Understanding Genocide: Insights Gained through Armenian Survivor Interviews
and Franz Werfel’s “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh”
Kate Dwyer
University of Minnesota
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
Senior Faculty Mentor: Joachim Savelsberg
Introduction
In 1933 Franz Werfel published what remains today the most famous literary depiction of the
Armenian genocide – The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. The inspiration for the novel came to Werfel while he was touring Damascus fourteen years after genocide had wiped out over half the Armenian population in the region. It was the very sight of famished Armenian children working in a carpet factory that gave
Werfel “the final impulse to snatch from the Hades of all that was, this incomprehensible destiny of the
Armenian nation” (Werfel 1933). Thus, the very intent of the novel was not to tell a story, but to reveal the inconceivable truth of Armenian suffering. Werfel’s novel was quickly banned from Nazi Germany in
1934 at the request of the Turkish government. Yet, authoritarian leaders were not able to contain the influence of Werfel’s work. Along with other literary works, copies of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh circulated in Nazi ghettos, enhancing the spirit of fighters in the Warsaw ghetto rebellion (Toker 2019). It was read by the notation that like the Armenians on Musa Dagh, these fighters too refused to be massacred like ‘sheep’ (Gregorian 2019). There is no doubt as to why Werfel’s novel was banned; within it lie authentic truths about the Armenian genocide – truths which threatened to delegitimize the state which rose from Armenian ashes in 1923. When asked whether his story was the truth, Werfel responded,
“More than the truth; because an epic represents the truth colored by imagination. An epic written by a true poet contains more reality than a history written by a historian” (NAASR, n.d.).
Werfel’s belief that artistic literature can provide a greater understanding of reality than history itself is not misplaced. Literature has always been used as a means to communicate the experience of mankind in ways that may not be obvious in reality. Indeed, much of the content Werfel used for the novel is based on fact. Werfel carefully studied primary sources documenting the genocide and was a friend of the French attaché, Count Chauzel, who made available to him many documents from of the archives of the Ministry of War in Paris (Hamalain 1986). Werfel also used the accounts of German missionary Johannes Lepsius as material for two chapters (Hamalain 1986). In referring to The Forty
Days of Musa Dagh, author Christoph Buch declared, “One must read Werfel’s novel in order to regain a concept of what genocide is” (Peroomian, 2003, 284).
1 Different narratives of history enhance our knowledge in distinct and sometimes opposing ways; narratives told by survivors and witnesses may be more authentic, personal, and local, whereas the narratives told by historians encompass a broader context, giving readers a more factual understanding compared to an emotional one. The narratives told by perpetrators, in attempt to avoid embarrassment and shame, may contradict those told by survivors and witnesses (Savelsberg 2020, 2021). Literary narratives have the unique ability to blend various historical and personal accounts in order to portray the extremely personal experiences and emotional responses of individuals while at the same time shedding light on broader social and political phenomena (Coser 1963; Edling and Rydren eds. 2011).
This research seeks to identify how Werfel’s literary account of the Armenian genocide enhances our understanding of mass violence. It investigates the contributions Werfel provides to the understanding of the genocide gained by 60 self-reported accounts from genocide survivors and witnesses, thereby exploring how narratives and portrayals of mass violence are altered through artistic expression. Through a comparative analysis, the limitations of each account are analyzed, as well as the ways in which both accounts complement each other to achieve a greater understanding of the experiences of perpetrators and victims during the Armenian genocide.
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh depicts the 53-day struggle for survival of over 5,000 Armenians who took refuge on Musa Dagh in 1915. The main character in the novel, Gabriel Bagradian, is portrayed as both a modern-day Moses who leads his fellow countrymen to safety as well as a modern-day Christ who is prepared to sacrifice his life for his people (Hamalaim 1986). Although an Armenian himself,
Gabriel had lived in “complete assimilation” in Paris for twenty-three years with his French wife, Juliette, and his son, Stephan. Werfel writes that when Gabriel returned to the Ottoman Empire on the eve of catastrophe, “he was more French than ever. Armenian still, but only in a sense – academically” (6).
Similar to the character of Moses, Gabriel was an outsider who assumed the destiny of protecting his people from atrocious suffering. Interestingly, the name Musa Dagh means Mount Moses. By changing the length of siege from 53 days to 40, Werfel dedicates his story to the perseverance of the Armenian people and alerts Jews of what was coming. The number 40 has great significance in both Jewish and
2 Armenian history: Moses fasted for forty days before climbing Sinai and receiving the ten commandments, the people of Israel wandered the desert for forty years after being liberated from Egypt, and Christ spent forty days in the wilderness before returning to his people (Hamalaim 1986).
Literature Review
There is a well-established tradition in society to learn from literature because it can capture certain social phenomena that cannot be easily depicted by historical accounts. Literature has a unique ability to trigger our imagination in ways that can help us understand historical events and identify ourselves with the people who lived through them; it allows us to comprehend the emotional responses of individuals. Additionally, literature can illuminate social processes and pose questions about our perceived reality. Human knowledge is socially constructed and continuously changes. Consequently, history is told differently by survivors, witnesses, historians, perpetrators, and novelists. These different accounts all enhance our knowledge of social phenomena and have significant influence over the way in which we remember and understand that phenomena.
One work closely related to this research is Christofer Edling and Jens Rydgren’s Sociological
Insights of Great Thinkers: Sociology through Literature, Philosophy, and Science. Edling and Rydgren’s work consists of 32 essays, which are closely modeled to this paper, examining the insights of prominent scholars and writers. In one of these essays analyzing the writing of Franz Kafka, Joachim Savelsberg revels how literature can use narrative, storytelling, and metaphor to depict realities and grave social problems and struggles. Savelsberg demonstrates that through magical realism, literature can provide
“insights that reach far below the surface of appearance, revealing latent functions, hidden motives, secret structures, and the back stages of social life” (Savelsberg, 2011, 49). Similarly, in an essay on Robert
Musil, Helmut Kuzmics reveals how literature enhances our understanding of modernity and the nation- state by giving sociological explanations explaining why multiethnic dynastic empires give way to nation- states, what the process of transformation is, and what emotions are linked to each stage of this process.
In his essay, Kuzmics further reveals how literature can make social phenomena more visible through
3 behavioral depictions of individuals and groups. Although these works do not themselves provide insight into the understanding of mass violence, they reveal the mechanisms through which literature can enhance our understanding of social events. These mechanisms are important to consider in the analysis of the literary work The Forty Days of Musa Dagh because Franz Werfel utilizes many of the same techniques in depicting the Armenian genocide.
Among scholars, there has been a particular engagement with the sociological insights of literature depicting the Armenian genocide. Rubina Peroomian’s work The Truth of the Armenian
Genocide in Edgar Hilsenrath’s Fiction provides particular insight into the benefits of using literature to better understand mass violence. In her work, Peroomian (2003) explains how literature can create realistic portrayals of mass violence that not only appear more convincing than historiography but allow readers to dig out the roots of the atrocious act, the composition of the victimizer’s psyche, and the behavior of their victims. Additionally, Peroomian posits that artistic literature can bring inconceivable atrocities into the realms of human consciousness and understanding, making them more graspable for readers. Peroomian suggests that through the stories and characters that literature creates, the truth of mass violence may appear more visible than it does in reality. This is indeed the case in Franz Werfel’s depiction of the Armenian genocide. Through literature, Werfel is able to reveal certain truths about the origins of the Armenian genocide, the perpetrators who were responsible for it, and the effect of unimaginable suffering on its victims.
Several scholars have examined the sociological insights of literature by engaging directly with
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. In his research, Ehrhard Bahr (2007) finds that through interactions between characters, Werfel demonstrates how biomedical ideology is the driving force behind modern genocide. Werfel is specifically able to do this by using literary imagination to depict perpetrators. Bahr argues that one of the most revealing aspects of Werfel’s work is not found in the dialogue exchange of the characters, but in the descriptions of their facial expressions and temperaments which give insight into their mentality. Perhaps the most extensive analysis of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is that of Rachel
Kirby (1999) who, for the first time, made the novel the focus of an entire book. Kirby’s analysis explores
4 how Werfel portrays the genocide, participates in contemporary debates, and addresses the issues arising from minority identities. Kirby pays particular attention to the way in which Werfel uses literature to examine how identity is rooted in religious and ethnic communities.
This paper incorporates the insights gained by prior research to varying degrees to better understand the portrayal of the Armenian genocide in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. However, this research offers a unique perspective on the Armenian genocide by specifically investigating the differences and similarities between survivor accounts and Werfel’s literary account of the genocide.
Because the analytical lens used to analyze Werfel’s work derives from the analytical dimensions I previously used to analyze survivor accounts in past research (see Savelsberg 2021, pp. 29-32), the insights gained from Werfel’s novel may differ from those obtained with a different analytical lens.
Through comparing the two accounts, I investigate how victims of the genocide suffer, what the impact of this suffering is on the individual and the collective, the origins of the genocide, the authority structure of perpetrators, the roles that specific perpetrators played in the genocide, how they were referenced, and the impact of persecution on minority identity. Additionally, this analysis sheds light on authentic truths regarding the Armenian genocide and assists human understanding of what it means to be part of a persecuted group.
Data and Methods
This paper discusses the comparative analysis of 60 interviews from Armenian genocide survivors and Franz Werfel’s depiction of the genocide in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. The interviews analyzed were recorded by the Armenian Film Foundation and publicized by the Shoah archive. They were conducted by J. Michael Hagopian, an Armenian genocide survivor, Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, and creator of the Armenian Film Foundation. Hagopian was only two years old when the genocide began. He and his family were spared from deportations, marches, and massacres during the genocide because his father was a prominent physician who treated Turkish officials. Hagopian immigrated to the United States in 1922 and eventually settled in Fresno, California in 1927 (a common
5 location for Armenian genocide survivors to relocate). He received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley in political science and a doctorate degree from Harvard
University in international relations. Hagopian served in the air force in World War II and later taught at several universities. He began making films in an attempt to reach greater audiences.
To compare and contrast the insights gained by survivor accounts of the Armenian genocide and
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, I created analytical categories to code and analyze each account. These include but are not limited to forms of victimization, references of perpetrators, public response to atrocities, attitudes toward Turkey and Turkish people, cultural trauma, and explanations for the genocide.
By using the same analytical dimensions for both projects, the analysis of survivor interviews and of the novel, I was able to maintain consistency in a qualitative comparative analysis investigating the specific benefits and limitations of each account. Due to the non-uniform nature of survivor interviews, conclusions about the topics addressed were difficult to make because not every interviewee was asked the same questions. I therefore focus on describing my findings on the topics addressed and pointing out patterns instead of drawing formal conclusions. I use Werfel’s literary account to enhance the findings and patterns found in survivor interviews, and to contribute to our overall understanding of the crime of genocide.
Destruction through Dehumanization
The atrocities committed and the timing between them during the Armenian genocide varied from location to location. Yet, there were general patterns perpetrators followed. The self-reported accounts of the Armenian genocide recorded by J. Michael Hagopian illustrate what systematic methods perpetrators employed, and how they used them to destroy, physically and mentally, an entire ethnic group. These accounts speak largely to the physical suffering of genocide survivors; they offer evidence of the ways in which different demographic groups were targeted and depict how extreme exhaustion, starvation, rape, and massacres were used to annihilate Armenians in the most horrendous ways. Further, they demonstrate
6 how instead of being measures of military necessity as perpetrators claimed, deportations were intended to eliminate the Armenians and destroy their existence in the Ottoman Empire.
In the novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel contributes to the understanding provided by these first-hand accounts in several ways. Werfel’s account emphasizes many of the same methods emphasized in the accounts from survivors and witnesses (i.e. exhaustion, starvation, rape, and massacres) and provides valuable insights into the physical suffering of Armenians. However, what is most unique about The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is Werfel’s dramatization of the impacts of this suffering and dehumanization on individual and collective identity. Instead of focusing directly on the massacres and deportations, which are still described in detail, Werfel choses to depict the trauma and suffering that genocide creates by depicting the struggle for survival and rescue of 5,000 people. By addressing the Armenian genocide indirectly throughout the novel, Werfel is able to depict dimensions of suffering in ways that could not be captured by focusing only on physical suffering.
Throughout the novel, Werfel emphasizes that dehumanization is the focal point of genocide. For him, it is the dehumanizing aspect of genocide that distinguishes it from other acts of mass violence and war. Werfel explains that death in genocide is different from any other death; “[it] is a more painful, more drawn-out kind of death by torture” (126). Werfel indicates that the speed of destruction during genocide slowly undermines the life of each individual victim and the existence of the entire group, dehumanizing them until there is nothing left. After Pastor Aram Tomasian survives the deportation march from Zeitun, he warns, “Don’t think of the old massacres. This is far worse, far more gruesome, far more relentless, than any massacre. And, above all, it’s far slower. It remains with you, day and night” (114). The scarring impact of drawn-out suffering on one’s sole is also referred to in first-hand accounts from survivors and witnesses. Survivor Haroutune Aivazian comments that the genocide stole his childhood from him; “A birthright of every person…and even now [decades later] I have nightmares about it” (Haroutune
Aivazian, 0:03:38).
Even though the Armenians on Musa Dagh were protected from deportation marches, they were by no means protected from the dehumanizing aspects of genocide. Perhaps the effect of dehumanization
7 is the most clear when a Turkish noble visits the Armenian encampment on Musa Dagh. Werfel comments, “The Agha perceived that not even the most brutal convoy could, in its effects, be more dehumanizing than this isolation, this cutting off. He believed that now he could understand by how much this draining off of the spirit exceeds in cruelty even the massacre of the body. The most horrible thing that had been done was, not that a whole people had been exterminated, but that a whole people, God’s children, had been dehumanized” (672-73). When this Turkish noble left, “it felt as though he were walking through clouds of ashes, the thick death-cloud of the whole burnt-up Armenian race rising between time and eternity” (673). Despite the fact that the Armenians on Musa Dagh were able to uphold a strong resistance and fight for not only their life, but their dignity as well, they couldn’t escape the ghastly fate of their people. Werfel suggests that because their dehumanization and destruction was slower and more drawn-out than any other, their suffering was more dreadful. Not because their physical pain was worse than others, but because of the psychological aspects of dehumanization on their identity.
It is through dehumanization, not solely physical extermination, that a group is destroyed to the extent that its culture, memory, and very identity cease to exist.
By the fortieth day on Musa Dagh, this dehumanization had nearly annihilated the Armenian spirit. After days of extreme starvation, thousands of Armenians had reached a state which Werfel refers to as the “peace of annihilation” – a state in which their ‘shriveled souls’ and ‘wasted bodies’ had reached a “comfortable understanding with death” (757). Along with slowly destroying the Armenians physically, the Turkish government destroyed their souls and spirit to the point where there was nothing left. The way in which genocide dehumanizes its victims and the effect of this dehumanization becomes clear when the worst aspects of physical suffering are omitted. Werfel suggests that the psychological effects of dehumanization are worse than physical extermination because there can be no recovery from them.
When the thought of rescue passes through Gabriel’s mind, the only thing he longs for is solitude, a world devoid of people, “A cosmic hermitage, and he the only person in it, gazing out at peace, without any past, present, and future” (781). Later, when rescue actually comes, it is not greeted with relief by all.
Iskuhi Tomasian comments, “Wouldn’t it have been better without this ship? This is a kind of end, but
8 not ours…” (803). All the suffering Iskuhi and Gabriel experienced at the hands of the Turkish government broke them in such a way that recovery was deemed impossible. Their paths differed from others on Musa Dagh in that the genocide robbed them of their identity to the extent that they no longer recognized themselves. For them, rescue was not necessary because they were forever condemned to suffer. Many survivor accounts reported losing their identities for a short period of time, but some were condemned to the same fate of Iskuhi and Gabriel. The genocide stole any sense of identity and belonging from survivor Jirair Suchiasian. He does not know who his parents were, where he was born, or when he was born. He describes himself by saying “I am somebody, but I am nobody” (Jirair Suchiasian, 0:03:40).
Dehumanization is depicted through starvation in both survivor accounts and The Forty Days of
Musa Dagh. Survivors report that in Syrian deserts, Armenians were abandoned and left to starvation.
The desperation of victims was so extreme that they began feeding on the flesh of corpses. Survivor
George Messerlian remembers a young boy in the Syrian deserts telling his mother “Mother don’t cry.
When I die, don’t give my meat to nobody. You eat [it] yourself” (George Messerlian, 0:06:20). It is this type of dehumanization, achieved by forcing people into cannibalism, that allows perpetrators to destroy the soles of their victims and justify their actions to themselves. Genocides are often built on conceptions of racial superiority and the idea that because victims are thought to be inferior beings, they are outside the bounds of morality. Through genocide, perpetrators seemingly justify their beliefs of racial superiority by degrading and dehumanizing their victims.
Werfel further enhances our understanding of the dehumanizing aspects of genocide by illustrating the extent to which Armenians on Musa Dagh no longer resembled living people. Werfel describes them by saying, “It was no longer a sleep of human beings, but of dead matter, as rocks or mounds sleep” (781). Through drawn-out starvation, the Turkish government was able to steal the humanity of thousands of people without physically touching them. Werfel writes: “[The French] saw hundreds of bare skeleton arms held out to them, begging collectively. The human forms… looked blurred even through a grass field, like so many ghosts” (782). Werfel further illustrates the effects of dehumanization from the perspective of two English lieutenants who comment: “I say, you know, those
9 Armenians! I don’t feel as though I’d been looking at people; nothing but eyes” (788). Werfel claims they were “scarecrows, ragged and famished” (789). By illustrating the devastating aspects of dehumanization,
Werfel enhances our understanding of what makes genocidal suffering unique and how this suffering achieves collective destruction.
In the process of dehumanization, genocides seize control of their victims’ lives, rendering them helpless and subjecting them to an atrocious fate. Through the character of Gabriel, Werfel speaks to an essential difference between genocide and war – the liberty to defend oneself, and thus to maintain one’s dignity in the face of death. Gabriel inspires resistance by declaring, “By fighting, we cease to be just manure, rotting somewhere round the Euphrates. By fighting we gain honor and dignity” (705). Gabriel further distinguishes the difference between genocide and war by claiming: “We have only the choice between two deaths, between easy death in battle, or a mean and terrible death by massacre” (447).
Werfel suggests that only by fighting back, can Armenians maintain their dignity and resist dehumanization. In doing this, even in death, Armenians liberate themselves from the suffering inflicted upon them. Physical resistance is not the only way to maintain dignity. Werfel offers suicide as another means to retain control and resist dehumanization. He explains that it is the ability to choose one’s fate, not survival, that makes them victorious over the Turks. Suicide is also suggested as means to liberate oneself and remain victorious in death by survivor accounts. Survivor Haigas Bonapart reports that his two sisters killed themselves to avoid losing their Armenian identity and being slaughtered at the hands of strangers.
Resistance was not possible for many victims of the Armenian genocide because of the systematic methods used to target them. The progression of the genocide was slow; it began with confiscations of passports, arrests, military dismissals, and disarmaments. Only after all the means of resistance were removed, including the members of society who were most equipped to resist, did the
Turkish government began targeting the general population. In doing this, perpetrators seized all control over their victims. First-hand accounts shed light on the systematic processes used to target Armenians and how these processes rendered them helpless. Werfel contributes to the understanding gained by these
10 accounts by illustrating the effect of regaining control over one’s life. In The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, the majority of Armenians in Yoghonoluk initially believed resistance was not a viable option, but after much persuasion from Gabriel, they agreed that it was possible and necessary. Werfel comments that
“[their] zest for life, after weeks of coma, seemed for the first time now to have returned…the unknown, incomprehensible pleasure invaded their souls” (218). Not only did the systematic means used to target
Armenians render them helpless, but also the dehumanizing aspects of their suffering. Werfel suggests the news of the deportation march from Zeitun and the unimaginable suffering it caused, placed many
Armenians in a comatic state in which they were helpless. However, after they formulated a plan of resistance, Armenians were filled with immense excitement because for the first time since news of
Zeitun arrived, they were fighting against the horrendous fate pushed upon them. Even though there was suffering ahead, they were no longer helpless, and even in death, they would remain free.
The Meaning of a Homeland
The Armenian genocide robbed thousands of people of the homeland that had belonged them for more than 3,000 years. Survivor accounts indicate that this was one of the greatest tragedies of the genocide, and for some, its return is a necessary reparation to move forward. In his interview, J. Michael
Hagopian explains the tragedy of losing one’s home: “I’ve come to realize that leaving your native land is probably the worst punishment you can get; to be exiled that you can never go back to your home is a horrible thing” (J. Hagopian, 0:53:50). An Armenian state was created in 1918. Yet, the majority of the land taken from Armenians during the genocide is not included in this state. There are still some towns in
Turkey today that remain fairly empty due to the haunting memory of the atrocities committed in them.
Many survivors mourn the loss of their homes, but not all wish to return. Those who do return often find very different landscapes than when they left. Nevertheless, the return of Armenian homeland is a common demand of survivors. Survivor Kevork Cachazn says he can’t have any love for the Turkish people today because he does not believe they have done anything good for Armenians. However, actions
11 by the Turkish government to amend wrongdoings, including returning Armenian homeland, could change his view.
In The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel enhances our understanding of this tragedy by demonstrating the interconnectedness between Armenians and the physical land on which they resided.
Gabriel Bagradian spent his childhood in a village surrounding Musa Dagh – a mountain that is described to be an integral part of himself and his Armenian identity. Werfel writes, “To Gabriel Bagradian his grandfather and Musa Dagh connoted the same,” further adding that it was the “mount of his childhood”
(5). Musa Dagh was an ancestral home of Armenians and a uniting force among them. Werfel comments,
“the limpid air of Musa Dagh contained a releasing element which seemed to bring [Gabriel and his son] close together, in a proximity neither had ever known” (15). Musa Dagh is further depicted as an integral part of Armenian identity and a protecting force that gave Armenians the courage and strength necessary to resist persecution. Werfel writes, “Some compelling magic emancipating from the mountain of
[Gabriel’s] fathers, becoming stronger the longer he stayed [there], forced him into [leading the resistance]…the very essence of this mountain… seemed to renew Gabriel’s strength and give him courage…” (158). Indeed, it was the strategic terrain of Musa Dagh that played a large role in protecting and enabling a group of villagers to defend themselves against a trained army.
Werfel makes the connection between Armenians and their land even more stark when he describes Armenian children running around the mountain. Werfel claims that not only were they “in their element,” but “they were interwoven with the very nature in which they lived. Their hills were as much a part of them as their flesh, so that to differentiate between outward and inward became impossible” (346).
When Armenians were exiled, they lost a great deal more than their home. They lost a part of themselves and a part of their cultural identity. Werfel continues to say, “Every leaf that stirred, every fruit that dropped, the rustling of a lizard, the faint plash of a far-off waterfall – these myriad stirring had ceased to be mirrored by [the children’s] senses; they formed the very heart of those senses themselves, as though each child were himself a little Musa Dagh, creating it all with his own body” (346). It is this very interconnectedness that distinguished the Armenians and made it difficult for Stephan Bagradian, a
12 French-Armenian raised in Paris, to assimilate with the other Armenian children who had spent their lives running around this mountain. Werfel assists our understanding of the tragedy of losing one’s ancestral homeland by indicating that its significance is much greater than just losing the land on which you reside.
Werfel illustrates that in losing it, you lose part of yourself – a part which Armenians never regained and mourn to this day.
When at last the Armenians are rescued from their encampment on Musa Dagh, their connection to their ancestral homeland is severed. Werfel uses personification to depict the significance of this loss.
As the Armenians drift away on a French warship, they watch their mountain disappear. Werfel writes,
“The deck of the [ship] was thronged with Armenians, leaning over the rail, to watch their mountain out of sight, which seemed to lower darkly over them with the glumness of a murderer balked of his prey”
(811). A mountain cannot be destroyed, it weathers all crises indefinitely, but its meaning can be diluted and lost overtime. Werfel describes a reciprocal relationship between the Armenians and their mountain; each gives meaning to the other. Thus, when one is lost, the other is as well. Perhaps, this why Werfel chooses to portray Musa Dagh as a ‘murderer balked of his prey’ – it is not that the mountain seeks to devour Armenians, after all, Musa Dagh is their protector. Rather, it seeks to remain connected to them to the very end, and if this end is destruction, then it seeks for the Armenians to be destroyed with it. By personifying Musa Dagh, Werfel further enhances our understanding of the interconnectedness between
Armenians and their ancestral homeland, as well as what it means for them to be exiled from this land.
Once exiled, most Armenians became lost vagabonds endlessly wandering, looking for shelter and safety. When describing a deportation march seen from Musa Dagh, Werfel uses the metaphor of a dying caterpillar that is endlessly wandering and suffering: “a sick, worming line of human beings, feeble to the point of extinction; a blackish caterpillar, with the tremulous feelers, bristles, and tiny feet, winding its piteous length through the landscape, without ever seeming to advance. This mortally wounded, forsaken insect seemed to seek in vain for a place to hide in…It was not the wriggle, it was the twitching death throes, of a worm, a last writhing, stretching, convulsive shudder, as though already carrion flies were creeping up to the open wound” (314). In exiling an entire ethnic group from their ancestral
13 homeland, the Turkish government stole individual and cultural identities from the Armenian people – they sole their livelihood, their purpose, their raison d’être, and dehumanized them in the process.
Armenians today are not physically suffering from the atrocities committed against them over 100 years ago, but they still feel and mourn this loss of identity. The meaningful connection they shared with their homeland for over 3,000 years remains severed. Werfel helps us understand that Armenian cultural identity will continue to suffer until this connection is restored.
Explaining the Inexplicable
The origins of the Armenian genocide, like any act of mass violence, are very complex. Long- term and short-term conditions, domestic and international changes, and state crises all contributed to the eruption of genocide in 1915. Both survivor accounts and Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh shed light on the factors leading to genocide and offer various explanations as to why the genocide occurred.
One large change that enabled anti-Armenian Turkish leaders to instigate genocide was the First World
War. Survivor Jiryar Zorthian concludes that Turkish leaders felt threatened by growing Armenian power and influence in society, as well as their religious beliefs. He believes Turkish leaders took advantage of a time when global powers were busy at war and Armenians had no protection. Zorthian concludes that states that may have condemned the genocide and interfered were too occupied with a world war to reprimand perpetrators. Werfel also suggests that the outbreak of the First World War likely had an important role in the genocide. Throughout The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Werfel illustrates the ways in which perpetrators took advantage of wartime conditions to initiate violence. He makes it clear that the
Turkish government framed their actions as wartime measures of military necessity to ensure that their victims would be compelled to comply and that the international community would not intervene. Werfel also suggests that this allowed perpetrators to take advantage of “the moment of surprise,” making it difficult for Armenians to organize resistance even if they had the resources to do so. Yet, Werfel argues that the war did not necessarily inhibit international intervention. In a conversation with the German privy
14 councillor, it is made clear that German intervention under any circumstance was unlikely. When addressing the humanitarian activities of German missionary Johannes Lepsius, the privy councillor declares, “The truth is that the Turks hold trumps in this particular game, that we have to mind out p’s and q’s and keep well within the limits of the possible” (534). The privy councillor further claims that
Lepsuis’ humane activities done in service to persecuted Armenians are “in a political sense…not desirable” (538). The conflict that Werfel depicts between national sovereignty and human rights is still very present today and has an active role in preserving denial of the Armenian genocide. Ultimately,
Werfel proposes that WW1 had facilitating role in the genocide but was not the proximate cause of it.
In The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, religious polarization between Muslims and Christians is very evident. Werfel depicts religious prejudice as a motivator for some of the perpetrators massacring
Armenians; perpetrators cite Allah as a beneficiary of their crimes and attribute their newfound Armenian treasures to Him. Ancient Islamic battle cries are also depicted among perpetrators preparing for massacre. The belief that the genocide occurred in part due to the fact that Armenians are Christian was very common among survivors. Kevork Cachazn attributes anti-Christian prejudice present in Turkey to a fear derived from Christian Europe. He asserts that Armenians were massacred for the simple reason that they were not Muslim; Turks were afraid of Europeans invading, dominating politics, and dividing the country. Survivor Lemyel Amirian also claims Armenians had been targeted by Turks because of a long and complex history that can be traced back to when Armenians became Christian. He believes
Armenians were massacred (before and during the genocide) primarily because they were the first
Christians in Turkey.
Werfel acknowledges the role that religious prejudice had in the genocide; however, he suggests that instead of being the cause of genocide, religion was a savoir from it. Werfel speaks through devout
Turkish Muslim characters to suggest that religion was not a motivator of the perpetrators who were responsible for initiating the genocide. One of these characters, Agha Rifaat Bereket, posits that the perpetrators in Istanbul are traitors and “atheists, who would annihilate God’s universe itself, merely in order to get money and power.” He further declares that “[They] are neither Turks nor Moslems. They are
15 mere empty rascals and money-grubbers” (37). In a conversation between a group of devout Muslims and
Johannes Lepsius, it is suggested that nationalism, not religion, is the true cause of the genocide. One
Muslim man claims, “Nationalism fills up the burning void which Allah leaves on the hearts of men when they drive Him out of them” (554). He further declares that there is no hate for Armenians in the doctrine of Islam: “we too strive, just as the Christians do, after a kingdom of unity and love. We too do not hate our enemies. How is it possible to hate if the heart has opened itself to God” (556)? These Muslims suggest that the nationalism dominating the Ottoman Empire is a “foreign poison” originating in Europe.
Rather than causing the genocide, Werfel depicts religion as being manipulated by it – by nationalist leaders in pursuit of national goals. Through these characters, Werfel argues that a return to religious ideals of tolerance and unity are necessary to combat a genocide caused by modernist secularism.
Perhaps Werfel’s claim that the origins of the Armenian genocide lie in Turkish nationalism is most evident during a conversation between Johannes Lepsius and Enver Pasha. After many fabricated excuses regrading Armenian rebellion, Enver Pasha reveals his intention to establish a Turkish Empire.
Enver tells Lepsuis, “The Turkish population is forty millions…Is it not a great and worthy policy to try to weld these forty millions together and establish a natural empire, which henceforth will play the same part in Asia as Germany does in Europe? This empire is waiting. We have only to grasp it…[We Turks are] a great and heroic people, called to establish and govern a world empire. Therefore we intend to surmount all obstacles” (139). In this conversation Enver also refers to the Armenians as “plague germs” that must be eradicated. Werfel indicates that Turkish nationalism drove the belief that all Turkic people should be united in a single ethnic empire, that the Armenians were a principal barrier to achieving this, and that genocide was deemed the most appropriate means to eliminate this barrier. Werfel’s conviction that the genocide originated from a secular, nationalist ideology is further evident through his portrayal of
Enver Pasha. Werfel writes that Enver was a “porcelain war god,” a “childlike Antichrist,” a “human being who ‘has overcome all sentimentality,’” someone with “the strange almost innocent naïveté of utter godlessness” (139-142). Werfel continues to say that Lepsius had wished Enver were malicious and
Satan-like, “But he had no malice, he was not Satan; this quietly implacable mass-murderer was boyishly
16 charming” (143). Enver is not portrayed to have an inherent hatred toward Christians, but instead to lack all morality. For him, genocide is motivated by the political policies which were determined according to the doctrine Turkish nationalism. Werfel suggests that morality derives from religious doctrine, and therefore, Enver’s amorality and policy of genocide derive from his “godlessness.”
Although Werfel indicates that the origins of the Armenian genocide are primarily found in
Turkish nationalism, he does provide insight into other important factors that motivated violence. Indeed, the origins of genocide are not necessarily the same as the factors that motivate violence among many civilians. Throughout The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Werfel emphasizes the role that Armenian intellect and economic prosperity played in motivating violence. Werfel implies that many Turks felt threatened by Armenian ingenuity, progressiveness, and wealth. By persecuting Armenians, Turks obtained power and the feeling not only of security but of triumph and greatness. When Gabriel was preparing a plan of resistance, he declares: “We Armenians are always priding ourselves on superior brains. That’s one of the things that’s riled [the Turks] so. Now it’s time for us to prove that we really are much cleverer” (200).
Jealously among Turkish perpetrators is also depicted during deportations. Werfel writes from the perspective of Turkish gendarmes, “Rich people, these Armenians – rich everywhere!…Ah, well, Allah was about to pay them back something for their pride! They’ve had a finger in everything, haven’t they – governed in Istanbul, raked in the money like a harvest” (256). Werfel further suggests the splendors of the Armenian village square made the Turkish police chief feel “The insecurity of a barbarian confronted with a superior civilization” (257).
The explanation of the genocide being the result of Turkish jealousy was also prominent among survivors. Similar to Werfel’s depiction, many survivors suggested that Armenians were targeted in part because how ingenious and resourceful they were. In their joint interview Rose Arzoomanian and Rose
Ohanian attribute the persecution of Armenians to money and jealousy. Ohanian says, “The Armenians living there were rich and hard-working” (Ohanian, 0:13:10). They believe this wealth made many Turks jealous. Arzoomanian expands on this, “Armenians are clever...the Turks couldn't do anything without the help of the Armenians. They are lazy and slothful” (Arzoomanian, 0:12:30). Werfel also depicts Turks as
17 ‘slothful’ and enhances our understanding of Armenian industrialization and progressiveness leading up to the genocide. He writes, “Armenian agricultural methods in Anatolia were a hundred times ahead of
Turkish small landholding…The Armenian millet, the most progressive and active section of the Ottoman population, had for years been making vast efforts to lead Turkey out of its old-fashioned, primitive methods of agriculture into a new world of up-to-date farming and budding industrialization. And it was for just this very beneficent pioneering work that Armenians were being persecuted and slaughtered by the vengeful violence of irritated sloth” (137-8).
Survivor Alice Shipley shares the feeling that the genocide was born out of jealousy. She claims that the richness, beauty, and political success of Armenians made Turks feel inferior. She goes on to say that Turks have massacred Armenians every 30 years for the past 400 years because they couldn’t stand feeling less than the Armenians. In The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Werfel enhances Shipley’s claim by illustrating how the perpetrators of the Hamidian massacres in 1894-96 shared some of the same motivations as the perpetrators of the 1915 genocide. Werfel portrays a dialogue between a minor Turkish official and an Armenian watchmaker during the Hamidian massacres: “You are a usurers and money- lenders. All Armenian swine are usurers and money-lenders. You unclear giaours are responsible for the wretchedness of our people” (246).
Through literature, Werfel creates his own reality. He uses fictional characters and portrayals of historical figures to contextualize the genocide and enhance our understanding of survivor perspectives.
By illustrating the interactions between perpetrators, victims, and others, he allows us to better understand the motivations of the actors responsible for this unthinkable atrocity and how those motivations may differ between different types of perpetrators. When combined, survivor accounts and Werfel’s novel reveal significant and authenticable truths about the origins of the Armenian genocide. Most importantly, they demonstrate the true nature of genocide – the murder of a group of non-threatening civilians. Both accounts refute the provocation thesis, which argues the genocide was provoked by rebellious and separatist Armenian actions. They undeniably revel how Armenians remained loyal to the Ottoman
18 Empire, complied with the demands of the Turkish government, and only used violence as a last resort to defend themselves, their families, and their culture against massacre.
Perpetrators – Accountability, Responsibility, Remembrance
The Armenian genocide was organized by the Turkish government and carried out by various actors. Because perpetrators consisted of many different groups, it can be difficult to distinguish between them, attribute blame, and hold them accountable. Some survivor accounts did not acknowledge any nationality or occupation of perpetrators except upon request. Others primarily used ‘they’ to refer to perpetrators but also occasionally used other references. The terms Turks, gendarmes, soldiers, the
Turkish government, Turkish soldiers, and policemen were also frequently used by survivors to refer to perpetrators. The continual use of ‘they’ may reflect some uncertainty interviewees had about the specific people who persecuted them. Because there were many different groups of persecutors, it may have been difficult for interviewees to distinguish which group they belonged to. The frequent reference of perpetrators as ‘they’ is significant because by not specifying who perpetrators were, survivors do not attribute guilt to the specific people who persecuted them. The significance of this can be reflected in the collective memory of the genocide. Although the scars of genocide are felt by the victims and their descendants forever, they are not as widely felt by the rest of society. This is due to the way in which the genocide is remembered. The collective memory of the Armenian genocide, and therefore the classification of perpetrators, is influenced by the active denial of its existence by Turkish officials, some
Turkish people, and other nations. This denial may have disassociated perpetrators from their crimes in the memory of the genocide.
Werfel’s portrayal of the Armenian genocide helps reassociate perpetrators with their crimes by revealing the authority structure of the Turkish government. Throughout The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,
Werfel explains in detail the roles of various perpetrators responsible for the genocide. Yet ultimately he attributes blame to the three Pashas, the dictators ruling the Ottoman Empire, who he depicted as having relatively unconstrained power. Despite the various actors involved in perpetrating violence, Werfel
19 proposes it is “The sword of Enver [Pasha]” (673) that is truly responsible for the murder of over one million Armenians. This view is reinforced throughout the novel by frequent references to Enver as the
God of his people. Werfel also reveals that although many government officials were supportive of deportations decreed by Enver and Talaat Pasha, some opposed them. Yet many of these officials were trapped against Enver Pasha, the Minister of War. Indeed, any effort to assist Armenians came at a grave cost to Turkish officials who could be arrested and imprisoned for the remainder of their life. Compliance was enforced by the authority structure of the Turkish government, as well as by threats made to those who disobeyed orders. Werfel suggests that during the siege of Musa Dagh, immense pressure to succeed was placed upon the Kaimakam (the civil governor of an administrative district) and the Yüs-bashi (a major in the military) because failure would result in dire disgrace and a court martial. Werfel further emphasizes that it was the role of subordinate officials to carry out the government’s orders without question. In the novel, it isn’t until after a devastating attack on Turkish forces that, for the first time, the
Kaimakam questions his unwavering loyalty to Enver and Talaat Pasha and contemplates what the truth is.
Even though some perpetrators were not supportive of genocidal killing, Werfel indicates that the majority were not only deeply supportive, but also deeply enthusiastic. Werfel’s account suggests that while thousands of Armenians were being evicted from their homes and massacred, nationalist festivities in Istanbul celebrated the Turkification of the empire. More revealing, however, was Werfel’s depiction of perpetrators as they sole the clothes and goods from the Armenian corpses which they had just massacred. Werfel describes soldiers singing a song inspired by decrees of banishment: “Killing, killing, we rout them out… All away, all away” (253). It is evident that for some perpetrators, the violence necessary to carry out genocide was not the result of forced compliance – rather, it was welcomed by perpetrators who already had deep hatred for the Armenian minority in the Ottoman Empire. Survivor accounts suggest this hatred originated from religion. Survivor Haigas Bonapart recalls Turkish soldiers bragging and laughing about everything they stole from Armenians. He believed Turks were motivated by religion to commit violent crimes, claiming that Islam rewards those who kill Christians with beautiful
20 women. Vartuhi Varjiabedian also cites religion as a motivation for the atrocities committed. She explains that killing Armenians was thought by many to be Sabab (something sacred). Similarly, Werfel suggests that religion was partially responsible for the polarization between Armenians and Turks. Throughout his work, he depicts perpetrators justifying their actions in the name of Allah and using Islamic traditions to motivate violence.
The influence of religion on perpetrator enthusiasm is further emphasized by survivors Arakse
Hoodasian and Haroutune Berberian. In their joint interview, Hoodasian and Berberian describe the absence of remorse by perpetrators and depict how they cited religion to justify their actions. They describe soldiers laughing immediately after ripping an unborn baby from its mother with daggers and the response of one gendarme: “the other Christians have done this to you, why shouldn’t we do the same?”
(Arakse Hoodasian and Haroutune Berberian, 0:02:55). Survivor accounts also enhance our understanding of genocidal violence by explaining the extent to which violence against Armenians had become normalized. In his interview, survivor Haig Baronian describes how perpetrators would tell the public and their victims of planned massacres. He says perpetrators felt justified and thought the killing of
Armenians to be ordinary. Later, Baronian continues, saying perpetrators had no worry or remorse because they blamed their anger from the resistance of a few Armenians on all Armenians. Both survivor accounts and Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh shed light on the motivations of perpetrators and their willingness to commit horrendous violence. Yet both acknowledge that not all civilians contributed to the horrors of the genocide. When depicting the announcement of a decree of banishment, Werfel writes, “Turks and Armenians mingle[d] their tears” (153) and illustrates Turks supplying their Armenian neighbors with provisions, costly presents, and begging the Müdir, a minor civil official in charge of a subdistrict, to allow them to stay. Survivor Rose Apelian’s experience was similar to that described by
Werfel. She recalls Turks coming to say goodbye to her father when he was deported and comforting her mother after he was taken.
What is unique about Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, is his ability to demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between the social construction of identity of victims and perpetrators. According
21 to survivor accounts, the Armenian genocide occurred after a long history of interaction between
Armenians and Turks – an interaction that may have been hostile in part due to religious differences.
Nevertheless, Armenians and Turks coexisted in a multiethnic empire for many years without genocide.
Indeed, after the Young Turk revolution of 1908, Armenians were declared to be the equals of Ottoman
Muslims and were granted full citizenship. Why then were they degraded to status of “plague germs” in
1915? Werfel suggests this was because of the secular, nationalist ideology of the Young Turks.
Regardless of what caused perpetrators to identify Armenians differently, this change triggered a change in the social construction of perpetrator identity from the perspectives of their victims. Werfel enhances our understanding of the way in which identity arises from the social interactions between groups and is reinforced by their actions. Throughout The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, perpetrators depict Armenians as an existential threat, claiming: “Either they disappear, or we do” (257). This belief is repeated by Turkish officials through dehumanizing language that depicts Armenians as barbaric and beast-like. This in turn is reflected in the langue used by Armenians to refer to perpetrators. Turks come to be depicted as a barbaric existential enemy this is compared to the same degrading status as Armenians were by Turks. Overtime, both sides are either forced or compelled to conform to the identity which is socially constructed by the other. For Gabriel, the Turks were his friends – his fellow Ottoman subjects who shared many of his same interests. Yet when news of the ghastly deportation march from Zeitun arrived, he had no choice but to ask himself: “Can such old [Turkish] friends be my mortal enemies” (82)? Near the end of the siege on
Musa Dagh, a Turkish noble tells Gabriel the perpetrators responsible are Ittihadists – Talaat, Enver, and their servants. Gabriel disagrees and responds that it is “your soldiers…your people” (671) who are responsible for all the killing and destruction. Although this Turkish noble was not connected to the perpetrators and condemned them, he is held responsible by Gabriel. Werfel indicates that this is the result of socially constructed identities which don’t exist objectively; the response to Turks depicting all
Armenians and an existential threat, was Armenians depicting all Turks as an existential enemy.
In addition to reveling the authority structure of the Turkish government, exposing motivations of perpetrators, and demonstrating how perpetrator and victim identity is socially constructed, Werfel offers
22 insights into the exact role that various perpetrators played in the unimaginable violence caused by the genocide. Werfel revels that genocidal decrees came from the leaders of the Turkish government who were the ultimate dictators of the genocide. These decrees were given to subordinates and sergeants to oversee and execute. Many of these subordinates included Walis (civil governors of provinces),
Mutessarifs (civil administrators of regions), and Kaimakams (civil governors of districts). Further, decrees were ambiguous, thereby allowing lower-ranking officials to determine how deportation orders should be executed. Werfel comments, “Naturally the character and methods of the government officials concerned had made a great difference to the way in which the order was carried out” (168). In spite of the various instructions passed to the perpetrators directly overseeing deportations and executing massacres, Werfel reveals that two things were made clear all perpetrators: “The goal of these deportations is annihilation” (146) and “the methods of applying [deportation decrees] must be kept as unobtrusive as possible in the presence of Allied and neutral consuls” (274).
Werfel indicates that Müdir and Muafins (police chiefs) were responsible for going to Armenian villages and delivering decrees of banishment. They were frequently accompanied by roughly one hundred saptiehs (gendarmes) who were responsible for leading weapon searches, collecting Armenians, and marching them eastward. Saptiehs carried deportees a certain distance until they reached a point where they passed them to the next gendarmerie district. Further, saptiehs were under strict orders to reach this point by a scheduled hour. Müdirs were also sometimes responsible for leading deportations.
Werfel indicates that the heavy physical burden of administering marches inspired indolence among
Müdirs to “forget” some remote villages and the poor living conditions on the marches irritated many saptiehs. In addition to official perpetrators, many civilians accompanied Müdirs and saptiehs to
Armenian villages with the intention to plunder Armenian homes and collect riches. Werfel claims these included Arab peasants, war refugees sent to the interior by the government, and Muslim women.
Survivor accounts generally confirm the portrayal of perpetrator roles offered by Werfel. Many survivors indicated that gendarmes and police led deportation marches and the various methods reportedly used by perpetrators reflects the ambiguity of orders given to them. Due to uncertainty, however, survivor
23 accounts are unable to revel the specific roles different perpetrators had in carrying out violence. Werfel’s novel enhances these accounts by associating specific roles with specific responsibilities.
Werfel also enhances our understanding of perpetrators by revealing the difference between soldiers and saptiehs. Attacks on Musa Dagh occurred in three waves; the first being trained soldiers, the second being saptiehs, and the third being Muslim villagers. Although saptiehs were frequently used throughout the genocide to lead deportations and massacre Armenians, they were of little use in battle.
Werfel describes the gendarmerie: “It was there to keep order, and nothing more. It was not obliged to take part in assaults against a fully armed enemy. Also it was subject to civil, not military, law…[it was] so useful against helpless women and children, otherwise good for nothing except to loot” (380). Werfel further emphasizes that saptiehs were the “lowest by-product of militarism…valiant in their dealings with old women, scared of a man, until they had disarmed him three times” (331). In referring to saptiehs,
Werfel speaks to the systematic nature of the genocide; trained soldiers were not necessary to commit genocide because the majority of barriers had already been removed. By the time decrees of deportations were announced, many Armenians had been robbed of all the means that had to resist and were rendered helpless. Soldiers were not needed because, in most cases, resistance had been quelled before it even had a chance to form. Additionally, Werfel indicates the distinction between soldiers and saptiehs is important to distinguish motives. Saptiehs were frequently employed to persecute Armenians, but “The soldiers were strangers” to them (331). After Stephan kills a group of Turkish soldiers, Werfel writes: “Thus did one fourteen-year-old schoolboy, with five cartridges, avenge the million-fold decimation of his race upon harmless peasants forced into arms – upon the wrong people, as is always the case in war revenge”
(387). It is implied that while many soldiers may have been enthusiastic about the genocide, many were tragically forced to cause inconceivable suffering all because of the reckless and sadistic actions of a handful of leaders. Contrary to soldiers, it is implied that saptiehs were eager to carry out the genocide and were responsible for the majority of pain inflicted – before and during the genocide.
Survivor accounts and The Forty Days of Musa Dagh often use the term Turk to describe the people responsible for causing extreme suffering. Although the majority of the perpetrators of the
24 genocide were Turkish, it is significant that they are commonly referenced as such because Turks were not the only group perpetrating violence – other groups such as Kurds and Arabs contributed as well. As we have seen, many perpetrators rallied behind religion to justify their crimes to themselves. Yet, perpetrators are not principally referred to as Muslims by Werfel or survivors. The choice to refer to perpetrators generally as Turks reflects the way in which identities were constructed around ethnicity, not religion. It is important to note that the term Turk was not widely used in the Ottoman empire before the
Young Turk revolution of 1908 and was even associated with negative connotations (Akçam, 2004).
Instead, prior to 1908, identity was constructed around Ottomanism and Islam. Thus, the commonality of the term Turk to refer to perpetrators in both accounts further reflects the origins of the genocide – ethnic nationalism.
Endless Suffering and Cultural Trauma
Genocide seeks to destroy an entire group to the extent that their influence, memory, and culture no longer exist. The Armenian genocide, combined with decades of cultural Turkification policies pursued by the Turkish government, was successful in removing the essence of Armenian identity from
Turkey. Yet, the detrimental impact that suffering had on Armenian identity was present long before the genocide occurred in 1915. For survivor Dickran Boyajian, the 60-year anniversary of the genocide was only a symbol of the way in which Armenians were persecuted for more than 500 years. Indeed, since the inception of the Ottoman Empire, Armenians were discriminated against and degraded to the status of second-class citizens. It was also customary for the Ottoman Empire to settle political and social issues through the use of force, particularly against minority populations (Manukyan 2017). In The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Werfel enhances our understanding of the effect of the centuries of persecution on minority identity by revealing the extent to which Armenian identity was defined by cultural trauma – trauma experience by a group that damages the bonds connecting them and impairs their sense of community. Werfel illustrates that prior to the 1915 genocide, Armenian identity already centered around suffering. Perhaps the impact of cultural trauma on identity is most shocking in Werfel’s depiction of the
25 childhood fantasies of Gabriel Bagradian – the same fantasies of every Armenian boy. During Gabriel’s childhood, there was no question as to who the arch enemy was: “Abdul Hamid, the blood-stained
Sultan,” who “had issued a ferman against Christians” and rallied the “The hounds of the Prophet, Turks,
Kurds, Circassians,” to burn, plunder, and massacre Armenians (14). As a child, Gabriel fantasied about defending himself against these enemies. Werfel illustrates that not even the relationship between childhood innocence and Armenian identity could escape being penetrated by the memory of suffering; suffering which infiltrated Armenian identity to the extent that children fantasied about heroically defending their people against genocide.
The effect of cultural trauma on Armenian identity is not limited to heroic childish fantasies.
Through literature, Werfel is able to capture the physical impact of suffering on Armenian identity. When
Gabriel glances at the face of his son’s tutor, he sees the face of an Armenian intellectual: “A rather sloping forehead. Watchful, deeply troubled eyes behind glasses. An expression of eternal surrender to fate, but at the same time a sharp look of being on guard, ready every second to parry an attacker’s blow”
(19-29). Werfel indicates that Armenian identity centered around the fear of future suffering – suffering that placed its victims indefinitely on the defensive and at the same time rendered them helpless. One cannot perpetually defend themselves against persecution because the victory experienced one day will always be overshadowed by the defeat of the next. Further, the triumph of a few does not resolve the pain inflicted on the group by the suffering of the majority. It is for this reason that Armenian doctor Bedros
Altouni responds to Gabriel’s criticism of surrender by saying, “You young people don’t know what submitting means…You can be a Russian, or a Turk, or a Hottentot, or God knows what – but to be an
Armenian – why it’s impossible” (49). Although born and raised an Armenian, Gabriel spent most of his adult life in Paris. Consequently, he was disconnected from his Armenian identity and the cultural trauma associated with it. Thus, for Gabriel the question of surrender is view differently than most other
Armenians. Werfel suggests that it is impossible for one to fully embrace being an Armenian because they are forever burdened with the pain of a “persecuted race.” This burden compels its victim to surrender eventually because they know that ultimately suffering is inescapable.
26 In depicting suffering, Werfel adopts a particularistic perspective to suggest that Armenians suffer first and foremost as a collective. This is not to say that Armenians did not suffer individually as humans, as men, as women, and as children. Indeed, survivor accounts undeniably reveal the individualistic aspects of suffering during the genocide. Rather, Werfel indicates that one cannot separate
Armenian suffering from group membership. Because Armenians were specifically targeted as a group with the intent for all memory of their identity to be removed from Turkey, the violence inflicted against one perpetuates the suffering of the collective. Werfel reveals this when a deportee from Zeitun is reunited with his father in front of an Armenian village. Werfel writes, a horse sob of grief “spread, like an electric shock through the crowd. Whimpering, sobs, loud clearings of the throat. Only oppressed and persecuted peoples are such good pain-conductors. What has befallen one has been done to all” (80).
Even though the crowd of Armenians witnessing this reunion did not feel the pain of their loved one suffering in inconceivable ways, they felt the pain of collective Armenian suffering – for they too were the victims of the malicious deportations that sought to annihilate the Armenian spirit. Werfel further comments that this reaction marked the essence of what it meant to be an Armenian in the Ottoman
Empire. When Juliette looks at her French-Armenian son, she is astonished by the uncomprehending horror in his eyes that made him look “so Armenian” (80). Thus, suffering and persecution ware an inherent aspect of Armenian identity that all Armenians had to reconcile.
Werfel proposes that one implication of the way in which suffering is inseparable from Armenian identity is the inescapability of this identity for those who are born into it and the impenetrability of it for those who are not. By spending several decades in France, married to a French woman, Gabriel Bagradian disassociated himself from his Armenian identity to the degree that when it was forced upon him, he became trapped in a state of alienation. The perpetual suffering defining his people and the “blood- hatred” that plagued them still no longer defined Gabriel, and yet, he couldn’t escape the fact that he was
Armenian. This was made clear to him when he was reintroduced to the unbearable discrimination targeting his people. Werfel writes, “Here for the first time…at home, [Gabriel] could measure fully the absolute degree of his alien state upon this earth. Armenian! In him an ancient blood-stream, an ancient
27 people” (28). The irreconcilable fact that Gabriel saw the world through the eyes of a Frenchman and the fact that he carried within him an ancient ‘blood-stream’ rendered him an alien in the world and in himself. Only one of these two identities competing for dominance in Gabriel could triumph – the one which inherently bound him to a collective which was targeted for annihilation. During the progression of the genocide, Gabriel continually sheds his European identity and embraces his Armenian one. For
Gabriel this is not a choice, it was the destiny God had determined for him – an inescapable destiny flowing through his ancestors within him. Immediately before hearing news of the first deportation march, Gabriel can sense catastrophe. He attempts to explain this feeling to his wife: “It’s in my bones.
My ancestors in me, who suffered incredible things, can feel it. My whole body feels it. No, Juliette, you can’t understand! Nobody could understand who hasn’t been hated because of his race” (63). Werfel indicates that the suffering which is inseparable from Armenian identity is an inherent part of Gabriel that defines him whether he acknowledges it or not. It is not his ethnic identity, but the cultural trauma which defines that identity that makes it so inescapable.
Werfel suggests that those who do not share an ethnic identity marked by cultural trauma can never fully assimilate into one because they will never be able to truly understand the meaning of the trauma which marks it. As Gabriel increasingly comes to embrace his Armenian identity, his relationship with his French wife, which was built on their shared French identities, deteriorates. When Juliette married Gabriel, he had been a ‘race assimilator’ who Juliette only thought of as an Ottoman subject without regard as to what it truly meant to be an Armenian. Throughout the siege of Musa Dagh, Juliette becomes more and more isolated from a foreign identity marked by cultural trauma which she does not share and cannot understand. Werfel describes her inability to assimilate into Armenian identity and her isolation in her own foreign identity as being responsible for making her more wretched than any other person on Musa Dagh. Werfel suggests that the reason why Juliette suffered so much, despite the fact that she was protected from the most violent parts of the genocide, was because she was an outsider. She couldn’t understand or relate to Armenian suffering, and as a result, she felt ‘inhumanly alone’ in her own identity. Werfel further emphasizes the impenetrability of Armenian identity through the character of
28 Stephan. Ever since arriving on Musa Dagh, Stephan tried to shed his European identity and conform to the other Armenian boys. However, Werfel insists that no matter how hard Stephan tried, he was “not a real Armenian” (350) and could never fully become one because he didn’t understand what it meant to be
Armenian – the part of Armenian identity that was socially constructed from a shared history, memory, and sense of suffering. Stephan would always be an outsider no matter how much time he spent on Musa
Dagh. Werfel comments, for “no deed is done once and for all…we always have to begin again at the beginning” (490). Werfel suggests that the suffering inflicted on collective Armenian identity during the genocide consolidated it to center solely around suffering, making it harder for outsiders to assimilate in to and impossible for insiders to escape.
Identity is essential to understanding who we are. In damaging collective identity, genocide condemns its victims and their descendants to suffer the consequences of cultural trauma for generations.
This trauma creates a group consciousness that defines the relationships and memories of survivors through suffering (Alexander 2004). Werfel enhances our understanding of the impact of trauma on identity before and during genocide by demonstrating how suffering defined identity and how this identity was both inescapable and impenetrable. For many Armenians this trauma has never been dissolved because perpetrators were never forced to take moral responsibility for the endless crimes they committed.
The Path Forward
Werfel’s insights into the impact of suffering on identity are invaluable, however, suffering is only part of Armenian identity and does not completely capture what it means to be Armenian for the survivors of the genocide. Exploring survivor attitudes more than 60 years after the genocide further helps us understand how mass violence affects identity. Some survivors believe they will never be able to for forgive Turkey and hold grudges against Turkish people decades after the genocide. For survivor Nvart
Assaturian the genocide never faded from memory. She says, “73 years later, day and night, it’s with me”
(Assaturian, 0:22:20). Assaturian believes the genocide never truly ended. She explains “today's Turks are
29 continuing the same thing... they are slowly, slowly killing...” (Assaturian, 0:22:50). The genocide ended in 1917, yet there have been armed conflicts since, and intense hostilities remain between the two groups.
The modern-day Armenian persecution Assaturian is referencing can be reflected in the continuous closure of Armenian schools in Turkey and the praise of Turkish officials responsible for the genocide as national heroes. In addition, saying “Armenian genocide” can be grounds for prosecution in Turkey.
Survivor George Haig also believes the Turkish government is still attempting to eliminate Christians from Turkey today.
Despite the horrors they experienced, many survivors do not carry grudges and forgive those who persecuted them. They do not forget the suffering they experienced at hands of the Turkish government; it still is an inherent part of their identity and their legacy as an Armenian, however, they still see hope for a better future. Even though survivor Haigas Bonapart is hurt by the active denial of the genocide by the
Turkish government, he has no malice towards Turkish people. He is a pharmacist and has helped many people of Turkish descent in his profession. He feels strongly that Turkey has a moral obligation to recognize and take responsibility for the genocide. Survivor Sarah Bedrosian also does not carry any grudges. She believes surviving the genocide gave her a motivation to help people. She says all the miserable days she suffered have made her a stronger person and have taught her to count her blessings.
Additionally, she is very happy with the life she has created and does not care to remember her suffering.
Richard Ashton shares this sentiment of forgiveness. He says “I suppose I should hate the Turks, but as a
Christian I’ve got to know how to forgive them. But I will never forget the horrible tragedy that the
Armenians suffered at the hands of the Turkish government and some of their people” (Ashton, 0:31:30).
Ashton recognizes that not all of the Turks in Turkey during the genocide participated in or supported it.
He continues “maybe in all of these tragedies mankind will learn that the brotherhood of man surmounts national and religious boundaries and encompasses all human beings on the face of this planet” (Ashton,
0:32:15).
Survivors Vartan Hartunian and George Haig believe the only way to move forward is reconciliation. Haig is convinced that in order to combat modern day persecutions, Armenians need to be
30 friendly with Turks. He says Armenians don’t have the resources to fight or make the Turkish government admit the truth. He concludes that fighting with Turks today will not lead to anything good.
He hopes that if one day Armenians and Turks become close enough, hostilities will cease. Hartunian also believes that hate is not constructive in building a better future. He desires the truth (acknowledgment that the Turkish government of 1915 instigated and carried out genocide) but does not have any hatred for
Turkish people. He recognizes that many Turks alive today played no part in the genocide. Hartunian regards Turks as “brothers of humanity” and trusts that they will help recover the truth. He attributes the uncomfortableness between Armenians and Turks today to be a result of the truth being hidden.
Conclusion
Taken together, survivor accounts and Franz Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh provide a powerful portrayal of the crime of genocide and represent a crucial part of our understanding of what truly transpired in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Neither narrative gives a complete overview of what occurred during the genocide, similar to that which one might find in a historical account. Rather, they focus on the ways in which people suffered, and how this suffering affected the individual and the collective. By doing this, both accounts illuminate the meaning of suffering, emphasize the uniqueness of this crime, and revive the memory of the Armenian genocide. Collective memory is constructed as it passes through history. It can be distorted by current day politics and actors to the extent that the truth, as experienced by those who endured, may be covered or lost. There are few examples that demonstrate this better than the Armenian genocide. The active denial of the genocide by perpetrators and the failure of international actors to condemn and punish those responsible has enabled today’s denial of the innumerable atrocities committed and deaths of over one million Armenians. Thousands of lives cease to exist in history as a result of perpetrator denial. Many others are condemned to suffer from the cultural trauma that it perpetuates.
The self-reported accounts of the Armenian genocide recorded by J. Michael Hagopian illustrate what systematic methods preparators used and how these methods caused inconceivable pain and
31 suffering. Werfel’s literary depiction of the genocide enhances the understanding gained through survivor accounts by illustrating the emotional impact of suffering on the individual and the collective; thereby revealing that is not the physical pain but the dehumanizing aspect of geocide that makes it far worse than any other type of suffering. Through literary imagination, Werfel is also able to enhance our understanding of the sense of loss survivors expressed regarding their ancestral homeland – for
Armenians were not only robbed of their physical homes but also of their ancestral identity that was inseparable from the land on which they resided. The common demand for the return of this land by survivors represents the pain that is still felt from this loss decades later and further indicates the importance of the relationship between ethnic minorities and their ancestral land described by Werfel.
The explanations for the genocide provided by both accounts further illuminate the experience of victims and the intent of perpetrators. The variation in explanations expressed by Werfel and survivors may reflect the difference in motivation between perpetrator groups. Werfel suggests that it was the amoral nationalist ideology of the Young Turks that caused the genocide, while many survivors emphasized strong causal links between the genocide, religious polarization, and Armenian economic prosperity. The experiences of survivors are personal; they reflect specific encounters and thus the rhetoric and motivation of the perpetrators who directly persecuted them. Werfel’s account incorporates individual experiences similar to those described by survivors into his narrative while also addressing the actions and the mindset of the perpetrators ordering the genocide. The combination of the two narratives reveals that although the Armenian genocide may have been a nationalistic endeavor, jealousies resulting from economic mobilization and religious hatred undoubtably motivated violence among the general public.
Both accounts also provide valuable insights into understanding who the perpetrators of the genocide were. Although several survivors specified the occupation of perpetrators, many only referred to them generically as “they” or “Turks.” The choice to do so reflects uncertainty on behalf of survivors and disassociates those responsible for violence from their crimes. Through incorporating extensive research documenting the genocide, Werfel is able to address perpetrators more broadly to reassociate specific
32 roles with specific perpetrators and reveal the authority structure of the Ottoman government. Through artistic imagination, Werfel is also able to enhance our understating of perpetrator mentality, further giving insight into the origins of the genocide.
Understanding the crime of genocide is crucial to preventing future acts of mass violence.
Engaging with narratives other than those from historians is essential to comprehend not just what occurs during genocide, but what it means to be part of a persecuted group. Perhaps Werfel’s portrayal of the
Armenian genocide is so convincing because, as an Austrian-Jew, he understood the meaning of suffering in ways that only those who have been persecuted for their ethnic identity can understand. Through storytelling and literary imagination, Werfel is able to shed light on this understanding and provide insight into submission, resistance, and survival during mass violence.
When Michael J. Hagopian signed an agreement with the Shoah foundation to publish his interviews for academic purposes, he claimed, “Victimization and genocide perpetrated and denied in one part of the world can become the breeding ground for greater crimes against humanity in another part of the world. It was my responsibility to educate and inform so that history won’t be repeated” (The New
York Times, 2010). Indeed, according to Armenian scholar Vartan Gregorian, “[The] Armenian genocide provided [a] prototype for how to make a genocide” (Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2019). By spreading awareness, Werfel counters perpetrator denial, gives hope to all who are racially persecuted, and provides closure for those suffering from cultural trauma. While writing The Forty Days of Musa
Dagh, Werfel was acutely aware of the parallels between violence against groups defined in racial terms in Turkey and Germany and intended for his work to alert Jews of an impending holocaust (Bahr 2007).
His work was continually cited in support of persecuted minority groups after being published; in the
1940s, Kibbutzniks in Israel read the novel as a Zionist pamphlet (Stein 2007). The story of the heroic struggle for survival on Musa Dagh also inspired resistance against genocide during the Second World
War when a Jewish guerrilla army code named their operation against the German military the “Musa
Dagh Plan” (Stein 2007). The expansive nature of Werfel’s work not only reflects the universality of
33 genocidal suffering, but also the commonality of this crime which has been repeated across the world throughout modern history.
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36 Armenian Film Foundation, USC Shoah Foundation
Hegenah Abajian, USC Shoah Foundation
Alexander Aintablian, USC Shoah Foundation
Haroutune Aivazian, USC Shoah Foundation
Lemyel Amirian, USC Shoah Foundation
Mihran Andonian, USC Shoah Foundation
Rose Apelian, USC Shoah Foundation
Rose Arzoomanian, USC Shoah Foundation
Richard Ashton, USC Shoah Foundation
Nvart Assaturian, USC Shoah Foundation
Arnie Avedian, USC Shoah Foundation
Kikor Baldikian, USC Shoah Foundation
Haig Baronian, USC Shoah Foundation
Haiganoush Bedrosian, USC Shoah Foundation
Sarah Bedrosian, USC Shoah Foundation
John Bendian, USC Shoah Foundation
Haroutune Berberian, USC Shoah Foundation
Aram Boghosian, USC Shoah Foundation
Almas Boghosian, Aram Boghosian, USC Shoah Foundation
Haigas Bonapart, USC Shoah Foundation
Dickran Boyajian, USC Shoah Foundation
Nazareth Boyajian, USC Shoah Foundation
Siranoush Boyajian, USC Shoah Foundation
Alex Bezjian, USC Shoah Foundation
37 Kevork Cachazn, USC Shoah Foundation
Siranoush Danielian, USC Shoah Foundation
Agnes Dombalian, USC Shoah Foundation
Lucien Dombalian, USC Shoah Foundation
Harry Ekizian, USC Shoah Foundation
Luther Eskijian, USC Shoah Foundation
Louis Genjian, USC Shoah Foundation
Aghavnie Hagopian, USC Shoah Foundation
J. Hagopian, USC Shoah Foundation
George Haig, USC Shoah Foundation
Dirouhi Haigas, USC Shoah Foundation
Hrahad Harout, USC Shoah Foundation
Vartan Hartunian, USC Shoah Foundation
Arakse Hoogasian, USC Shoah Foundation
Perouze Ipekjian, USC Shoah Foundation
Jacques Kayaloff, USC Shoah Foundation
Avedis Khantzian, USC Shoah Foundation
Sarah Koltookian, USC Shoah Foundation
Harry Kurkjian, USC Shoah Foundation
Mardiros Marganian, USC Shoah Foundation
Koko Mazloumian, USC Shoah Foundation
George Messerlian, USC Shoah Foundation
Garabed Der Minasian, USC Shoah Foundation
Emma Modrisoff, USC Shoah Foundation
38 Aram Mooshovian, USC Shoah Foundation
Paranzan Narcisian, USC Shoah Foundation
Rose Ohanian, USC Shoah Foundation
Ermance Rejebian, USC Shoah Foundation
Eliza Sachaklian, USC Shoah Foundation
Hike Semerjian, USC Shoah Foundation
Shooshanig Shahinian, USC Shoah Foundation
Alice Shipley, USC Shoah Foundation
Jirair Suchiasian, USC Shoah Foundation
Elise Taft, USC Shoah Foundation
Zarmair Taft, USC Shoah Foundation
Aram Tahmazian, USC Shoah Foundation
Antranik Terzian, USC Shoah Foundation
Haiastan Terzian, USC Shoah Foundation
John Vakassian, USC Shoah Foundation
Harutyun Varjabedian, USC Shoah Foundation
Vartuhi Varjabedian, USC Shoah Foundation
Rouben Zambakjian, USC Shoah Foundation
Jiryar Zorthian, USC Shoah Foundation
39