the hajj line kindled the spirits of the Daghestanis to remain informed about the resistance and the hope of a future unification and autonomy within the beloved homeland. The legendary struggles and the exacerbation at the lack of resolution sustained an interest in the return.

For the inversion of the sacred and profane hajj is to take place, Idilbi strategically empties the obligatory hajj of its sacredness in order to sanctify the homeland. First, she enables Salih to perform the hajj at an early age, thus absolving him from any future obligation. Second, her positioning of Salih in the role of treasurer on the hajj profanes his continued journeys to Mecca. Moving Salih "behind the scenes" to a post that does not fulfill the requirements of the hajj but becomes a means of employment and subsistence for the family demystifies the ritual. Idilbi's act of profanation does not defile the pillar of faith as the grandfather strongly advises his son to accompany his mother on the hajj: "I also advise you to do all in your power to bring her here to his Holy

112 Land so she can perform the obligation of the Pilgrimage.'" However, the early fulfillment of the obligation by Salih and his continued presence in this ritual nullifies the awe and reverence that is felt by the average Muslim who will only perform the obligation once in his or her life and under great cost and burden. The profanation or banality of Salih's hajj experiences allows an inversion to be created between the sacred space of the Meccan hajj commemorating the formation and emigration of the Muslim ummah and that of Daghestan. Salih's journey to Daghestan will recall the performance of the sacred hajj in that he will be returning to the sacred land where "history began" and the only place where an ummah may be reestablished. Indeed, Salih must plan for the pilgrimage to Daghestan for what seems the duration of his adult life; he is derailed and must persevere in his efforts, analogous to the difficulties most experience preparing for the journey to Mecca. In such a way, Idilbi continues to stress the similarities between the two journeys and their larger repercussions for identity and specifically collective identity.

During the hajj, the past and future ummahs are glimpsed through the presence of a collective that represents Muslims from around the globe. It is an ingathering of the global Muslim diasporas, in a sense. This one location, Mecca, attracts such a body/collective and is thus sacred ground. Likewise, the only place where a true

Daghestani collective can be realized and established in its totality, that place where the ummah can be whole again and can be formed, is within the homeland/mother, within the procreative body of faith and hope. Mecca/Daghestan is sacred in that it contains the sacred and religious histories of the community. For a diasporan/pilgrim the soil is the

52 Ibid, p 57. As the Caucasians in the homeland are often considered to be less observant Muslims, this passage could also be read as the diaspora encouraging the homeland to remain observant and to continue the Muslim traditions.

113 very soil where the prophet/ancestor walked and where future generations will walk thinking these same thoughts, resulting in a temporal collapse, past present and future coming together.

For that Ummah to be reestablished requires the diaspora to return and conversely, an acceptance of the repatriates by the homeland/Mother. Just as the pilgrims in Mecca dawn the ihram; a metaphorical, cultural ihram must be established between the diaspora and the homeland. In Victor Turner's The Ritual Process the liminal phase of rites of passage is shown to be essential for bonding between individuals to create what he calls communitas and what results in a collective body. Removing physical signs of difference is a primary goal during liminal phases of rites. In the hajj, wearing the ihram, the white, nondescript, and modest piece of clothing along with the shaving of head, results in a collective body removed of status and distinctions. A head of state can stand with the shop-clerk, both equal before God.

Idilbi draws attention to the diasporan anxiety about acceptance and authenticity in the following passage:

Even though we have migrated from our homeland it does not at all mean that we

have forsaken our language, our customs or those traditions that we have inherited

from our fathers and grandfathers. Far from it. It is our duty to cherish them with

the greatest care and to pass them on to our sons and grandsons, until we are able

one day to return to our homeland—and there is no doubt that, if Allah wills, we

shall return. On our return we will not be strangers to our land or to our people .53

Idlibf, Ulfat, and Peter Clark. Grandfather's Tale. London: Quartet Books, 1998, p 28.

114 Vj Uiiaj Jj ajj ClIi U-ie lil (jia. tlil*j ^ lilliaJj UJlbV U^akjj i^jaJl lil l^jlc (>ajaJ (jl Lylc i_iau

54 >|a^jc ujljei UitS UUi UJSJJ Vj ill-isji Lij^jj V—<&! *U jj Jj*J ji Ul ^J

Peter Clark's translation slightly distorts the original Arabic which I render as follows:

"And certainly if God wills that we return, our land will not reject us, and our people will not reject us as if strangers/foreigners from them." The active form of the verb is used with the land and people not rejecting instead of the passive construction that Clark gives.

Thus, an active authentication by both the land and people is sought by the diaspora. Part of that acceptance should be predicated on cultural knowledge. Therefore, upon Salih's arrival there is considerable tension as he is treated in a manner that is different from his fellow Daghestanis. Under Daghestani traditions a guest should be treated with extreme hospitality. Salih is both a guest and at the same time family. There is a question of whether the diaspora is a known or if they are foreign in terms of the hospitality that is provided for him on his return to the homeland. This makes Salih feel strange, a literal stranger/guest in his familial house , "Was I being treated as a guest, a stranger, and were they preparing a feast in my honour (193-194)." Given the best food, he feels guilty and desires the base and simple foods he knows his family consumes.

Salih gains acceptance through his participation in the daily life of his family, not through gifts or changes in their routines. However, like Lacanian theory suggests this is

54 Idlibi; Ulfat. Hikayat jiddi'riwayah. Dimashq: Dar Talas, 1991, p 32.

55 In Quandour's Revolution the returning diasporan Temur arrives in his village with far more of a jolt: "He was lost in childhood memories when the wind was knocked from him and he found himself swept from his horse's back and lying on the floor of the forest, his fall only partly cushioned by the many years of fallen pine needles. One man was holding his horse and another was sitting on him with a knife to his throat. The third held a gun to his head (Quandour 140)."

115 not the homeland he desires and it never can be. It has changed, the mother of his desires has changed and he has gained only approximations of those remembrances by way of his wife (he marries a Georgian woman who looks like his mother in appearance) and this aging woman before him. Salih and the diaspora, even if becoming a repatriate, will never regain what was lost because of the gap between the memory and the contemporary reality. The ideal of reaching that state of communitas is fraught with difficulties. Much like the issue with language, where there can be a revitalization of the a dead language or the acquiring of the language through learning, born outside of the homeland, living a hybrid existence, while there maybe acceptance of the alien other/diasporic individual, he will never fulfill his desire to be a native. Can he ever occupy the subject position within the territory? There is a longing to embed the self/hybrid in this space but it is not possible and the desire that we see is never ending in these works to authenticate the self that has been diasporized.

Before Salih is incorporated into the collective Daghestani body, he must restore the eyesight/vision of his Mother/homeland. As mentioned earlier, this restoration of eyesight, the new eyes she is given by the diaspora, allow her to see the situation with

Russia in more pragmatic terms. The resistance that has been sustained in Daghestan is waning and political adjustments must be made. Secondly, the new eyes allow her to see her son/diaspora in his new form, mature but different/hybrid/diasporic. Only with these new eyes can full acceptance of the diaspora be granted. It is one thing for the mother to receive reports about this other collective body from a distance and quite another for her to see it with her "own eyes". Thus, at the end of the novel, the reader is assured that:

"My only consolation was that she had departed from this world approving of me in

116 every way." Mother's death frustrates the completion of the return/repatriation unlike in the sacred tradition where Muhammad completes his return to Mecca. All the same, there is a reason for that as the reality of the Daghestani and Circassian diasporas is that re/unification of the various territorial bodies falls outside the realm of possibilities.

While there is a reconciliation between the mother and the diasporan, the novel ends the mother, symbolizing the homeland and the collective, dying within that territory frustrated with the lack of resistance, frustrated by the lack of leadership, frustrated by the lack of a future; but completely at peace with the hybridized diaspora formed away from her literal body, out of territory and in a holy space. As in reality, while the territorial issues within Russia have not been resolved, the relationships between Daghestanis are on the mend. One would be hard-pressed to say that they have been normalized but the groundwork is being laid and mutually beneficial relationships are being made.

In conclusion, Idilbi's Grandfather's Tale utilizes Muslim literary traditions to sanctify the Daghestani/Caucasian diasporic identity. Just as performance of the hajj transforms the status of the person and can provide them with a new identity and a new way of viewing themselves vis-a-vis the rest of the world, so too does Salih's journey to the homeland reshape the views of the diasporan individual who comes to see himself in relationship to the homeland, to the larger collective and as an authentic form of that identity. The use of Muslim traditions allows both the diasporan and the host community to understand each other's history, a shared Muslim history of persecution and emigration. At the same time, the unique stories of the Daghestani/Caucasian diaspora creates a separate and specific identity for the community setting them apart and reifying the external ethnic identity boundary of Arab/Caucasian.

56 Idib, p 225.

117 Readers will not question the beliefs of Nigolian and Idilbi. However, the next

artist, Poyachean draws questions of blasphemy. Poyachean, a genocide survivor and

resident of Anjar by way of Musa Dagh, has written many sophisticated short stories. He

uses his short stories to air his anger at the plight of the Musa Dagh emigrants to Anjar.

He relies heavily on territorial and geographical comparisons to demonstrate the loss.

The descriptions of the muck of Anjar are put forth with little description of the villages

of Musa Dagh. Given his young age at the time of the genocide, his memory may not be

given to full descriptions. However, this follows patterns of other diasporan writers in

Greater Syria who allow the reader to construct that idyllic homeland that has been lost in

a way that is meaningful and intimate for themselves.

The position of the artists in relationship to their diasporic communities allows

them the freedom to express their anger through religious iconography. Both Nigolian

and Idilbi had to be conscious of the potential larger readership of their works. The

attempts at making connections with the larger communities were felt and the depiction

of the larger community's connection with the religion was never undermined. Instead,

there was a supra-religious element added to what could be called the base religion.

Therefore the idea of the ummah was maintained while the supra-ummah, or the

Daghestani ummah added another dimension and thus understanding of the particular

identity of the diasporan group.

Profound Profanation: Poyachean

118 In the next text, the relationship between the host community and the artist manifests a more direct profanation and questioning of the religious elements and even God. The use of a minor language such as Armenian, provides a writer with the protection of a circumscribed readership. Poyachean could be assured that his short stories were only going to be read by a small number of Armenian intellectuals. The criticism he would receive about the content of his "rant against God" could be safeguarded. Thus, in his piece "One of the Emigrants" knowledge of the readership, allows him to question God in a way that might make some of his readers uncomfortable, but also would not lead to any formal kind of political or governmental rebuke.

Poyachean has a stable base upon which to rely that make the kind of profanation that will be seen in a moment not necessarily acceptable, but when placed in the context of anger and outrage, at least tolerated and appreciated by others. Of course, the genre of short stories, as well, makes for more tolerance. As Poyachean has not restricted himself to one work, but rather presents his works in a collection, one piece can be eschewed in favor of others, may be overlooked initially while the whole collection is preserved when such aberrant works might then be accepted at a later date.

"One of the Emigrants"

Poyachean's story of "One of the Emigrants"57 contains a narrator who narrates the situation of three Anjartsiner, among them the central figure of Thomas. The use of the name Thomas is deliberate and prompts the reader to recall the story of Doubting Thomas in the Gospel of John (20:24-29). Thomas refuses to believe that Jesus has been resurrected until "I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the

57

119 print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." Commentators claim that Thomas did not believe until he put his hands into the crucifixion wounds, until he had direct experience of the suffering of Jesus. The Biblical text does not include the action of Thomas placing his hands on the actual wounds but instead he declares "My

LORD and my God." This follows the imperatives of Jesus directing him to touch his hands and his side. Whether or not Thomas obeys and acts cannot be discerned from the text. However, traditionally it is related that he did experience the wounds. This interpretation is given to explicate the closing of the story with the lines of Jesus:

"Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

Poyachean's Thomas, like the biblical Thomas, has doubts, but here, about God's fidelity to the Armenian people after experiencing the Genocide and the life, or lack thereof, in Anjar. Poyachean's shift to the local bar in Anjar allows Thomas to begin to call God to task for his lack of divine intervention in the lives of the faithful Armenians.

Thomas' (or Poyachean's) act of profanation takes on new dimensions and provocatively demonstrates how the Armenians of Anjar might envision their evolving relationship with God vis-a-vis the host community:

luift tiuihi quipp.^ ifp. hif quRUiptti hi- ilinhq ppt, urjn, ifh puqiquitiuip, knit.

Uuihq ppt:

<<—1rni.li 3npn uinhnfchghp. ifhqp ^t p uijq fchprnqp: Iniii hui] chinmjnLpmi

uuihq&bghp. ifhqp ^t p uqq uatilniuili dnqndjn_pqri: luift, Uuuinuub,

f r

Knit ...urjunp Ijjipuiljp. t, huitiqhuinh op, JuiJt. iljiuiq flpijjxq ui^

^uip^uiphghp, uiuiti2hgp.p, hiui yi hvutih^ uintjip, Juift: 120 First drink a drop from my cup and listen, yes, do not get angry, drink. Listen:

You created Job. Shouldn't that old man been spared? You created the Armenian

people, shouldn't that unique people been spared? Drink, God, drink.. .today is

Sunday, a day of rest, drink. You tortured your only son, you had him crucified,

drink."58

"Drink'YIuiIt' the words invoke images and responses not typically associated with God or the divine. First, drinking implies a corporeal existence; a "hand" must hold the "cup" and the "beer" must go somewhere or all over the floor. To contemplate this passage, the reader is challenged to envision a corporeal god, a god sitting on a barstool; unknowingly, the reader is asked to participate in profaning God, to position him in the physical realm and specifically Anjar ("a bad place"/qt2 mtil lip).59 Written in

Armenian, a diasporic Armenian reader might feel an affinity with God in relationship to the host community in sharing in an act which is prohibited in most public spaces in

Greater Syria, drinking alcohol. While Armenians globally seem to enjoy an alcoholic beverage and are known for the production of some rather nice cognacs, "drinking" within Greater Syria becomes a means of establishing external identity boundaries between Christians and larger Muslim populations.

58 Ibid, p 56. 59 Ibid, p 55. U]u<£uip qt2 mtiq u"n.U t: ZJufumhguii. qt2 pnuuquitih ifp hi. iluipqhq nilibguiti hnb 2uiui qt2 puijuin: "Anjar is a bad place, founded in a bad year, and there the people had a lot of bad luck."

121 Returning to the use of "drink'YIuiIt, Poyachean plays a game of role reversal and allows Thomas to command God. Where God has given commandments to humanity, humanity now directs God, both positively (Drink'Ylmlt) and negatively (ifh puipliuiuuip/don't get angry).60 Poyachean allows the Armenian diaspora to assume the subject position or dominant role in their spiritual relationship with God. Where the collective has been the object of others actions (killed, massacred, victimized, displaced, taken in), now through this profanation it is given the opportunity to respond, to demand reasons and explanations. Not exactly silenced, but definitely a muffled body is un­ muzzled and the anger flows not towards the agents of pain/torment (those responsible for the Genocide) but directly to God. The doubt that Thomas symbolizes, the questioning of the lack of divine intervention, is given voice, and a loud and direct one at that, resounding in the muck that has been described as Anjar.

How does Poyachean construct this new spiritual relationship within the diaspora through these two characters: Thomas/the doubting Armenian community and the profaned God? Poyachean's Thomas is humble and simple and speaks directly. His relationship can be compared to either an abandoned friend asking for an accounting of another's whereabouts, or a neglected child of a successful, but absent parent. Thomas, symbolizing the diasporic Armenian community, constructs his/its relationship in comparison to others, specifically the Catholicoi:

It might be noted that these two commands are similar to the way that the New Testament is said to give a spiritual dimension to the commandments within Tanakh: "Drink" but also "do not be angry" tells God what attitude he is supposed to have while performing the directive.

122 Cui in, 2Ui in, 2ui in qp ujiphif pbq, ifbp ^uipnqhqnuuhpb ti ui]^uiit|]i:

Uhntip ^hli hunluip&uiqp.p pbqp. hhin pni[ pnifli tuiinpL bu qp

hvuifuip^uiqpif: bu juii q'phbif, pnrnpp qb^:

I love you very, very, very much; more than all of our Catholicoi. They do not

dare sit side by side with you, but I dare. I am right and they are not. I do well

[while] all of them are bad.

One might wonder why Poyachean does not go immediately for the comparison between

the Armenians and the Turks and ask the question that is on the diaspora's mind: Why

allow the genocide to happen and why not stop the Turks who do not believe? While the

text is in Armenian, it still is subject to the same scrutiny and censorship that other

published works are in the various countries. Few Middle Eastern Armenian texts, even

in Armenian, dare criticize Turks directly. The fear of having that criticism reduced to

"Armenians blame Muslims for the genocide" would seem too risky. Moreover, given

the lack of success in advancing the position of other minorities within the region through

such critiques, the risk outweighs the potential for reward. Instead, Poyachean takes aim

at the hierarchy of the Church, the Catholicoi, and seeks internal reforms of the

community instead of asking for retributions or vengeance upon enemies. The repetitive

use of 2ui in/very connotes the speech of a simple man, but one that is bold and with no

fear. A reader may recall that the people in Anjar are from that tradition of resistance

from Musa Dagh where the Armenians actively fought the Turkish assault and genocide;

the survivors displaced to Egypt and then allowed to return to their location in the region

61 Ibid, p 57.

123 of Cilicia in modern day southwestern Turkey. Thomas does not describe himself further, but does continue to detail his grievances with God and their relationship.

In the first quote of this section I rendered the second half:

You created Job. Shouldn't that old man been spared? You created the Armenian

people, shouldn't that unique people been spared? Drink, God, drink.. .today is

Sunday, a day of rest, drink. You tortured your only son, you had him crucified,

drink.62

I read this quote as negative rhetorical questions in light of the following latter quote that also references Job and Jesus in terms of ilhnp/being spared:

«--t'puii. np 3npp libnp tp. Fpua JipuiL np hui] chiqnihiuip ifbnj) t. TrnLli

uijlipuili 2uiui inhq uinhn&uifc hu, rptfi uinuilig uihnji uihq Aquifc ^ntliji u,

rpiii hui] dnqmlnLprditL hunfuip uihq ^h u uuibnbuifc. U.pbi.p. Ipnuip ifp,

gntph p, jtnbh p: uuihqbuib hu hi_ ifhqp. huiiluip. uin tp lihiJiUri ifhqp.»:

Indeed, Job should have been spared, indeed the Armenian people, you created so

many places [to the point] that you have left no spot without a place, have you not

created a place for the Armenian people: a ray of sun, waters, mountains. You

have created us, too, therefore, also, give us what belongs to us.63

Ibid, p 56. Ibid, p 57.

124 Here the sentences are written without the negation implying that the earlier quote should be rendered as rhetorical negative questions. Like a friend that eases into a personal critique, Poyachean through Thomas, slowly lays into God for his inattention, his absence and, dare it be spoken, what appears to be "injustice." Thomas positions himself and the

Armenians in the role of Job and Jesus whom God made to suffer and not because of their sins but for some unspoken divine plan. There is no need to go into the various exegesis on the suffering of Job in and outside of the Armenian tradition, but the presence of a narrative that allows for pointless suffering (such as the Armenian Genocide or the

Holocaust) justifies its occurrence in the world without questioning the benevolence of

God. The Book of Job is God's "get out of jail free card" and a way for Jews and

Christians to move outside the notion that all suffering is the direct result of sin.

Similarly within Christian tradition, Jesus suffered for the sins of others. For whose sins are the Armenians suffering? What rewards have they been given (as Job is finally restored and rewarded)? Why remain in this relationship if muck and misery are the rewards for fidelity? Thomas, having put forth his argument, asks directly for what is owed to him/the people, which directly questions the benevolence of God. Specifically,

Thomas tells God that he has come to him in prayer and has been ignored:

3hinn] phqh qni. qimf. Sndiri £hu pijuip. n rp q pjjuiu uipnhop, Uuinnuub:

UUquiiI ifp npph ifp huiiluip bquij, uitiquiu" ifp hif 2ni_Uu frhbuifc thU tquij,

uitiqunl ifpU ui^ ilhp dnqni|rn.prui qp huiUthU qp-i_ntti tqurj. 1ni_U pUun.,

uiuiUq iltg ^t u pump: lJ.U2n1.2u1, hpuiuiiAip ni_Uhu. Cuiui qnpb qui], 2Uiui

qnpb. SuiU ilbg qp qbgntji :

125 Then I come to you; you are not at home, where are you I wonder, God. Once I

came for an orphan and I came, once they had beaten my dog and I came, also

another time, and once when they displaced us from our village; you are never

home. Of course, you have a right, there is a lot of work, a lot of work. How

could one stay home all the time?64

Again, like a neglected child, Thomas says he understands, "there is a lot of work" so how can God be troubled to deal with his petty issues; the petty issues of the Armenians.

But knowing that others have a place and money and can meet their needs for survival when his friends can barely afford to buy a mattress for their brides makes him doubt and question the rules of the game.

Zuiquip uinLti njuitiruiLjuin blip. Zuiquip uihquiif huiquip ujuilinrn-hnn t hui]

dnrpi[m.pqp. Uhp uindihpp |un_ thti, ^hp vquipuitqUhpp fcumhpni^ ibgniAi.

a a

n tp t iihp pjni_ptihpni.il hnihi, n i_p t lihp hhnunjip uuiphpntb. uiphtp: InUi

ifhp Uuuinuu&u tu, rj.ni.li ilhp uiilt.uni.li Uuuinunbu hu, rmili u^Hiuiphh

Uuuinuub hu hi. pn|npp.b qni. uiuiu inhq, qhpuilpiLp, hpphilb nLpmhiuihuqni.

hpuiuiLlip, 3npp ^uip^uiphgjip, iTJiuiq flpqjiq hiuiyi huibh^uantjip ni_ ifhup

ppjiuuinhturj hbp ni_ ruiiii ifhqji rquiunrn.Juui ppp.p: Ujb^uip pbppji. Ujb^uip

qt2 uihq ifpu t, hhiibnthguiL qt2 pntuiquibh lip. hi LUib.qni.Knn dnqni[ni.pqp

ntfih hnb qt2 puihrui: qtuibphb uingtn. uibghjiu hnu, ljp hiui&ht, huihi.

ifuuiu ljp. g lpii_ uiuij. 2ni_uiphgun_ ifhuig urju hhh m_ puipp. dnqni[ni.pijp.

Juhjp lip unpi]bgni_p, nruipu"ui& Uuuinun..u»:

126 The Armenians have been emigrants countless times, our homes were good, our

gardens filled with trees, where is the breeze of our hills, where is the sun of our

distant mountains. You are our God, you are the God of us all, you are the God of

the world and you give everyone a place, food and sometimes the right to rejoice.

You tortured Job, your only son nailed to the cross and we are Christians and you

make us exiles. You brought us to Anjar, it is a bad place, built on a bad date and

an immigrant people have bad luck there. If you move ahead of life, it bites, if

you lag behind it kicks you. This has been confusing for this old and good

people. Teach them a way out, my merciful God.

After being direct and assertive, Thomas restores God to his superior position but does

not allow him to leave without taking with him the idea that he has treated the Armenians

unjustly given their loyalty to Christianity while infidels, all around them, reap the

bounty of the land and seemingly his blessings. Before departing, Thomas gives God

back the reins but while still under his direction, exhorting him to teach his people or at

least, perhaps, let them in on his plan that would explain this intense suffering given their

intense love and respect for him.

Comparing this piece to Nigolian's Images a Contremps, clear differences emerge

that are related to the language of composition and the goals of the text. Poyachean freed

from the pressures to placate the larger community utilizes the Armenian language, that

same language that Nigolian associates with the sacred and the liturgy, to doubt God's

plan/ethics/morals and directs his anger at God while using words that are used to praise him. Poyachean can criticize the community itself (the line about the Catholicoi calls in to question the community's loyalty to them as they are corrupt and do not have a direct

65 Ibid, p 60.

127 relationship with God, fearful to sit side by side with him.) Here Poyachean penetrates the ancient firmament between God and man and allows Thomas, the one associated with doubt and the need to have faith, confronts God about his absence and his "doubt"? in the

Armenian people. Exclusion of outsiders/ouiuiplitp by the use of Armenian, alleviates the fear that the piece will be seen as blasphemous. Armenians understand Poyachean's position even if they do not agree with his methods of narrative techniques, they are more open to understanding the anger directed at God than the Muslim host community.

Nigolian's novel, written in French, does not carry this anger. That may be because of the different personalities of the two writers, the distance between the genocide and

Nigolian where Poyachean is a survivor.

In diaspora, coping with the trauma associated with a genocide, the religious identity and their understanding of themselves as Christians has suffered as questioning as entered their language and their desire for answers and for justice in the face of such overwhelming devastation has become visible, something that can be talked about but not outside the community. Anjar is remote and distant from the rest of Lebanon. The language is preserved there, or was. Armenians might retain a belief in God but it does not mean that they take any stock in the future, in the privileging of the Armenians above any others. Unlike the pieces by Nigolian and Idilbi, there is no sense of superiority, at least not that that superiority is recognized by God. While there maybe a feeling that there is superiority within the community it is not being recognized by the sacred nor the profane realms.

As Poyachean's intended audience is limited to Armenians through the use of

Armenian, he opens up space for frank and honest speech about the plight of the refugees

128 in Lebanon. Writing in Arabic or a Western language would widen the readership

making the author conscious of the reception of the work by the host community. Anger,

when written, can be misinterpreted by others not in a similar situation. It is often seen

as political which is something the Armenian community, especially in Lebanon, has

tried to avoid. Poyachean, freed from this added pressure to placate the larger

community, communicates his doubt and anger directed at God.

Conclusions:

From an examination of these texts it becomes clear that the positionality of each within

the context of Greater Syria requires an examination of religious identity so that the

groups develop strategies that allow them to position themselves as members of the

community with shared histories with the larger social body while at the same time

retaining a separate identity. The Armenians now have to address their relationships with

other Christians in the area and maintain an external separation with them. Their

victimization is normalized through a shared experience of violence in the urban terrain

of Lebanon beset with civil wars during the past half of a century.

Circassians and Caucasians within Greater Syria utilize renegotiate their new

religious positionality through the use of the historical novel. This genre allows them to

construct both a Circassian history that establishes their differences with the larger ummah while at the same time drawing comparison between this unique history and the

sacred Islamic history of the hijra that is used as a means of marking sacred time. The

Circassian history becomes part of the larger sacred narrative of resistance of religious persecution through the aid of emigration. In those novels that extend past the diasporas

129 establishment within the host communities of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon the writers tie

the contemporary histories of the Circassians to the larger national histories through the

Circassian presence within the military battles of the region. Thus both the past history

and the present become shared with the larger social body of Greater Syria all the while

minimizing the victimization of the group and asserting their virile presence within the

nation. Thus both groups, even though they are from different religious confessions,

through their narrative strategies have connected themselves with the larger social

context while addresses other internal issues.

Understanding that these two religiously distinct diasporas share this goal of

affiliating with their hosts while at the same time establishing a means of being

recognized as separate and unique, the next two chapters of the dissertation are devoted

to individual case studies of first the Circassians and then the Armenians. Chapter Three:

Hijras: Horses Die and Accordions Wail further develops the idea of the hijra within

Circassian historical novels as a means of transporting diasporic symbols of

Circassianness, those features which are used to demarcate themselves from the larger

ummah, and authenticates them by placing them in the homeland prior to their hijras. In

this way, diasporic identity becomes validated through the construction of historic

continuity with the homeland. In other words, the homeland becomes a tool for

authentication.

In an opposite direction, Armenians embed their patriotic operas (Anoush and

Arshak II), composed outside what is now the territorial homeland in the dual cultural

epicenters of 19th century Armenia, Constantinople and Tiflis, in the symbol of this new nation, the consciously constructed Soviet and now current capital of Yerevan,

130 specifically within the Yerevan Opera House. In this symbolic way, what can be understood as now constituting diaspora validates and authenticates "homeland." What had been a remote piece of Armenia for Western Armenians becomes central and a part of their vision of themselves and their Armenia.

131 Chapter Four

Hijras: Horses Die And Accordions Wail

In 1998, Jordan's Prince Ali Ben Hussein1, in traditional Circassian dress, mounted a horse and set out with a group of Circassian horsemen to retrace the fayra/departure of their ancestors from their homeland in the Caucasus to the Middle East. When the press asked the reason for this symbolic reenactment of the brutal deportations that led to the formation of diasporic communities in Jordan, Syria, and Israel, Prince Hussein explained the undertaking as follows:

The horse-ride is in essence a reverse of the mass exodus that brought

the Circassians to Jordan and the diaspora. Circassians of the Caucasus and

the diaspora are part of a single ethnic and cultural entity, and uniting these parts

is a natural human right. My goals are, therefore, to open the door for any

Circassians wishing to return to their homeland, to be able to do so freely, without

the complications and problems that they are presently facing due to lack of

organization and barriers posed by people who wish to prevent the spiritual and

1 "My mother is Circassian, and my father's mother was Circassian, so my interest in the North Caucasus cannot be described as coincidental. Moreover, I am a 42nd-generation descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and am duty bound to care for Moslems throughout the world." (Rotar: http://www.jamestown.org/email-to-friend.php) 2 Hijra refers to Muhammad's and his followers', the early ummah, emigration from Mecca to Medina.

132 physical unity of the Circassian nation. In addition, I hope to bring the Circassian

issue to the world's attention, so that they can no longer be used as pawns in a

chess game, and future bloodshed in the Caucasus, caused by ignorance and

neglect can be avoided.

Notice the prince in his reenactment of this historical displacement of the Circassians employed traditional Circassian symbols recognized by Jordanians, Circassian and others: 1) he dressed in traditional costumes4 and 2) rode on horseback 3) along a path of

Circassian history. In terms of historical accuracy, the deployment of these symbols is easily challenged. Considering the historical circumstances of the hijra, it is unlikely that the emigrants wore their best traditional dress during the "exodus" as did the Prince.

Tattered everyday clothing, hardly the dress of royalty, would be more apropos.

Moreover, the route to Jordan was circuitous by way of Anatolia and the Balkans, and usually did not involve riding a horse, but instead was a caravan of wagons drawn by bulls leading to, if one were lucky, a steamship on the Black Sea. The symbolic reenactment of a reverse hijra/departure was an attempt to reify the symbols of Greater

Syrian Circassian diasporic identity as lived nearly a century in Jordan. Literally, this group of horsemen attempted to embed their diasporic Circassian culture within the homeland, now rearticulated in this post-Soviet space. It was an attempt to connect the diasporic identity/community with the homeland identities/communities.

Toward the end of the 20 century, bureaucratic restrictions on travel to the

Caucasus eased and many diasporic Circassians (including Prince Ali Hussein's horse- party) found themselves able to return to the homeland, to seek out lost family members

3 http://angelfire.com/hi2/Royaltyandstuff2/Ali2.html 4 Some sources report that the clothing was traditional Circassian warrior garments.

133 once living behind the Iron Curtain, and to reclaim an aspect of their identity that had been lost. Since the deportations of the late 19th century, literal linkages to the physical homeland were minimal, if non-existent for most. Instead, the community maintained a mental connection to the homeland through the memories and histories of their grandparents and ancestors. Now at the end of the century, the possibility of comparing these constructed and borrowed imagings of the homeland with the territorial reality was, for a few, within their grasp. A generation that had never stepped foot on the soil of

Circassia would have the opportunity to have a first-hand experience with what had truly become to them a mythic realm of the Narts.5

During this same active period of return (1980-end of the century), four

Jordanian/Syrian authors wrote and published historical novels that include a depiction/reenactment of hijra from the homeland mirroring Prince Ali Hussein's goals of embedding and authenticating diasporic identity in the homeland: Zahra Omar's

Departure/Exodus from Susruqa; Birzaj Samkugh's Perdition of Emigration, Rasim

Rushdi's Jan, and M.I. Quandour's Kavkas Trilogy and Circassian Saga.6 A correlation between returns and repatriation to the homeland and literary output of historical novels is attested in the prologues of these novels. Quandour's prologue explicitly states that his first trip to Nalchik drove him to "find our lost relatives and write our family's history.. .1 was determined to establish my roots. I had a craving to write about my people. I had a

5 Narts are the demigods in the epics of the Caucasus discussed in the previous chapter. 6 M.I. Quandour has written five books in his Circassian Saga. Initially he wrote the three novels Sabres of Chechenia, Kazbek ofKabarda and The Triple Conspiracy as a trilogy to be converted into screenplays for a miniseries for Soviet television. They were published as a trilogy under the name Kavkas. I will refer to the work as the Trilogy in this section. After finishing the Trilogy Quandour wrote two more volumes to complete his family's history: Cherkess: the Balkan Story and Revolution. I will refer to the completed work as The Circassian Saga to distinguish it from the Trilogy.

134 craving to establish my own identity." Similarly, while Samkugh sits on the bank of the Terek he recalls "The house of my grandmother. The details try to beat one another to my mind. I begin to fumble with all of them. They organize (themselves). I begin to enter her world. I recover/reclaim it. I shiver a little from my coffee. I return to the time and place. I live in that house, or it lives in me."8 Their direct experiences with the territory combined with hazy, second and third-hand oral accounts passed down through generations stimulate the writing of hijra narratives.

Like Prince Ali Hussein's horse-party, these writers' novels are a reenactment of the deportations laden with symbols that are salient for a diasporic Circassian and diasporic identity. Returning to the homeland through the process of narrating the hijra, a diasporic author standing outside of the territory, imagines himself and his contemporary community in that space he is creating out of the traces of memory and lived experience. He writes his diasporic identity in place of, or on top of, the identity of the muhajir (emigrant) ancestor. The distance in terms of time and space are collapsed and the diasporic community becomes the community of origin, in the territory preparing to depart, similar to the attempt made in reenactments. The diasporic symbols of

Circassianness are authenticated through their presence/embedding in the historic homeland and their deployment by the ancestors.

Before proceeding, defining the aspects of the internal and external components of diasporic identity established and reified in hijra narratives would seem productive.

7 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 11.

8 Samkugh, Birzaj . Daya' al-ightirab. Dimashq : Dar 'Ala' al-Din, 1998-2000, p29.

135 Internal collective identity for the diaspora aggregates tribal and regional identities attempting to coalesce them into a single commonality or folk identity; it stresses Adigha identity. In comparison, the historic muhajir identity was shaped by oppositional features to both Circassian tribes and other groups such as Cossacks, Russians, and

Armenians. In other words, muhajir identity might be perceived as more fractured because of the emphasis on internal differences. However, spatial contiguity provides a collective identity, especially when under threat as was the case for centuries in the

Caucasus. The externally performed Circassian national identity that maintains differences with external others is completely altered in diaspora as Orthodox Russians are replaced with coreligionist Muslim Arabs. Historic markers of distinctions lose their relevance in the Middle East as reflexive relationships of self and other change. For example, Islam no longer sets Circassians apart from the normative Muslim culture in

Jordan. The khabza and its relationship to Islam becomes a means of maintaining a particular and unique religious identity (akin to a national church for the Armenians). On the other hand, suddenly, the accordion becomes a mark of distinction for Jordanian

Circassians as Arab music does not employ it. In the homeland the accordion did not have the same culturally symbolic value because of its use in traditional Russian music even if a recent phenomenon.

Hijra narrative basics:

How then is an aggregate diasporic identity, its external contours, shaped by vastly different actors, transposed into an historical territory with any sense of congruity with

136 the muhajir? While Circassian history and identity are central to all of these novels, it does not mean that the authors answer this question. However, hijra narratives mark moments when identity is contested and its constructiveness is brought into sharp relief as the form of that identity morphs to serve the needs of the departing group. For this reason even the most abbreviated hijra narrative (Rushdi's Jan) includes, if only to appease teleological desires9 of diasporic readers, two structural features: 1) the delineation of an idyllic past/space to long for and from which to depart and 2) the actual hijra from the homeland. The idyllic space needs to be relevant to the diasporic reader's cultural context yet somehow unattainable, distant, transcendent or otherworldly while representing Circassianness. Depending on the writer, different symbols will be included in this space, all of which must resonant with the diasporic individual. Embedding those symbols in the homeland endows them with an aura of authenticity that the author and reader then transport to diaspora. Once deployed, the idyllic space creates or allows for the characters and readers to feel the anguish of departure from it. Both the muhajir and diasporic individual imagine departing from the idealized homeland and not the reality of war (the first producing a longing, the second relief).

With this background, it is possible to look at these four contemporary novels and the two features of hijra (the idyllic space and the hijra, itself) to determine how diasporic

Circassian identity has been shaped by its new territorial reality in the host communities

9 By "teleological desires", I am referring to the historically relevant moment/climax of which the reader is in search. In historical novels about the Circassian deportations, it is that moment of departure from Circassia which the reader wants to have narrated. A movie such as Pearl Harbor must include the attacks, JFK had to include the assassination, as did Gandhi. Not including the event is possible, but only to create such a "desire" that the pay off must be huge. Perhaps Gone with the Wind comes close in its distance from the Civil War battles.

137 of the Muslim Arab Middle East (here Jordan and Syria) and what the relevant symbols for these populations have become.

Organization of Analysis:

Perdition of Emigration and Departure from Susruqa focus on the hijra and the establishment of the diasporic community. Because at least half of these two novels are devoted to the events of hijra, the authors pile up descriptions of their versions of idyllic space and prolong the hijra narrative, itself. Therefore, combining the analysis of the two works allows for a comparison of the themes and symbols. In terms of length, the other two novels/works are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The shortest, Jan, contains a hijra narrative out of reader expectation more than to serve the plot. Even though the hijra reads as an addendum to Rushdi's military treatise, a close reading of the idyllic structure and the themes in the two pages of hijra reveal a similar diasporic trope: resistance. The final work discussed, Quandour's Kavkas Trilogy, covers not only the hijra from

Circassia but the departure of the Quandour family line from Greater Kabarda to Lesser

Kabarda. Using the lens of the qasida, the transformation of a tribal identity via the tripartite rite of passage to one of an aggregate folk identity within the homeland authenticates the similar diasporic collective.

Idyllic and Abundant Images of Homeland in Samkugh and Omar:

Describing a black and white photo of his childhood home, Salman Rushdie said

138 'The past is a foreign country,' goes the famous opening sentence of L. P.

Hartley's novel The Go-Between, 'they do things differently there.' But the

photography tells me to invert this idea; it reminds me that it's my present that is

foreign, and that the past is home, albeit a lost home in a lost city in the mists of

lost time.10

For diasporic communities, home, or in this case, homeland is relegated to the past that is lost while the host community, the now, is foreign, "We are at home in it [the past] because it is our home—the past is where we come from"11 and for diasporas, from which they depart and where the home remains. Diasporas are given to anxiety that the distanced past no longer belongs to them as it was continued into a different present by the territorially situated collective community. In such a way, these hijra narratives lay claim to that part of the past that is felt to be "slipping away" from them. But their act of narration alters the past as Lowental says, "any treatment of the past, however circumspect, invariably alters it." To some extent, such alteration is desired because, as stated earlier, the incongruity of the recollections and memories of the homeland as passed down from generation to generation with the new territorial reality recapitulated in space spawn a sense of rupture in diasporic identity which then is mitigated through, among other methods, acts of narration. Determining how the past has been transformed to create a home for diasporic identity is what is being analyzed in these hijra narratives.

Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. Granta Books, London 1991, p 9. 11 Lowenthal, David. The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge University Press, 1985, p.4. 12 Ibid, p 264.

139 As the region of Circassia in the Caucasus had been a site of protracted warfare with the Russians for more than a hundred years, prior to the mass emigration in the late

1850s and sustained throughout the remainder of the century, writing a history of the region necessitates a theater of warfare as a backdrop. However, constructing a novel in which only the horrors of wars are described and intertwined with the lives of the characters does not produce a desire for either that lifestyle or the territory, here the homeland. Diasporic writers seek to create a longing for the homeland and "authentic" lifestyle of the community as remembered by the ancestors. Unfortunately, given the historic depth of warfare in the Caucasus, memories are replete with traces of violence and destruction. Indeed, Samkugh and Omar are thus enabled to log the atrocities in hijra narratives to create the outrage necessary to instill resistance in diasporic communities.

To balance the outrage, these authors' idyllic homeland and culture that can be obtained either via return and restitution or through the enactment of folk traditions and a sense of a folk community in diaspora creates both nostalgia and longing within the novels and within diasporas.

In order to carve out a space of tranquility apart from war, the authors center the narratives in the domestic spheres in order to establish the domestic lifestyle and culture of the Circassian people. This baseline (even if situated during the period of warfare) establishes a contrast to what has been lost and again, to have something for which the people can long to return, instead of returning to a state of constant warfare and death.

The domestic sphere, associated with the feminine, is thought to be safe and impenetrable. Therefore, Samkugh and Omar structure their narratives around female

140 characters who experienced the trauma during their childhoods, warping the dimensions of space and time. It is not an adult memory but one out of scale.

Omar constructs the domestic sphere and the recitation of the Narts as her idyllic spaces for longing and return. She does not have to work to remove the Nart recitation to a separate time and space, they are already otherworldly. Therefore, Omar merely embeds these recitations within the oration of the narrator, allowing them to float without attachment as was noted in the previous section. On the other hand, the narrator/child's domestic sphere located in war-torn Circassia must be removed and distanced from this hostile reality. Instilling an aura of normalcy, familiarity and comfort to the description of the domestic sphere instead of the disturbance that had become the norm, allows the reader to yearn for a return to this way of life and by extension, the homeland associated with it. Omar's domestic descriptions are rich, prolonged, and lie outside of the warfare.

People are present only in their manufacturing of material culture and the use of it, but the descriptions lie outside of the movement of the plot. Consider the following example:

A big dark storage room spread from it the smell of smoked cheese hanging in

ropes from reeds small circles in iron black pincers, and the cured meat and cut up

meat, and jerky with the spicy smells.. ..and the black cooking pots hanging in the

middle of the room.. .resting on the big black shelves...14

Childhood memories do not conform to contemporary reality. Returning to a childhood space, like a old family house, or the house of a dead relative, often is a shock. Our memories are pristine and do not evolve with the passage of time; the elements wrecking havoc on the physicality of the structure. Likewise, the scale of the house remains relative to our childhood body and mind. A structure is larger in relationship to our smaller size in childhood but does not decrease in our memories in relationship to our increase in physical height. 'Umar, Zahrah. al-Khuruj min susruqah: riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi. 'Amman, al-Urdun: Dar Azmanah, 1993, p 25.

141 This is but one description in a litany that reads more like a list than narrative.

Familiarity with the items and their distance from both the human characters in the novel as well as from the diasporic community creates a sense of nostalgia: "Obsolescence confers instant bygone status—no sooner is the fire truck out of sight than it becomes an emblem of a vanished past."15 Certainly food items persist into diaspora but with modifications due to availability of spices and soil difference, etc. Longing for the authentic product and the material culture (now obsolete) producing these emblematic food items provides the diaspora with a connection to the homeland, a desire for the homeland, that is quotidian: traditional food.

Samkugh also describes food and the homeland in an attempt to connect the territory to diasporic longings and desires for authentic attachments. The description is different from Omar's because of the presence of the mother. The following description occurs on the second page of the novel before any action has occurred:

I (j ft i i"\ dulS .Jill 4 CI) tlYijiXa el-ij! ,j a£lji»Jl C-JjlaJl ,-Ja. ,-i p _J-UJJ jbj l^a) Clil£ '*»•>

diil£j tA_aj! j]l AJ£ jll AJj"K t\\\ ejLJJaJl (j-o OcL-alall (jLijlb AJJJJJ i^iajl J3JA]I 4^1 J ,_3 IglLu (JiLj ,j

8 4t5jajj V ^Jjl f] i rijill eAjjll lilt ^ylc (Jint'l (»J>"^ cW^ S£ ijjlj^jjil ,. I 'd *lftj ,j S-ylaJt t>« LojyiS (j^i-uj

njuit I) |«I>III ({£alxll * ~ i- • •• (jj_«9 (i—uJJ a 'O^ll 4j«a »*'•-*''• AjjJii. (Jxol u ,-3

.(jilll Lj-La (JjLuJ ojij J a 1*11 ,j i^JSj US teLuill jjj .jluiill i^ya

"where my mother, Ridad was quick getting the clumpy milk in the udders of our

livestock, to make us Circassian cheese which was poured into pails hanging in

the face of the hearth in order to dry and fill it with rising smoke from the tasty

Lowenthal, David. The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge University Press, 1985, p 6.

142 flavor of the burning wood, and she was churning part of the milk in a cylindrical,

wooden pot in it a wooden press in order for her to get that white butter that

cannot be forgotten, and what was surplus from the milk, she was curdling it in

wooden barrels to make yogurt, raising it above the high ceiling, [sealing it with]

beeswax in order to keep it from spoiling. And in the winter, we would remove

the wax from the opening and eat the labna from it.1

While there are actual active verbs present in this quote, unlike in Omar's, they do not serve to move the characters in the plot. They are constructed in the past continuous tense which implies a habitual or incomplete action. The description of this lifestyle is set in the past and one that is not recoverable as two paragraphs later the grandmother's voice interrupts the narrative to assert:

Oh, nothing remains from that day (time). We put all these good things behind us.17

Both Omar and Samkugh place these descriptions early within their narratives to establish a baseline to which a return may be sought. Describing the domestic features go on for pages detailing such things as the physical layout of the buildings, the manner of housing animals, types of storage of foodstuffs, the means of decorating the interiors of the structures, the implements of the blacksmith, household wares, etc. To reiterate, the descriptions do nothing to move the plot forward and do not contribute to needed

Samkugh, Birzaj. Daya' al-ightirab. Dimashq : Dar 'Ala' al-Din, 1998-2000, p 38-39. Ibid, p 39.

143 knowledge later in the text. Instead, these descriptions create nostalgia while also situating diasporic memories of these items in an authentic Circassian past.

The symbiotic relationship between nature and the Circassians while not highlighted in these initial descriptions does emerge, at least in Omar's text, as the people begin to depart in their caravans. Suddenly, the abundance of nature is overflowing and without Circassians there to tend "the garden," abundance becomes a burden and out of control. Pay particular attention to the description of the cows in the following:

QA QJIJQIA jjaj i(J*ji£j lAjAi. <_S (J-dLaJJ t5ijlJ 4_ui£.li iA"ia\ ,,\\\ 4iffill j\^Ja^\ (JJJ (j* Lull (JL«J A^J^)ll (Jjwuui

J^f "ty...^'^.' Jf **J Ulja. (j» CiJ^J t»U»jL (J"*.''" Liia I^J^ Ujit (Jlaj T-lfk-allj cAjuaill liil-l^V' (*-?-J

Ulirj->q ,«i (JAaJj (_jAil! CII^JJPS (3*i> "-r>J*^ ^*V S_)xlc. *el^>Jl Ijallol (j-o UJIC (JlaJ eLjaiJt ,,1 (jluj ptjiri^ll

L_ULJLJ L^tjjjJa CjMlal jLLI lilS (Jiajj_,AJTJJ]I {.LjajJI ifllt'l^b Aj*Liia Lilj^. QA (jjlaj ClLil j3i-i(jilAJJlj

.SLlaJU e^lla^lj TEAJIUIJ jljjJai^l lifc (JS (3^^J LS^J Oi*^ '.'*'"...'JJ* "**" ^JJ^ ^'jfc^ TtklJJj Ulj^

The spring sun reached us between the thick trees, sleepy, withered, they

were restless in their trunk with laziness we were in awful pain because of

the events and the calamity, and the morning loomed over us anew,

throbbing with life, and the world around us was exploding with

fertility/creation, the green trees shined in space looming over us from

their blossoming top [branches], the moist drops clinging and burning in

our misfortune, our astonishment, and butterflies were flying around us

with their white snowy wings, and surrounded us.. .Cows their udders

filled with milk surrounded us in confusion and waiting, the hands

stretched out to empty the udders of their heaviness of froth. Brown and

144 white goats with silky wools jumped around us and those with little horns

butted each other.. .the eye tired and clung to all of this greenery and the

glare of the sun and the fulfillment of life.18

The hijra of the Circassians from this verdant land destroys the symbiotic relationship with the territory and both nature and humanity suffer as a result. The material culture and way of life established in the openings of these narratives cannot be restored without the territory, and the territory will cease to be productive in this natural way without the presence of the people.

Symbolic Horses:

Once the shift to the domestic sphere has been made and the space cleared for a reader to embed himself in this space, linkages are established to symbols which are attainable or at least recoverable to the contemporary mind. Two symbols occur in the idyllic space and the actual terrain of the hijra, the accordion and the horse, both standing for the

Circassian people and an aspect of their identity. Circassian horses attract attention for their high level of breeding and use in endurance contests. Like other horse cultures,

Circassians maintained a strong, almost familial relationship with their horses. Even outsiders write about the intense relationship and affiliation between Circassians and their horses:

Almost every family of distinction aims at possessing a peculiar breed

of horses, excelling, in their estimation, that of any other tribe. Each

18 'Umar, Zahrah. al-Khuruj min susruqah : riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi. 'Amman, al-Urdun: Dar Azmanah, 1993, p 51.

145 breed is distinguished by its peculiar mark, to forge or to place which on

an inferior breed, would be punished by death.19

Thus, just like the multitude of tribes covering the landscape, each had an associated breed of Circassian horse. The varied terrain and lifestyles of the Circassian tribes necessitated the breeding of unique features of the horses. Most people strongly associate with their means of transportation, especially when that animal provides them with their livelihood. Camels are associated with their owners in the Middle East; cars are an extension of Western personality.

The horse is a liminal (betwixt and between) creature connecting the natural world to society. The domesticated horse bonds humans to the natural world. People control the animal and guide them, but there remains a feeling of rebellion in the character of a horse. Much like the Circassian people are not given to doing things against their own nature, so too, does a horse rebel if asked to do something dangerous.

The horse reflects the character and nature of the Circassians, a noble animal normally in control of their emotions and inline with the rules of society, but retaining that connection to the natural world that makes them at home in the rugged terrain of the Caucasus.

Departure from Susruqa addresses an Arabic-speaking diasporic audience where the horse remains a part of the culture but is not the most emblematic form of transport, that being the camel. Therefore, setting up the symbolic equations of Arabs=camels and

Circassians=horses maintains external identity differences. It is no accident that special interest pieces produced about Circassians by the Jordanian press, Circassian websites, and Circassian cultural clubs, almost always include images of Circassians on horses.

19 Youatt, William. The Horse; With a Treatise on Draught. London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1831, p. 32-33.

146 Omar utilizes the linkage between Circassian and horses while highlighting the diasporic

element of her narrator's identity on the first page of her novel:

Her face frowned, the openings of her nose widened like a horse preparing to

depart, her pupils widened with arousal, the glow of a dense smoke accumulating

in her eyes, and spread above her eyelids.

The use of the simile institutes the horse as a symbol for the muhajirun/diasporic

Circassians. The word "depart" iP^M means to "set out" or depart and implies a burst of energy. At this point, Omar is merely setting up the symbol within the domestic sphere, connected to the narrator, a woman, who is located in an undefined space without any

identifying markers of territoriality.

The next section is a lengthy monologue of a Proustian21 memory connecting her memories of the horses with her sensory recall. The memory connects the horse with the warriors and their resistance:

20 'Umar, Zahrah. al-Khuruj min susruqah: riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi. 'Amman, al-Urdun: DarAzmanah, 1993, p 11. 21 Proust, Marcel, and C. K. Scott-Moncrieff. Swann's Way. Penguin twentieth-century classics. London, England: Penguin Books, 1998, p 203. "All these memories, superimposed upon one another, now constituted a single mass, but had not so far coalesced that I could not discern between them—between my oldest memories, my instinctive memories, and those others, inspired more recently by a state of 'perfume,' and finally those which were actually the memories of another person from whom I had acquired them as second hand—if not real fissures, real geological faults, at least that veining, that variegation of colouring, which in certain rocks, in certain blockes of marble, points to differences of origin, age, and formation."

Nora, Pierre, and Lawrence D. Kritzman. Realms of Memory Rethinking the French Past. European perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, p 242.

147 A^ JsjjUalall 5jLuiliJl l^iljclj AjjJjaJl LgJjJ^J t4ja-a]|j Ai]^U ^aiUall AjSill AjljJl l$ijJ£- igjlj.. J$\j$ "-ij

frj__iJaj eLjaJjll ^ ""•?'.' AoAaJll frlj_yyJl lilt jSjaJl l^joilijl i-jALuij^l lAjjlja. *Jj ^UkJj^jj J^llal (_5JJl.,.l$lajl j

_/!, ui«ti liLjji clulS 4(Jjl$Jl »•* • '-~^ lAjjj-in. »L«I AJLiJa

Hush.. .Don't say anything.. .1 will try to remember.. .ya, for the time

which was lost in the distance.. .1 was silent.. .Ha it might if the big

enclosure/area which a big group of knights is able to compete in.. .and

the knights pass while they are on the backs of horses.. .1 hear the

neighing of the horses and their whinnying.. .and I see their shining,

clever eyes with affection and love, with their silken tails and flying

manes.. ..and I smell their scent.. .1 am filled with their presence and the

musical sound of their hooves, their hot breath, this coal blackness in

their white-star painted faces.. .How I loved them.. .1 would steal sugar

cubes for them and I fed them and they licked my hand and face with

love while I stood small, tiny, wretched in front of their large, frightening

presence, your horse was the most outstanding...

"Proustian memory includes and presupposes forgetfulness. It comes after things have been forgotten, plucking them from oblivion. It does not preserve but resurrects."

22 'Umar, Zahrah. al-Khuruj min susruqah : riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi. 'Amman, al-Urdun:

148 Here the horses are proud and removed from the actual battlefield, parading about in the domestic sphere, but clearly seen as outside it. Through her Proustian and yet static description Omar sets her horses and the Circassians in an idealized world, "that time that was lost in the distance." While associated with the knights and therefore warfare, the young girl/domestic sphere renders them docile as she dotes on them and gives them treats. Yet, she stands before them as an insignificant body, praising her father via his horse, saying that his horse is the "most outstanding". In a culture that eschews sentimentality and emotions, having a symbol upon which to displace such praise avoids shame and preserves humility, aspects of the khabza.

In this fractured style of writing, emphasized through the use of the ellipses,

Omar's narrator allows images/memories to bubble to the surface of her conscious mind in a Proustian way—one image recalling another involuntarily. In this manner, the initial memory of her father's horse in this idyllic space unmarked by time recalls a related memory, one rooted in the horrors of war; and abruptly, reality collides with this idealized representation of horses, all within the same paragraph:

cJjj-oJ A-illj 4_lilA frljjjj SjJj£ AX&A icAj ,c

....LAjA jl£ f£...^lk j&l fjJjS tjjjS CJJSJ u&I.Jjaj l^jjl <>

I slipped away (sneaked up) behind you when you killed her

before the journey.. .1 sat at her bloody head while there was this expansive

blackness and blood flowing from her wounded ear.. .you cried a lot, a lot,

Dar Azmanah, 1993, p 24.

149 I remember this....How he was pained.. .23

The young girl sees what should not be seen—the autophagic24 killing of resistance and the unembarrassed crying of her father, a Circassian warrior. At this point in the narrative, Omar has established the symbolic relationship between Circassians and horses through the description of the narrator. Now, the father kills his horse, a part of himself,

and without explanation. The reader is aware of the anguish that accompanies this action because of the unrestrained crying of the father. A member of the community does not have to speculate about the cause of this jolt in the plot. He knows the history and issued edict to the warriors as they were forced into exile:

...jjlujjill .Jib <*JJJ '(Jjajl ^**J* J^ £3Ail

It is incumbent upon each horseman to kill his horse before the journey.. .We

aren't going to be horsemen after today.. .and do not leave a trace of your horses

for the enemy to defile [them].

In this quote the equation horses=Circassians is clear from the use of the word

LLjja/horsemen which suggests the relationship coupled with the use of >j that typically

23 ibid. 24 Autophagy is the killing of parts of the self in order for self-preservation. Umar, Zahrah. al-Khuruj min susruqah : riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi. 'Amman, al-Urdun: Dar Azmanah, 1993, p 36.

150 translates as "symbol" "sign" or "emblem". "Trace" appears to give the meaning in terms of the plot. The horsemen are directed not to leave "a trace of their horses".

"Symbol" sounds illogical given the question, "How could a symbol be defiled by the enemy?" Instead, as the horse is a "symbol" for the people, Omar's use of _>j suggests a recall of this symbol (horse=Circassians) when they are ordered to enact autophagy, the killing of the self. What part of the self is being ordered to be extinguished as they are forced into the Unknown? As the horse is associated with the theater of war and the resistance, the killing of the horses amounts to the killing of the resistance.

Departing the territory extinguishes this part of the Circassian essence and by their own hands. Giving up the resistance, not staying in the land to fight the Russians and Cossacks is, in effect, killing the resistance. Indeed, without the horses the

Circassians cannot mount a defense. There will be no more defense for them after today; resistance is dead and buried in the territory.

The narrator's Proustian recall connects this traumatic childhood event when she is faced, yet again, with her father's tears, this time as he is on the back of a ship departing the homeland forever. Now like pearls, connections between the killing of the horses, the forced deportation from the homeland, and the father's breech of the khabza string together in the fractured childhood memory of a dying woman. In the following soliloquy before executing his horse/his resistance, the father pledges his fidelity to her:

Wehr, Hava, and Lane's dictionaries do not include a definition of "trace" or anything related. Instead they include terms such as "symbol" "emblem" and "hint" or "allegory".

151 liKjjl (jl «jl»*,,.l *^j ^Ajj^jll AAJSJ U [_*-« liSlkl (jl fji-l'nll V... J$-^ Jaw J (j-« U^JJIS UjSJj ,.,(J-» nl'lj JJJS J

.. 'J-*- ^ '"../ '"''* LS-^J...^)^' O^J^ igiijUjIin'iS

It is necessary, forgive me.. .this is necessary.. ..my hand refuses to obey/yield,

and my heart is crushed... but our backs are broken.. .1 cant take you with me, o

friend of man, and I cant leave you for the enemy's hand and foreigners.. .we pass

to the unknown, where we are unravel from our shrouds and the tombstones of

our graves disappear.. .Sleep here in peace, I will greet you there that day.. .1

don't know when I will come to you.. .but I will come.. .come, certainly.. .Don't

leave me behind if I am late, nor exchange me for another knight.. .my friend,

forgive me ... 7

Resistance is theirs, the Circassians, and will faithfully wait for them in the homeland.

The father looks forward to a time when this resistant aspect of his identity can be reintegrated into the collective body. Whether or not this resistance can be taken into the diaspora is not addressed in this narrative. This scene implies that there needs to be a break between this fight/struggle and the population as they move into diaspora. Is this merely a matter or territorial division or is it a part of the necessary identity transformation for diasporic survival? Both the father and the horse remember, long for, and remain faithful to the other as they constitute parts of the self. The return in the quote can be read in two ways: during the father's life time, or in that day when he and

27 Umar, Zahrah. al-Khuruj min susruqah : riwayat al-shatat al-sharksi. 'Amman, al-Urdun: Dar Azmanah, 1993, p 56-57.

152 the horse are reunited in afterworld. Omar writes in a nondescript way, projecting an idyllic future of reunification that conjures the other symbolic aspect of the horse as a symbol for that other way of life. But for the moment, resistance is buried in the homeland waiting to be resurrected.

Samkugh 's Perdition of Emigration

Samkugh writes the symbol of the horse as resistance in a different though similar way, incorporating the autophagic killing. First, the horses accompany the people to the port of departure and are killed in the forest near the beach. Samkugh emphasizes the protection that this autophagic act provides the diaspora and Circassians, in general, while acknowledging the intense anguish and sense of guilt that it fostered:

L>"'^r' (J^r3-4 J* J '^d j* l^alj-b til ini Jjjij /»g'u <_)£ <

iAjJ Ij"-} (jl 0*J* OH^ J^ *—»J>»^ '^-J-° S-iaJj

A^Iloj jl tele JJ |j»a '>JJjl <^U

JjJjaJ llfSSUal jji ^yJc t(jLa.jll (JSj .1J^.JJ (jlj£ Jiii. l"ll i nl I«-IJ t4_a^.j t**ll . si\ . nj <" J . ^.1 . *. jit Clu\£

.t5ljLI jtajl ji tslja-VI IV? <»$£Ulc. cj^ij f$i>£ (^ic l^iaU.

And I saw the men leaving in the direction of the forest, all of them leading a

skinny, emaciated horse, and with bowed head, sad, then we heard, in the camp,

sounds of bullets firing, every single one of them inflicted towards the forehead of

a horse that would not stop, after that day from protecting him or ruling him. The

bullets were bullets of mercy, bullets protecting being and existence. The men

153 were releasing their fire, returning on foot, without their horses, and their heads,

in spite of that (despite the fact) they had protected the customs and the traditions,

and protected their honor and their families with this execution/performance, that

had hung their heads even further.

This passage is interesting for a number of reasons. First reading it in comparison to

Omar's account which focuses on the breech of the khabza and the anguish of leaving the way of life and resistance are the foci where here we are looking at mercy and protection.

Through this killing act "being and existence" are protected. The use of the root -tia. for protection also can be read as "to memorize" or "to preserve". Memorizing and preserving implies that the customs, traditions and associated honor of the families will be taken into diaspora and enacted. The departure allows for the community to continue these activities. But it does not allow them to be proud, it is not laudable in their minds and hearts. Even if they look at the evidence that was presented to them in the discussion

(seen above, the atrocities) it doesn't matter. This act, both the killing of the horses, and the killing of the resistance is not going to be forgotten or erased from their memories.

But as the killing did not happen until arrival at the Black Sea, the reader sees resistance throughout the journey; the caravan resists the journey even though complying as they recognize it as a means of self preservation. The grandmother/narrator's mother's gun battle with Cossack soldiers develops into the seminal moment of that resistance of hijra. A Cossack soldier stops their caravan and demands the horse, Bilanah. The mother refuses and pulls out a pistol and is murdered while Bilanah escapes both the Cossacks and the caravan. Night after night, the caravan hears the sounds of her neighing and the

28 Samkugh, Birzaj. Daya' al-ightirab. Dimashq : Dar 'Ala' al-Din, 1998-2000, p 214-215.

154 scratching of her hooves near their camp. Remembering that a horse absorbs and reflects the characteristics of its rider, Bilanah signifies the essence of resistance. His owner had fought until his dying breath in defense of Circassia. Only after his martyrdom in battle does the discussion of fleeing open for the rest of the community.

Thus through Bilinah's/resistance's escape from deportation, Samkugh articulates the hope of continued resistance. Bilihah/resistance lures members of the caravan back to the homeland and back to resistance. One of the central characters, Shumaf, hears the call after the death of his sister Zaza (discussed below with accordions) and returns with

Bilinah to continue the struggle. After both horse and horseman abandon the caravan, the ancestors have the following conversation:

(jL-oaJl j\£i>\ li* (j^ i*^&J 'ijiaj^ L>°J' ij^ l—iJ^J 'LA3^' U^J' LS^ etLJl jUil LJLO_JMI (jl jVI CjSjJI—

tS^] LyV (^^>JLUS3I jja^jjl (_yaij iy UJ'J t>J-<3jil li& ^jJC jlj fJA (Jji (jl£ ,4J (Jji« V -J^""-. jj ' "~ ^J^J .**J—

lAJxJ fJAj t-iljj li«i ;(JJjiall («JJ^ (jJc llliaJl p jjj t

AjjaJl (JJfui ,-i tjjujUJI j (jAijill iL«Ai\£ (jjlkjli iaj^a sUaialj 4Jib

;.}|j*

;iUU lijiaj 4jl£j Jg .^ij (jlS .Ul 4Jib dil jLj '.'.'••• 4

155 I think now that Shumaf decided to remain on the land/earth of the homeland, and

to die in the homeland, and before all, this was the choice of the horse, Bilanah.

Imagine, Nareena, imagine the greatness of Bilanah.

Nareen replied:

Yes. Bilanah is a great horse, there is none like him/he has no equal. He was the

first to become infuriated from this situation, the first to reject the forced

migration to death and obliteration. Indeed we, since the beginning of our ill-

fated journey, have planted corpses on the sides of the way. Our mother, Ridad,

and after her, Zaza, and therefore, Shumaf chose to remain, and Bilanah allowed

him to mount his back and they took off together, the horse and the horseman, for

the sake of freedom in the land of the homeland.

Murad said

I believe now I know the reason for Bilanah's visits to us. He was neighing as if

he was warning us saying: Return, do not depart.

Samkugh believes resistance to be possible. Desire to absolve the diasporic community of their guilt for complying with the orders of deportation leads Samkugh to retain hope through this symbol of Bilanah and to illustrate through Ridad, the grandmother of the narrator, continuing to resist.30 But let us return to an unresolved issue in this quote,

"Who is Zaza and why did her loss motivate Shumaf to return to Bilanah, to return to resistance, instead of emigrating?"

29 Ibid, p 199. 30 The second volume of the novel Perdition of Emigration sketches numerous characters whose rebellious nature results in their imprisonment or induction into the military. Therefore, other readings of resistance as negative are possible. Here, absolution of guilt appears to be the primary concern; to expunge the diaspora of its guilt and replacing it with the reading of self-preservation necessary.

156 Accordion:

A peculiar love pervades Circassian diasporic culture, that of the accordion. The

accordion is a fairly recent invention in terms of musical instruments created by Friedrich

Buschmann in 1822 and later patented by an Armenian, Cyrill Demian, in 1829 in

Venice.32 It is strongly associated with folk music in Russia and throughout Eastern

Europe. Its loud sound without the use of an amplifier made it a popular instrument for

large gatherings such as weddings and familial celebrations. However, equating it with a

long folk tradition would be a mistake. The earliest it could have been incorporated into

the folk music of Russia would be the early 1830s. Therefore, its use within Circassian

culture prior to the largest dispersion in 1864 would be roughly thirty years. But consider

how strongly entire generations identify with particular genres of music that emerge

quickly within the West. Music and the cultures that develop around it are external

identity markers for groups usually coalescing around genres and not typically the

instruments associated with them. However, when the instrument becomes symbolic of a

genre, like the accordion is for Circassians or for the polka, it can and does serve as a

symbol for the music, the genre, and the people who love it. Prior to the deportations the

One of the few famous Circassians is a young accordion player that has gained notoriety within the community and the larger Russian music scene. When searching for Circassian on YouTube a large portion of the videos contain accordion performances. 2 As the love of accordion does not seem to extend beyond Eastern Europe, there is little devoted to the history of the accordion in scholarly works. The information about the origins of the accordion are accessible online through sites such as Wikipedia and also the following site http://membres.lvcos.fr/accordionstory/ that contains multiple links providing sheet music and general support for players of this much maligned instrument in the West. 33 One need only think of the strong associations of identity with the genres of Punk and Hip Hop today to understand how quickly a style (and accordions do have a particular style and genre associated with them) can be equated with a group, or used by a group to demarcate identities. The early proponents of Rock n Roll used it as a way of marking a separation between generations. Similarly, Circassians can use the accordion to demarcate external boundaries between themselves and the Arabs who have minimally used the instrument. Strangely, the use of the accordion within the Middle East is associated with Armenians and not Arabs

157 Circassians shared a love of the accordion with the Russians. Its use by the Circassians did not serve to distinguish them. However, upon arrival in the Middle East where the accordion is rarely used in traditional music, the music and the associated accordion began to function as an external marker of Circassian identity.

Music brings people together in celebrations of the community both internal and external. For example, weddings celebrate the continuation of the community and are meant for an internal audience. Meanwhile in diaspora, the use of Circassian music and dance allows the Circassians to display their culture and heritage in national competitions of traditional dance. The accordion, again, not indigenous to Arabic music, becomes a visual representation of the Otherness of Circassians and their culture as style, rhythm, and melody elude visual representations. Similarly in Perdition of Emigration,

Circassian culture, associated with music and dance, becomes embodied in the character

Zaza, the accordion player, and her accordion with "shiny black keys". Zaza becomes the music of the Circassian people, the source of their celebrations, and means of continuing the culture. Samkugh establishes this symbolic relationship in a detailed description of the planning of the wedding celebrations for his central characters, Murad and Nareena. Zaza and her accordion are essential to the performance of the festivities.

The description of the wedding ceremonies does not serve to move the plot any further and therefore the placement of the accordion and Zaza is initially in a static idealized space with which the diaspora can identify. Later, as the deportation is undertaken, the music of the accordion changes to one of lamentation for the losses of life in war and in the tribulations of emigration.

158 The aural quality of the accordion allows it to transcend the community and to be appreciated even by their enemy. Through the use of Zaza's lament, shared by both the

Circassians and the Russians, Samkugh demonstrates the shared humanity in war, loss of life:

i 4(jjS^i»]| 4(_>njj3l Jji?Jl pLijLul (Jj-oj 'Ja.>» i£jjUa. (jaJ ,j Ajlill elaji JS ^JA tjjjaJl ilxji Cl^ftL^Jj

(177) .UA^Ua jl^jJ ita-ii ijj!)dlAL»ll jUjiall jl£ 1^-^ijVf 2iU ^pUl r\\f: ^i'^J-** -J •'-".' K'« .^iiUa.

The songs of sadness rose, from every direction in the forest in the melody of a

unified, funeral procession, there arrived the sound of the Russian soldiers,

exhausted, in their trenches, and some of them began to participate in the songs of

the melody in a language not understood. The two sides of the combatants,

together, lamenting their dead (killed).

This moment is the singular event of common connection between the two sides within the narrative. It is a meeting of the two collective bodies without distinctions being made. The Russians positioned as a collective in the low position of the trenches, identify with the lament of the Circassians as a community and "together" t*-» they are able to come together to remember "their" dead.

But would this Circassian ethos embodied in the territorial identity of Zaza make it to diaspora? Initially Samkugh suggests that it ends with the deportation as Zaza tragically falls off the Circassian wagon and drowns in a body of water, along with the accordion/the Circassian spirit:

159 (Jc I jl j cluaoj iSjliaJl SiLya CiAiai Lo^utj ,4*^111 ^ bjjaJl jl j jJl

196 .^J" >laa-»ll ^JiAjJ^J' llA^J '^iiJ*^ *^

And they crossed the valley, when the men returned who went with the current

(going along their way) and they were carrying the body of Zaza and she had

already been covered with a blanket and they were carrying scattered pieces of

accordion with its black shining keys. And when the funeral (took place), Zaza

was buried on the nearby hill and her broken accordion was buried with her.34

Thus, this symbol of Circassian identity and culture, the accordion, is buried in the territorial homeland. The reader feels the music/spirit of the homeland die and witnesses its burial under the soil of Circassia, only to discover hope in volume two of Perdition of

Emigration.

Through the narrator/grandmother as she, a refugee, receives a gift of an accordion by a fellow Muslim hajji:

I .i> nl j j _y*j '/J <-o^3 4AJU«V elj_yui J^jjr J^ JJ* "•» dji^JJ^' ^ & *"' (j* (J^J

tr^j ic. j t,.->'iini *.1£J tgi < ** ig ni7»li jj^jj^jVI di^ALi

,

;iUH i_J3jxV JilliI ,_!& Ajla.VI-J ?~J^< (cJl U^J 'L«J^? Mf"1 U^ (J^jJl LS^-"1

[A]mong them was a small accordion with black shining keys, he gave it to me,

and he smiled!

34 Samkugh, Birzaj. Daya' al-ightirab. Dimashq : Dar 'Ala' al-Din, 1998-2000, p 196.

160 —Do you remember, my son, Zaza? Yes

The man asked me the reason for my crying, but my father was quick to reply for me. -She is crying because of her happiness with your gift Haji Bilar.. .She cries from

or

the intensity of the happiness.

Samkugh Part II: 45

Samkugh's description of this new accordion is similar to that of Zaza's with its JjJ kxjtf eb^u>/ "black shiny keys" but it is j»Wsmall, implying smaller than Zaza and thus different, perhaps inferior to the music of the homeland. A few pages later, Samkugh provides the following development on the ability of the narrator to resurrect the spirit/ethos of the Circassian diaspora via the music of the accordion:

tjLaJ tjjei i

\ \\i <->j i^^J i^ijfi ^Jj-i^-C- Ala t^jjLolS (jJ-alc- CIJALUI ,«j3l UJUISL* JiaJ ( Jl J_y*j Ui^J tli&kj

The neighbor's girls came to our house to listen to my playing of the accordion,

and I was just starting. I played a simple melody, I knew all the Circassian

melodies that I had heard. I was copying the style of play of Zaza as she had been

35 Samkugh, Birzaj. Daya' al-ightirab. Dimashq : Dar 'Ala' al-Din, 1998-2000, p45 (Volume II).

161 my teacher and her melodies will be in my ear until the end of time. Therefore,

we began to return to our normal life. After our efforts that continued for two full

years, since leaving our village, and until we arrived at the settlement here.

The grandmother was Zaza's student and learned the melodies in effect, directly from the homeland. She propagates these "cuttings" of the tradition within the new space of the host community. Playing these traditional songs resurrects a natural, normal Circassian life even if outside of the territorial homeland. When music returns to a community then the traditions associated with music are also activated. It was possible to revive the traditions in the diaspora, once life stabilized and once she started playing the songs on the accordion.

At this point, Omar and Samkugh's works have illustrated how the diasporic author authenticates diasporic identity through the use of hijra narratives. In these narratives, both create an idyllic homeland that is static and connected to the domestic sphere in the territory. This idyllic image is embedded with cultural implements that create and sustain a desire or longing within the diasporic reader. Two of these symbols are the accordion and the horse. Within the idealized space they reflect a normal culture and lifestyle. The reader sees himself symbolically represented in this idealized homeland connected to the homeland territoriality. During the actual hijra, aspects of the

"authentic" identity (resistance and heritage) are buried in the territory. The authors then question whether or not they may be resurrected in the diaspora or require a literal return to the territory.

Ibid, p 50 (Volume II).

162 The remaining two works take up similar themes but attack them differently, perhaps due to the length of each. As mentioned earlier, Rushdi's Jan is the shortest and appears to include hijras as a matter of convention. A close reading of the text follows highlighting the theme of resistance. On the other hand, Quandour's Kavkas Trilogy and the Circassia Saga are a five volume set that follows more than two centuries of

Circassian history a highly structured movement towards an aggregate diasporic identity.

Hijra narratives in Rushdi's Jan:

Rushdi's ninety-one page Arabic novel Jan centers on the life of the martyr Jan who leads insurgents against the "enemy" (Russians and Cossacks) beginning in 1836 and culminates in her death around the year 1864. The implied reader is a diasporic, Arabic- speaking Circassian living in the Middle East interested in the homeland/Circassia.

Rushdi, also a writer of history, elects to begin his novel in 1836, an important date that marks a turning point in the Russian-Circassian wars. The Circassian Declaration of

Independence was published in the periodical Portfolio. It was also the year of the Vixen

Affair in which David Urquhart, the publisher of the aforementioned journal, unsuccessfully attempted to bring England into the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. These events are well documented in Western literature.39 Both historical accounts and Rushdi's novel Jan report a sense of optimism among the Circassians that

37 The reader is assumed to be in the Middle East given the text was published in Amman and in Arabic. While there are Circassians within the Russian Federation that are capable of reading Arabic because of their knowledge of the Qur'an, it is assumed that few would want to read a historical novel composed in Arabic. 38 See the following sources for an explanation of the affair: Karl Marx's The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston Article 8 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/palmerston/index.htm. Geoffrey Nash's From Empire to Orient: Travellers to the Middle East 1830-1926 pages 44-46, David Urquhart, himself, in Progress of Russia in the West, North, and South (325-330), 39 See John Milton's Life ofSchamyl (296-297); Edmund Spencer's Turkey, Russian, the Black Sea and Circassia;

163 other nations would be brought into the conflict on their side, though this was short­ lived.40 Moreover, Circassians were also winning military campaigns against the

Russians that were gaining attention from international press with reporters stationed in the region. The novel reports that in 1837 the Russian Czar came to the Caucasus himself because he had "been made a laughing stock among the nations" and he stripped the military of their ranks and appointed new people with more experience in charge. Set in this period, Jan draws upon successful historical battles encouraging the contemporary communities to continue their "resistance" in the various forms that may take. The heroic characters' feats are given credence through similar historically recorded events Rushdi references from two English sources: James Bell's Journal of

Residency in Circassia During the Years 1837, 1838, and 1839 and Edmund Spencer's

Turkey, Russian, the Black Sea and Circassia.

The second date, 1864, marks the culmination of the Russian-Circassian wars with the majority of the Circassians deported from the homeland and relocated to the

Ottoman territories or dying in route. It is the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new period of diaspora different from others in their histories.42 The protagonist, Jan, escapes death in military battles but loses all of her family through the conflict. The

After Britain refused to demand that the Russians release the Vixen and her crew which was tacitly denying the independence of Circassia, the Circassian tribes no longer trusted the British diplomats and their promises. While there were lingering feelings that the French might be persuaded to join their cause, the sense that they were without external support was palpable.

42 The most famous Circassian diaspora formed part of the Mamluks in Egypt who were mercenaries or slaves who were converts to Islam. Because the Mamluks were able to take power in Egypt on a number of occasions, there have been Circassians in the upper echelons of the government. After gaining freedom, because of their military experience, many were able to obtain wealth and were counted among the elite of Egyptian society. Another example of a Circassian diaspora would be the Circassian slaves that were being sold into the Ottoman Empire because of the wars with Russia. *** source.

164 "enemy" murders her nine year old son on the way to the boat that would take them to

Istanbul. Jan dies as flames engulf the ship on the high seas.

Jan's compact episodic style focuses on a few pivotal military campaigns with little cultural description. The swift and lacunae-filled narrative selectively constructs a positive Circassian identity predicated upon fighting and resistance and not the beleaguered figures and body counts43 present in historical documents and writing. In a structure that is the inverse of other Circassian historical novels, Rushdi presents an optimistic tone by recalling military victories throughout the body of the novel only to deliver a crushing and devastating finale meant to compel the diaspora to active resistance. Specifically, Rushdi severs any diasporic links/consanguinity through Jan's death and that of her entire family. Commemorating martyrs such as Jan and following their examples of active resistance to assimilation, diasporic audiences bridge the gap between themselves and the homeland.

Hijra narratives are usually connected to defeat and would detract from Rushdi's goal: putting forth successful Circassian battles, especially those under the leadership of the local hero Mansour Bek44. Maintaining his focus on the theme of resistance, Rushdi twice leads his warrior Jan away from the battlefield, not to indulge in psychologizing

"defeated" characters being forced to depart Khakuzh (Circassian homeland), but to strengthen the diaporic audience's longing for the homeland and their place in it, mirroring the moves of Omar and Samkugh's. First, Jan's memories transport her to the site of an idyllic past/homeland free from warfare. Second in 1863, Jan reluctantly joins

43 Perhaps it is Rushdi's historical background that encourages him to include and even borrow and footnote statistics from Bell and Spencer's historical texts not fully taking him out of the historical mode as will be shown in Quandour's accounts of death, for example. 44 See Jan (46). Mansour Bek should not be confused with Sheikh Mansour who precedes him in chronology.

165 a caravan emigrating from the homeland when resistance wanes after Imam Shamil surrenders.45

The first brief departure encourages a reader to visualize with Jan an idealized homeland located in a past "space" that transcends the literal territory embroiled in combat. The memories and reminiscences of Jan become the romanticized past of the larger Circassian collective easily shared irrespective of temporal and spatial position:

Images of her past life return to her mind in that great spot(s) in the middle of

forests and meadows, and gardens, and she thinks about happy evenings which

she spent with her companions in dancing circles to beautiful accordion melodies,

and in the days of sacrifice/slaughter that she spent with her horse in amusement

hunting and her happy peasants hoeing the earth and taking from its belly (pi) the

most appetizing of fruits/yields.. ..46

Three important components allow a diasporic reader to long for and identity with this metaphorical homeland: (1) The move to an idyllic past, (2) the use of symbolic cultural

45 The actual date of Shamil's surrender is August 25, 1859, but Rushdi's narrative, abbreviated as the conclusion is, only gives the date of Jan's departure. 46 Rushdi, Rasim. Than: qissah Sharkasiyah. [Amman, Jordan] : Maktabat al-Shabab wa- Matba'atuha, 1988, p 6.

166 elements associated with an inclusive Circassian identity (3) the physical, territorial

depiction of homeland.

As mentioned, Jan concentrates on the Circassian physical resistance at a period

when rebels made positive military and political gains. Narrating positive battles with

positive outcomes does not establish a normal depiction of Circassian life and culture

desired by both the fighters and the diasporic community. Thus, Rushdi must enter the

mind and memories of Jan to create this brief description of an idyllic past that can be

coveted by the contemporary reader. The reader may see himself in Jan who is longing

for this space free from aggressors and happier times with no concerns of war and death.

These are the ideals for which the Circassians were fighting and for which the

contemporary reader longs. Rushdi's description of an "idyllic" or metaphorical

homeland gives the reader cultural justification for fighting and the desire to continue

fighting instead of submitting and assimilating. Thus longing/desire develops both within

the text as well as within diaspora.

Rushdi quickly closes this window to the past and /or homeland and shifts back to the focus of his novel, the present actions of resistance through the line: " JL* »*-*• ^

*>j^ *** ^ <-£" "What could possibly be the state of all of this after today?."47 He moves the narrative back to the "present" and the actions of the community. If we read "today" literally from the point of view of the reader, we might ask, "Can this idyllic past be realized today, from this diasporic spatial position outside of the homeland? Can these same images/connections/symbols be deployed in diaspora?"

167 In this brief departure passage, Rushdi refers to three symbols of Circassian identity: horses, dances, and the accordion/accordion music. While a diasporic reader may no longer have a direct association with horses and horse breeding, the association between the breeds of Circassian horses and the lifestyle of the Circassians as a brave warring people has been maintained in diaspora. Ubiquitous in Circassian writing, the horse is a symbol for Circassians and their identity. Here the horse is depicted outside of battle and in a more natural state of being, hunting for the family. By implication, Jan and the

Circassian community are also in a natural state, free from fighting and enjoying their quotidian life.

Likewise, dancing and music play important roles in the identity of the

Circassians both in the homeland and in diaspora. The dances of the Circassians, while similar to Middle Eastern line dances, are unique in the Middle East. Dances, an integral part of courtship, are one of the most important Circassian cultural components and provide for the continuation of the community. All community members no matter their location can take part in dances. Dance/s bring together regional communities and emphasize the integration of the sexes. Thus, dance within the Middle East allows the

Circassians to perform their version of Islam, informed by their khabza that privileges gender equality over segregation.49 Dance, within the Middle East, marks nationality, and Circassians actively participate in the competitions and exhibitions in the region. For

48 For example, Rushdi gives the following statement: .J»*JL"«1 tj& ^J^' J] ?&*• J* <"£lj^l s^kuj jjij Vj "Nothing surpasses the Circassian control of their horses except their control over their nerves (19)." 49 Within the Middle East, there are Muslim groups that do allow for integrated dances and parties. However, Circassians frequently cite the khabza and gender equality as a difference between them and Arab Muslims. Dances, even when performed by one sex, are part of the courtship ritual. When men perform dances, for example, the stamina and physical strength necessary are meant to attract women and potential marriage partners. Dance is seen as a form of communication (See Shami, Seteney. "Circassian Encounters" In Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Edited by Birgit Meyer and Peter Geschiere, Blackwell Publishing, 1999.)

168 example, Circassian tropes perform at the Jordanian Jerash festival and within competitions in Israel.

As established through Samkugh's Perdition of Emigration, the accordion is a mark of distinction for the Middle Eastern Circassian diaspora where traditional Arabic music does not employ. Visually, the accordion symbolizes the ethos of the Circassian people and their celebrations that sustain the community. Both the word and the image of the accordion recalls to the diasporic mind weddings and dances of aggregation while also funeral processions and lamentations. Moments when the community undergoes transformations in its makeup, the accordion is present and transcendent. In this short paragraph, the reader is merely given the queue "accordion" and allowed to fill the descriptive lacuna with his own associations and memories.

Like the other Circassian narratives, Rushdi's novel lacks specificity in terms of regionalisms in the physical descriptions of the homeland. This allows for differences in homeland as variously experienced by the diasporic groups. Every reader can imagine his own pictures of forests, meadows and gardens. In fact, Rushdi avoids the regionalism associated with particular mountains. Never having experienced the Caucasus, a reader can insert his own vision of a Circassian garden. However, invoking the name Elburn limits the shared or multiple images possible. The goal is to allow the reader to embed or position himself in the territory as a part of their diasporic identity forged on a more inclusive, aggregate, folk identity. This space/homeland is a Circassian space and is a means of distinguishing Circassian identity from the broader Muslim identity found in the host communities. Thus, for a diasporic writer those symbols maintaining differences between the self and host communities take on more importance and their embedding in

169 the homeland authenticates their deployment in diaspora. Rushdi endows them with an

aura of Circassianness.

Like the other Circassian writers, he depicts the imagined, metaphorical/distant homeland as abundant: "[H]er happy peasants hoeing the earth and taking from its belly

(pi) the most appetizing of fruits/yields.. .".50 Rushdi personifies the earth by allowing it

to "give birth" with the Circassians acting as "midwife." The symbiotic relationship of

the people with the land yields prosperity described as "appetizing fruits," another

common trope in the Circassian literature. This abundance of the earth later contrasts

with the lack of productivity of the intruders/enemies, or the land lying fallow due to neglect. Thus Jan's departure memory moves the reader to an idyllic homeland free from regional and territorial specificity but where the symbols horses, dances, and accordions

common to the diasporic Circassian identity are present. The diasporic reader identifies with Jan who is a symbol of Circassia, and resistance, and sees himself both resisting

assimilation and thus "returning" to embed in this idyllic homeland.

The Hijra of 1864

The year 1864 marks the forced immigration from the homeland to Ottoman territories.

Rushdi's novel moves quickly to the defeat of Imam Shamil and the acceptance of the

Russian terms of emigration. Where other novels are given to long descriptions of this journey and the expanse of the homeland terrain chronicling the destruction wrought upon it, Rushdi limits his description to:

170 ...ailjLall (JJUSJ S-l_>aJl lg"lsK ^jlll jLa^ll JIJ! ^ylfc a^JLjla ^ ijJJ*i

The group was on a big carriage, two bulls were pulling it while continually

walking. They began to tarry. Along their way, they were passing the traces of

the destruction which the war left behind and cannon blasts. l

Circassian readers are familiar with the destruction and devastation of the centuries of conflict—each bringing his own family's unique experiences to their readings of this lacuna. Jan is not a victimization novel. If Rushdi were to shift his focus, here at the end of the novel, it would undermine the positive identity of resistance he so carefully constructed to this point. Instead, even during the immigration there are moments of resistance. In her final act of resistance, Jan avoids "giving in," avoids the fracturing of her identity in exile through the ultimate sacrifice, giving herself to God instead of to a new territory and a new way of being. Brevity avoids lingering on victimization, but acknowledges the history.

Thus two discernable goals emerge in this hijra narrative: (1) to establish a difference between the past generations who were willing to fight and the current generation and society concerned with fleeting things of the world and (2) the role of God in this hijra, why would God be willing to let this happen, to separate the Circassians from their homeland?

In terms of the first goal, two generations are present on the hijra journey, Jan and her nine year old son, Yanal junior. This coupling (mother/child) can be read as homeland/future diaspora and/or hope. The reader learns about Yanal junior through his

51 Ibid.

171 relationship to his mother: We learn about ourselves through our histories. Rushdi describes Yanal (diaspora/hope) as a form of substitute for what his mother has lost:

"He substituted for her some of what she had lost of family, marriage, and loves in this murderous war."52. Her love for him made up, in part, for all the sacrifices that she had made for her nation. But Rushdi does not allow for the domestication of Jan and does not indulge the reader in depictions of happy familial moments.

l^J^ia AJjj.ii. ^ Cl3l£ (jl Ala t^gjJaLall ^h jfr& Cl^tj LaJJJ i jjir u->\t lA^lj (jjJaS^J ^jL> Cljl£

lUlll! ALa. (jx (jVI tSll-aJ La (JS jAj ijjii-all lAjJj t5ic (j£lj L^uiij (^Jc

Jan was embracing her small son to her bosom when she began to think about the

past, since she was in the garden of her large house, to the day the order of the

immigration from her dear country was girded up (secured) to an unknown future,

but fear was never upon her [throughout her life] until her small son and how he is CO

the only thing she owns of the world.

Rushdi 86-87

Jan only moves from the present to think about the future because of her child. For the first time, in that moment of forward-thinking, fear grips her. She sees the contemporary world's (especially outside of Circassia), lack of concern for the important things in life like cultural identity and sacrifice for nation/country as articulated throughout the novel.54 52 Ibid, p 87. 53 Ibid, p 86-87. For example the following lines illustrate these qualities: t&ji il£a.2U J121I <^_^ i^£\j£&\ ^Ul JJSJ

172 Instead, the resolve of the Circassian people weakened after the surrender of Imam

Shamil and the acceptance of the Russian "offer" of immigration to the Ottoman Empire.

The ideals of resistance and sacrifice no longer present, Jan fears for her son and by

extension the hope and future of her people.

Having established this concern and shift in the demeanor of Jan, Rushdi blocks

Jan's path to a diasporic existence as "enemies" obstruct her caravan:

IAAfr LSJ>3ij Ijjjij pJj OjiaJl fj$Jli .elixjJall J^ah jl <&\ (,L*j .jLill ijpUa) jULjill Jjbjj

i -1. uU j iduak j* a^ll (j^UJli

.tlliJ JjAJ jl *))-l*inlj jl (JjS *^.JJ

The two groups exchanged gun fire. It was the will of God that the weak ones

win. So the soldiers were put to flight, and they weren't successful at anything

from what they had wanted [to be successful].. .until a stray bullet struck Yanal

Junior who was clinging to his mother's neck, blood gushed forth from his mouth

and his spirit was returned before he was able to say anything.55

Notice in this poignant writing the agonizing silencing of the son/hope/future as the

Russians/enemy violently sever the communication between diaspora and homeland as happened not only at this historic moment but throughout the Soviet era. Yet, Rushdi

There was nothing in front of the Cherkess except the guarding of their country and their independence. Rushdi 20. ...rt-^' Wo3, Ig^j -^j ,iiilj->.;-»" ^y 4J1C «JL« J& L«J l$il»j ^ Ujj£ii i^ • ••' ^ ujAii n*^t Rushdi 14 Her ideas about herself mixed with her ideas about her nation and what was in front of it in terms of sacrifices. And her old sadness returned to her.

Rushdi, Rasim. Than: qissah Sharkasiyah. [Amman, Jordan] : Maktabat al-Shabab wa- Matba'atuha, 1988, p 88.

173 depicts the child/diaspora clinging to "his mother's neck" while his, the community's, spirit departs. The desperation to remain a solitary unit symbolized by the son's clinging is reciprocated through lengthy process of the men of the caravan prying Yanal's body from Jan in order to bury him along side the path. The process of emigration buries

"hope".

The remnants of the community lead a hysterical Jan to the steamship waiting to take the immigrants to Istanbul where she realizes the atrociousness of her situation. It is here, officially outside of the homeland, that Jan indirectly questions God. Rushdi is not overt in Jan's questioning; that must be read into the following quote considering the desire to end life, a gift from God, even if by God's hands, is a form of doubt and questioning falling outside traditional Islam:

Jan was at that moment not bemoaning anything of the predestination of her final

misfortune.. ..and she didn't hope for anything except that God cut the cord of her

life. She was hastening the joining (reunion) with her loved ones who had been

separated from her: Her mother who had created her a child, and her father, and

174 her husband, and now her son. And she began to call upon God to answer her

calls.56

Rushdi does not answer any philosophical questions issuing from the text or the historical situation but opens up a space for the reader to question the desire of Jan to leave this precious life given to them by God and how to continue living a life marred by death, dislocation, trials and tribulations. Rushdi, aware that the natural inclination of people is to question why God would allow such suffering and even predestine/predetermine these events, does not allow this national hero to question God but to ask for a dignified end to a hard-lived life. Perhaps, for the implied diasporic Muslim Circassian reader the question of why God would allow the infidel Russians to have victory over devout

Muslims needs to be resolved, but for Jan desire is for a reunion with her family/community in a space that will not alter their relationships. If she enters diaspora, alone, everything will change for her.

In keeping with the Muslim idea of an omnipotent God, Jan's request for mercy is granted. Rushdi, acting as God through his creation of this narrative, and using the historical realities of the Circassian deportations fulfills Jan's personal desires for deliverance on her terms, not on the terms of the Russians and Ottomans through emigration/immigration:

.l£c ^ Jjj Jala .lit f$la ji"j .(j«iJ AJIJ» jinll (j* JJSI (jjc jl JjJ^lj . J^jll

Rushdi, Rasim. Than: qissah Sharkasiyah. [Amman, Jordan] : Maktabat al-Shabab wa- Matba'atuha, 1988, p 90-91.

175 She hoped the wisdom of God (Great and Almighty) that he would respond to the

calls. And the tongues of fire flared up in the steamboat while at high seas. More

than seventy souls were immersed and burned. And there arrived from them a

small number debarking at Akka.57

Jan is spared a life of exile outside of her beloved homeland and her misery ends.

Through death, Rushdi reconnects her to the loved ones who have died due to war in the

idyllic afterworld. However, this action does not answer the question of why God would have allowed the infidel Russians to gain access to Circassia. Rushdi has only allowed the reader to contemplate it and shown how a Circassian hero has resolve to accept the will of God, whatever that may be.

Instead of the philosophical questions, we should ask, "How does this function in terms of diasporic Circassian identity?" Rushdi establishes a difference between the homeland and the diaspora and "seals" his novel with a nondescript departure. They leave the homeland and there is no more action or resistance that can take place in or outside of the territory. There are no descriptions of what is being left behind. There are no people left to say goodbyes. Diasporic consanguinity is not possible. In a

Shakespearean-like resolution, the characters are dead and only the reader is left. In the final lines of the novel, Rushdi exhorts that reader, the Circassian Arabic-speaking community, to remember these martyrs who are left in the homeland:

tig !•>! (j-a (Jj~a

57 Ibid, p 91.

176 Dear reader:

Return because of her

And remember in your prayers all the pious martyrs who have fallen victims of

CO treachery/betrayal and aggression.

Before putting down Jan, the reader is given this directive: to resist annihilation, including annihilation by cultural assimilation. Mentioning and remembering in your prayers implies that part of this resistance is also maintaining the religious components of the Circassian identity.

On a different level, Rushdi depicts the reader/the diasporan as different from those who were located in this historic time and space, that there has been a shift, and there needs to be a "return" to Jan, to the principles of Jan. "Return"/J^> from the root

J~=j is more commonly met as "arrive" or "connect". An alternative reading would be

"Connect for her sake" where "her" can refer to Jan as a symbol for resistance/Circassia.

The type of embedding that is being sought is an embedding in the culture and moral fortitude that was present in the homeland at that period, the willingness to resist external

"aggression,"59 the willingness to sacrifice, the willingness to practice a scorched earth policy60 to prevent the corruption of the enemy/outside.

Taken together, the construction of a lacunae-ridden idyllic Circassian homeland able to sustain diasporic desires for connection to authentic Circassianness along with the actual hijra encouraging a non-questioning religious heroism resisting assimilation 58 Ibid. 59 "Aggression" in Arabic "LJIJJC." is from the same root for "enemy"/j-^ and is used a few times in the novel. 60 See the section on Mansour Bek in the Heroes section for a discussion of the "scorched earth policy" as practiced by some Circassians.

177 preserves the traditions authenticated by the this narration of the homeland in the Arabic-

speaking diaspora. The first departure gives the reader space to return to an

individualized, idyllic homeland and stresses that resistance is the only means to that return, to possession of homeland. The second departure echoes the first's theme of resistance. The reader needs to return/connect to Jan/resistance to remain separate in

diaspora where there remains a threat of annihilation albeit it through assimilation. A

strong diasporic identity is connected to the idea of resisting to re/obtain the idyllic homeland that exists in the collective mind and remembrances of the Circassian transnation.

These same principles of diasporic identity construction will be seen in M.I.

Quandour's The Kavkas Trilogy and its hijra narratives.

M.I. Quandour's Hijra Narratives in The Kavkas Trilogy

The Circassian Saga, a massive tome of Circassian diasporic history, contains a number of hijra narratives including Quandour's ancestor departing Greater Kabarda in the 18th century as well as the hijra from Circassia in the 19th. These two departures frame departures the Trilogy (the departure from the ancestral village and the departure from the homeland) and, like the other novels, inform us about the formation of Circassian diasporic identity both internally and externally constructed. The hijra from the ancestral village is a centripetal movement that encourages the formation of an aggregate collective identity erasing the endemic tribalism of the Caucasus. This movement, an internal

178 migration, allows Quandour to catalogue the differences among groups while at the same

time affiliating them under the term Adigha.

The hijra from the broader homeland of Circassia, a centrifugal movement, shores

up the external identity of the Circassians against total assimilation into the ummah as

they enter dar al-Islam (f^^fl J*). A form of emigration, this movement forces the

community to address its collective identity and its future presentation to external Others.

The Sabres ofChechenia, the first novel of the Trilogy begins with a framing hijra

narrative. The author's ancestor, Ahmet, willingly banishes (19) himself from his village.

Quandour's narrative is decidedly different others beginning with a departure and not the

departure of the Circassian communities. Used to the typical attachment to the village

and the family of origin, the reader may be struck by the absence of description Quandour

supplies as Ahmet flees Greater Kabarda due to a family dispute. However, strategically

and in accordance with the rest of the novel, the dearth of monolithic descriptions points

to the author's overarching goal: to establish an inclusive Circassian identity for all

Adigha people. There is no return to the village of origin in any way. There is no

dwelling on the memories of his childhood, nothing about his father or mother61, just a

lack and sorrow for the loss. The ancestral village is effaced; Ahmet and his familial line become displaced. Their identities as Kabardians will be complicated through location

and exogamous marriages with different tribes.

In effect, Quandour normalizes the diasporic condition and establishes an origin story for the Jordanian diasporic community. Considering Circassians in Jordan are referred to as

61 Ahmet explains that both of his parents died in an accident and he has been alone with his sister which contributed to the conflict between him and her.

179 muhajirun (immigrants/jjj^"), this origin narrative also labels the ancestor as a

muhajir. As the majority of muhajirin will never return to the homeland, neither does

their ancestor, Ahmet: His life is not unlike their own.

M. I. Quandour, a product of English education within Jordan and then abroad, wrote his

Circassian Saga in English. In 2005, al-Mussassah al-'Arabiyah lil-Dirasat wa-al-Nashr

published Muhammad Azauqat's Arabic translation of the Trilogy garnering a strong

audience of reception in the Arabic-speaking world, especially in areas with high

concentrations of Circassians (Jordan, Syria, and Israel). Peculiar to sales distribution is

its popularity in the Gulf states where there are not significant populations of

Circassians. Beyond the contemporary relevance of the Caucasus to the larger Muslim

ummah , the themes present in the Kavkas Trilogy are reminiscent of the tropes and

images in the much loved Arabic poetic form of the qasida. A poetic genre based upon a journey/J**jJl of a hero, the qasida provides a lens with cultural references from

Quandour's Arab host community through which to view his texts and his ancestor's journey through the Caucasus. The qasida's tripartite form based upon the tripartite rite of passage moves the hero/individual from one status to another more productive social

status through what Victor Turner labels a liminal period of transition, here the journeyJ^ji1.

Personal communication with publishers at annual MESA conference 2006. The publishers report that sales are strong among Middle Eastern Circassians who have held book signings where the author was present. However, they reported selling out of their inventories every time they have been to the Gulf states. They had no explanation for the interest in the novels in these regions, but noted the absence of Circassians. 63 The Muslim populations in the Caucasus have been involved in resistance movements in the region and "terrorist" activities.

180 In the pre-Islamic Middle East, the poet of the Arabic qasidah worked with the heroic model, painting his narrator into the role of representative hero for the group.

Mirroring this process of group representation by the hero, Ahmet (and his line) transforms from a symbol of Kabaradian identity, to the larger Adigha identity, and ultimately the diasporic Circassian identity. The tribal values of noble lineage, bravery in battle, unbounded generosity, hospitality, and "facing death head-on" were ascribed to the narrator, and by extension to the poet himself (Hamori 8). These Arab values are

easily Circassian values, as well. Thus, the qasida format provides an interesting lens relevant to the Circassian diaspora affiliating it with the surrounding Arab culture.

Moreover, recent organic unity analysis within the field of Near Eastern Studies pioneered by the Stetkvych's 64 establishes the ascription of a new (what will be in the

Circassia case) aggregative identity praised and authenticated.

There are three types of qasidas (fakhr, madih, and hija'), with its basic form divided into three sections: "(1) the theme of loss and yearning (nasib); (2) the travel or

'setting out' theme (rahil); and (3) the themes of praise of self (fakhr), praise of others

(madih), and the reverse of praise, the invective (hija'), in the satirical alternative to the

'straight ode' (J. Stetkevych 12)." In turn, each of the three sections has its own independent features that the poet may opt to include or exclude. The presence of the rahil endows the genre with movement and a sense of travel well suited for a Circassian

64 Yes, these are vastly different genres (classical Arabic poetry : a five volume English historical novel) but from the point of view of a Middle Eastern Circassian reader, the structure and images employed by Quandour might be reminiscent of those in the qasida. 651 might be so bold to suggest that M.I. Quandour is a hybrid product of the Circassian and Arab identity, both of which he experienced as a child. Attending an English school in Ramallah, he encountered and understood Arab culture. Thus, for him to be able to completely separate Arab and Circassian culture would be difficult. However, to be fair, it means that I could have elected to have read this Trilogy from the perspective of a English "Western" as Quandour was most exposed to the Western literary corpus through his education (personal communication).

181 like Quandour and his hijra narrative. Historical diasporic fiction, likewise, references

or describes travel/departure.

Additionally, the recently theorized deep structure of the tripartite qasida as a

form of rite of passage can be applied to Quandour's goal: to move ancestral Kabaradian

identity rooted in territory/homeland/tribalism to a

deterritorialized/diasporic/aggregated/hybridized identity. Similar to a rite of passage,

there is movement from an immature identity to a more collective and productive

identity. So in Quandour's Trilogy, Ahmet moves from the immature identity

(individual/regional) to one that is broader and more inclusive and diasporic in its tenor,

allowing for the praise of an aggregate community (Adigha).

Suzanne Stetkevych compares the qasida to the three sections of the rite of

passage articulated by Van Gennep and Turner: separation, liminality, and integration.

These three sections of the rite correspond to the three sections of the qasida: nasib,

rahil, and fakhr/madih. The rite of passage and the qasida move an individual or a

group from one ascribed status within society to another through ritual that enforces a

period of liminality. Liminality is that dangerous condition of being between positions

during which period, an initiate often undergoes trials and hardships maturing the person

and developing heroic traits within him. Given that we are concerned with hijra

narratives the journey or 6**-J\ that enacts the liminal period is prolonged in Quandour's narrative and will be given more attention than the other two sections of the qasida. In

66 There are qasidas which contain abbreviated rahils comprised of only a few bayt. However, the basic structure of the qasida implies a movement away from the encampment to some destination, usually a person (the mamduh) who may or may not be associated with a person. 67 It could be argued that for the diaspora, Quandour might have even viewed a larger collective body of Circassians that would include the Chechens, Daghestanis, Ossestians, and others with lesser numbers in Jordan and Greater Syria. This would be similar to the kind of inclusiveness on the website : Kavkas.com

182 both the qasida and the Trilogy, the hero/Ahmet enters a liminal period in which he is

separated from society and isolated with only nature and his mount as company.

Conventionally, the hero becomes one with nature, taking on features of the landscape and characteristics of the wildlife present. Having incorporated the lessons into a more mature identity, the individual reintegrates with society in the final section of the qasida.

Quandour's ancestor Ahmet's journey reflects this tripartite structure and likewise matures through his journey.

Following the three phases represented in the above table allows a reader to follow two lines of development in Quandour's Trilogy. First, the well-known cultural references from the Arabic qasida seen in the texts affiliates the two cultures whose territorial homelands would suggest few commonalities. Second, the deep, organic structure of the qasida connected to the three phases of the rite of passage reconstitute the

Circassian identity within the hero, Ahmet, through a lengthy liminal period in the

Caucasus eventually leading to his reintegration into society in Greater Kabarda.

Following this structure, Quandour's Trilogy opens with his hero, Ahmet's, self- imposed exile from his ancestral village, mimicking the Arabic qasida's nasib marked by separation. Ahmet's physical and emotional separation from society erases (though not completely) his current identity so a new identity can be inscribed.

Nasib:

Characteristically, the nasib includes the narrator stopping over the atlal (the remains of the now deserted encampment). His companions beseech him to continue on his journey and not to linger over a past that should be forgotten. These ruins are associated with the beloved who has departed with her tribe. Ahmet does not physically stop over an empty

183 encampment, instead, his tribal village forms his atlal and in lieu of literal physical effacement, the physical features (so laboriously articulated in Omar and Samkugh's texts) have been erased. While still a physical reality, a return to his tribal village is not possible, not even within the confines of memory. He speaks only of the relationships from this period. The physical, territorial space and, by extension, identity is eradicated so that a new identity can be written upon Ahmet/the hero/the Kabardian collective. At the point of separation, Ahmet's narrowly defined regional Kabardian identity restricts him, has inhibited his knowledge of greater Circassia: "The Adigha were unconquerable,

Ahmet knew that, though he knew very little about anyone or anything beyond the

Kabarday of the Kouban."69 In order to become an Adigha hero, separation from this tribalism and isolation necessitates a literal movement away from the tribal village encouraging interactions with the larger "space" of Adigha identity.

Connections to that core identity (Kabardian) and society persist and sustain the hero Ahmet through the symbol of the beloved. Like the tribal village, she exists indirectly through his memories. Similarly, the old way of life, the way that Circassian existence was lived, can only be glimpsed through the partial memories of the contemporary community. Ahmet's beloved, his sister, Awfasa, is the only trace of the village left in his mind:

The "village" or the concept of aul is the most basic unit of territorial identity for the Circassians and for most people in the world. Consider the following quote from Sabres of Chechenia: " 'Aul?.. ? Aul. ?' Ahmet repeated. The man nodded and smiled faintly, they [sic] had one word in common at least: 'village'." The conversation is between Ahmet and a wounded Chechen. 69 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 25.

184 Pointless70 to think of Afwasa. It was self-indulgence, to let the pain and shame

of what had happened rise up in his chest again. The only way to make amends,

was to distinguish himself. If not with his own people, then he'd look for some

other way.71

Ahmet is self-aware and realizes that his reintegration into society will require him to

leave behind this immaturity that led to his "shame". He seeks to "distinguish" himself through his journey of self-exploration, an exploration of Adigha identity made possible through the upcoming ra/nV/journey across Circassian and Caucasian territory. He, like

Quandour in his prologue , seeks a new identity, one informed by greater knowledge of his culture in situ, later transposed into diaspora.

But all the same, Afwasa's blue eyes filled his mind as he drifted warily between

dream and consciousness. Her face turned white, her head flung back, in the

moment of extreme agony when he had shoved her violently to the ground and the

life inside her began to tear itself loose from her womb. The sudden flood of

warm blood beneath her still limbs.. .Afwasa, Afwasa, even the wild dogs howled

her name.73

70 "Pointless" echoes the speech of the boon companions in the nasib of the qasida who try to dissuade the hero from his emotional outpourings for the beloved. 71 Ibid, 21. 72 We know from the prologue of the writing of these works was a form of identity search for M.I. Quandour, himself as he attended a conference meant at supporting repatriation: "I had a craving to write about my people. I had a craving to establish my own identity.. .1 simple wanted to create awareness of our existence and of our past (11)." And, "Therefore my first apology is to the purists among my people who might have expected a different book than the one produced here. I, as a Cherkess first and foremost, chose to search for my own roots in order to satisfy my thirst for 'identity' (14)." 73 Ibid.

185 The lamenting last line recalls the language and images of the qasida with the "wild

dogs." The description of Awfasa conforms to those of the beloved within the qasida.74

She is a body and does not have agency within the text.

Afwasa becomes Ahmet's connection to society and would have been a means of

a continuing familial line. However, like relationships in the nasib of a qasida, this

relationship and any potential progeny have been eclipsed by the immaturity of the

narrator/hero. Ahmet, still a nascent Circassian warrior, incapable of controlling his

emotions as dictated in the khabza, breeches social protocol, discussed in other places in

the novel, requiring him to attain a new identity or "distinguishing himself.

Ahmet's departure from this culture/society in this puerile, tribal form calls into

question its sustainability/permanence which is in keeping with Stetkevych's analysis of

the nasib as a schism between humanity and nature, "Rather it is about the permanence of

nature, the impermanence of culture, and thus, ultimately, nature's immortality and

man's—especially the poet's own—mortality...Whereas rocks and ruins are solid,

motionless, silent, and unchanging (immortal), human life is transhumant and transient;

departure and abandonment are synecdoches for death" (S. Stetkevych 22). How even more true is this analysis for a diasporic community completely deterritorialized from the homeland and always faced with the potential of death by annihilation or assimilation.

The description of Awfasa, while set during a violent domestic episode, reads like the descriptions of the beloved in Arabic poetry in erotic scenarios that border (if not crossing) the definition of rape: there is the description of her eyes (though lacking the almond shape and the praise of the eyebrow arch), the white skin (though hers is enhanced through her fear and anguish) and well as the head being thrown back to expose the length of the neck. Quandour has delayed the verb to the end of the sentence and therefore, the reader may not anticipate the violence involved in the encounter. An erotic encounter is not possible here because of the brother-sister relationship. The idea of Awfasa taking the form of the beloved is strengthened through the following quote after seeing a Bzadough maiden: "But he was concentrating on his manners in front his venerable hosts, and the mere hint of a slim female body in a white robe tightly cinched with a soft leather band, and with a fine muslin scarf over her long hair, reminded him too much of Afwasa, and he chose not to look at the girl (49)." As well as this strange dream sequence: "dreamt of his sister Afwasas pouring fresh milk from a large pitcher all over him (65)."

186 Quandour's absolute effacement of the village creates an af/a//separation that is not recoverable/surmountable. Without the possibility of return, Ahmet must become something new and forge an identity that will allow him to survive and by implication allow for the survival of a new Circassian line, a diasporic line.

Rahil:

The second section of the qasida, the rahil, is laden with images and scenes of the

Arabian desert. The solitary hero, on his mount, moves across the landscape encountering the wilds of nature from bulls and birds to extreme temperatures and the anguish of loneliness. Isolation fosters an appreciation for societal acceptance and protection. Through the raM/journey section's separation from these comforts, the hero discards the old identity and through physically and mentally challenges matures in order to reintegrate with society. During this liminal period, Ahmet's existence is tenable and his future unsure. Everything he encounters informs the direction his life, and by implication the Circassian collective (specifically diasporic), will take.

Ahmet's liminal transformation occurs after he exiles himself from his village in

Greater Kabarda and roams through the mountainous regions of Circassia on his way to

Little Kabarda. Before he arrives at his destination, he remains in Chechnya where he establishes a family. Ahmet's journey conforms to the rite of liminality where the individual is between two identities and is figuratively dead in terms of social connections. Stetkevych emphasizes that the change of status is from an immature, non­ productive hero in the nasib (society is non-productive in the face of nature as are the

187 types of relationships the narrator engages in with the beloved) to a productive member of society in ihefakhr/madih.

The erasure of social position is often constructed as a return to nature and giving oneself over to the elements. Quandour employs this form of description as Ahmet becomes a part of nature:

Eventually the wet and ice didn't trouble his neck. His hair and beard grew

long enough to cover the gap. Ahmet had become as shaggy as any other creature

living in these altitudes; a hairy giant of a man, with staring yet unseeing eyes.

'A brazier of fire is what I want—Narts, Narts don't push it into the river...'

Quandour puts him into the natural landscape where he becomes more like an animal/"creature". The broad terrain of the homeland, not just Karbarda, is wrought on his body as his knowledge and relationship with the land is heightened. Taking on these features of the homeland makes him become "a hairy giant of a man". To be able to encompass the characteristics of the numerous tribes in the homeland requires a large personal canvas, to become in effect a giant. Within Circassian culture, the term giant immediately evokes the image and stories of the Narts, those demi-gods of the epic tradition. Thus, Ahmet, in his liminal state, remembers the epic story of Susrsuqa obtaining fire for the other Narts who have pushed it into the river. Ahmet, like Susruqa will return fire to his people; he will be that Nart of old who can establish a new lineage, a new bloodline for his people through this journey. At the same time Ahmet is drawing upon the legends for strength. Ahmet places himself in the role of hero—Sursurqa— maintaining the fire of the community and providing them with the motivation and drive to move forward. Like the poet in the qasida during his rahil, Ahmet is maturing through

75 Ibid, p 66.

188 his desires for the society he has left behind and his greater understanding of his self, here

his larger Circassian identity.

As in the pre-Islamic qasida, Ahmet undergoes numerous trials while on his

rahil/journey involving the natural elements which he is learning to control, much like he

is gaining control over himself and his emotions (the source of his conflict with society).

His connection to the natural world is symbolized by this rugged, almost animalistic,

appearance. The brevity of the liminal phase and its lack of permanence is conveyed to

the reader, "Ahmet became an experienced mountain man and looked it. Only a long

bath in a hot volcanic spring, whenever he found one of them, kept him semi-civilized."

Other than the occasional bath, connections to society are possible in the journey/raM.

Ahmet encounters other individuals (discussed below) but the overarching journey is his

own with the exception of his mount, a key component of the rahil. As Stetkevych says

of the she-camel and its description:

Her [the she-camel's] presence in the rahil thus functions semiotically

to indicate that the poet, though now alone in the liminal desert, is

ultimately a societal being with a societal intention; the tribe (or in

panegyric, his patron's court) is his ultimate goal. Furthermore, we

can perceive in the she-camel's ambiguous nature—an animal

domesticated, nature cultivated—the ideal mediator for the nature/culture

dialectic, the appropriate vehicle for liminal passage.77

Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney. The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic poetry and the Poetics of ritual. (Cornell University Press, 1993) p 29.

189 Thus the two extremes of the nasib (culture embodied in the beloved) and fakhr/madih

(sovereign/society embodied in the mamduh) are mingled in the rahil (liminality embodied in the mount). As a camel in the Caucasus would be an anomaly, Ahmet's mount is a horse , also featured in the qasida form:

Another worthy icon of structure in the final section of the pre-Islamic qasidah,

more richly indulged in as image and more carefully encoded as symbol, is the

horse, which serves as a locus, especially in the heroic qasidahs, for the blending

of the purposes of individual and tribe. In its emblematic salience and brilliance,

the horse is the poet's manifest pronouncement of belonging to the tribe.79

Ahmet's connection to the tribe through his horse, Kara, is strengthened because she was a gift from his father:

Ahmet loosened the reigns to his mare and allowed her the freedom to choose her

own pace. He could trust Kara with his life. He loved horses more than was

altogether reasonable, even in an Adigha nobleman. This mare he cherished all

the more because she was his father's gift.

The horse links him to the village and will allow for his reintegration into society. Ahmet proves himself in a Cossack battle after meeting a fellow Kabardian, Murad, living with

78 It is true that Circassians love horses and their fictional texts do tend to have a number of horse descriptions. In interest of full disclosure, the seemingly endless references to horses in this text and the great care and background information given about the particular horse blood-lines in this work is due to the fact that the Quandour family has been in the business of horse-breeding since Ahmet continuing through today with the author, M.I. Quandour. As much as he is tracing his familial blood-line, this saga also traces the pedigree of the current bloodline of horses within the family. 79 Stetkevych, Jaroslav. The Zephrs of the Najd: the poetics of nostalgia in the classical Arabic nasib. (University of Chicago Press, 1993) p 34. 80 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 26.

190 the Chechens. In a show of gratitude the Chechen Moullah and future father-in-law of

Ahmet presents him with a gift:

Ahmet recognized a couple as the dead Cossacks' mares, but the one

other was of another class. It was a handsome black stallion, a beautiful

prancing Arabian with the swan-like arched neck of the breed and perfect

conformation. The Moullah dismounted and led the stallion forward...

'It's no ordinary stallion', Murad said. 'He was brought as a colt from

the stables of the Shah of Persia. The Moullah has just said - it's for you,

with the mares. He knows how the Cherkess love to breed horses, and the

Cossack mares are your by rights anyway, war booty.' 'May Allah grant

that you prosper,' the Moullah intoned. 'May the stallion serve you well and

always carry you out of danger.'"81

If the horse is a symbol for the individual and his identity, this is a gift of a new identity, a new bloodline. As the mount and the beloved are often described and merged into one in the qasida, here too, we see the blending of the horse with the beloved as the Chechen

Moullah is giving the hero, Ahmet, a horse, a daughter, and a new identity. As the

Kabaradian identity is broadened through intermarriage, so too is Ahmet's horse stalk increased and improved through breeding with other tribal lines as well as the Arabian horse which will be the line that moves to Jordan with the family.

The mount is a method of praising the self and the community without seeming pompous or bumptious. Humility, a feature esteemed among the Circassians and the

Arabs, is preserved by subverting such hubris through its displacement made possible by the mount.

81 Ibid, p 99.

191 He introduces us to the main reality of his journey—which is his she-camel—and

from there on abandons us to that language of images, signs, and emblems. We

must ultimately understand that the poet speaks of his she-camel—and through

her of all else in his journey—only in terms in which he may not speak of himself,

of his encoded extreme experience. Her journey, her run, are his; her substitute

images are his too; and so is the hardiness, the pathos of loneliness....

In Quandour's Saga, the mount/horse becomes a symbol for the nation and the

expansion of the Circassian identity. As Ahmet moves out and encounters others, the

horse is compared to the mounts of these Others (internal and external) in relationship to

the Self:

Kara came at once out of the pack and whinnied into his hand. She was

slightly taller than the mountain horses and almost black with bits of grey

showing on the withers, wider in the chest and true to her Showlukh

bloodline, the best of the Kabardin breeds - and having been put to the test,

no less sure-footed than the Bzadough ponies. She had the distinctive

brand of the breed; a circle with three branches.83

Describing Cossack horses and by extension the Cossack people:

Stetkevych, Jaroslav. The Zephrs of the Najd: the poetics of nostalgia in the classical Arabic nasib. (University of Chicago Press, 1993) p 29.

83 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 52-53.

192 They had driven the animals for more than thirty hours without a break - and

Cossack horses, unlike Kabardins, are only good for short distance work, not

trained up for long rides.

Whereas the Russian/Cossack horses are described as follows: "The commanding party rode to the edge of the battlefield, Pieri's horse well in front, circling and chewing its bit,

its sense confused, half wanting to join the chase, half smelling blood and afraid (234)."

And when the Russian scholar enters the village, Ahmed uses the horse as a metaphor to

make fun of the Russians:

'From my limited experience I can say that what makes the Kabardin different is

first and foremost he is mountain horse. Therefore he is surefooted. He also has

excellent stamina for long distance work. This he inherited from the Arabian. He

or is more intelligent than the Russian breeds we know. He learns fast.

The connection between the Circassians and the Arabs is strengthened through the interbreeding of their horses prior to the establishment of the Circassian diaspora in

Jordan. Kazbek, Ahmet's son, decides he will make the pilgrimage to Mecca. While there, he obtains an Arabian stallion:

Kazbek was elated. It had been his father's dream one day to import a new line of

Arabs and cross them again with the Kabardin to improve their stock. The old

man firmly believed this was Kazbek's chief purpose in his pilgrimage. Kazbek

had heard the legend of the Showlukh breed; how an Alp Kabardin mare was

covered accidentally by an Arabian stallion by the Caspian Sea and produced the

Ibid, p 538. Ibid, p 345.

193 breed now known as Showlukh, named after its owner the Talustan Sholukh

prince; How his father Ahmet had also repeated the same breeding policy with his

Showlukh mare and the black Arabian stallion from Persia. The breeding cross

was proven superior over and over again. Now he had a chance to improve the

Kabardin stock once more with this fine stallion. But he also believed in the

Arabian as a pure breed and was willing to give it time and effort. Much was

dependent on the superiority of the Arabian Stallion.

Later, the tribe from which Kazbek had obtained the stallion, will aid Kazbek's kin when they arrive in Jordan.

The horse is used as a symbol throughout and this particular bloodline parallels the development of the bloodline of the people. The respect for horses allows the

Russian doctor, Basil, who finds the Circassians far beneath him, to have respect for their horsemanship. In a manner of speaking, if the horse is a symbol for the Circassian identity, then by respecting horses means self-respect which garners respect from others.

As he hurled the meal down his throat, he watched the mountaineers conversing

and marveled at the similarity between their gestures and those he would observe

at any bloodstock sale in St. Petersburg...

By God these men knew how to breed horses.. .It was the finest specimen he had

ever seen. The two horses, father and on, whinnied and pranced at each other

competitively, and the Chechenian's separated them with will.

Ibid, p 517.

194 'Mashallah, Mashallah,' they murmured soothingly, and the Moullah walked

around the stallion raising his hands in a blessing, to ward off the evil eye. The

scene had a timeless splendour about it that struck Basil forcibly. The gorgeous

red and gold robes of the Daghestani merchant, the simple white and black of the

Moullah's, and the handsome deep blue of the breeder's cherkeska was

picturesque in the dazzling sunlight. They all had the lean, athletic bodies of men

well-used to an abstemious but not primitive existence. Basil thought of the gout-

ridden companions of this Russian salon and realized he was lapsing into

romantic comparison (216-217).

Ahmet and his horse, Kara, move across a great expanse of the homeland throughout his journey. A feature of the rahil is for the poet to describe the natural features and the characteristics they possess in a catalogue style:

The quasi-ritualistic function of the pre-Islamic qasida accounts

for an intriguing peculiarity of ancient Arabic poetics: the frequent

occurrence of crowded descriptive passages. The descriptions are

generally (A) static, (B) exhaustive, and (C) predictable... Qasida

catalogues] serve to render the described objects in such a way that

they may be experienced exhaustively...the catalogues turn the objects

into icons of the abstract relations in the model...Lady and camel are

prized for their own sake, but in the qasida their iconic function endows

them with an aura...As for the their characteristic, the high degree of

87 Ibid, p 216-217.

195 predictability in the descriptions is quite what we should expect,

precisely because each lady and each mount is a ritual object necessarily

shaped to fit the grip of every member of the community. (Hamori 24-27)

In the Saga, while Quandour does pay attention to the physical features of the

landscape and provides the reader with many details to make them feel as if they are in

situ, they become more mis-en-scene. Instead, the "terrain" and "wilderness" that

challenge the protagonist and his sense of identity are the tribal Others, the spectrum of

the Aidgha identity present in the homeland. In this way, as the above quote suggests

that the "ritual object" needed to be constructed in such a way as to "fit the grip of every

member of the community" here, the "homeland" as a ritual object needs to be crafted to

fit the identity of "every member of the community" including that of the diaspora.

Quandour does this by forcing Ahmet to experience a number of internal Others, among

them: Bzadough, Noghay, Shapsough, Kalmuk, Wybikh, Chechen, Asatin, Ossetian,

Ingoushi, and Daghestani. Their descriptions, especially for those not considered

Cherkess/Circassian, can be harsh, for example:

He was an Ossetian,89 a different mountain people who kept out of the

Hamori, Andras. On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature. (Princeton University Press, 1974). P 24-27.

89 Another reason for the disdain for the Ossetians may be attributed to their Christian identity. In fact all the Christian groups within the text are not depicted favorably. They are usually described as drunks. Again, the tolerance of alcohol within Christianity is an external identity marker between them and the Muslims. Drinking is very interesting in this text (unfortunately relegated to footnotes such as this) as bakhisma, the national drink of Circassia, is alcoholic and yet tolerated as a symbol of Circassian identity. There is a cognitive dissonance about it being alcoholic. Bakhisma is different from the "alcohol" that Christians such as Armenians, Georgians, and Ossetians drink and leads to drunkenness and uncouth

196 warfare and were despised by the Chechen for it. This squat, invariably

drunk Ossetian always varied his route and his day in order to avoid

the Chechenians.90

However, the goal is to allow Ahmed and the reader to experience the different ways of being Circassian/Caucasian within the homeland. To this end there are lengthy descriptions of the tribal villages and their customs:

These were the traditional domestic design, each with a large room

containing an open fire burning on a makeshift hearth, a smaller

sitting or sleeping room beyond. Family plots contained separate

secluded quarters for the women and for the retainers. There were small

pens for cows, chickens, goats and sheep, all neatly divided by hurdle

fencing. At the perimeter of the village the women had already tilled

the soil, well tended neat patches full of pitifully small shoots of root

vegetables and corn, [description of a Bzadough village] l

Another example of the Caucasian village descriptions is from the Kabarda blood- brother's settlement in the Chechen territories:

The houses were built in a crescent shape on a virgin plot of land - a fertile

meadow nestling under a row of towering peaks, the granite rock of the main

Caucasian chain. At this altitude the sky seemed to swirl over their heads as the

clouds raced above and bustled in disarray against the towering white summits.

The village was impregnable from the north side and flooded by sunshine to the

behavior. While at the same time, it is recognized as being alcoholic and thus marking them as different from other Muslims (Arab). One source cites the distribution of bakhisma in front of mosques on eids. 90 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 147-148 91 Ibid, p 45.

197 south where the land fell away in an escarpment and opened on a magnificent

view of a distant valley. East and west, the village was hemmed in by a rich

forest of hornbeam and elder, thickets of fruit-bearing bushes and banks of lush

ferns. The meadow was densely carpeted with chamomile that gave off a pungent

odor as their horses trod the leaves, and left green hoof marks in the glaze of

silver dew not yet burnt off by the early spring sun.

The houses were built of stone with great logs laid parallel for roofing. Neat

fencing separated livestock from vegetable gardens, but the main expanse of

meadow was as yet unenclosed.

In addition to the lay-out of villages dotted across the homeland, Ahmet encounters traditions different from his own yet still conform to the khabza. For example, there are sections on the differences in toasting, differences in battle cries, differences in the freedom of women and the rearing of children. By experiencing these differences,

Ahmet realizes that there are many ways of performing and being Circassian/Caucasian.

This awareness can be brought into his new existence, his new identity.

Finally, in the aggregation/integration phase as Stetkevych explains, "What we should now.. .anticipate in the aggregation is a 'societal' state opposed both to the

'immature' state of the nasib/separation phase and to the antisocietal isolation and self- absorption of the liminal rahil." After purging himself of this immature state associated with the non-productive relationship with the beloved that is subject to the whims of nature, Ahmet presents himself to the mamduh. He submits himself and all his heroic

92 Ibid, p 95 Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney. The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic poetry and the Poetics of ritual. (Cornell University Press, 1993) p.33.

198 features to the power of the sovereign. In this way the heroic is incorporated into the aggregate, the community. In Quandour's novel, Ahmet submits to three mamduh figures: the Chechen moullah (spiritual mamduh)94, Sheikh Mansour (military mamduh)9" and finally to the Hapsa prince (political mamduh). He submits himself spiritually, militarily, and politically to his people and to this larger aggregate/diasporic identity that he has constructed through his liminal period of the rahil.

At the beginning of the Sabres ofChechenia, Ahmet is an immature Circassian warrior who is trained but untested and recklessly hot-tempered. He consciously abandons his village (his Kabaradian tribal identity) to journey across the homeland. He undergoes trials and a liminal period during which he experiences a larger spectrum of

Circassian identity. Ahmet has become a hero and commits himself to his people and the

Circassian (and quite possibly the Caucasian) collective.

In terms of the Middle Eastern diasporic identity Quandour's opening hijra narrative functions on a number of levels:

1) It normalizes the diasporic condition: Ahmet is muhajir as are diasporan

Circassians

2) Diasporic identity is broadened through migration through the homeland to

include more Circassian tribes and affiliations with other Caucasian groups

" 'Today, my dear Moullah, you have gained another son. I shall always be at your side, should you ever need me. Your enemies shall be my enemies (99).'" 95 Murad says to Ahmet as he is taken from his wedding night in order to fight under the banner of Sheikh Mansour: " 'Our personal happiness is of no concern when our nation, our very homes are under attack. We have no choice Ahmet, but to stand with our brother Chechens tonight. Come.. .We must join our Moullah (172).'" And Ahmet obediently follows, leaving his bride behind.

199 3) A hybrid identity that acknowledges an Arab component (like the diaspora) is

established through the symbol of the horse. The Circassian horse is a hybrid and

stronger for it, as are the Circassian people.

The hijra from ancestral village/tribalism allows for the forging of an inclusive folk

identity established in the homeland giving it authenticity which can then be exported

into diaspora.

One of the cornerstones of Circassian identity is the khabza and the journey

Ahmet undertakes has allowed him to experience the breadth of this oral tradition across

the homeland. The khabza and Ahmet's understanding and possession of it is pivotal to

Quandour's implications for Circassian diasporic identity. Ahmet's final position within the homeland in Little Kabarda and the importance of khabza is underscored in the following:

Everyone acknowledged that in Little Kabarda the people held on to the

traditional ways more passionately than anywhere else; that their warmth

and hospitality was justifiably famous. 'If you wish to learn of our 'khabza''

and ancient folklore,' Kabardans would say, 'then go to Little Kabarda.'96

Closing Hijra Narratives

The closing hijra narrative/s shifts focus to the external, national identity of the

Circassian collective. Emigration from the homeland forces the collective to reassess its identity. For centuries, a large component of Circassianness had been defined in

Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 286.

200 opposition to Russian identity. Muslim identity was a means of safe-guarding the group from assimilation. Immigration to Dar/Beit al-Islam f^utfl jb necessitates a shift in the national identity and a reassessment of the external markers that can preserve the community and prevent assimilation.

Quandour presents his audience with two hijras at the end of The Triple

Conspiracy: 1) the genocide committed at Sochi and 2) the successful hijra of

Quandour's family to Turkey and eventually Jordan. The first frustrated hijra allows

Quandour to establish the culpability of the Ottoman Turks and the Imams in the mass deaths that occurred and the treachery wrought upon those who survived. The second successful hijra establishes the solution for the diaspora which hinge on the following: 1)

Preservation and adherence to khabza 2) Successful compromise backed up with resistance (for diaspora this means accepting the compromise of deterritorialization) and 3) Maintenance of history and its continuation into the future.

Sochi and Culpability

The Triple Conspiracy, explores the complex relationship between the Circassian resistance, the continued Czarist push into the Caucasus, and Turkish reasons for

Identity is far more complex than a simple oppositional dichotomy. Circassian identity is situational, temporal, and territorial. Therefore, it is fluid and not easily defined. However, for the purposes of this discussion, one of the most basic features of the national Circassian identity in situ was its opposition to Russian identity. This assumption is one of the reasons that scholars speculate that the Circassians adopted Islam in the first place, as a means of setting themselves apart from the Orthodox Christian Russians. Even Quandour calls into question the degree of conversion of the peasantry and references a number of syncretic features of village life where traces of animism, Christianity, and Islam coexist. 9 The characters present in this narrative line, not from Quandour's family, will be followed in the novel Cherkess: The Balkan Story. 99 Throughout the Trilogy and the Saga, there are references to the Kabardian means of compromise that has served them in their preservation.

201 accepting large amounts of immigrants. The Circassians were trapped by the Turkish,

Russian and British representatives' and diplomats' circulation of innuendo and rumors.100 Promises were made and not kept. To underscore the fault of all three parties,

Circassian scouts are sent to witness the immigration to Turkey from the point of hijra.

Sochi located in Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia was a port of hijra for the Circassian emigrants. When the emigrants arrived, no boats were present to take them to Turkey.

Instead, they died on the beaches:

The whole beach was covered in corpses. People had expired where they sat,

where they lay, of heat, exposure, exhaustion, disease, broken hearts.

Some sat upright, stiffened in death in their last cares: a mother nursing

a baby; an old man cradling a little boy; an old man raising a hand to heaven.

Sand had blown slowly over the corpses through the day so that they

looked like monuments, immovable and undecaying. But the stench slowly

wafted through the treacherous soft breeze, and reached the living.

Nakho and Asian wanted to retch with the fetid sweetness of it.101

Notice that this is an active death and not a body count. The lives of the individuals are being memorialized and not their death. They are the active subjects instead of the objects of the Russians and Turks. Through the eyes of fellow Circassians (Nakho and

Asian, and now Quandour) they are made into monuments and are added to the collective

100 Include sources that explore this relationship more??? The Trilogy illustrates the willingness and acceptability of compromise in order to save the Circassian identity through the continued Kabaradian political and economic relationship with Russia. 01 Quandour, M.I. Kavkas. London: Minerva Press, 1998, p 691.

202 memory. They are monuments to the will of the Circassian peoples but also to the deception of these imperial forces, including the Ottoman Turks.

The need to establish the responsibility of the Ottomans in the deportations and the deaths is made palpable in exchanges and descriptions such as:

Turkey enslaved our young men, sent them to fight in the Balkans like mercenaries.'...

'Shame. Shame. Naive to think the Ottomans would honour our agreements.

Half a million Cherkess lost between two warring armies. A black page in

Ottoman history.'

Asian had no feelings left with which to register outrage. He thought only of his

dead parents, indecent corpses on some exposed beach. He thought only of

infants thrown into the Black Sea from rotting coffin ships. He thought only of

years of military service that had turned him now into an implacable fighting

machine, pitched up here in Anatolia because it was the closest he could get back

to his beloved Kavkas.

For the diasporic Circassian reader, the implication for the present is that motivations must be examined instead of relying on the commonality of religion and promises which are made. There can be no denial that the boats did not arrive at Sochi. The Ottomans did not "prepare" to support the Circassians in their transportation to the imperial lands.

Quandour spends time and space establishing that the motivation for accepting the

Circassian immigrants was to serve their own military needs for Muslim soldiers. Thus, their interests were not with the other immigrants that had to be absorbed to achieve their

102 Ibid, p 806-807.

203 real goal: soldiers. The depiction of the Circassians as mere numbers being manipulated on bureacratic paper is illustrated later as Asian attempts to locate his family and other

Shapshough in the Balkans in Cherkess: The Balkan Story. This betrayal on the part of other Muslims further substantiates the claim that the Adigha ummah should be trusted and consulted first, before the larger Muslim ummah.

Successful Hijra: The Family Leaves: Solutions

After eight hundred pages of history and intrigue, the reader arrives at the final hijra of

Ahmet's line from the homeland territory. Quandour labored to bring the reader to this point of hijra which concludes as follows:

One fine spring day, Nakho, his four sons and daughter, helped his wife Disa, and

her infant daughter, Baboushka load up their wagons ready to join the long train

of migrants, assembling for the migration to the 'Beit Al Islam'. There were three

dozen families traveling with Tap Anwar including that of Anwar's son, Ruslan.

All except his youngest son, the family's best rider, Karim, He [sic] would not

join them. He loved the Terek valley and decided to stay behind. No doubt one

day he would marry and carry on the family line in the Glachstnay. With him and

a few other young folk who made the same decision, there would be a vital corps

of the Adigha and their khabza, forever in the Kavkas.

But Kouban Ahmet's stud was no more. Not in the Terek anyway.

103 I apologize for the lengthy quote, but as this is the climax of the Trilogy, I feel that I should include the entirety of the passage so that it might be adequately analyzed and appreciated by the reader.

204 Behind Nakho's wagons, six beautiful white Arabians were tied in a long line. It

was his hope to ship them to Turkey and to start up a stud once again. Their tails

feathered in the wind; young Hassan and his three brothers sat on the tailboard

watching the mares, calling out to them, telling each other jokes and stories.

Anything to shut out the sounds of the women in the wagons weeping, and the

little ones, catching the anxiety in their mother's faces starting up to howl too.

Nakho sat up front beside Disa. His wife looked apprehensive and very tiny, with

all her worldly possessions piled up at her back. She cradled her baby daughter

now and smiled anxiously at him.

'The more we are, the better,' Nakho said holding her hand tightly.

Tap Anwar gave the signal, and the long line of wagons rolled westwards leaving

the Terek village behind.

For once the Imams and the Gauer had worked hand in hand.

The first paragraph reiterates the divisions created by hijra within the Circassian collective body. The caravan would become a part of the larger diaspora, while those left behind will be a continual link (if only within the mind) for the diaspora to this land.105

104 Ibid, p 814. 105 With time and as the Circassians found themselves behind the "Iron Curtain" those connections between the family members were weakened. Quandour, himself, describes his search for the lost family members upon his return to the homeland in the late 1990s.

205 Quandour also makes a direct connection between the larger Circassian identity, Adigha, and it direct association with their khabza. This passage demonstrates that the Adigha identity is now associated with the khabza more directly than with any other attribute.

Language and religion are important, as is a connection to this territory. But for this family, and the diasporic line, the khabza is the defining feature of Circassian identity.

As in the initial hijra narrative, discussions of horses as in the rahil of the qasida are discussions about the protagonist or his community. Therefore, the desire to start a new bloodline in diaspora, strengthened by Arabian stock can be read as the acceptance of the need for exogamous106 marriages of Circassians in diaspora. Indeed, this is what happens with the family and members of the diaspora. The ability of the women in the family to find suitable partners is difficult and they eventually marry local men

(Revolution). Exogamous marriage is a necessary form of compromise. If no Adigha partner is possible, then a marriage outside the group is better than none. At least the potential for the khabza and Adigha identity are present in the progeny, otherwise without a marriage, even if exogamous, the lineage would end.

"The more we are, the better" rings true for the Circassian diaspora, past and present. Diasporas affected by massacres and genocide, desire numbers/a presence.

Sustaining that presence in place of territory is paramount to a diasporic sense of identity.

The circumstances of this move fade into memories and oral histories whispered into ears of grandchildren safely seated on grandma's lap.107 Meanwhile, resistance takes the form

Circassian marriages are considered exogamous in there are strong restrictions on marrying from within the same village. Here, exogamous means external to the Circassian community. 107 The implication is that the majority of the emigrants believe that they will be well-received by their co­ religionists in Beit al-hlam. They are following the advice of their Imams and choosing to believe what they have been told about the potential for a new life within the Empire.

206 of amassing a larger collective body, made all the more possible with the inclusive folk

•I (\Q identity Quandour has constructed predicated on the khabza and its orality.

The last line of the Trilogy lays bear Quandour's blame for the travesty that beset his people: "For once the Imams and the Gauer had worked hand in hand." The imams have misused Islam to fool people and the long list of offenses committed by the Russians has been documented in this account. The Trilogy comes full circle to its prologue:

['Nana' and 'Dada'] were the ones who departed, they and their parents, who

abandoned the rich green mountains of the Caucasus for the unknown desert

wilderness of Ottoman Turkey. They said they had followed the faith rather than

become subjects of the Christian Tzar. They did not know how cleverly they had

been manipulated by the powers to be, the Turkish Sultan and the Tzar of

Russia.109

Comparing these two passages, Quandour's characters are more knowledgeable about the state of international affairs than his actual relatives. Nakho knows of the plans of the

Turks and understands the motivations of the imams. Quandour's relatives, however, were among those "manipulated".

The diasporic reader, from this scant hijra narrative, is being reminded of the lessons for the diaspora that have been established throughout the Trilogy. The first lesson is that diasporic identity needs to be an inclusive Adigha identity based not upon

Islam, but on the khabza. Second, the need to compromise is in keeping with the khabza

108 The orality of the khabza allows elements to be emphasized as necessary and others to be "forgotten" when irrelevant or inconvenient. Religions are more flexible before the codification of their codices; the same can be said for the folk tradition of the khabza. 109 Ibid, p 9.

207 and has been a part of Circassian tradition. When possible, compromise is preferable to loss of life and a loss to the community. However, compromise must be backed up with physical resistance when death and annihilation is possible.

Finally, history becomes all the more important when the community has been deterritorialized. Those day to day practices that reinforce our sense of belonging to a community, that go unquestioned when in the homeland, are less prevalent in diaspora where another culture is normative and performance of the minority identity needs to be conscious. The hybridity of the diasporic situation always calls into question authenticity of identity which rarely is challenged in the homeland.110

To summarize, Quandour's use of the hijra narrative addresses the formation of both a folk and national Circassian identity. Ahmet's centripetal migration from his tribal village (read as tribal, Kabaradian identity) located in Greater Kabarda through the expanse of the homeland ending in Little Kabarda creates a more inclusive folk identity embodied in this ancestor of the Middle Eastern diaspora. The hijra from the territory stresses the change in focus from Islam as a marker of ethnic distinction to the khabza that will preserve a separate identity for Circassians as they enter Dor al-Islam.

The hijra as a means of returning to the homeland to embed cultural symbols in order to authenticate them is contrasted with the next section, a case study of Armenian operas.

Questions of authenticity do arise in homeland territories which are ethnically pluralistic as these questions arise when a group is faced with an oppositional group. The more isolated the community, the less likely that there will be questions of authenticity.

208 Chapter Five:

Spectacular Embeddings: Armenian Operatic Performance

"Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive." Moliere

My fascination with Armenian opera began when I discovered that both Anoush and Arshak II, considered the two "nationalist" operas of Armenia, were composed without the backing of a state or as the result of a nation building project. Having attended a performance of Anoush during the tourist season at the Yerevan Opera House,

I began to research the opera's history. Associating operatic production with state- building, I anachronistically expected to read that it had been a Soviet project to help promote Soviet nationalism in Armenia. While the Soviets did foster the continued development of Anoush, they did not sponsor its original composition that culminated with its performance in Alexandropol in 1912. Likewise, Tigran Chukhadjian's Arshak II received no state sponsorship, but was influenced by an awakening of Armenian consciousness within the cultural center of Constantinople in the 1860s. The first opera composed by an Armenian (1868), Arshak's librettist, Tovmas Terzian wrote the score in

Italian with an accompanying Armenian translation. Arshak II has never been performed in its original form in its entirety (an issue to be discussed below), instead only seeing partial performances in European centers and finally reaching its zenith in the Soviet backed performance in 1945, well after the 1933 completion of the opera house in

209 Yerevan. The Soviet version, as it is often called, is a retooling of the original score and

staging in the Armenian language, which according to scholars such as Gerald Papazian,

constitutes an entirely different opera.

From this brief introduction, it is clear that the history of these two Armenian

operas is complex, involves multiple international players and territorial locations, and

their deployment within the power structures of the diasporas requires some thought and

consideration. Thus, the focus of this chapter is the territoriality of the two operas

Anoush and Arshak II, the space of the homeland and the Yerevan Opera House, and the

productions of the two operas in diaspora as they relate to issues of positionality of the

Armenian nation both in homeland/s and diasporas. My analysis begins with the history

of the Opera House within Yerevan under the direction of the Soviets. Next, the history

of Tigran Chukhadjian's opera Arshak II is presented along with an analysis of its

"nationalist" themes which are then contrasted with the folk elements present in

Tigranian's adaptation of Toumanian's poem "Anoush". Once the histories and the goals

of the operas have been presented, a discussion of their deployment within diasporas is

undertaken to establish the differences between the two as relate to identity politics and

positionality.

Similar to the last chapter that saw Circassian symbols authenticated through their embedding within the historical homeland, these two operas represent the two cultural centers of the Armenian community prior to the formation of Soviet Armenia:

Constantinople and Tiflis. As will be shown, their embedding within the newly formed

incomplete homeland map of Soviet Armenia creates a sense of cultural continuity and a method of homeland authentication through the combining of both East and West in a

210 new capital, Yerevan, consciously constructed. Through inclusion of Anoush and

Arshak II within the yearly repertoire of the company, the totality of the body Armenian is included within this deliberately designed space and yet incomplete homeland.

The Opera House as a Symbol for the folk

As a statecraft project, the construction of an opera house demonstrates the health and wealth of a nation:

As European countries proclaimed their theoretical commitment to modern

ideals the first symbolic monument erected was a national opera house.

The validating power of opera is reflected in the opera houses that stand in

almost every town and city in the Western Hemisphere (Zelechow 217).

As a symbol for the nation, states invest considerable interest in constructing an opulent building people will embrace as their own and that builds a sense of common identity.

The opera house, like the genre, is a spectacle and should be ostentatious and prominent.

It should be a civic site of stateliness where dignitaries and guests from other nations can be taken to "experience" the nation and its people. Like the structure of a church/temple is unmistakable and both awesome and humbling, so too should the opera house embody the magnificence of a people and the collection of their artistic spectacles; operas, symphonies, and ballets.

Typically states fund these structures and contribute in their design, location, and continuing operations. The term "opera house" signifies an inclusive venue supporting all the performing arts as well as fine art exhibitions . Opera houses are, then, cultural

211 reservoirs for the arts of a nation, the spirit and ethos of a people/nation. The opera house becomes a nexus for state and folk interaction. While the state may fund and finance the

Opera House, it becomes a repository for folk culture and the arts. Without the artistic

output of the folk/people, the state will not continue its production of artistic national

identity.1 Moreover, the folk determine the success of a performance or an event. The

taste/s of the folk dictates the collection preserved within this structure.

Opera houses, while serving the needs of the folk/community, become external

manifestations of the national/folk identity. As edifices of the state, they are judged by

international standards of grandeur and their ability to house and stage international

productions. On another external level, important for our consideration of Armenian

operas, the national opera house has come to symbolize and connect the diaspora to the

homeland. Properly constructed and displayed by a nation, a diaspora recognizes and

affiliates with the opera house as a symbol of the homeland and their connection to the

artistic and cultural productions of the homeland. Most people support and/or relate to

some form of art (classical music, theater productions, dance and visual arts). Unlike

other potentially divisive edifices (governmental buildings or religious sites), the opera

house is a place where people literally and figuratively come together in a celebration of

their own cultural productions, even if from a distance. Thus, while Republic Square (the

governmental space within Yerevan) and Etchmiatzin (the holy Mother See of the

Armenian church) and the Matenadaran (the national manuscript museum) might be

where some Armenians anchor their physical and/or spatial identification with the homeland and Armenianness, the Yerevan Opera House is a "neutral" site, emblematic,

1 Within the Armenian Republic the place of artists within society and as forming an identity for the society is much greater than other nations. People still attend the funerals of famous novelists, they erect statues of artists, and the currency includes the images of these public figures. 212 requiring only presence to experience and no knowledge of the Armenian language or

culture.

Additionally, the institution of the opera house preserves a history of the

performances of these operas, their directions, and the lore and intrigue surrounding their

productions through the company and the artistic community. Operas are continually

reworked and new interpretations added under different directors as the histories of both

Anoush and Arshak II demonstrate. The lack of fixity in the structures of the opera and

the ability of the folk community and publics which form around the opera to influence it

and even participate in the production of the piece allows for reinterpretations of the plots

and by extension, reinterpretations of the Armenian identity. Importantly, this process

was facilitated by the creation of the Yerevan Opera House in 1933 and the inclusion of

these two operas in its repertoire.

Yerevan was consciously designed as a new capital for a new configuration of the

homeland of Armenia, avoiding previous historic memories and associations. Most cities

undergo an organic development with sites slowly added over time as needs, funds, and

time warrant. However, Yerevan in the 1930s underwent a deliberate construction of its

cityscape under the supervision of the Soviets:

As a Soviet city, Yerevan had become the first truly Armenian metropolis

in history. The major nineteenth-century urban centers of Armenian life—

Constantinople and Tiflis—had been polyglot cities on foreign soil. On the

other hand, the Armenian heartland had produced architectural splendor at Ani,

Van, and elsewhere, but the populations were relatively small. Yerevan was

a new page in Armenian history. And along with numbers came other

213 features of modern urban life: heightened political awareness, a substantial

educated class, a standardized national literature, the homogenizing

effect of mass media, and the development of common values and

beliefs. All of this occurred under a government at least nominally in the

hands of Armenians.

Yet the memory of these two cultural centers, Constantinople and Tiflis, would be brought into the new homeland cityscape through the inclusion of Anoush (composed in

Tiflis) and Arshak II (composed in Constantinople) in the yearly repertoire of the national

Armenian opera company, housed within the centrally located, Opera House.

Structurally, Alexander Tamanyan designed an impressive and emblematic, two

venue Opera House (both the Aram Khachaturian Conceit Hall and Alexander

Spendiaryan Opera and Ballet National Academic Theatre fall under one roof) situated in

Theater Square, a park housing numerous statues of Armenian artists throughout history.

He deliberately contemplated the positioning of the Opera house to create a palimpsest of

Armenian collective assembly. Levon Abrahamian reports4 that Tamanyan believed the

site of the opera house to sit atop the ruins of an ancient pagan temple devoted to "song

and love". Because of the iconoclastic past of the Armenian nation, few physical traces

of the pre-Christian or animistic past survive. Therefore, full verification of the existence

Malkasian, Mark. Gha-Ra-Bagh! The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia. Detroit, Mich: Wayne State University Press, 1996, p 37. Much could be said about the duality in this physical construct representing the dual nature of Armenian society as well. 4 "Cf. also the corroboration of Tamanian's belief by the testimony of Martiros Saryan (in H. Khachatrian's novel Artavazd /Yerevan, 1975/, p. 271, note 76, in Armenian). The Church of Gethsemane of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries stood on the grounds of the present square (see K. Kafadarian, Erevan. Srednevekovye pamiatniki i lapidarnye nadpisi /Yerevan, 1975/, pp. 45-46, in Armenian). There are no precise reports of a more ancient past for this ground." 5 Ibid, p 35. 214 of a "pagan" temple is not possible, but also is not necessary. The belief that this is the site of a pre-Christian temple where the Armenian people would gather to celebrate in songs and the arts connects the current repository of Armenian arts to the deep past of the people and nation. The site suggests continuity with the past and present and imbues the contemporary edifice with a history, even better that it is a "folk" history. This deep historical reference point also removes the structure from the particular Christian identity of the Armenians, and instead, locates the arts as something embedded in the folk traditions of the people preceding the conversion to Christianity and keeping with Soviet desires to establish a secular national identity divorced from the centrality of the Church and its religious identity. In terms of the positionality of Armenia and Armenians within the Soviet sphere of influence, deemphasizing the religious aspect of Armenian identity was sought and rewarded.

Beyond the site itself, the position of the Opera House within the cityscape reflects the nexus between the state and the folk. There are three focal points within

Yerevan that lie roughly on a line down the middle of the city, or what would have been the middle of the city as laid out in the 1930s.. The Matenadaran (the manuscript museum) sits on one end of the line which is the repository for the collective memory and history of the community, housing Armenian manuscripts from both in and outside of the homeland. Like the Opera House, it becomes a centralized repository and its ability to draw in manuscripts from other spaces defined as "Armenia" is a way of authenticating this newly constructed capital of the homeland. However, in a sense, this site is static like the past it contains. It is a site for "revisiting" the past. The Matenadaran, an impressive structure and certainly a tourist attraction, does not allow for active

215 participation of its visitors in the way that the Opera House does. Moreover, to truly

appreciate the experience, knowledge of the Armenian language is beneficial.

At the opposite end of the line, Republic Square houses the majority of the

governmental buildings. Here, the people are "acted upon." The Square, itself, was

designed to house rallies and demonstrations. As a republic, the citizenry participates in

such assemblies but not with the oversight afforded by the Opera House. In fact, there

has been criticism that the government buildings are hard to enter and the layout has

actually hindered public access while giving the appearance of an open public space.

Perhaps this is why the Opera House and Theater Park have been more of a space for

public assembly than Republic Square.

Finally, in between these two spaces (government and past), sits the Opera House,

the repository for the artistic production (the heart and soul of a people) of the Armenian

transnation and folk. The overall city layout impresses on the denizens the centrality of

the arts within the community (the Opera house is centrally located) and by extension the

opera. The continued production of the arts by all members of the Armenian nation,

including those outside of the Republic can and are potentially performed within this

space. Much like Etzchmiatzen is a repository for the national and religious history of

the larger nation, the opera house acts as a secular space for cultural memories of the

larger nation. In fact, it seems likely that Etzchmiadzen was intentionally marginalized in terms of its position within the landscape of the new capital. It is close to Yerevan, but yet not within the center of the city.

In this way, the construction of the opera house serves the typical goals of such an edifice, to represent the nation to other international powers. On another level, as a

216 consciously designed site, it connects a new Soviet capital and Armenian homeland with

the deep past of the region, bypassing the need to connect it to its Christian history that is

intimately interwoven with the history of the state. And through the housing of these two

operas in the yearly repertoire, Anoush and Arshak II, it references the two previous

cultural centers of Constantinople and Tiflis, bringing the memories of a more complete

map into this impartial homeland. The Opera House and attendance of one of these two

operas becomes a tourist destination for the diasporan. Both operas are considered

classics and outside of state sponsorship, there are few opportunities to view a

professional production. Thus, the Opera House in Yerevan stages productions of

Anoush during the summer tourist season when ticket sales will be high. Diasporans

awareness of the operas and the potential to tell their friends about the experience fuels

their willingness to participate. Outside of Tsitsernakaberd, the Genocide memorial that

was constructed to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the genocide and as a means

of acknowledging the importance of the diaspora to the Soviet Republic of Armenia, the

Opera House is one of the few sites that brings the Diaspora into this homeland space.

Thus, in almost the reverse process of the Hijra narratives of the Circassian which

authenticate diasporic identities, the performances of these two operas within the

Republic (Soviet and now independent), the participation of the diaspora within this homeland spaces, authenticates it as "real" and meaningful if forever partial.

Yerevan and the Opera House and a performance of usually Anoush but perhaps

Arshak //become pilgrimage sites for the diasporan who does not have the familial connection to this space. The two cultural epicenters are represented by these two operas.

In this way, the Soviet operatic repertoire represents both previous cultural centers within

217 the one centralized location. Given the limited opportunities for the performance of opera outside of state-sponsor ship, an association with the opera house and these operas is strengthened. Few diasporas are wealthy enough to sponsor professional productions of the operas, and the talented needed to stage such productions is most often lacking.

The Soviets, by transforming the opera Arshak II into Armenian preserved the limited pool of talent upon which to draw to perform the opera. Thus, by building an opera house that would house and stage both locations, operas authenticate the opera house and

Yerevan as the cultural reservoir for the Armenian people in a way that is accessible for diasporic Armenians.

History of the composition and productions:

Going beyond their association with these territorial spaces and their significance as symbols for these cultural centers (Constantinople, Tiflis, and now Yerevan), the composition of Anoush and Arshak II and their themes can now be analyzed in order to prepare for an explication of their important, though limited, staging within diasporas.

The year 1868 marks the beginning of the strange and curious history of

Armenian operatic production. Tigran Chukhadjian, considered the father of Armenian opera, composed the opera Arshak II with an Italian libretto with an accompanying

Armenian translation, written by Tovmas Terzian, schooled in the Mekhitarist method of drama.6 The libretto focuses on the personal intrigue of the 4th Century king of Armenia,

Arshak II who married Olympia, the daughter of the emperor of Byzantium, in a form of

The Mekhitarists, a Catholic Armenian sect located in Venice, are credited with starting the Armenian dramatic movement in the 19th Century writing plays on biblical themes. One of their students was Terzian, according to Parlakian, Nishan. Contemporary Armenian American Drama An Anthology of Ancestral Voices. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, p 7. 218 political marriage and later took a second wife, Parandzem, the widow of Gnel, his nephew. Thus, the polygamous union of the Christian king of Armenia is ripe for operatic production.

Arshak II is also a controversial political figure who received a rather heavy- handed assessment under the famous Armenian historian Moses of Khoren or Khorenatsi in his History of Armenia. Not bound to contemporary historical methods, Khorenatsi's work has come under scrutiny, specifically his treatment of Arshak as a tyrant may reflect the political and religious leanings of Khorenatsi, a devout Christian. There have been recent reclamations7 of Arshak that emphasize the positive centralizing movements he made in order to solidify the nation against the dangers of assimilation into the Byzantine

Empire and the military fortitude he showed with his general Vasak Mamikonian against the onslaught of Persian advances under Shapur II. Arshak II, a tyrant or not, proves a perfect operatic character for this period in which tyrannical rulers were in vogue in the operas of Constantinople.9 Unable to conquer Arshak, militarily, Shapur II resorts to other means and physically captures and imprisons the ruler. After years in prison and knowing that Shapur has found his way into Armenia, Arshak II ends his life tragically through a suicide in prison, a perfect operatic ending that will be paralleled in the plot of

Anoush. It is important to illustrate that even though the protagonist of the opera may be flawed, the opera conforms to the idea of a nationalist opera.

7 Kevork Bardakjian has written an unpublished article on this topic of the reclamation of Arshak II taking into consideration the Christian leanings of Khorenatsi that may have influenced this centralizing historical figure that challenged the authority of the Church with his policies and shamed it with his persona behavior as a polygamist. 8 Mamikonian was skinned when he accompanied Arshak to the Persian leader's, Shapur, court. 9 Gerald Papazian contends that many of the operas produced in Constantinople at this time centered around a tyrant ruler and their intrigues. 219 Both national and folk operas demand the presence of a national consciousness and a growing sense of self-awareness. Hence, they begin to emerge with nationalist movements like those emerging within Armenian populations towards the middle and end of the 19th century10 The differences between the two forms of opera are at times conflated, but their writing and productions do serve different needs:

First we must address ourselves to those whose sense of national opera starts and

ends with rustic charades involving romance, high spirits, a dash of

folk wisdom, a quotation or two from the public domain, and a brigade

of peasants, preferably Slavic—something, no doubt, by Bedrisch

Smetana. But this is less national opera—which aims at a celebration

of cultural ambitions—than folk opera, which leans to a simpler celebration

of the cultural roots. National opera moves centrifugally, radiating outward

to a free field of operations, while folk opera moves centripetally, inward to

the core. Naturally the folk don't write operas themselves (nor do they get

too many as spectators), but their context informs folk opera, especially in

the use of vernacular devices and a tang of cultural—seldom individual—

destiny.11

External, centrifugal identity construction is present in a national opera. In Arshak II, the king is positioned against the external Persian force Shapur II who wants to subjugate, convert, and assimilate the Christian Armenians to Zoroastrianism. Arshak becomes a

10 Wagner in particular has established an embarrassing link between the underbelly of nationalism and his operas through anti-Semitism. Little work has been done with operas as embodying the national spirit of small nations, especially those dispossessed like the Armenians. 1' Mordden, Ethan. The Splendid Art of Opera A Concise History. New York: Methuen, 1980, p 167.

220 heroic figure who represents the Armenian identity in opposition to this external force and provides a lesson of tragic perseverance, much like the long historical legacy of the

Armenians. While the hero may be flawed (his polygamous union unseemly for a

Christian ruler but perfect for operatic intrigue), the operas opulence (at one point the queen, Olympia, is suspended in a cage over the stage as a form of imprisonment while a ballet is danced beneath her) foregrounds the heroic plight of the Armenian people as seen in the opening act set in Armavir Armenia in 365 with Arshak's armies returning victorious from battling the Persians. The first line of the opera is "Here come our valiant soldiers victorious" followed by the men singing:

Our shining swords, our shining swords dismay'd our foes,

Making them shudder in horror.

Heaven protect Arsace

Whene'er he fights for our nation and crown.

As always, yes, as always shall our enemies

For grace on their knees implore us.

Otherwise an awful slaughter

Awaits them should blood they prefer...

Should earth into stormy seas alter drowning them,

Saving them from our swords.

That would be a better fate,

12 Geral Papazian's translation from the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance homepage http://www.armeniandrama.org/show.php?p=papasian&w=Arshak&a=0 221 Thus devour'd by raging waves.

Yes, wild and raging waves.

Thus, the idea of a powerful and determined Armenia nation is present from the beginning of the opera, victorious and resolute.

As indicated above, the original version of Arshak //has never been staged in its entirety causing speculations. Gerald Papazian notes that productions in Armenian were forbidden during this period in Constantinople, leading to the libretto's composition in

Italian. However, the nationalistic themes of the opera which depict a successful

Armenian military and king subverting attempts at converting and subjugating the

Armenian nation would not have been appreciated in the political climate of the Ottoman

Empire of that period. Instead, it would be after the death of its composer, in 1945, under Soviet guidance that a complete reworking of the Arshak II would see the stage in the Opera House in Yerevan. Papazian reports on the changes that were made to the original version of the opera:

And this version.. .was totally different from Tchouhadjian's original. The plot

was changed, new characters were added. Musical sequences were changed, arias

were added. An entire full hour of music was appended to what Tchouhadjian

had written, and the character of Arshak was changed from that of a tyrant to a

kind of patriotic superhero. Perhaps the composer's original Arshak too closely

resembled Stalin...The 1945 version was definitely the Soviet style of the 1940's.

222 I could never understand why the changes they made were so extensive. I could

1 T have understood reorchestration, but they did much more. It is a mystery.

Alexander Shahverdian and Levon Khodja-Eynatian undertook the reworking of the original for the Soviet premier using a new libretto written by Armen Goulakian, this time in Armenian. Because the opera had not been produced in any capacity previous to the Soviet version, it became the version of Arshak II known to the Armenian community while the original version was easily "forgotten" by the larger Armenian collective.

There was no diasporic memory of Arshak II. It would not be until the 1980s that the original composition would find its way into the hands of Papazian and his colleague

Haig Avakian who began undoing what had been done in the Soviet version and restoring the original, but in Armenian, through the aid of the original translation.

We now turn our attention to the second national opera, Anoush and the history surrounding its production. Just as Arshak II draws from the Armenian literary tradition,

Tigranian' s Anoush is an adaptation of Hohvannes Toumanian's lyrical poem "Anoush," written in 1904. "Anoush" provides a succinct plot line (brother kills sister's love interest/his best friend over honor; sister goes mad and possibly commits suicide) enabling an operatic narrative while showcasing Armenian cultural traditions and customs. In such a way, it represents a folk opera as defined previously in the quote by

Mordeen.

The folk opera and its theme/s need to be centered on the cultural roots and cultural destiny of a people. The characters and actions of Anoush are contained completely within the Armenian community. The lack of foreign/odar characters focuses

13 http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Arshak_II_Opera

223 attention on internal issues of Armenian identity, collectivity issues, instead of externalizing the Armenian identity. There are no external characters for Armenians to construct external identity markers; all are Armenian. Moreover, the opera Anoush is also focused on a single village forming an even stronger association with the collective

"We". Thus, all the cultural roots and traditions present in the opera serve to question internal identity and serve to construct and solidify the collective "We". This singular, constructed community maintains a presence on the stage throughout most productions.

There are numerous scenes involving the entire cast. When solos are performed there is still a presence of the village/collective in the background. The community is omni­ presence in a constant celebration of the community in "homeland".

Both the poem and the opera Anoush conform to the same basic plot previously mentioned. The opera is set during the Ascension festival. Anoush is in love with her brother's (Mossy) best friend Saro. Reminiscent of the Greek chorus, the poem and opera open with the collective voice of women who know the fate of the lovers. Anoush begins by defying the social order/collective will of the community by succumbing to her desires to meet with Saro away from the eye of her mother. The two lovers meet and profess their love for one another. The opera demonstrates the social tension of collective will and individual desires through the three vocal performances of Saro,

Anoush, and her mother verbally sparing with one another on stage. The mother represents the social mores of the society and the desire to control (her daughter).

Anoush returns home and the scene ends.

Mossy and Saro attend the village Ascension Day festivities. As part of the festival, the maidens of the village draw lots to predict their destinies. Anoush's fate is

224 revealed. Her lover will be killed "from a bullet piercing his heart" according to

Papazian's rendering into English. Anoush has been aware of her bad fortune since her childhood when she was cursed by a dervish because of her mother's denial of payment.

With little connection to the previous section, the story turns to a wedding celebration after the rite of marriage has been performed. Saro and Mossy are encouraged to engage in traditional wrestling by the villagers. They finally acquiesce and during the match, Saro seeing Anoush, cannot control his passion and pins Mossy.

Unable to resolve the situation, Saro runs away. Returning a few months later, Anoush seeks resolution with her family. Saro, accompanying her to the village, is discovered by

Mossy who shots and kills him. Anoush, overcome with grief goes insane.

The lack of externalization and the centripetal movement of the opera allows for an episodic and synchronic structure. Each performance of the opera Anoush is like a snapshot, a singular interpretation of the text. The director of the opera is able to fill it with the relevant cultural meanings for the contemporary period/community. These performances may then be "piled up" and enter the community dialogue about the specific interpretations and their meanings for the community and its identity.

Although miscalculations are obviously possible, the range of visual

realizations for any given opera is virtually unlimited. In part this is

because music in opera is accorded primacy; the relation of subordination

creates breadth and tolerance for visual realization (which includes

productions that tinker with time, since the main mark of temporal change

225 is the look of the mis-en-scene.

Folk operas act like a palimpsest (much in the way that we have seen previously) where one episode/performance/community can be laid upon another. In a performance of

Anoush, the audience is overlaid with the interpretation of a "past" or transcendent depiction of the Armenian transnation. The audience witnesses a part of itself, of its collective identity, on stage. As such, the temporal and spatial mis-en-scene must be flexible. Additionally, the characters need to lack specificity for ease of identification.

Anoush, typically interpreted as being set in the 19th Century during the time of

Toumanian's writing of the original poem, defies temporal specification. The only temporal marking is the use of a rifle in the slaying of Saro. Otherwise, the opera Anoush could be set anytime after the conversion to Christianity. Spatially, while connections to

Lori are made through the identity of the poet, there is no staging or wording that would necessitate the placement within this particular region. The mis-en-scene is open to interpretation and is the site of contextualizing the opera for the contemporary community and for the audience of reception. While the story of an opera may be

"tinkered with" the emptiness of the stage direction of folk operas (and performances in general) allows space for the community to be displayed in hybrid ways as well, incorporating the particular identities of a diaspora, of a host community that is also being sponsored, etc. For example, the inclusion of different ways of interpreting the festivals is a possibility. This is where the community, in audience, can also witness itself on stage. A conscientious director allows the audience to celebrate itself through

Kramer, Lawrence. Opera and Modern Culture: Wagner and Strauss. University of California Press, Berkley and Los Angeles, 2004, p 168-169.

226 direct observation of self-depiction. Performances have always been given to this kind of hybridization of the subject.

Anoush's transcendental qualities are made possible in its lack of specification of time and space. Its setting is in the past, though scholars place it in the 19th century because of the date of Toumanian's writing of the original poem. For the contemporary audience member watching a production, it is "our past" broadly writ. It is in a mythic place, not a city, not a familiar location, but yet a part of our space, our territory with which we may all identify because of the cultural elements (mountains, valleys, the papakh16, etc.) Instead, as a folk opera, Anoush is a collection or assemblages of folk traditions and cultural reference points. The plot is simplistic enough that these cultural markers are easily inserted and developed by the director/priesthood without disruption of the narrative sequence. For example, the use of traditional costuming which transcends time, that are seen in performances of culture generally, taken out of context, allows Armenians to associate and affiliate with these characters. These elements removed from specific time and space allow for transcendence in Anoush that is lacking in an opera like Arshak II with is specific location in an historic moment.

In the folk opera, characters are not heroic as in the national opera. Anoush does not present a heroic figure to represent the nation. Bear in mind," [F]olk operas tend to

I recently attended an Indonesian shadow puppet performance of Sinta Ablaze in which one of the characters was given to speeches about war that were deliberated rendered into the style and phrasing of President George W. Bush. The performance was at the University of Michigan, and the director, knowing that the majority of his audience would be sympathetic to a liberal position, interpreted the speech of this character to allow the audience to identify with this "foreign" story. Additionally, the musicians, at one point of victory in the performance incorporated the University of Michigan fight song "Hail to the Victors" to draw the audience into the narrative. Finally, one of the random puppets used in a sea battle was SpongeBob Square Pants. 16 Traditional woolen cap that Armenians wore to protect themselves from the elements. It is seen in Circassian tribes as well and appears to be a shared form of material cultural throughout the Caucasus region. 227 pull back when confronted by individuals; this genre prefers the continuity of anonymous regionals, and where there are individuals, leaders emerge and continuity is broken, anonymity shaken. Folk opera prefers types, or even the petit bourgeois of soap-opera

17 pseudo-tragedy (real tragedy, implying the existence of heroes, is unsuitable). Anoush, as a character, is tragic. She dies, her love is star-crossed, and her society rejects her.

One would be hard pressed to call her a hero, though certainly we could see Anoush as a character in a modern day soap-opera. Nor can either of the male leads be cast in a heroic mode. Instead, all three characters are easily read as "trapped" or constrained by their culture. Bardakjian emphasizes the entrapment of the characters and antiquated customs of the period:

Surprisingly, some have construed the poem (and a number of other works

dealing with similar themes) as nostalgic elegy for yesteryear. If there is

any nostalgia here on the part of T'umanean, it is for noble love and the moral

purity that characterized the peasantry. In all other respects, it is a total

negation of outdated and disastrous notions of honor and tradition. In Anus, as

in other works revolving around similar subjects, T'umanean's characters are

entrapped by convention; they have no life of their own beyond the long-standing

code of behavior, and are thus victims of ineluctable fate. Any act of defiance

entails a deadly or tragic punishment.18

Tigranian's opera raises these social issues within the context of a folk opera, an appropriate genre to paradoxically celebrate the community while questioning the social structures upon which it is built. The "closed" nature of folk opera with its lack of 17 Mordden, Ethan. The Splendid Art of Opera A Concise History. New York: Methuen, 1980,p 174. 18 Bardakjian, Kevork. A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920: with An introductory history. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2000, p 181. 228 externalization and centrifugal movement allows for the community to take the text and performances and enter into a collective dialogue about the issues. Indeed, Tigranian's

opera opens up discussions particular to the Armenian community but within context of

the greater themes of 19th century opera: "The themes of nineteenth century opera reflect

in dramatic form the great social and political debate of the period. What are the limits of

freedom? What is the relationship between freedom and responsibility? What is the

association between the conditionalities of life and the reality of human volition?"19 For

the Armenians, the issues of collective will (responsibility) versus individual desires

(freedom) come to the fore. Toumanian, through the settings of the weddings and the

Ascension Day festivals, will establish a collective Armenian identity (even though

stratified). Through the deployment of rather flat, stock characters in this social structure,

he will open up a space for dialogue about individual freedom within the context of

Armenian identity.

Within the opera Anoush, the audience encounters three central characters.

Anoush is aware of her fate. Mossy "chooses" to act within the traditions of the

community and finds a means to unleash his anger and regain his pride. Saro does not

conform to the rules of the society, does not sublimate his will to that of the group. His desires distract him from the goals of the group which, here, as will be illustrated is group glorification/egalitarianism over the individual.

The wedding ceremony is meant to be a liminal ritual as constructed in the opera.

The wedding scene has the villager elder state:

19 Zelechow, B. (1993) 'The Opera: The Meeting of Popular and Elite Culture in the Nineteenth Century', History of European Ideas 16(1-3): 261-266 .

229 In our village the elders, children, shepherds,

Farmers, blushing maidens, bridegroom and bride

Here before us, rich man, poor man—all are equal.

During the wedding ceremony, this equality may be the ideal, but it is challenged through the role of the character Ohan, who is one of the village poor. He is allowed to critique the village hierarchy as well as the silencing of the church through the following lines:

Ohan, the pauper asked to "make them laugh" is allowed to address the priest:

Must I? All right, I will give in.

Let's hope our priest I'll not offend.

The priest, while present is silenced through the opera. He, like the Church facade in the background are nothing more than elements in the mis-en-scene that situate and contextualize the drama but do not take an active role in shaping the characters' actions or lives.

Ohan then emphasizes the lack of equality in the village outside of these celebrations, referring to the village elder who is the host:

He keeps us all within his control

Because he has a lot of gold.

If you decline to pay your debt,

What follows next you won't forget.

The villager elder does not challenge this, but the opera has directly addressed the inequality of the village and has attempted to celebrate the community as an undifferentiated group sharing in communitas through the wedding.

20 All citations of Anoush come from Gerald Papazian's English version: Tigranyan, Armen, and Hovhannes TOumanyan. Anoush An Opera. Detroit: Produced for the Michigan Opera Theatre by Wayne State University Press, 1981.

230 Thus, through the wedding Tigranian establishes a couple of points. First, the village ideally is a collective though each individual has an ascribed status that demands that s/he fulfill certain roles and obligations. This call for an egalitarian structure precedes the wrestling match. If the wedding is a celebration of the continuity of the community and emphasizes a liminal state where communitas may be achieved among all members of the society, even to the point of silencing the Church official through the stories of a pauper Ohan, then two men in a wrestling match should also be able to emerge as equals, maintaining a liminal state within the village. To preserve the solidarity of the collective and its anonymity instead of particularity, the "hot- headedness" of Saro and Anoush is condemned while that of Mossy is sanctioned. When one allows passions to overwhelm him and forgets his brother and his community in the process, he is subjected to the will of the community to preserve itself and collective identity.

Through this ritual analysis, the need for a "draw" is acceptable and necessary, to preserve the appearance of an equalitarian society. But Saro's libidinal desires get the best of him. He differentiates himself from his friend and thus village.

As we have seen previously, the autophagious self-policing dictated within these diasporas upon other community members is a constant. The needs of the many have outweighed those of the individual. Sacrifices must be made to preserve the larger community. These themes are expected post-Genocide in texts located in the new diaspora settings. Yet, here within the homeland and the safety and sanctity of the village, the same authophagy is present, demanding the excision of particular identities that are subverting the collective. "Anoush/sweetness" is present but for a moment as

231 expressed in individual desire and will. The outcome of the collective identity is that

"Anoush" must be forced out of the community and can only be experienced or sustained through the magical or otherworldly realms.

The wedding ceremony celebrates the common people, the folk, in a collective

spectacle that blends the religious with the secular. The wedding rites take place within a

Church/religious structure. The reception of the couple is an incorporation into the adult

body of the community and is a celebration of the continuation of the secular community.

Thus, the couple as a symbol of the community, the continuation of that community, is

honored.

Saro and Anoush's union (sometimes seen as a wedding or elopement) is not

sanctioned21 and defies the anonymity which the folk demand. Therefore, the resolution,

for the community is for them to be removed from society, to reassert the collective

identity. Within the physical territory of the homeland, this removal of the

individuals/individual will is necessary. But Toumanian's poem provides for a union of

the couple/community outside of this physical space through the supernatural elements of

the festival of Ascension Day (Hambardzum).

The Armenian celebration of Ascension Day festivals incorporates the pagan tradition of maidens drawing lots to find out whom they will marry with the ascension of

Jesus into the heavens. The following extracts from the poem illustrate the Ascension theme:

Ascension Day is here, the multi-coloured flowers

21 Kidnapping a maiden and elopement were common in the Caucasus. These "marriages" were seen as heroic and noble and an act of true romantic love. Social constraints have made it impossible for Anoush to defy the will of her brother, Mossy and her only option is an elopement, falling outside the sanction of the family, Church, and community. In the poem, when she returns home, she is rejected by her father. 232 Have adorned the pastures with beautiful rugs;

In clusters have the maidens gone to the mountains

With joyous songs for the drawing of lots.

Ascension Day is here

Decorated with flowers,

Let us know our luck:

"Now, who is whose fate?"

"Oh tell me, dear shepherd boy, whose are you?"

"God above and the world know, you are mine!"

Both the poem and the opera embrace this syncretism without flinching. They are celebrated within the same scene. The drawing of lots is central to the opera and its outcome, the idea of the Ascension does not serve the function of the Opera other than to allow for different interpretations of the celebration and allows for the audience to be contemporary with this setting, connecting the past and present. The contemporary society can see itself in these spaces for interpretation. This day also is "magical" in that:

One of the most important moments of this holiday is the night from Wednesday

to Thursday. In people's imagination this is the night of miracles. At midnight

exactly nature finds the gift of speech, the water is still for a second; the sky and

the earth embrace; the stars kiss one another. Space stops its wheel and the one

who witnesses these magic moments will have his or her dreams fulfilled.22

22http://www.republicofarmenia.com/culture/index.php?cnt=7&PHPSESSID=bed55f864cd05fea7166ee38 632aa738 233 The focus is on nature and not on Christian spirituality or identity. Instead the natural elements (could be read as the homeland as well) there is a unity of territory here, between the heaven and the earth. The limitations which are imposed on us spatially and temporally are overcome by the natural world and connect us through our network of relationships.

Both of the elements are present in the identity of the community, the Christian and the natural spirituality of the territory. This is a form of syncretism. But we must also look at the performance of these elements. It is only these pre-Christian traditions which are being performed, the Ascension is alluded to but there is no official representation of these rites within the Church. Moreover, the wedding which is also a

Christian rite as presented in the opera is not given a voice, but the priest is present and silent. Similarly, the Church is present, mis-en-scene, but is a facade and literally becomes more a part of the landscape than a site of action or performance of identity. It becomes like the mountains, part of the landscape and history, a symbol connected, perhaps to a different episode/s in the history of Armenians.

While the Ascension day festival is supposed to be the reason for the festival, the events that would be associated with the Church are not what is being highlighted but instead the pre-Christian traditions of the drawing of lots which is connected to the community instead of the worshipping of God. Again, it is the folk tradition and the folk themselves that is being celebrated in the folk opera instead of the iconic figure of Jesus.

This second religious theme in the Armenian celebration of the holiday allows

Toumanian to bring the hapless lovers together in death:

234 It is Ascension night, that enchanting night,

When at a happy, wondrous moment,

The golden gates of Heaven are opened:

Down below all grows speechless and silent,

And with divine, inscrutable conception

It is filled with God's holy compassion.

At that sublime moment of the beauteous night,

Out of the distant depths of the infinite heaven

There fly out and come together the two stars

Of the dead lovers, their desires unfulfilled,

And, with yearning, tenderly they kiss each other,

In the azure vault, far away from this earth.

The same idea of nature and the supernatural realms being a space for the union of the couple is present in the opera, as well. The final scene has the collective voice of the cast sing:

Ah, the river gushing, voush, voush,

Currents rushing, dashing forth.

It is calling voush, voush, voush

Come, sweet Anoush, let us take you to your love.

Come, sweet Anoush, let us take you to your love.

235 Using the lines of the poem to inform the reading of the opera, the "us" is read as nature and the supernatural magic made possible through Ascension Day.

Previous to this scene, Anoush describes a vision of a wedding with no bride nor bridegroom. It is her wedding:

Girls, oh girls! Oh, come,

And to you my strange vision I will confide.

Who has ever seen a wedding

With no bridegroom and no bride?

Who has ever seen a wedding

With no bridegroom and no bride?

They carry my love and bring him to me.

Let them put him down and leave him to me.

Don't take him away. Let me come with you.

Bury me alive with him in his grave.

The lovers (Anoush and Saro), childless like Jesus, replace Jesus in their ascension. The focus shifts from the centrality of God in the Christian context to the other half of this syncretism, the pagan idea of the magical realm. Moreover, the reader/audience can read/hear these lines as the bringing together of the past and present Armenians as well.

Those ancestors who are no longer present, on this night, can be brought together with us, indeed, the opera brings us together in a celebration of the past and present communities in a celebration of the greater transnation.

Diasporic Deployments:

236 The need to place these operas from the two epicenters of Armenian cultural production within the partially realized homeland of Soviet Armenia as a means of authenticating it as a realization of a whole Armenian nation, has been already been discussed. Indeed, the histories surrounding the operas note that both Anoush and Arshak II underwent revisions within the Opera House in Yerevan. While Arshak II became almost unrecognizable from its original, Anoush is said to have become more polished and refined.

Now we shift to an analysis of the deployment of operas within the specific diasporas in respect to the positionality projected by the social milieu. First, in keeping with the larger project of analyzing the positionality of the Armenian community within the region of Greater Syria, there is a need to address the history of operatic performance

in general within the region. There are few secondary sources on opera within the

Middle East, let alone that of Greater Syria. Operas in all social contexts are financial drains and not generators. Such opulent spectacles require considerable funding to be

staged, even with the most basic of staging demands. The sheer number of people

(actors, musicians, dancers, crew, etc.) involved and their required salaries makes the cost prohibitive. For this reason, staging of even minor operas and operettas for diasporas are a huge undertaking that require considerable fundraising efforts by the community. The motivation behind the staging is the level of positive publicity they produce and the networking potential within the upper echelons of society who typically attend such magnificent premiers.

Thus we have been able to see how the two different operatic genres of folk and national operas have functioned in diaspora. Diasporic politics are about presence and

237 recognition. The performance of any ethnic opera will serve those goals. The spectacular nature of the opera draws attention from the desirable host communities of the society. It embeds the community within these circles and makes them fully functioning members of the cultural/arts scene. This presence can then be parlayed into media explanations of the community and its history. These pieces are easily directed by members of the community for their own agendas. Given that most of the media sources will know little about communal issues, they take their cues from the point person for media outreach. For example the following press release highlights the community and

its presence in San Francisco:

Sharing her impressions of the evening, Arshak II Opera Committee Co-Chair Dr.

Julie Kulhanjian Strauch stated, "This evening was a success for many important

reasons. First and foremost, the Arshak II production showcased several talented

Armenian artists and afforded gifted and beautiful singers like Hasmik Papian an

opportunity to shine on an American stage. This has been an extraordinary

opportunity to expose San Francisco opera audiences to the Armenian people, our

Christian heritage, rich and ancient history, and Armenian language." Arshak II

reigns supreme.23

Involvement in opera is serious artistic production. The history of opera is associated with national identity and consciousness. Operas as a genre have been rootless in their appreciation. Thus, the staging of the special case of the ethnic folk or national opera, out of context, when possible, highlights at one and the same time, the unique and

23http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Arshak_II_Opera

238 separate identity of the community as well as the willingness of the community to engage

in the larger social context.24 Watching Anoush in diaspora connects the host community

to this diaspora in their mist in an innocuous way.

It should be no surprise that the more widely performed Armenian opera in

diaspora is Anoush and not Arshak II. In terms of logistics, Anoush's staging is minimal

while Arshak II's is a massive undertaking. Since Anoush was performed in

Alexandropol it has continued to circulate alongside the Toumanian's poem. It has

remained in the collective consciousness of the Armenian community. Meanwhile,

Arshak II has, also retained within the collective memory in terms of its historical figure,

Arshak. The opera, not being performed until 1945 and becoming associated with Soviet

Armenia makes it less likely of a choice than Anoush which has remained rootless and

folk since its first performance. But more central to the themes of the operas, the overt

military and nationalist themes in Arshak II when opened up to a larger diasporic

audience, for we must think about the way that opera houses functions, can generate the

wrong kind of publicity for the Armenian communities.

Again, Anoush is innocuous. If anything, it is perplexing and quaint. Its staging

in terms of construction is fairly simplistic and uninvolved, unlike its counterpart of

Arshak II. Therefore there have been a host of performances in diaspora both

professional and non-professional. Not surprisingly the performances are centered in

locations of affluent Armenian communities: Aleppo, Beirut, Istanbul, Los Angeles, and

Detroit. There have been other performances in such locations as Marseilles, and Baku.25

24 This reflects the same type of goals that the Circassians have in affiliating with the ummah (for Armenians it is the host community) while still differentiating themselves from it. 25 The following is a list of performances generated from a listserve by Ara Sanjian : 1930's Beirut conducted by Hampartsoom Berberian reported by Vatche Ghazarian 239 As mentioned earlier, operatic audiences do accept foreignness including the

language of performance. Therefore, Anoush, in theory, should be performed in

Armenian no matter the location. This has been the case in most venues. However, there

are some notable exceptions. Considering the goals of the folk opera genre of celebrating

the community, if the diasporic community, itself, has been linguistically assimilated to

the host community, the need for translation could be heightened. There are reports of

performances in Istanbul being staged in Turkish translations as well as the performance

in Baku.26

Now we look specifically at the role that the social context of the Arabic-speaking

Middle East plays in the potential staging of Armenian operas. Are operatic spectacular

embeddings possible or desirable? Opera is not a genre that has been readily embraced by the Arab/Muslim world. State sponsorship of the arts has been problematized because

of the place of the arts within Islam. The place of the arts and their housing in

institutions is not a priority in many of the Arab states. When we think about the

landscapes of the Middle East, images of theaters, fine arts museums, or opera houses do

not come to mind. Notable exceptions are the Cairene Opera House27 which was closed

for seventeen years after a fire destroyed it and was not rebuilt until financial backing

was given by the Japanese and the Beirut Opera House in Martyrs Square which has been

Istanbul 1914- Uskudar Girls College (Ashod Madatyants) 1919- Theater Oriental (Ashod Madatyants) 1952HrantPapazyan 1955 Hrant Papazyan 1955- "Anoush-Glykeria" in Greek a translation of Papazyan's reworking (182 line libretto) of the original (854 libretto) by Savas Bezicioglu 1988 as a dance performance (pemabar) by Arto Berberyan "Anush-ig" There is evidence that a Turkish version was prepared in the 1980s but was not performed

26 Personal communications with various community members 27 The majority of performances are foreign and not by Egyptian artists. 240 converted into a Virgin Megastore. If opera houses exist, they are rarely central features of the cityscape.

Thus, the role of embedding within the community by performing an opera is not as dynamic a display of the community's ability as it is in host communities with a tradition of operatic performances. Instead, interest in the opera and asserting a presence in the opera house is seen as more of an affiliation with Western traditions and a further example of Otherness from the Muslim/Arab community. As already mentioned, one of the reasons for such an ostentatious display of community is for the networking opportunities it affords. The Armenian presence within the arts in the Arab world is already established.28 The need to carve out a niche within an established system is not as great in the Arab/Muslim venues where minorities have maintained a presence.

However, as Armenian operatic performances are still a celebration of the community, they have occurred in the Middle East. Many are of the non-professional variety and in smaller venues, sometimes owned by the community such as a school and almost always stagings of Anoush. The importance these performances hold for the community should not be underestimated. In the personal correspondence I had with

Armenians from Lebanon and Syria, their pride in the productions that had been undertaken was overwhelming. The personal/communal meaning tied to the opera

Anoush and their personal involvement in it was communicated numerous times.

Memorabilia from the performances such as the playbill, posters, and flyers were kept and preserved to validate the family's involvement. In some ways, the deployment of

28 Armenians have had an active presence in the employment of the Opera House in Cairo and were teachers ofWestern musical styles. "The teaching of Western classical music was mainly offered by Italian, Armenian, and Jewish musicians, who founded a few private conservatories attended by pupils from the foreign communities and the Egyptian upper class (Sednaoui, 125)." 241 these operas within Greater Syria is like a centripetal microcosm of their performance in

Europe or the United States. Much like the family receives authentication as members of

the Armenian community by taking part in a performance, even just as an audience

member but especially as a part of the production, so too does the Armenian community

at large in Europe or the United States gain recognition and validation through the

professional staged performance of the opera in this centrifugal movement.

Greater Syrian diasporic operatic performances still establish an audience though

mainly of Armenians. These audiences simultaneously celebrate their own local

communities and their talent while connecting to the larger transnational publics that

share in the experience of the opera Anoush. The productions are for internal

consumption; and therefore, do not require translation into Arabic as the audience is

familiar with or, at least, appreciates hearing the Armenian language.

If professional productions of Anoush are rare in the Greater Syrian diaspora, the

potential for the staging of a production of Arshak II cannot be possible. The funding necessary coupled with the overt nationalistic themes explains why there has not been a complete production publicized within any of the states of Greater Syria. When its production in the San Francisco (discussed below) becomes problematic, how much greater would be the difficulties in a state like Syria?

But what does this say about the positionality of the Armenians within Greater

Syria? Some of the more successful Armenian diasporas are located within the region:

Beirut and Aleppo for example. The potential for bringing a professional production is within the realm of possibilities. A comparison of the diasporic productions within North

242 American can shed light on the positionality of the diasporas and the potential pay off for the deployment.

There have been three significant productions of Armenian opera within the

United States: the 1981 production of Anoush at the Michigan Opera Theater in Detroit, the 2001 production of Arshak II at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco,

and the 2001 production of Anoush, again at the Michigan Opera Theater. All three

events mark firsts in the history of Armenian operas. The 1981 production of Anoush

marked the first time that it had been staged in English by a non-Armenian company.

Its subsequent staging in 2001 in the same location was done in Armenian and was the

first time that it had been performed in a professional venue in the United States in

Armenian. Finally, Arshak IPs San Francisco production was the first appearance of the

original score on the stage in its entirety, but in the Armenian and not in the intended

Italian.

These three rather elaborate productions in major opera houses in the United

States, including actual staging of the overtly nationalistic Arshak II illustrate a superior

positionality of the Armenian diasporas in comparison to their counterparts within

Greater Syria. While not necessarily financially more successful, for there are wealthy

Armenians throughout the Middle East, living within a Judeo-Christian milieu that does not look at religious identity as the major indicator of identity, affords the Armenians with a greater space within which to embed their diasporic communities and new and different ways of representing themselves. Because operatic performance is more developed in the United States than within the Muslim world, it holds a greater potential

29 Papazian reports that even Russian companies have not performed Anoush in Moscow; it has always been performed by a traveling Armenian company. Thus, the initial performance in Detroit was a first in two ways: the first English performance and the first performance by a non-Armenian company. 243 for affiliating with the elite levels of the host community. Opera in the United States implies a level of sophistication. Therefore, a minority/diaspora with its own operatic tradition has the potential to impress those dignitaries of the local community with their own history of "high culture." The greater presence of the opera within the culture, even though it remains an elitist event, still permeates to all levels of social class.

The accomplishment of bringing a production of a "national opera" to a place outside of the territory embeds that Armenian diaspora in the new territory in a monumental sense. The fundraising effort for the performance only is a testament to the fulsomeness of the community, its financial position as well as cultural and artistic sensibilities. For example, Michael Margolin reported in Opera Magazine that the 2001 performance of Anoush required the community to raise $400,000 over two years. The spectacle, the production, the dissemination of the information, the publicity which surrounds the event, the explanation of the Opera, its history intimately attached to the history of the people, the inability to translate the cultural themes of an opera like Anoush to an outside audience, the ability to "take over" a theater of the host country for the performance all give the community weight, importance, and opportunity to explain itself to a class of people who "enjoy being educated" about this Other within.

Armenian community backing through fundraising and publicity brought to fruition these three productions of Armenian operas. Through the use of "firsts" listed above the Armenian increased both interest and publicity of the opera by the outside, host

30 Operatic audience prepare themselves for the event by reading background information about the opera, previous performances, and the current company. When viewing a folk opera, these spectators will potentially avail themselves of information on the ethnic community, its history and culture, and its presence within their community. In a grand production such as Arshak II in San Francisco, the community will provide extra activities to give additional information about both the opera and the community past and present. See the entry on Arshak II on Armeniapedia for a collection of newspaper articles on the activities surrounding the run of the production. 244 community, while at the same time sparking more enthusiasm from the Armenian community eager to experience something unique even within its own traditions. In such a manner, the performance of Arshak II in San Francisco drew attendance from dignitaries both within and outside of the Armenian community:

In attendance were a host of national and international dignitaries as well as local

and state officials. The dinner's masters of ceremonies, Dr. Arman Bernardi and

Dr. John Poochigian, introduced the gala's distinguished speakers: His Excellency

Arman Kirakossian, Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to the U.S.; The

Honorable Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Congresswoman; The Honorable Philip Angelides,

California State Treasurer; The Honorable Willie B. Brown, Jr., San Francisco

Mayor; Ms. Pamela Rosenberg, San Francisco Opera General Director; and Dr.

Clifford Cranna, San Francisco Opera Musical Administrator. Other guests

included Armenian Consul General Valery Mkrtoumian; State Senators Don

Perata, Charles Poochigian, and Jackie Speier; and State Assemblyman Joseph

Simitian.

With the debut of professional Armenia opera within the United States, the Michigan

Opera Theater director wanted to insure a profit from the performance and insisted to draw a diverse crowd that included non-Armenians, the need for an English translation of the opera would be necessary. Strange in a genre that has always embraced the foreignness of language as an element of the awe of the genre, that Armenian would be considered too off-putting for a serious audience, but this was prior to the use of surtitles which became common after 1983 in opera houses throughout North America: This is

245 what happened in the English production of Anoush in Detroit in 1981 prior to the invention of surtitles31 in 1983:

At the time the MOT (or the Music Hall where it was performed) was not

equipped with a system of surtitles. The MOT had the principle of performing

all operas in English (also in the original if they were Italian French

or German). So the English singing version I was asked to provide,

was really just for this one occasion. That was the prerequisite to produce

the opera, (personal communication with Papazian)

Once the use of surtitles was available in the Detroit venue, the opera was again staged in

2001 and in the original Armenian. The translation into English, while mandatory, also gave the community latitude as described in the following from the booklet that accompanied the production:

In preparing our English-language Anoush, I have made some large-scale

changes in the original with the intention of making it more readily

understandable to modern American audiences. The central dramatic situation—

the story of lovers who are trapped and destroyed by the conflicting demands

of rigid social codes and their own passion—is immediately affecting to any

group. On the other hand, it must seem somewhat strange to a contemporary

American audience that the lovers must die because a young man forgot the

31 Surtitles are like subtitles for movies, projected on screens or in the chairs in front of the audience members. 246 rules of a wrestling match. Furthermore, while Tigranian could assume that

his audience knew and sympathized with the extreme importance of family

and community approval of an individual's behavior, we might find it hard to

understand why Anoush and Saro cannot go away and live together happily

ever after. However, Mossy's desire for vengeance must be linked to his

concern for his sister's honor as well as to his own humiliation and outraged

traditionalism. In other words, the broad outlines of family honor, community

codes, and a strongly patriarchal system are present in both the Armenian and

the English librettos, but one might put it that the original version deals with

these concepts in a subtler and less explicit way. We must be able to look

beyond the actual incidents and contemplate their reflection of deeply felt

Armenian folk morality and pride.32

And this is how it should be. Operas, ethnic or not, are performances and should take in to consideration the tastes and mores of their audiences. Armenian operas deployed in diaspora have the potential to educate their external audiences while displaying the Armenian community in a very public way. For Armenian communities,

Armenian folk operas like Anoush should reflect the particular audience/community at that point in time, on stage. In other words, the Armenian audience should feel itself on stage. Slight reworkings of the original (not the whole scale retooling seen by the Soviets of Arshak II) are healthy and necessary and not permanent.

TigranyanT, Armen, and Hovhannes T'umanyan. Anoush An Opera. Detroit: Produced for the Michigan Opera Theatre by Wayne State University Press, 1981, p 9.

247 Thus we have been able to see how the two different Armenian operatic genres of folk and national operas have functioned in diaspora. For the social contexts like Greater

Syria that do not share the same tradition or reverence for operatic performances, non­ professional productions are centripetal movements that celebrate the traditional

Armenian community and connects the Armenian transnations, past and present.

Diasporic politics are about presence and recognition. The professional performance of any ethnic opera will serve those goals in their centrifugal movements. The spectacular nature of the opera draws attention from the desirable host communities of the society. It embeds the community within these circles and makes them fully functioning members of the cultural/arts scene. This presence can then be parlayed into media explanations of the community and its history. These pieces are easily directed by members of the community for their own agendas. Given that most of the media sources will know little about communal issues, they take their cues from the point person for media outreach.

Thus the potential is great for the community to represent itself in the ways it sees fit to the broader host community. In both professional and non-professional productions as long as the contemporary Armenian community sees itself on the stage, the opera is a success.

248 Chapter 6

Repatriation: The Dream Frustrated

After decades of longing, both Armenians and Circassians repatriated to reconfigurations of their lost homelands.1 While few of the repatriates established a permanent residence, the impact of these acts of emigration was large enough to warrant a small body of writing on the subject both within scholarly circles and among authors. When the opportunity for repatriation under the Soviets/Russians arose, both groups were presented with a return to a place composed of different lands and peoples from their memories of home. The collapse of empires, border disputes, and the rise of nation states have rendered "homelands" different from the territories that the emigrants left.

Both groups share repatriation experiences to Soviet/Russian controlled regions that do not come close to approximating the lived-realities of the homelands. However, the similarities end there. For the Armenians of diaspora, Soviet Armenia did not contain the lands that had been taken from them. Eastern Anatolia remained under Ottoman and then Turkish control. Soviet Armenia had never been their home so repatriation was not a return. Yet, repatriation did and does mean living in a nation composed almost solely

1 The principle repatriations have taken place at different times. For Armenians, the largest wave of repatriation occurred in the late 1940s under Stalin's regime. There was another wave of repatriation after the formation of the Republic in the beginning of the 90s. Circassians had to wait longer. It was not until the 1990s that institutionally supported repatriation was a possibility. 249 of Armenians. For the Circassians, this was and is a real repatriation to the territory they

were forced to abandon. However, the three republics of Adyghea, Kabardino-Balkaria

and Karachay-Cherkessia that comprise the Circassian region, have undergone extreme

changes in their ethnic compositions as the areas were repopulated after the deportations;

now none of the three republics has a majority of Adigha people. Each state has at least

two official languages with many more spoken reflecting the pluralistic nature of the

states.

In such a way, these two examples of diasporas challenge the terms center and periphery as commonly employed by theories of diaspora. Can we truly say that there

are centers2 for the Circassians and the Armenians that are contained within these

boundaries of the reconfigured homelands? Does the Republic of Armenia contain

critical centers of cultural production for all of the Armenian peoples? With more

Circassians living in Turkey, should the center not be located among a concentration of

people irrespective of the land upon which they reside? Have the Circassian populations

maintained the traditions and customs of the Adigha people better than their diasporan

brothers under Soviet and now Russian programs of Russification? While these

questions cannot be definitively answered, the fact that they are discussed within the

communities illustrates that there are doubts about the superiority and aumenticity of the

so-called centers.

21 am challenging the idea of cultural centers. Today, there is little dispute that Armenia represents the political center for the collective. But the history of Armenia illustrates that there have been shifts in the centers of Armenianness throughout the decades and centuries. 250 Moreover, Armenians have maintained dispersed centers prior to the Genocide and thus have always had a diaspora, just not one that was forced into dispersion as today. Susan Pattie describes some of the shifting epicenters of Armenian culture outside of the territory of the Republic:

In the Caucasus, Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, had a larger and more vibrant

community of Armenians than [111] Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Elsewhere,

Constantinople (later Istanbul) was a center of intellectual activity. Armenians

identified strongly with their local towns and villages, while maintaining

connections and networks with Armenians elsewhere.

Pattie further explains that during the Soviet period, the relationship of the diaspora to the homeland is a complex one. Many in the diaspora wanted to support and foster the growing cultural scene that was Soviet Armenia. The Soviets wanted the diaspora to recognize Armenia as the center and the diaspora as its periphery. This would be a new position as Yerevan had never been the cultural center of Armenian terrain; those sites having been variously located over the years with the waxing and waning of populations within particular cities such as Tbilisi, Constantinople, even Alexandria having been a thriving cultural center for a time. Lebanon has had its time in the sun as well.4

Even though the diasporas, Circassian and Armenian, are aware of these territorial homeland reconfigurations and the histories of dispersions, there still persists an anxiety among diasporans that they are different and, therefore, somehow inferior because of their locations outside of the homeland territory. Being outside of the homeland forces

3 Pattie, Susan. "From the Centers to the Periphery: 'Repatriation' to an Armenian Homeland in the Twentieth Century" In Homecomings: Unsettling Paths of Return, edited by Fran Markowitz, Lexington Press, 2004, p 110-111.

4 Ibid. 251 the need to be aware of and to perform their ethnic identities. That awareness and performance calls into question the authenticity and naturalness of identity. Identity in a state of constant questioning breeds a sense of inferiority when faced with what is perceived as a stable counterpart in a homeland. Thus, repatriation will experience an encounter that allows the diasporan to either retain this inferiority complex or reject it.

Positionality

The few writers included here all permanently reside outside of the homeland. Therefore, there will be an obvious slant in their writing, feeling a need to justify their external position.5 Additionally, the topic of repatriation and its failures appears taboo.6

Tsarukean's novel Wwh^nipjiih^nihtgnii Wtapqjilj: Men Without Childhood was censored by the Soviet publishers, removing the section on the repatriation. Ajemian's

3uitbpdmliuih Xtuhwiytuph: A Perpetual Path was not distributed like his other works. The topic of repatriation demands recognition of the differences with the homeland compatriots; a painful admission for the collective.8 Addressing the problems

51 assume that texts that expound the virtue of repatriation are written by people who remained in the homeland and therefore I have not looked into their texts. While there are aspects to the texts included in this study that are pro-repatriation, the bulk of the writing is dedicated to discussing the problems that were encountered upon arrival in homeland. My intention is not to classify the repatriation as a failure, but to illustrate how the perception of the failures of the repatriation when shared in the diaspora restructure the way that diasporans see themselves in relationship to homeland and their compatriots there. 6 The idea of broadcasting the failure of repatriation to others outside of the community is admitting that your dream was flawed. All these years of speaking about the perfection of the homeland, how it is better than what you have now in diaspora, speaking in hyperbolic language; the stage is set for problems when a return happens. Suddenly all the people you told you were going need an explanation for your return. "But I thought everything was so much better there in the land of...[insert homeland]. So what happened?" How does a diasporan respond? Better that he not mention anything, pretend it never happened or make up some possible lame excuse, "My dad couldn't keep things running here at the bakery without me." 7 All translations of 3uiihpchulfiuh &uihuivquiph are my own. 8 Topics that draw attention to the internal divisions within the group are avoided. Here it is repatriation, but additionally there is a lack of writing on the civil war between Armenians that occurred in the 1950s in Lebanon as well as any discussion about the political parties which are an integral part of the identity of the diasporans. 252 of repatriation directly, speaking about it at all, is admitting there were problems that came not only from external forces (primarily Soviets and Russians) but also from the

Armenians and Circassians who aided those forces. Taking a position and writing it was a gutsy move entailing potential revelation of their political position and party affiliation.

Thus, the writers may be considered to lie outside the mainstream.

The texts selected for this chapter follow a general progression of diasporic thought concerning repatriation. Initially there is enthusiasm for the long sought return.

Then discussions about what repatriation means and listings of pros and cons take place.

Camps develop around staying and repatriating. The diasporic desire to be recognized and accepted is challenged during the initial encounter. Finally, once the "homeland" is experienced by the diasporans, assessments are made about the authenticity of both the diaspora and the homeland.

Additionally, the writers try to provide an accurate depiction of the repatriation experience. Looking momentarily at Quandour's Revolution we get a picture of the drama surrounding repatriation. Prior to his departure, Temur, the protagonist laments:

'"It is my homeland... I want to live amongst people who I understand completely.'"9

Temur and diasporans assume that they still will "understand" their people "completely" after all these years of separation. And indeed, Temur's experience is exceptional in that he is returning earlier than most repatriates, not as a part of a Soviet initiative and to his own ancestral village where he still has relatives. His assumption is that if he understands them completely, he, too, will be understood completely without

9 Quandour, M.I. Revolution. Livermore, CA: WingSpan Press, 2006, p 121.

253 explanation, without the need to authenticate his identity. But the author, Quandour, writes a "welcoming party" for Temur that will quickly illustrate the separation in the identities of these two territorially separated groups:

He was lost in childhood memories when the wind was knocked from him and he

found himself swept from his horse's back and lying on the floor of the forest, his

fall only partly cushioned by the many years of fallen pine needles. One man was

holding his horse and another was sitting on him with a knife to his throat. The

third held a gun to his head.1

Having the wind knocked out of you may be the best way to explain the culture shock that a repatriate experiences upon arrival "home". Diasporic repatriation dreams11 do not include confusion, exclusion, and misinterpretations; but upon arrival, many found themselves in unfamiliar surroundings among people they felt and hoped they shared a kinship. Hostility towards emigrants, economic hardships, and language barriers were only a few of the problems that met the emigrants when they crossed the borders. Theft, fraud, deportations, imprisonment, and murder were also possible depending on the

19 regime. But beyond the physical threats and burdens of repatriation, psychologically coming to terms with the differences meant and means accepting that somewhere,

someone has been corrupted. The concept of a shared cultural tradition and language/s needs to be renegotiated and often that means establishing blame for the differences.

First, what outside influences account for these differences and second, why were they 10 Ibid, p 140. 11 Even though diasporan Armenians were aware that differences existed between themselves and Eastern Armenians and had prior to the Genocide, the assumption that the differences would be minimal compared to their current situations and thus their problems fewer contributed to the shock of "return". 12 These more extreme situations were seen in the repatriation of Armenians during the 1940s. I am not aware of such extremes in the Circassian case. 254 allowed to happen or be absorbed? The following narratives address, or at least bring to light, the questions of not only diasporic identity but also the identity/identities present in the homeland and their authenticity.

Terms of Repatriation: Soviet Armenia and the Russian Federation

From the moment of their deportations, both Armenians and Circassians have longed to return "home". Home is a concept whose contours are shaped and distorted by the mind.

I am reminded of a beautiful passage written by Salman Rushdie about a photography of his family home in Bombay India that represented home and homeland for him while he

was growing up. One day he returned home to this very place, the photograph of his

childhood and he was confronted with the reality of "home" versus the representation that

hung on his wall and in his mind. He writes:

(I didn't want to see how they'd ruined the interior.) The photograph had naturally

been taken in black and white; and my memory, feeding on such images as this,

had begun to see my childhood in the same way, monochromatically.. .It is

probably not too romantic to say that that was when my novel Midnight's

Children was really born; when I realized how much I wanted to restore the past

to myself, not in the faded greys of old family-album snapshots, but whole, in

CinemaScope and glorious Technicolor.

Beyond the personal dilapidation of homes, the political reality of Rushdie's homeland of

India was reconfigured in 1947 under partition plans. Homelands around the world have

13 Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. Granta Books, London 1991, p 9-10. 255 been divided, confiscated and destroyed due to imperial forces and nation states. The

Circassians and the Armenians found themselves in this situation. After their deportations, the maps of their worlds were totally reconfigured. The end of World War I brought about the very brief establishment of two independent states that represented independent homelands for Armenians and Circassians: The First Republic of Armenia

(1918-1920) and the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus or The Republic of the Mountaineers (1917-1920). These political entities did not conform to the lost territories of either of the deported groups, but the idea of independent states being controlled by local leaders made going to these regions attractive alternatives to refugee camps. Short-lived, these republics were absorbed into the emerging Soviet Union and the diasporic communities, now residing in the regions of the former Ottoman Empire, would need to negotiate their existence and identity in relationship to, first the Mandates of European powers and later the emerging nation states of the host region (Jordan, Syria and Lebanon). Desires to return, to be realized, needed to be brokered through the

Soviets and their relationships with these other power players, not by the individual ethnic communities.

Additionally, the situation for Armenians and Circassians, while similar, do have major contemporary differences. First, for diasporic Armenians the homeland lies within the modern state of Turkey. The land of Soviet Armenia and the Republic of today do not constitute, for those Armenians displaced by the Genocide, the territorial homeland of their Western Armenian ancestors. Soviet Armenia and the Republic of Armenia are places to which they may have no connection other than the fact that other Armenians

256 live there and that events in Armenian history took place there. Yet, if an Armenian lives in a diaspora that is economically more depressed or in a state of political instability, repatriation to this region, though not a true repatriation in the full sense of that term, would be a viable option.15 Armenia has been "imagined" into a homeland, much like Israel is seen as a homeland by Jews. For most Jews, today, their familial territorial attachments are not in the state of Israel. However, the mythic idea of an origin in this land and an attachment to it while not residing in it, is enough to strengthen the concept of a shared collective identity for a dispersed population. Armenia like

Jerusalem/Mecca has become a qiblah for them. But during the mid-century political turmoil, the idea of repatriation to a Soviet Armenia was seriously discussed and undertaken in the late 1940s by numerous Middle Eastern Armenians.

For Circassians, once the deportations were completed, the populations of Adigha living in the homeland was fewer than those outside of it. Today the total population of

Circassians in the Federation is estimated to be around 200,000 while there are over a million living in Turkey. The vacuum left by the tribes was almost instantaneously filled with other groups from around Russia. The region maintained its pluralistic

In my view, it is like my connection to New England. Yes, it is a part of the map of my homeland, broadly defined where very important events occurred within my nation's history. However, I have never been to Plymouth Rock and if someone offered me an apartment there it would need to be rather nice, very cheap, and with numerous amenities to make me move away from my family and friends. I prefer a southern drawl and greens to a quick paced conversation over chowder. 15 While diasporic Armenians talk about a return and repatriation, the reality is that the majority would not elect repatriation to the Republic or to Eastern Anatolia. Their diasporic situation is favorable for most. Even the economically depressed region of the Middle East does not encourage repatriation to Armenia for most. The majority of youth I spoke to had aspirations of immigrating to the United States, Canada, Australia, or Russia, in that order. This could reflect the fact that I speak English and my informants, therefore, were more likely to know English instead of French thus facilitating immigration to English speaking nations. If I spent more time with French speaking Armenians the desire to move to France might have been higher. Regardless, Armenia never topped the list. 16 The implications for such figures when we assign terms like "center" and "periphery" should be noted. Is it fair to say that the three republics within the Federation are the "center" anymore and that Turkey is the periphery? What are the criteria that are used to establish these terms? 257 dimensions but with other groups. Moreover, the Soviets divided the territory and set up borders that did not establish a contiguous landmass for the Circassian tribes. Today they

are separated into three different republics (Adyghea, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-

Cherkessia) and do not constitute a majority in any. Thus, a return to the homeland does

not mean returning to a homogenous ethnic state as it does for the Armenians. It entails

living among other ethnic minorities, speaking Adyghe, Kabardian, or Russian instead of

Arabic, and learning new cultural practices that may have been lost in diaspora or new

ones that have been incorporated by the homeland compatriots. For these reasons among

others,18 diasporic Circassians likewise talk about return without the intentions to back up

such relocations.

Under the administration of the Soviets, there was little free flow of information

out of the Union to the diasporas. Families sometimes had all international contact

severed. The case seems to be worse for the Circassians than for the Armenians. Of

course, there were ebbs and flows to these issues of communication as the politics of the

world were also in flux. However, it is fair to say that the type of cultural and

informational exchanges shared by diasporas, especially today in the era of mass

There are ethnic minorities within the Republic of Armenia today but they constitute less than 2.5 % of the total population (Wikipedia). Essentially the Republic is Armenian, truly conforming to its motto: Uhq Uqq, TJtq U^uiqnLjp "One Nation, One Culture".

18 The desire for return is less for the Circassians in Arab territories as opposed to in Turkey. As Shami states, the different ways of explaining their reasons for immigration along with their current political situation determines these desires: 'The homeland that the Caucasus presents to its diasporic descendants, is itself a fragmented and contested terrain. Circassians within the Caucasus are scattered, divided by borders, interspersed with other ethnic groups and have experienced successive displacements and exile. Arguments abound about where the centre of gravity lies for Circassians and to which republic or city the diasporans should migrate back. Clearly, current ethnic identification is not simply an intensification, or a 'violencing' of an older persistent identity." Shami, Seteney. "Circassian Encounters" In Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Edited by Birgit Meyer and Peter Geschiere, Blackwell Publishing, 1999.

258 communication, was virtually non-existent. Both the West and the Soviets placed restrictions on travel during the Cold War that made interactions difficult at best. This enabled the growing divide between the diasporas and the populations under the Soviet

Union to deepen and become ever the more entrenched.

However, following the end of World War II, under the Stalinist regime, an initiative of repatriating the Armenians was undertaken.19 Agents were sent to the Middle East to actively recruit Armenians to repatriate to Soviet Armenia. It would be far later for the

Circassians to see the lifting of the Curtain and return to their homeland and remaining families there within. The repatriation of Circassians started to take shape in 1990 under the direction of the "Adighe Khase organization and the October 1990 congress of the

Assembly of the Mountainous Peoples of the Caucasus held in Nalchik"20 Previously in

1989, the Syrian Circassians had requested repatriation be started but had been denied by

91 the Gorbachev regime. Therefore, the repatriation of Circassians has only recently been undertaken with similar results to those of the Armenians: people are shocked by the present situation of the homeland, disenchanted, and few remain after initial contact. One last major difference is that the Circassians, while feeling the same impact of the Stalinist purges on the overall populations, did not experience them concomitantly with repatriation (to be discussed below).

19 Scholars have taken up the reasons for this repatriation scheme in far greater detail than I am willing to devote here. As the goal is to look at the way that repatriation is viewed by diasporans and how that has shaped their identity, the details involved in how they got to that point are far more inconsequential than the betrayal they felt and how that is articulated in their texts. See Suny, Pattie, Mouradian, Panossian, Hovhannisian for a treatment of the Stalin repatriation program. 20 Ganich, Anastasia. CIRCASSIAN DIASPORA IN JORDAN (self-identification, ideas about historical homeland and impact on North Caucasian developments) http://dlib.eastview.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/sources/article.isp?id=4789499

259 Reflections in the Texts

That desire for return infuses most diasporic fiction, even if there are no direct references to a particular return. The concept that the homeland, its culture, and people are somehow superior to those in diaspora creates a tension which is given voice in the texts.

Many diasporans can be said to be suffering from an inferiority-complex,22 feeling the homeland and its inhabitants to be superior and more authentic than any product of the diaspora. When the communication between the homeland and the diaspora was kept at a minimum, this feeling seemed to be stronger and self-propagating. After repatriations, knowledge of the reality of the homeland increases and people can properly assess the differences (good and bad) between the two. One misconception upon which these two

diasporas are able to shed light is the idea that the homeland represents some kind of whole entity impervious to external pressures and influence. The idea of a nation state being stable and fixed and therefore more authentic than a diasporic population is challenged by both Armenian and Circassian history. Is it fair to say that the homeland of Armenia as the Republic of Armenia, not containing any of the ancestral lands of the

diasporic population is more authentic than the community that continues to reside in

Istanbul which had been the seat of Armenian culture in the mid 19th Century? Does the territorial contiguity make small communities within the Republic more Armenian than a rather isolated community like Anjar, Lebanon? Similarly, do we say that the territory of

Karachay-Cherkess is more Circassian than Amman when less than twenty percent of the

22 Consider the following quote given by Ganich from her survey of Jordanian Circassians, We have been always measuringourselves against those who lived in the homeland. We were bitterly disappointed. Each of us explains this in different ways. Religion is not the only reason. When we talk about religion, we talk about what changed in general, in the people. They lost many things: humane attitude, and others

260 population is Circassian? We need to move beyond the idea of territoriality being the end all and be all of identity and, as Swedenburg and Lavie suggest, we need to undo the

"notion that there is an immutable link between cultures, peoples, or identities and specific places."

Early Optimism

Seza's short story "The Immigrant's fio/'/^uiripuiljuilihli Snhljn expresses the early optimism surrounding repatriation prior to the revelation of the failures of the undertaking. She sets the background, detailing the problems of Greater Syrian women as they attempt to rebuild a life with their children absent the support of their husband and other men. Azniv, the mother, attempts to improve her Armenian by reading newspapers that come to her wrapping the cloth that she sews for wealthier women. One area that sharply articulates insider from outsider within the Armenian community is the ability to speak Armenian. Repatriating to Armenian meant either learning Armenian or

Russian or both to interact and work within the system. These scraps provide her with information about Armenia and she waxes into memories of her own home, comparing it with the emerging Soviet construction of the nation.

The particular newspaper article included in "The Immigrant's Boy" describes the compulsory education available to the children in Soviet Armenia. This brings to

Lavie, Smadar and Ted Swedenburg, ed. Displacement, diaspora, and geographies of identity. Duke University Press, 1996, p. 1. 24 Many Middle Eastern Armenians after the Genocide did not know Armenian, but Turkish. They had to learn Armenian in the diaspora. Therefore, their situation was further complicated in terms of repatriation. They would have to learn a language to use while Armenia and learning it was not easy and is present in a number of the stories, unfortunately not the stories about repatriation which are few. 261 Azniv's mind other benefits provided to citizens of Armenia. The optimism being presented to the diasporans is felt in the following lines:

Ukihuilpub. hnqh vjjiui: Utahuilputi i^uilpitp: Luu|uiqnL]li ophpni. |ni.p2

uiqmunufni[ Jumtiruxipuin:

On their own land. Their own agriculture. There was enthusiasm that the best

days were in front of them. All of them.25

In an attempt to rationalize the acceptance of this new homeland set in Soviet Armenia away from her own vision of home, Azniv recalls her childhood experience in Eastern

Anatolia in abstract terms so a direct and favorable comparison can be made. In both

Anatolia and Armenia, Azniv feels that there is protection from the corrupting influences of foreigners, such as the Arab boys who are constantly fighting with her son Simon. The protection comes from "uhihuilpiiu u^uiljnjp: Luiuiicpnti ophpm. Lni_p2 uupuunulm[

Juuitiquii[uin: Uaftb. puib. 2unphp_ nilitp liJipuiljliophui] htiuiifkuh hlihqhghti, ijuipduipuiuri, inm-tip: Ujtiujtu, ouiurptitpm. hbui 2ihniATh ib^nulp ^uip hhp—

[T]he three graces: the old Sunday church, school, and her house. In this way there wasn't the constant pressure of contact with foreigners on the poor little ones."26 If she were to go to Armenia she feels that these same three graces would be present. These positive forces are juxtaposed with the corrupt and debauched figures she sees in the refugee camps:

Seza. Meghavoruhin. Sp'yurk'ahay groghner. Erevan: "Hayastan" Hratarakch'ut'yun, 1967, p 295. Ibid, p 294. 262 [U]]ti ^unjiuihuiulihptti, npnhp. qmqpmqurjuilip. up^uipvuutitpp qp jhgbtpti

Jipbhg urnophurjhh qqnuulipp Juhqnhpii[ pqpuihiuiqh, oqpp hi. ppphptti

hurjhnjuitipp iftg ijmp^litinT|....hnqpti

[T]hose adults who crowded into the cafes of the refugee camps drowning their

disgust with gambling, Arak, and swearing in Turkish until that atmosphere

97 became natural to them, rendering the Armenian soul unrecognizable..

She then relays several stories about Armenians who had lost their way through immigration to the West, specifically the United States, and who had lost connections with their families and thus their cultures. The rejection of Armenian culture under the pressures to assimilate to the larger host community is felt in all the different diasporas she lists; her own in Greater Syria as her own son feels the pressure to conform, and abroad in the West. Thus, it would seem that the answer is clear. In order to pass on the

Armenian traditions and insure the survival of the language and culture, she would need to repatriate with her son to a new Armenia that at least contains the basic structures of

Armenianness. But this would not entail the financial success for her son. She feels that her best opportunities for advancement are in the West where he could pursue his dream of becoming an engineer and building streets. The diasporic individual is being pulled in two directions: one towards Armenia in order to preserve the culture and one towards the

West to be prosperous and have the ability to rebuild. In the end, Seza says:

Uhifntihqp bi_ hup ujjiuih hppurjhb. hurjpbtihp: Uhuiq ijurjpp, nip Jip uijpjip.

upoiuinixuinp m. ui2juuiuiuiutp bhuitipp hifuiuui ujhuip. mlihuuip: UJiuiq

27 Ibid, p 295. 263 thn]P£> ni_p p.p ifuiu^n xqjiinji ifb&truin hiquipinni-pbuitLri iftg PP uiqqpli

bi. ouiurp puljbptibpri iqpuip ^lpaipbtiurjp.ti uiphmTlvuphiulipnv[.uipuixupbpb^

gbnji mhniAip

Simon and she will go to the fatherland. The only place where her honorable and

industrious life as a widow would have meaning, the only place where her son

would grow up with pride in his nation, and his foreign friends would not be able

to utter his race's name with contempt.

Looking around her surroundings and watching what she perceives as corruption of the local populations of Armenians, both home and abroad, she concludes that the situation in Armenian is superior. The reader might question what evidence she has about the situation in Armenia, but there are the words in print in front of her that extol its virtues.

Meanwhile, she has evidence to the contrary about life in the various diasporic settings.

Therefore, she makes her decision; repatriation to Soviet Armenia is seen as a way of preserving the future of the nation.

Indeed, Seza's ideas about repatriation are the most benevolent of the writers examined. Hers is the initial optimism generated by the idea of a return to a homeland where Armenians could live together. The story steeps in the realities of the Greater

Syrian diaspora; problems of women in finding work, suddenly alone and widowed, trying to support a family all ring true in the minds and memories of this particular diaspora. Looking for a way out of their hardship, the romantic notion of returning and finding a place of acceptance was longed for.

28 Ibid, p 298. 264 Debates and Politics of Repatriation: Tsarukean

But Seza does not write the political complexities associated with the Armenian repatriation. Absent from this story are any of the details about the desires of people to return previous to this plan and their denial under the Soviets. She does not discuss the issue of the political parties and how they divided the diasporic Armenian community in terms of support for Soviet Armenia. Susan Pattie gives a concise explanation of the diasporic political situation:

However, while part of the Soviet Union, Armenian lost its appeal for the many

(probably half the diaspora) who sympathized with the political party that had led

it as a free state. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (or Dashnaks) in

diaspora did not forgive what they saw as betrayal and campaigned against the

Soviet state in a variety of ways. 'Free, Independent Armenia' was the motto of

the party, referring not only to the lost Ottoman territories but to the Soviet state.

Arrayed against the Dashnaks and supporting Soviet Armenia were other political

parties, the Ramgavars and Hnchaks who believed that this was the only way into

the future. These remained in intense opposition, particularly during the Cold

War period. 29

This is necessary information to understand the writing of one of the most popular

Armenian authors to emerge from Greater Syria, Antranig Tsarukean. Living in Beirut after the genocide, Tsarukean as a survivor wrote his memoirs of his life in an orphanage in LTuihljnipJiih^mhhgnii Uuipqjil^/Men Without Childhood. This novel was

29 Pattie, Susan. "From the Centers to the Periphery: 'Repatriation' to an Armenian Homeland in the Twentieth Century" In Homecomings: Unsettling Paths of Return, edited by Fran Markowitz, Lexington Press, 2004. 265 translated into English in 1985 thereby increasing its diasporic readership. The orphanage setting allows the reader to experience the impact of the Genocide indirectly through the lives of children who were orphaned30 and struggle to move on with their lives in a new context, Lebanon. Throughout the work, Tsarukean drops names of famous Armenians that shared this experience with him or who were devoted to helping the children, such as the satirist Odian who tirelessly worked to help the orphaned

Armenians. Similarly, Tsarukean places at the center of the chapter "Umqlrng/Grade

School" Harooutiun Galestan, a famous Armenian painter.

After leaving the orphanage, Harootiun had become a painter, married and had a child, Aram. Years later, during the period of repatriation, Tsarukean and Harootiun meet and argue about repatriating to Soviet Armenia. While a date is not given for this discussion, it had to take place in the late 1940s. The first publication of Men Without

Childhood, occurred in 1955, the writing of the work falling somewhere in between these dates.

Within the work, Tsarukean alludes to his own decision not to repatriate through the heated debate he has with Harootiun who wants his son to grow up in Armenia among

Armenians. He further expounds on the theme of repatriation through a lengthy discussion about the differences between Harootiun and his brother Haig who had also decided to repatriate. For Haig this was a more difficult decision as he was a "member of

30 "Orphaned" here does not mean that both parents are lost. After the genocide, many mother's like Azniv could not afford to care for themselves and their children. Instead, they placed the children in orphanages until they could establish themselves financially. After either finding a job or remarrying, the child would be taken back by the mother. In other cases, the child had been separated from the parents during the dispersion and would wait until he was found or located by them, sometimes this never occurring. Therefore, "orphan" in this context can merely mean one who is living in an orphanage and may or may not have lost parents. 266 the party" as Tsarukean puts it. In order to be given permission to go he had to give up his party membership. Tsarukean says that he had done this assuming that it was in confidence. However, prior to his repatriation, Haig discovers that his party resignation has been published in a local Armenian newspaper, used as a form of propaganda against the Dashnaks. Feeling betrayed by the Soviets he refuses to travel to Armenia with his brother, desiring freedom more than sacrificing for an Armenian culture.

Tsarukean fairly and evenly develops both arguments about repatriation through these brothers. And after analyzing the two he does side with Harootiun, the repatriate:

'You were right, Harootiun. Perhaps your bread is black, your paint jar empty,

but you were right. Perhaps there is a heavy hand on your wrists that propels your

brush to the red colors, you who so loved the wonderful hues of the rainbow, but

you did well. Look at your young Aram growing and tell him about our black

orphanage days, so he will know that his darkest day is brighter than his father's

brightest Sunday in the orphanage....

Tsarukean admits the limitations of Soviet Armenia while proclaiming Harootiun "right": economic hardships (black bread and empty paint jar), censorship (heavy hand), and lack of freedom (hues of the rainbow). But still, reflecting on his life in the orphanage, growing up in Armenia had to be a better option.

Evenhanded in his analysis, this was most likely written prior to major changes in

Tsarukean's life as accounted by Razmik Panonssian's The Armenians: From Kings and

Priests to Merchants and Comissars:

Zaroukian, Andranik. Men without childhood. Translated by Elise Bayizian and Marzbed Margossian. New York : Ashod Press, 1985, p 75.

267 In the late 1950s, no longer a member of the ARF, Tzarukian was one of the

earliest disaporan intellectuals who visited Armenia (at the formal invitation of

Catholicos Vazgen I). Upon his return he wrote a beautiful and perceptive book

on his impressions and experiences. Tzarukian had been 'converted' to the Soviet

Armenian perspective on the diaspora. Henceforth he too was instrumental in

propagating the idea that there is a homeland being built in Armenia, that the

communist system and Armenian national identity are compatible, and that

Russian protection is securing Armenia's existence.

How strange that Tsarukean would write the following lines about freedom only to later write in support of Soviet Armenia:

For Haig, for all Haigs, Armenia was the cold northern country founded [76] by

the forefather Haig with his long bow, where mountains rise on other mountains,

where hunger whistles, blood flows, but where, whether in the dark of winter or in

bright spring sunrises, freedom tolls from the somber bells of the churches,

where everything can be ruined, crushed, where hordes can invade from north to

south and not leave a stone unturned, but cannot still the toll of the bells which

have been ringing sixteen times a hundred years in our valleys, our forests. And

32 Panossian, Razmik. The Armenians From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, p 340.

33 Sound, that one sensation that we have seen transcend in other texts is suddenly rooted in the soil and territory of Armenia in Zaroukian's piece with the bells buried, but the vibrations would continue "in the soul."

268 should the churches fall, and the bells be buried, their vibrations would continue

in the soul, with the secret rhythm of silences.34

Perhaps he saw the Soviets as just another of those forces from "north to south" that would eventually leave like all the others, leaving the bells of freedom to continue to ring. He was certainly not the only diasporan to leave the Dashnak party to support

Soviet Armenia. While others did not officially leave the party, they did begin to accept

Soviet control over Armenia as a reality and began to lend their financial support.

However, Pattie places this shift in mentality in the 70s, not earlier as implied by

Panossian.

The peculiar endnote to Men Without Childhood is the publication of the work under the Soviets. In 1963, the Soviets print a copy of the 1955 original translated into

Eastern Armenian and orthography. Beyond these linguistic changes necessary for the new readership, the text also receives a heavy dose of censorship. The debate about repatriation and the Dashnak party did not please the Soviets and so it has been entirely removed. Whether this was cleared by Tsarukean is not known. But certainly the publication has been altered. What implication does this have for diasporic Armenian identity? The original printing illustrates the angst of repatriation but also the problems within the diasporan community with the political parties. It would have demonstrated to the homeland compatriots the continued desires for return that their diasporan brothers had.

Zaroukian, Andranik. Men without childhood. Translated by Elise Bayizian and Marzbed Margossian. New York : Ashod Press, 1985, p 75-76.

269 The original version is preserved in the English translation. The taboo topic of the political parties being exposed to an outside audience is not feared as the reference35 is so oblique as to go unnoticed by the uninitiated. However, an insider, meaning just about anybody within the Armenian diaspora with any involvement in the community, understands the reference to the Dashnaks. Moreover, today the events surrounding the repatriations are also well known. The deportations (discussed in the next section) and betrayal felt by the diasporans are remembered as the diasporans read this debate about freedom and Armenian culture. Moreover, the similar debates about repatriation to the

Republic currently circulate in the Armenian community are likely read into this text by the contemporary audience.

Tsarukean's text demonstrates the difficulties associated with repatriation and the complexities of the decisions in terms of the political identities of the diasporic individuals.

Quandour and Ajemian: Repatriation Realities

The last two texts, Quandour's Revolution and Kevork Ajemian's 3uiihpdialjtah dimhuiupuph A Perpetual Path unearth the reality of repatriation within each diaspora's experience. Failure to be recognized as a member of the collective and failure of the homeland to remain traditional and authentic are the two common themes which emerge from both texts. Revolution and A Perpetual Path are easily read against one another because both acts of repatriation take place under Stalin and therefore address similar issues, even though we are looking at two different ethnic groups, Circassians and

35 The English text refers to the "party" and does not elaborate further. 270 Armenians. While Quandour reflects on a singular past act of repatriation under Stalin, he was no doubt thinking about the current repatriations of Circassians facilitated by the easing of travel restrictions and the repatriation efforts of the late 1990s into the homeland of Circassia. The same kind of disappointment was met at this time and the same concerns expressed. The loss of religion and traditions among the people in the homeland disturbs Circassian diasporans along side the inability of the diasporans to "fit- in" to the society and culture. Similar issues of identity for repatriates are raised in

Ajemian's novel though against the comparison of the Genocide. But first, I will begin with an analysis of Quandour's Revolution as its act of repatriation occurs first chronologically.

In Revolution, the last volume of Quandour's five part Circassian Saga, he hurriedly writes the narratives of the two principle story lines for the Circassian collective: the Middle Eastern diaspora flourishing in Jordan and the collapse of the homeland under the Bolshevik revolution. Covering so much historical terrain and background information in this closing volume, the descriptions of the characters are less developed and he relies more on stereotypes. However, the implications for diasporic

Circassian identity are powerful, perhaps more powerful than his previous volumes. The story begins with the continued desire of Temur the muhajir exemplar, to return to his homeland village now rocked by the Bolshevik revolution. Unlike the external musings of the other disaporans, Temur is literally hit hard by his first encounter with his compatriots, as read in the first quote in this chapter.

Greeted with a knife to the throat and a gun to the head, Temur encounters a new reality of the homeland, one that has been profoundly changed due to outside influences

271 and the corruption of the people that he had left behind. During the intervening years of his absence, his brother, Karim, who has been the principle motivation to this self-act of repatriation, has aged and grown old. Temur can barely recognize his brother who is transformed into the symbol of tradition within the homeland, the legacy of what the muhajiriin had left and to which they longed to return. Indeed, that spirit of tradition has not died but is on its last legs.

Quandour with limited space in this his final volume of the Circassian Saga slips into the use of symbolic characters. Temur represents the diaspora and its attempts at connecting to the homeland. Karim, his brother, symbolizes the traditions and customs that remained in the homeland. Nazir represents Islamic movements within the country, imported by insiders and used as an alternative to both the traditional social hierarchy of the nobles/ warks. Beytal, basically an uneducated radical who happily enacts revenge on local populations, stands for that type of revolutionary spirit that swept the homeland under the Bolsheviks.

Temur, the diaspora, meets with Beytal, the misguided homeland compatriot, to discuss the future of the village and people. In the end, all of Temur's talk comes to naught. In the diaspora, Temur had learned that at some point, action even in the form of violence is necessary to assert your rights; you must demand them because no one is going to give them to you willingly (a position also held by Ajemian). But, Temur does not resist Beytal physically. Instead, the reader is shown how resistance can be misdirected and violence used to empower those with self-motivations, forgetting the

272 needs of the people. Beytal utilizes the people to wage war against themselves, against the oppressive agents of Circassian culture, the warks or noble classes. Temur does not retaliate nor does he attempt to stop them. He is complicit, then, in their continued destruction of the village and the way of life there, but Quandour does not seem to be indicting the diaspora. Temur did try to negotiate with the political actors in the homeland but was unable to get them to listen. The wark was more interested in food and stories than politics. Beytal was too interested in his jealousy and hatred of Temur and securing his power in opposition to this "foreign" figure.

The end result is the following scene in which Beytal and his crew come to

Temur's house to enact revenge against him. Beytal has told his followers that Temur is the source of their failures and is about to unleash them upon him. This is one of the more violent scenes in the Saga:

Temur leapt to his feet just as they burst into his bedroom and a knife was

plunged deep into his heart before he could even raise his hands to protect

himself. As soon as his body slumped onto the floor the raiders moved on to the

main house.. .He had dedicated his life to the service of his people, and it was his

people who eventually took his life.. .As life finally sighed from Temur's lungs,

the raiders were beating Karim's skull with clubs until it burst.36

Symbolically, Beytal has killed the Circassian tradition through the character of Karim.

Old in age, it has its skull literally bashed in. He also kills any attempts of the diaspora to aid them and to rekindle the traditions of the people from within. The door has been shut

36 Quandour, M.I. Revolution. Livermore, CA: WingSpan Press, 2006, p 182-183.

273 on any cultural revolution with the exception of Islam. But soon, Beytal insures that

Islam, too, does not become a viable option. Through a direct conversation with Stalin,

Beytal implicates Nazir, the symbolic representation of Islam within the text, in an insurgence campaign in one of the villages of the Caucasus:

Beytal knew very well that Nazir hadn't been in the Kabarda for at least four

years, as did many of the other people in the room, but no one spoke up. A few

weeks later Nazir was imprisoned and two months later he was shot as 'an enemy

of the people'. He was just 27 years old.37

Beytal, this new Circassian within the homeland has become shrewd and calculating. He has eliminated all those other sources of power that were within his grasp. Only the noblemen, the warks, were able to escape his wrath. Now having cleared the path for himself, he exploits his people under the behest of the Communists turning them further against him, and placing himself in the same position as the power that came before him.

Quandour uses food and gluttony to tie the two regimes together. The warks had set upon making themselves fat off the Circassian peasants. Beytal, after becoming a successful party member likewise feasts while there is barely enough food to go around.

Moreover, instead of preserving the culture that has enabled him to rise to greatness, he intermarries with a Russian woman:

Mixed marriages between Kabardan men and Russian women are entirely in the

spirit of the new Soviet state where we see all people as equal and the same.38

Ibid, p 224 Ibid, p 303. 274 Another man responds:

'But if we mix our blood so completely, do we not run the risk of losing our

ethnic identity for ever? In fifty years time are there to be only Soviets? No more

Cherkess? No more Adigha...Our noble history would be at an end?'39

Finally, Beytal has thrown the death blow to the Adigha/Circassian culture through his espousing of exogamous marriage to form a unified whole with the rest of Russian society. Where will the Circassians be under this policy? If they accept Russification to this extent, if the borders of their external identity are blurred, where will the Russian end and the Circassian begin?

Indeed, this appears to be the goal of Quandour in this section of the novel. He establishes that the homeland has become corrupt through these external Russian/Soviet agents who gain access to the community through those weak individuals like Beytal who are seeking power in whatever form they may find. It is not so much that the communists are the ones who are invading, but rather that there are people among the Circassians who are weak and willing to give up their culture for a small fee.

For diasporans reading this novel, it illustrates that the culture from the diaspora is just as authentic as that in the homeland, if not more so in some ways. Instead of pointing the finger at the diaspora for losing the culture (which could have been done with the other narrative line) the blame for unsuccessful returns or repatriations is laid at the homeland, not at the diaspora. Diasporans reading the novel can see that they have

Ibid, p 305. 275 access to the culture as well, that they need not reside in the territory. Homeland and cultural preservation are attitudes and actions and not based on territoriality.

Ajemian

Similar to Quandour's work in Revolution, Kevork Ajemian's A Perpetual Path

(published in 1975) goes even further to point the finger inwardly to the Armenian people, blaming them for their past calamities. Kevork Ajemian, himself a fascinating character, is credited as being one of the founding members of the Armenia Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), listed as a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization. His writing style, perhaps like his lifestyle, is aggressive and direct, never mincing words. This didactic and loquacious style dominates any attempt at plot development. His writings in both Armenian and English suffer from his philosophical musings that can go on at length, reading more like philosophical tracks than fiction. But

Ajemian's writings do overtly deal with themes of identity in the diaspora; and his use of both English and Armenian provides us with an insight about which language is deemed appropriate for which topics.40

A Perpetual Path is a provocative piece on the repatriations of the 1940s but written during the formation of ASALA and should be read in light of that organization and its objectives. Briefly stated, ASALA sought to bring attention to the Armenian cause through the use of terrorism directed, at least initially, at Turkish targets. In fact, reading A Perpetual Path feels like reading a tract from ASALA but couched in a novel and in the voices of the Armenian people.

40 In other words, while I do not appreciate his style, the content of his work lands him in my study. Because he is unafraid to say almost anything, we get an insight into Armenian issues that we otherwise might not. 276 The lack of information about this work should not be surprising as the work directly condemns the Armenian people for their apathy and complacency throughout history and exposes the failures of the repatriation scheme of the 1940s. I procured my copy from a private collection in Aleppo while conducting research. Upon my return to the United States, I discovered that A Perpetual Path is not included in the Library of

Congress nor is it included in any of the major anthologies of Armenian literature. Its lack of circulation outside of the community is understandable. It is written in Armenian and the themes are scathing and directed against the Armenian community. Other works by Ajemian are also bold but do not take repatriation and deportation as their setting.

Ajemian holds his tongue when writing in English, and while exposing the Armenian community to possible critiques in works like A Time for Terror and Ruling Over the

Ruins, he does not attack the Armenians42 as vehemently as he does in A Perpetual Path.

A Perpetual Path's plot is basic: a group of repatriates to Armenia are being deported to Siberia and are sharing their experiences while riding on the train. They

share their stories and try to make sense of this crime being committed against them by

Russians and, more shocking to them, other Armenians. Ajemian's plot structure is weak

in both Armenian and English; characters are there to serve his political interests and to be a mouthpiece for long soliloquies about the nature of humanity. The mood is usually

somber, though at points Ajemian tries to interject humor about their situation. For

41 The owner of the library recommended the book to me after I told her that I was interested in writers from the region who wrote about identity. Familiar with Ajemian's works in English Ruling over the Ruins and A Time for Terror I was interested in picking up a few of his works in Armenian. I had no idea at the time that this novel was not in wide circulation nor did I have any idea about its theme of repatriation. 42 One can argue that Ajemian directs his critique at all of humanity and its apathy in the face of injustice and oppression. But he does specifically state that Armenians have allowed these events to happen to them without shouting, without resisting. 277 example, one young man wants to become a linguist and revive the classical Armenian language all the while butchering the language to the point that no one completely understands what he is saying.

Given the setting, the majority of the novel is a critique of the Soviet Armenian system which allowed for the repatriation of Armenians from around the world, predominantly from the Middle East as reflected in his characters, who were then kidnapped from their houses, interrogated, shipped off to Siberia with property stolen by friends and neighbors. The circumstances they were promised in the diaspora as they were recruited to repatriation were not met, stories of having to build their houses and not affording to do so are recounted.

But Ajemian, always the philosopher, does not stop at a recounting of the atrocities committed against the repatriates. He seeks the cause of this calamity, likening it all the while to the Genocide that had only recently taken place at the time of the repatriations. He continually intones the idea of this happening only thirty-five years ago, the genocide.. .this same situation that is being experienced by the Armenian people again.. .another exile and another deportation.

bphuriLliri^npu inuipp. uinuig tp uruihljui: f'u^ hhilui: Utiqumhip. tp,

mhhifuiuui, uiuuipvuifvupuiliuiljuib.: fl tp qp uiuilitb.li qp.pbu.p_ nurpAhuuj

£uuuihpnpq quipm. £p-2q ^huntli ifuiprj. urpuipuifcri lurjti juq<£uq]i ^htiquilijili

tp: ^httquitiji, qnp qptiui]p.ti g2^b kk&h__ni- pnUuipuiph^: bi. uqu tuijti ifuipijp

uitiqnp tp hi. mhquipnq p.bpqp.lip iqm2miqiutihvni-, Irani ijqui]puip.hini_:

^mmumph-iiqi n^Jili^ unpi|hgni.gui& tp p-pbti, hi. uijuop uitiqop tp. ht

uitiVjuiprtq p.!ipqp.lip iu.ui2uivuuilitrnL, piluihui

Ujli vuvnhti hvuquipvuuip Jubq^ ni_ uvupuvuvpvuhuip huqhp, pvutip vfp nuvnplpuhp pvfuihui^njppli bupuiqurj, bji p2ni-tpli. nhvqp vutivuvqvuvntibpp m.

a

qp gvupqnvbpb. hnti muhitmrj qbpujnv|: Ujuop tuvjuti bp qpmppLUp: fiui pq:

Upunpp npn2 bp uvuqurjti: fh. quiquupuipp phqv]qhgm.g qplip: luipdhuq

vupunp: t»L pUp vutiquipnq, vnquip nv qvuvfvuqnvpq vupvupvub vfp, np

v[uipquiv[ui]b^qbpuinv[ ^bp bjitmip pnqnpb]^un]lipul|:

That was thirty-four years ago. But now? It was impossible, meaningless,

illogical. Where were they taken them again? At exactly the middle of the 20th

century, human beings were the same pitiable animals. An animal whom they

could ride (be broken), beat and rape. And this same man was powerless and

incapable of defending himself, or to resist. History had taught him nothing and

today he was as much as subject to prince's whims [as in the past]. A prince or a

king in the past, but now a president or prime minister today.. .What was the

difference between a Turkish policeman and these soldiers? At that time

thousands of poor and terror-stricken Armenians subjected to the whims a

Jandarm were expelled towards the deserts and were massacred there in an

indiscriminate manner. Today, the situation was the same. Massacre? But exile

was a certainty. And the idea revolted him. Exile, again. And he was helpless,

279 weak, (without a will of his own) spineless creature who could not even protest in

a manner befitting a human being.43

This same sentiment is repeated again and again by different characters and with different appeals to action that are discussed among the repatriates. At one point Abd al-Hamid is equated with Stalin (38). But Ajemian's own voice continually rises through the cacophony to intone his central refrain: xlptdjuupntphih/Vengeance.44

Vengeance is the antidote to the apathy of the Armenians. The apathy of the Armenian people that allows them to be thankful for a train instead of walking when they reflect on the differences between the two deportations sickens him. After all, the destination is the same, a slaughterhouse:

Utighunjili hti^ bjiguib tp plit^ unfpirqg dnimi|ni_pq ifp, np hp hull nmun^uiti

nuiphprn.il djiui], ni. unr[Ui|ni[, uinuiglinprvuib- tp.li uujmhivuiling: Uunlip

linjli tfumnjilfti tp.li, liuiif tuvjli ifuiprpig quituiljlitpp, ht hhuituupuip

Ijptiuijhli tlhurjli 2unphuib1ui]^ pjvuijj Cliqv[qligm.gp.^ tp:

An entire people they had led to the slaughterhouse on their own treatchous

feet, creeping. These were the same or the children of the same people and

therefore they could only be thankful. It was revolting.

They were even grateful because they have been spared the torture of being

subjected to walking this entire journey. What could they do, for instance, if they

suddenly were to make them walk. In the past.. .they had been led to the

43 Ajemian, Kevork. A Perpetual Path (3wLhpduiljwli &whwiqwph). Giligia, Aleppo, 1975, p 22. 44 There are numerous references to "vengeance". For example on page 57, "Vengeance was not against the Turks or humanity but against life. And his repatriation to Armenia was the supreme expression of that vengeance." But then after the failure of the repatriation and his deportation that vengeance was no longer viable. 280 slaughterhouse. They were this same people or the children of the same people

and consequently they were only able to be thankful. It was revolting.

But now things have changed. Under the Soviets, yes, it is still a government and

Ajemian defines governments as being omnivorous machines, blood-sucking leeches that feed off of the people. The difference here is that the omnivores are more like cannibals:

Armenians feeding off of other Armenians:

Qthh qpguifc, ^thb. nLquib huiuuinuij, hi. puiuiguib thti in.uiljuii.hli:

flpm|hhuihi. pifpntitip. ^tp ujuiuiuihui&p: Uhujurjiluitioptti

mtivquijifuitioptti ujuui^ifp quip, phi.philuigni.phi.ti ifp: Shphlip phpuifr thti

hnu qnpnuruit ihpqhjni. huuluip, hi. n^ pt uipunphjnt quiii pliui^lighjni:

f

Ijuiif ^puitiuuiqji luiLtihulj: UJL hui] iluipqhq, pthi. qp qnpbui6bp.li Jiphtig

Juouuih huijhpttitti inuipphp hurjhptti dp: Pnjnp ifb& ni_ ihnpp

ujhuinLpJiLlilihpp Juuipuifc tp.ti qfiphtip duiifuibuiqhli, Kiouhpnj" huilirjhp^.

ppJiuuinUbuquili hi ifuipqquijp.il uqqpnLtiptihpni. uiuiu.Un.ih bi. q\iinuihuifc

tp.li qjiphUp uiUuiuinnuiib dnijmjnipqp. lip uiliiluipqqui]p.li hi.

uuiquijhjuiquiti pu"uihui&mpUbpni_U: I9riLppp.li huiifuip uujuitiriLphi.UU ni.

guiprui piiuihui^njp thU ijhpguiujtii:

'Ajemian, Kevork. A Perpetual Path (3uiLhjidwl]wti d£uihmtqmph). Giligia, Aleppo, 1975, p 60. 281 They had not been able to, they had not been able to believe and still they

had hoped, because what had happened was not comprehensible. There was

invariably a mistake, a misunderstanding. They had brought them to save

them perdition, not to exile or to annihilate them. These people were not

Turks after all, nor German, nor British, or not even French, but Armenian

men although they used they used an Armenian different from they used. All

governments big and small had deceived them in the past. At the same that

they spoke in name of Christian and human principles. And they had

entrusted them into the inhuman and devilish whims of an ungodly people.

For the Turk murder and massacre were a whim, after all.46

Previously, if there were Armenians involved in the Ottoman apparatus, they were not

visible. Now, during the deportations under Stalin as articulated by various characters,

there was always an Armenian present. Armenians were involved in turning their

neighbors to the authorities in order to plunder their homes once they were deported.

They served as translators for Russian officers during interrogations. They were present

on the trains during the deportations.47

Given as Ajemian is to dictating a program of action and resistance, he suggests

that like the Fedayeen of the past, the Armenians need to resist and struggle but without

the influence of the outsides and the idea of socialism:

46 Ibid, p 18. 47 In fact, Ajemian more favorable depicts Russians than Armenians in terms of their roles in the deportation. While using derogatory words for the Russians such as "onion" or "peasant" he makes them seem like they are only products of their culture and following orders so as to provide for their families. 282 Uhp hmjruiLqtihpnLti ]p2muiuiqp uiifbu Jili^t t|bp t ptibp huiifuip ni_ qp

kmUurphpif mlinlig huituiuippli hi. hui]phhuiuppnLptuili uin^bi.: fli.

hvuifnqni.uib til tiuihi., np ilpurjti urjq hmumnpnq1 hi. pphtig

huijpttimuppiiLptuiifp quiplqp t ippq^iftiuiguibp: Purjg muipphpni.ppi.ti

ifp qurj: 3hqmipn]umquitiubpp pphtrp £tpu, urj^ rpitputti blpiqtitpp npntip

a

ifnpipbgnLgpli qpphtip: 3>buiui]p p ti£ qp U2uitiuiqb:

f>p hpqppU, ppuiuii-lippti huufuip qhuitipp qnhhpii. vquiuipuiuui iTuipq:

Upti^qbn bljrtqtibpp qppbtrp quiipuipuipp qplinuiptibpiiL ijhpui&hghli:

Q-mquupuip, np Junpp tp hi. mtipifpntih|p ppbhg huiifuip: bt hpuilip uijrj.

quiipmpuipp qunl hintuqp hvu]pbtiuiuppni_ppLlip pvjuip:

The memory of our guerillas/freedom fighters is for me above everything for me

and I bow before their faith and patriotism. And I am convinced persuaded also

that only through or by that faith and their patriotism is it possible to save that

which remains. But there is a difference. They themselves were not the

revolutionaries, but those coming from outside led them astray. What does

fedayeen mean? A man ready to sacrifice his life for his country and its rights.

Whereas the [new] comers transformed them into soldiers of ideology. An idea

that was alien and incomprehensible to them. Would that patriotism had been the

ideal. And I wish that idea or the ideal would have become patriotism.48

Ajemian, Kevork. A Perpetual Path (3uiLhpdvuljwh &tuhuiiqwph). Giligia, Aleppo, 1975, p 73. 283 Action for the sake of patriotism and free from external corruption is Ajemian's planned course of action for the diasporan populations. This appears to be the goal at the root of

ASALA; agitating for the recognition of Armenian rights in the continued face of injustice.

Through A Perpetual Path Ajemian equates the calamities of Armenian history and blames inaction and apathy, not on one group of Armenians over another. Only the fedayeen are absolved. While his message is directed at Armenians throughout history, because of the setting of the repatriation, the Armenians in the homeland of Soviet

Armenia are shown to be corrupt and in no better position, morally and culturally, than their diasporic brothers. Any Armenian that serves the interests of outsiders above the

Armenian cause is debased and debauched in Ajemian's view. Apathy, like Armenians,

is not contained and does not have territoriality. Territoriality completely breaks down for Ajemian:

lluauiiInT-phuili iftg op rqhuih njjuij, hpp hurjm.phi.li ifn qnjphili tqhuih

nilihui], puijg n^ Zuijuiuuiuiti. Mrjvqtu tnuu. pppuihuijuauuiuiuh

ujuipuiquijlihu: Zuijni.phi.uri uiiitli uihq t—TJu"hphhuijtti ifhti^hi.

uipuipuiquiti hpqhptibp hi. ftntuuiuuiuih—puijg huquiquiti uiuiuiifuiqiuu

ZuijuiuuiuiUp n^ litq uihq t, n^ ifhlj puipuihuh vjpuij:

There will come a day in history when an Armenian entity will exist but not

in Armenia— as was the case in Turkish Armenia. Armenians are everywhere

284 from America to Arab countries and Russia, but the original, real historic

Armenia exists nowhere, and not on a single map.49

Some Broad Sweeping Conclusions:

The topic of repatriation allows authors to examine the homeland in terms of diaspora.

For Greater Syrian Circassian and Armenian authors, the inferiority complex they have

suffered from the inaccessibility of the homeland and the projection of stability and

wholeness that they have cast upon the homeland is disrupted because 1) the homeland is not what they have imagined it to be in terms of territoriality and the cultures associated

with that territoriality and 2) outside influences have changed the inhabitants. The

changes that have taken place in the diaspora, while just has great, are seen as positive

when placed in opposition to some of the changes within the homeland. For example,

while not discussed in any of the texts, the issue of language is always key to identity.

For the Circassians who have not had as much time to reflect on their repatriations and have therefore not produced the type of narratives present in Armenian writing, the loss

of Circassian languages occurred because of the pressures of assimilating to Arabic. In

the process of acquiring Arabic they also attained greater understanding of the tenets of

Islam which was lacking in the homeland. Today, the homeland compatriots are seen as

abandoning their faith in favor of the Russian culture while at the same time also losing

the battle of linguistic assimilation but towards Russian that provides no added benefit,

49 Ibid, p 88. 285 unlike Arabic. Thus, what was once seen as a loss and corruption, linguistic assimilation, can be spun in a positive way when compared to the homeland. Similarly, the Armenians of the homeland are shown to be corrupt and traitors to the Armenian cause. The repatriates who returned home to diaspora are not at fault but justified.

286 Chapter Seven

Conclusions

Initially, this study's primary goal was to broaden the current understanding of contemporary minority identity politics within the social, cultural, and political context of

Greater Syria where Arab ethnicity and Muslim religion are normative. However,

selection of two diasporic minorities, Armenians and Circassians, with connections to

shifting configurations of homelands moved the outcome and linkages away from the

context of Greater Syria and broke the notion of territoriality in an unexpected way.

The real change in understanding of identity politics and positionality comes from the

two case studies of the Armenian and Circassian diasporas taken in relationship to self

awareness gained through acts of repatriation. As I will illustrate in this concluding

section, the notion that there is a cultural tradition rooted in some territorial configuration

of the homeland is understood to be false. Homel'and/s remain important as potential

centers housing the boundlessness of such non-territorial things as religion, performances

and traditions but cease to be the location of an authentic identity. They can and do serve

as centralizing anchors and vessels for the numerous identities shaped in various

locations and territories, both abroad and in homeland.

Certainly the first two sections of this dissertation about the construction of historical villains and the reconsideration of the role of religion within diasporic life and

space are critical to an understanding of the changes in ethnic identity for the Armenian

287 and the Circassian diasporas of Greater Syria. These chapters inform the existing knowledge of the interaction of the local host community of Muslim Arabs and these unique diasporic populations with very intimate political connections and relationships with Russians and Turks. The seemingly self-imposed restriction of narrating the

Ottoman or Turk as a historical villain for both the Circassians and the Armenians should be noted as a desire to comply with local expectations. Turkey's reaction to artistic productions depicting Turkish ethnic insensitivity (to be gentle considering the genocides) has been harsh and unswerving. For example, Turkish attempts to influence the release of Atom Egoyan's film Ararat through a boycott of the production company,

Miramax, that was intense and did yield results. Given the reaction to a film produced by a Canadian, how much more severe a reaction could be felt in nearby Arab states if they were perceived to support and bolster texts that acknowledge the Armenian genocide or collusion in the Circassian deaths that resulted from an ill-conceived "evacuation"?

Similarly, understanding the religious and national connection of Armenian history with the territorial homeland and its history of genocide illustrates the feelings of

loss and incongruity with the host community and the desires to affiliate with them

through shared acts of victimization. Authors like Poyachean, writing in Armenian, bring

the Armenian collective together in asking the all important question, "Why has God

allowed us to suffer while our enemies prosper?" Writing in English and Armenian,

Kevork Ajemian provides a secular response or course of action to stop the assaults on

Armenians: vengeance and resistance in the present and future. Harsh self-critiques

about the apathy of the community and their complicity in their own fates because of

their sheepishness are delivered exclusively to Armenians through their language.

288 Taking a softer approach, Sonia Nigolian and Vehanoush Tekean encourage the host community and Armenians to understand each other and their ancestors through their shared victimization and violence experienced during the civil wars of Lebanon and specifically Beirut.

After the initial two sections, the goals of both Armenian and Circassian writers can be generalized to the desire for acceptance within the host community while presenting a particularized ethnic identity that can be preserved in diaspora that can also provide a bridge of continuity with the past of the homeland/s.

But it is the issue of homelands and territoriality that is questioned due to the case

studies presented. What roles do homelands play in the positionality of diasporic groups within Greater Syria and more generally? How does the configuration of that homeland

(partial, populated, depopulated, occupied, etc,) affect the positionality of diasporas?

More importantly, how do relationships between diasporans and compatriots change

notions of authenticity and validation, and the acceptance of the permanency of diaspora

after acts of repatriation and actual encounters with "homelands"?

This dissertation questions the desire for authentication as opposed to validation

and the assumption that this authentication is unidirectional whereby the territory of the

homeland creates a singular and stable culture that is thought to be unaffected by the

same issues of positionality as its associated diasporas. Returning to the ideas presented

in the chapter on Circassian hijras, the belief in the territorial sanctity of the homeland is

still alive in those texts examined. By taking symbols that emerge as important in the

diaspora and seeking their authentication by embedding them in the territorial space of

the homeland in historical novels, the diasporic authors attempt to authenticate their new

289 diasporic identities through a connection with the homeland. These acts rely upon the notion of the homeland as pure and genuine, fixed and unchanging, still filled with ancestors and not compatriots.

The best example of homeland as a vehicle for authentication is the use of the accordion, a cultural neologism but with ties to the homeland. Circassians can say, in truth, that the accordion was brought out of the homeland where it was played during times of loss and celebrations. However, the implication that it was a "traditional" instrument is misleading given the depth of Circassian history and tradition and mass manufacturing of the accordion in at best the 1830s, only thirty years prior to Circassian emigration. Do a few decades of use constitute a traditional instrument? But in Greater

Syria, the accordion becomes a unique symbol of Circassian culture setting the

Circassians apart from their Arab hosts who did not embrace the instrument into their musical traditions. (Strangely Armenians are the other principle players of the accordion within the region but do not make it a symbol of their ethnic identity.)

The homeland and attachments to it preserve a sense of authentic Circassian

identity. Prior to the repatriations of the late 1980s and 1990s, the idea of the Circassian homeland was easier to construct and maintain. The diasporas, effectively cut off from

any communication with their relatives and compatriots, imposed their collective

memories of homeland and traditions into the territorial legacy of their pasts while the

social and political realities of the territories remained obfuscated by distance and a

political bureaucracy that restricted travel. Even today, because the number of repatriates

to the region has been so few, the reality of Circassia has not impeded this process of

diaporic imaginings of the homeland as something familiar and traditional, fixed and

290 unchanging. However there is a growing awareness of homeland realities as bureaucratic restrictions loosen and more diasporans travel.

Much like the character Temur in M.I. Quandour's novel Revolutions mapped his memories into the space of his contemporary Circassia, unaware of the reality of the homeland under the Stalinist regime; diasporic Circassians did and continue to do the same. The results were and are similar to Quandour's fictional tale, Temur was attacked upon arrival by his own compatriots (not his family but member of his village who no

longer recognized him) who eventually murdered him. Acts of repatriation have not been

so harsh for the Circassians (but remember some Armenian repatriates did meet this fate under Stalin, deportation to Siberia and/or death in prisons). However, the culture shock resulting from repatriation has been severe in terms of how diasporic Circassians see

themselves and their compatriots. The idea that this territorial space of Circassia is

capable of maintaining the traditions of Circassia is now in question. The most

illustrative example of this is related to diasporic expectations about Islam.

Ironically, for the Circassians, their Muslim religious identity has always been in

question no matter their territorial position. Was the initial Circassian conversion a move

of devotion or politics, seeking to gain Muslim support against the Christian Russians?

Islamic practice within Circassia is acknowledged to have suffered due to partial

understanding of the faith given the distance from centers of Islamic thought and

education and the lack of knowledge of Arabic. For many Circassians the emigration to

Greater Syria provided opportunities to validate and authenticate their religious practice

by learning Arabic and becoming more devout, or at least dutiful, in their praxis. In an

ironic turn, through a better understanding of what can be deemed, for lack of a better

291 term, "mainstream" Islam, the particular practice of "Circassian Islam", in terms of homeland, what should be considered more authentic, is lost in diaspora, or seen as inferior to traditional syncretic practices.1 In a sense, "Circassian Islam" was eating salted pork, celebrating the Eid with some strong bakhsima in front of the mosque and muddling through the prayers in this strange unfamiliar Arabic tongue. What is inauthentic, in respect to homeland, is the "pure" form of Islam that conforms to the prohibition on alcohol and results in flawless prayers in Arabic ritualistically performed five times a day. What position do Circassians take in diaspora where conformity to

"mainstream" Islam affiliates them with their host community and in certain respects

demands conformity to it?

These are issues with which contemporary Circassians struggle both in their

fictional works and in chatrooms on the internet. It is a complex balancing act. Having

integrated into this "mainstream" or Arabized form of Islam, returning to the homeland

and encountering what is Circassian practice of Islam results in rejection, by diasporans

and compatriots, alike. Or, seeing that Circassians have assimilated into a "system of

atheism" is also perceived as rejection of Circassian culture, not a development or

evolution of it. In this way, the diasporic Circassians perceive themselves to be more

authentic than their compatriots in conformity and practice of religion. The key, here, is

for diasporans to "remember" themselves as devout Muslims in the homeland and that

their current devotion is a result of the continuity between these two territorial locations.

To encounter anything else in this homeland space means that 1) their diasporic histories

are not true and a rupture exists or 2) someone has changed or become corrupt/ed.

1 While Quandour utilized these more divergent Circassian forms of Islam that are authenticated through the khabza and the territoriality of the homeland in his fictional text, the actual practice of these events within Greater Syria is often impossible. 292 Similarly the case study of Armenian operas illustrates the importance of positionality and the questioning of the centrality and authenticity of a homeland. In this situation we can see a multidirectional flow of validation and an awareness that authentication may not be possible for either. The Republic is not the authentic homeland because it lacks Western Armenian villages. Likewise the diaspora is not authentic and traditional but has been influenced though not necessarily corrupt/ed.

Both identities are recognized as unstable and in flux. Even within the territory of

Armenia, Armenianness has been questioned. For example, today the issue of

proselytizing Christian groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses spark controversy with

their presence in the country as a potential "corrupting" force. During the movement for

independence, Russian speaking Armenians' identity was questioned. Thus, it is not the

actual territory that confers Armenian identity nor does it retain it or stabilize it.

The Republic, even though a partial configuration of homeland and not ideal for

Western Armenians does not discredit it as a form of homeland that can be "realized" for

and by diasporans. The Republic offers a means of validating, but not authenticating, the

tradition of diasporic identities and cultural productions. It becomes a centralized

cultural storehouse. As the diaspora accepts the Republic as becoming that receptacle,

analogous to the opera house, it validates the Republic's existence. By embedding

themselves and their cultures within the collective space, they become a part of that

whole. In such a way there is a form of acceptance of territoriality but as something that

is not fixed or necessarily locational but connected to the culture and traditions of the

people. Acknowledgment of diasporic accomplishments and their associated monuments

should and do exist side by side with those of the Republic drawing the people together.

293 For example, as a show of solidarity and affiliation with the diaspora, grassroots commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the Genocide took place in Soviet Armenia.

The result was a monumental embedding, the construction of Tsitsernakaberd, the largest

Genocide memorial. The memorial has become another means of diasporic validation of

the Republic as homeland. As Tsitsernakaberd becomes the central site of Genocide

memorials conducted yearly on April 24, the Republic also becomes a focal point of a

transnational Armenian identity connecting the homeland/Republic with the

deterritorialized diaspora. This positive exchange between diaspora and homeland

illustrates that there can be improvements upon the initial encounters between the two.

Initial diasporan/homeland encounters (acts of repatriation) carry high

expectations as a result of limited communication that resemble in Ulfat Idlibi's reunion

between Mother/son read as homeland/diaspora in Grandfather's Tale. Tools must be

developed to facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship. In much the same way that the

son, Salih, had to give his mother/homeland "new eyes" to see him, the diaspora must

provide a means for the homeland compatriots to see and understand them. Then

mother/son and homeland/diaspora can enter a relationship of validation where the two

spheres are recognized and accepted. Circassians, with a limited period of exchange with

the homeland mark that initial phase of the spectrum where authentication is sought by

both groups and yet cannot be achieved. Frustrated, repatriations decrease.

Thus, both the Circassian and the Armenian case studies presented in this

dissertation ask that the notion of homelands be questioned and reexamined. While there

are considerable differences between the homelands of each group, the expectations that

a homeland is authentic and pure and has the power to validate diasporic identities are

294 challenged. The fixity of identities, both diasporic and in homeland is rejected by these case studies. Does that mean that homelands and nations lose all importance? Clearly not. The need for a central location to house the growing body of cultural products and memories can be resolved through a form of territoriality. But compromises must be made and expectations lowered with better understanding of the positionality of identity, the multilocality of power relations involved for diasporas like those of Greater Syria with attachments throughout space and time. Reflecting on the role of Yerevan in the lives of diasporic Armenians, while the Republic does not replicate the desired map of

Armenia for the diaspora, it is an autonomous territory to which it can look for a sense of history and solidarity. The potential to map the memories of the lost territorial villages and homelands into this space, while never perfect can be a better fit than other locations.

Independence has given Western Armenians the tools to visualize a homeland in a new but yet familiar space, to imagine or to see (with "new eyes") a Western Armenian village within the Republic.

With the political realities of Circassians in the Russian Federation being different, alternate compromises may be made. However, as the potential for more cultural exchanges arise between diasporans and homeland compatriots, the need to negotiate identity in terms of this "internal" positionality—positionality defined in terms of the larger non-territorial collective bodies—will become increasingly important. The ripple effect on identity politics will be felt in all directions including the diasporas within

Greater Syria and their positionality with their "hosts".

295 In the end, homeland and diaspora have a mutually beneficial and potentially symbiotic2 relationship with one another, validating each other and each others' continued existence.

2 Initially, the cultures of the two or more locations are close enough that they do not constitute different groups, but closely related. As time goes by, the differences between the groups may approach a level were the groups are distinct enough that the relationship might be seen as symbiotic. 296 REFERENCES

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