Hovhannes Katchaznouni

[bell-the-cat]

It's all sour grapes to me!

No wonder certain Armenian groups and individuals don't like it.

[Gavur]

Bell, in your case I see the lights are on, but not sure if anyones home.

[Gavur]

Becuse you make conclusive statements that are very guarded and condensating, which leads me to believe you have an axe to grind ,and unable to.

[bell-the-cat]

From Wikipedia:
Katchaznouni prepared a critical report for the April 1923 ARF congress in Bucharest[1][2][3][4] titled "The Federation Has Nothing More to Do," which called for the dissolution of the Party and Armenian support of Soviet Armenia.[5][6][7][8] Its incendiary claims immediately drew rebuke from the party.[9][10][11][12] Until recently, the report was best known through its abridged English translation by Matthew Aram Callender, The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnagtzoutiun) Has Nothing to Do Any More and edited by Avedis Boghos Derounian. The translation emanated from the New York branch of the Armenian General Benevolent Union's Armenian Information Service.[13][14][15] The booklet's elusive nature can be attributed to the fact that the Congress was "highly secret and closed to the public" with little information about its circumstances being released,[16] and the fact that remaining copies have been "banned from [ARF] clubs and libraries for decades afterwards."[2]

Wikipedia claims "Derounian version is edited" and Mehmet Perincek claims "firstly in the world, i reached unabrdiged text".

On the other side, you claim Derounian version is word-by-word version of the original one.

I am confused.

The "original" copy "found" by Perincek has never been presented - so we cannot tell how accurate the unabridged Turkish publication is (or how accurate the Derounian version is). It (the Turkish publication in its English edition) contains, word-for-word, everything that is in the Derounian version. So it is not really correct for the Turkish publication to be called a translation because the Derounian version was already in English! As well as all of the Derounian text, there is additional material - maybe about 1/3rd more, which is not in the Derounian version.

[ardakilic]

The "original" copy "found" by Perincek has never been presented - so we cannot tell how accurate the unabridged Turkish publication is (or how accurate the Derounian version is). It (the Turkish publication in its English edition) contains, word-for-word, everything that is in the Derounian version. So it is not really correct for the Turkish publication to be called a translation because the Derounian version was already in English! As well as all of the Derounian text, there is additional material - maybe about 1/3rd more, which is not in the Derounian version.

In that case, i think, the best way is put Derounian text and Perincek text on the table and compare.

I suspect he is an unreliable liar. Maybe a prejudice but my feeling...

[bell-the-cat]

Some choice sour grapes for Gavur.

From its introduction

However the propagandist may try, historical truth cannot be subverted forever in a free country. However hard Dashnag propagandists may try to twist and bury the truth, and glorify the failure of their Independent Armenian Republic, truth must eventually prevail.

Katchaznouni's work is published at this time as a refutation to the grandiose, exaggerated and even outrageously false claims of the Dashnag leadership today, mouthed by men who for the most part were mere party functionaries during the days of the Republic, but through the years have blown up themselves into intellectual giants, saviors of Armenia, etc.

From the first few pages of Katchaznouni's address:

The Winter of 1914 and the Spring of 1915 were the periods of greatest enthusiasm and hope for all the Armenians in the Caucasus, including, of course, the Dashnagtzoutiun. We had no doubt that the war would end with the complete victory of the Allies; Turkey would be defeated and dismembered, and its Armenian population would at last be liberated.

We had embraced Russia whole-heartedly without any compunction. Without any positive basis of fact we believed that the Tzarist government would grant us a more-or-less broad self-government in the Caucasus and in the Armenian vilayets liberated from Turkey as a reward for our loyalty, our efforts and assistance.

We had created a dense atmosphere of illusion in our minds. We had implanted our own desires into the minds of others; we had lost our sense of reality and were carried away with our dreams. From mouth to mouth, from ear to ear passed mysterious words purported to have been spoken in the palace of the Viceroy; attention was called to some kind of a letter by Vorontzov-Dashkov to the Catholicos as an important document in our hands to use in the presentation of our rights and claims -a cleverly composed letter with very indefinite sentences and generalities which might be interpreted in any manner, according to one's desire.

We overestimated the ability of the Armenian people, its political and military power, and overestimated the extent and importance of the services our people rendered to the Russians. And by overestimating our very modest worth and merit we were naturally exaggerating our hopes and expectations.

The second half of 1915 and the entire year of 1916 were periods of hopelessness, desperation and mourning for us. The refugees, all those who had survived the holocaust, were filling Russian provinces by tens and hundreds of thousands. They were famished, naked, sick, horrified and desperate floods of humanity, flooding our villages and cities. They had come to a country which was itself ruined and famished. They piled upon each other, before our own eyes, on our threshold dying of famine and sickness. . .

And we were unable to save those precious lives. Angered and terrified, we sought the culprits and quickly found them: the deceitful politics of the Russian government. With the politically immature mind peculiar to inconsequential men, we fell from one extreme to another. Just as unfounded was our faith in the Russian government yesterday, our condemnation of them today was equally blind and groundless.

It was claimed that the Russians were intentionally slow to act, showed uncertainty and provided the grounds and the means for the Turks to slaughter the local Armenians. It was professed that the reason behind this attitude on the part of the Russians was to vacate Armenia and later settle the Kossacs there and that Count Lobanov-Rostovsky's widely known project "Armenia without Armenians" was in progress.

It was not only people, but our party and many of our citizens with common sense who also shared this idea.

We were reluctant to understand that there did not have to be such a project as "Armenia without Armenians" to explain the Russian stand and that the Russian plans did not necessarily have to involve such an item as unconditionally taking on the defence of the Turkish Armenians. Such a plan definitely did not exist. We were only projecting our own wishes on the Russian government and accusing them of disloyalty.

By an extraordinary mental aberration, we, a political party, were forgetting that our Cause was an incidental and trivial phase for the Russians, so trivial that if necessary, they would xxxxxle on our corpses without a moment's hesitation

...we forgot what we already knew and we drew such conclusions as though our Cause was the center of gravity of the Great War, its cause and its purpose. When the Russians were advancing, we used to say from the depths of our subconscious minds that they were coming to save us; and when they were withdrawing, we said they are retreating so that they allow us to be massacred. . .

One might think we found a spiritual consolation in the conviction that the Russians behaved villainously towards us (later it would be the turn of the French, the Americans, the British, the Georgians, Bolsheviks - the whole world -to be so blamed). One might think that, because we were so naive and so lacking in foresight, we placed ourselves in such a position and considered it a great virtue to let anyone who so desired to betray us, massacre us and let others massacre us.

[bell-the-cat]

In that case, i think, the best way is put Derounian text and Perincek text on the table and compare.

I suspect he is an unreliable liar. Maybe a prejudice but my feeling...

There is an assumption that must be made which makes such a comparison pointless. We must assume that the Derounian version is accurate, becasue we do not have an original to compare it against. If the Derounian version is accurate, why would the Perincek version not be accurate, given that it is mostly a copy of the Derounian version?

The additional material in the Perincek version is often boring and longwinded - seems to be mostly accounts of the period after the collapse of the Russian Empire, the manouvering that led to the creation of the Armenian republic, and its wars against Georgia and Azerbaijan, and the establishment of Soviet rule. But I haven't gone through it in detail to see what on earth makes Perincek think that additional material is important for AG denialists.

[chinchilla]

It still resonates pretty strongly, especially about reliance on Russia.

[bell-the-cat]

Yerevan 1919, or Yerevan 2008?

Armenia was a Democratic Republic. It had the proper organs of a democratic-parliamentarian government: a legislative body composed of the people's representatives and a responsible administration. The Parliament was composed of representatives from the four existing Parties and minorities with the widest true democratic principles. The government received its authority from the legislative body and was responsible to it. This was the form. But the reality was otherwise. In practice our Party tended to subject to itself, to control, the legislative body and the government. We did not have the courage, nor the ability to declare an open dictatorship, but did not wish to remain within parliamentarian limits either and tried to establish in Armenia the "Ittihad" system -a party dictatorship disguised as a democracy.

The Armenian Parliament opened on August 1, 1919. The elections took place in accordance with the democratic procedure - general, equal, direct and secret balloting - but it was strange and disheartening that 72 out of 80 members were Dashnaks, with only four members from the other parties. There was no opposition party to act as a check. We Dashnaks seemed to be victorious but did not understand that it was not a Parliament but the caricature of a Parliament.

We could not understand that elections proved that our people were not yet ready for an independent political life. We were not aware that our parliamentary victory was not actually a victory but a defeat and that by sending 72 members into the parliament we had lost the ground we trod on, the democratic foundation.

We did not understand that as we assumed authority, at the same time, we were also assuming all the responsibility. We lacked the necessary provisions and elements. We could not understand that a strong opposition was needed simply to discipline us and to prevent us from transgressing the present law and order. There was no Parliament; it was an empty form without content. The problems of state were being discussed and solved behind closed doors, in the rooms of the Dashnag faction, and then declared from the rostrum of the Parliament.

[chinchilla]

Like 2008, but the ARF has much less power.