Tweet
“Ah, Armenia”: From 40 days to 90 years in the life of Musa Ler Armenians
“Ah, Armenia”: From 40 days to 90 years in the life of Musa Ler Armenians
Every spring 95-year-old Trfanda Adajyan looks at the blossoming white flowers of the apricot tree in her yard and remembers the trees of the orchard left in Musa Ler’s Yoghunoluk village. From the memory of a child, she says the blossoms left behind were more plentiful and more beautiful.
“Thank God, at that time all of us managed to survive.”
“We had vast orchards of orange, fig and olive trees,” the old woman recalls. “Our fruits tasted very good. The fruits grown today do not have that taste. Yoghunoluk’s lands were very fertile. The taste of all our produce was different. . .” She says even potato was sweeter in the land from which she was chased away.
Sorrow comes to her eyes recalling Musa Ler (the village on the Turkish-Syrian border).
Trfanda still remembers the oath that her father, brothers and relatives were taking on the top of the hill made famous in the novel “Forty Days of Musa Dagh”: “I was born here and will die here. I am not going to die as a slave. I will die here with a weapon in my hands, but I will not become an emigrant.”
On July 26, 1915, the Turkish government issued a special order to force Armenians to emigrate to the Syrian deserts within seven days. The Musa Ler Armenians did not obey the order. Instead they took to a hill and held out defending themselves against overwhelming odds.
She remembers quite well their two-storied house in Yoghunoluk.
“There were three rooms upstairs and four rooms downstairs. We had balconies around the house. My dad was a trader, he was selling sheep. My father was a man of great stature. My mother was fair-haired. Thank God, at that time all of us managed to survive and not to incur that many losses like other areas did, but we were destined to become migrants, too,” she says.
Trfanda, who spent those mythologized 40 days on Musa Ler, often confuses the events. Her daughter, 60-year-old Shake Adajyan and granddaughter 41-year-old Azniv Khachatryan try to help her.
“Everyone – young or old – from six Armenian villages (Kebusie, Vagf, Khdrbek, Yoghunoluk, Haji Habibli, Bitias) climbed the mountain. The male population of the village, anticipating the massacre, armed themselves and resorted to self-defense,” says Azniv.
On July 29, 1915, a council of representatives of six Armenian villages took place in Yoghunoluk where the majority decided to resort to self-defense.
Trfanda continues: “Mothers with their children on their shoulders and food in one hand were forging ahead up the hill. I remember there was no water. Men would go and steal it from Turkish positions. It was at that time that there was little food and we boiled harisa in big bowls not to die from hunger.”
The weather at that height was rather damp and the Musa Ler folks immediately put up tents, built huts and hovels to accommodate the people.
Then her daughter, Shake, tries to remind Trfanda of those years and the mother, heaving a sigh, says that there are plenty of those stories. Her thought immediately brightens and she begins to tell the way as if at that moment she saw the French “Joanna d’Arc” and “Kichen” ships hurrying to the mountain by the Mediterranean Sea.
“It was foggy at that time and Turks could not see the Armenians. The French ships saw that we spread a sheet on the mountain asking for help. The captain of the ships told us to wait for three days after which he’d come and take us. I remember it well. We were eight children – five sisters and three brothers. My father’s name was Yesayi, my mother’s name was Zaruhi,” she says.
The French battleships, passing through the Mediterranean Sea, noticed the white sheets spread on the top of the mountain that had red crosses painted on them and the inscription: “Christians are in Danger”. Fires were burning around them. On September 13-15, the French transported them (400 people) to Port Said where they got help from the Armenian community of Egypt. They lived there for four years in tents, earning their livelihood in different trades – comb-making, spoon-making, shoe-making, carpet-weaving, needlework.
Trfanda suddenly remembers with pride that the parents of the first president of independent Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, were from their village. “His mother is my cousin. She was born at the time when the French ships appeared in the sea, and that’s why she was given the name of Azatuhi (Free). Many children were born on the ship and they were named Kichen in honor of the freedom brought to them,” she says.
In July 1919, the Musa Ler people were given the opportunity to return. But they found only ruins where homes once stood.
“Our houses were half-ruined and burned, the orchards were destroyed. The people yet having not overcome infectious diseases contracted in Port Said began to restore what had been destroyed and cultivate the orchards that had run wild,” says Trfanda.
However, 20 years later, on July 23, 1939, British diplomacy granted to Turkey the province of Alexandrette, also including Musa Ler. It became impossible for Musa Ler people to live in those places; they left for good. They were transferred to Pasit meadows (Syrian shore), then with great suffering and losses to the semi-desert of Lebanon – Aynchar.
Azniv says: “It took hard labor and iron will to build a school and a church in Aynchar, to cultivate those desert territories to turn them into an area full of fruit trees. The Armenian village of Aynchar exists even today.”
However, Mother Trfanda moved from Musa Ler to Beirut where she got married. Her five children were born in Beirut. In 1946-47, during the years of mass repatriation, 70 percent of Musa Ler people – nearly 700 families and one of them was Trfanda’s – returned to Soviet Armenia. Trfanda now has 26 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Today, many live in a village named for their beloved home, Musa Ler, near the Zvartnots Airport outside Yerevan. Each September, the village hosts a great festival of harisa (a stew made from grains and lamb) to commemorate the day they were rescued.
Trfanda says she read Franz Werfel’s “40 Days of Musa Dagh” and that it is all about them.
Shake describes the people of Musa Ler in a special way: “They are very willful, stubborn, keep their word. And for them conscience and honor come before all.”
Trfanda interrupts her daughter and says that she would describe the people of Musa Ler extraction more precisely: “We are really highlanders. If we say that matsun is black, then it is black, it is impossible to change that. We are very smart.”
Azniv says that the link among Musa Ler people is very strong. Even today the villagers of those six villages are like relatives. They marry their children among themselves, if they say that some girl is a Musalertsi, then it means that she is from among themselves. Trfanda adds: “Let the bride bring no dowry with her, we don’t need any dowry, her being a pure child is enough for us.”
The incessant yearning of Musa Ler people is handed down from generation to generation. Everyone cherishes the unfulfilled dreams: to return to the land of their forefathers one day. Azniv says: “This yearning is deep rooted in everyone’s hearts. If they are told now: ‘Go, we give your lands back’, they will run back like one man, and even I will.”
Shake has booked a trip to Musa Ler through a travel agency and will go there with a tourist group in August. Trfanda says: “Bring me a handful of earth from the village, bless your eyes.”
Mother Trfanda slowly begins to sing one of the songs that she used to sing in her native village: “…They’ll take me to the gallows and from the gallows I will cry in a subdued voice – ah Armenia…”
Link
Every spring 95-year-old Trfanda Adajyan looks at the blossoming white flowers of the apricot tree in her yard and remembers the trees of the orchard left in Musa Ler’s Yoghunoluk village. From the memory of a child, she says the blossoms left behind were more plentiful and more beautiful.
“Thank God, at that time all of us managed to survive.”
“We had vast orchards of orange, fig and olive trees,” the old woman recalls. “Our fruits tasted very good. The fruits grown today do not have that taste. Yoghunoluk’s lands were very fertile. The taste of all our produce was different. . .” She says even potato was sweeter in the land from which she was chased away.
Sorrow comes to her eyes recalling Musa Ler (the village on the Turkish-Syrian border).
Trfanda still remembers the oath that her father, brothers and relatives were taking on the top of the hill made famous in the novel “Forty Days of Musa Dagh”: “I was born here and will die here. I am not going to die as a slave. I will die here with a weapon in my hands, but I will not become an emigrant.”
On July 26, 1915, the Turkish government issued a special order to force Armenians to emigrate to the Syrian deserts within seven days. The Musa Ler Armenians did not obey the order. Instead they took to a hill and held out defending themselves against overwhelming odds.
She remembers quite well their two-storied house in Yoghunoluk.
“There were three rooms upstairs and four rooms downstairs. We had balconies around the house. My dad was a trader, he was selling sheep. My father was a man of great stature. My mother was fair-haired. Thank God, at that time all of us managed to survive and not to incur that many losses like other areas did, but we were destined to become migrants, too,” she says.
Trfanda, who spent those mythologized 40 days on Musa Ler, often confuses the events. Her daughter, 60-year-old Shake Adajyan and granddaughter 41-year-old Azniv Khachatryan try to help her.
“Everyone – young or old – from six Armenian villages (Kebusie, Vagf, Khdrbek, Yoghunoluk, Haji Habibli, Bitias) climbed the mountain. The male population of the village, anticipating the massacre, armed themselves and resorted to self-defense,” says Azniv.
On July 29, 1915, a council of representatives of six Armenian villages took place in Yoghunoluk where the majority decided to resort to self-defense.
Trfanda continues: “Mothers with their children on their shoulders and food in one hand were forging ahead up the hill. I remember there was no water. Men would go and steal it from Turkish positions. It was at that time that there was little food and we boiled harisa in big bowls not to die from hunger.”
The weather at that height was rather damp and the Musa Ler folks immediately put up tents, built huts and hovels to accommodate the people.
Then her daughter, Shake, tries to remind Trfanda of those years and the mother, heaving a sigh, says that there are plenty of those stories. Her thought immediately brightens and she begins to tell the way as if at that moment she saw the French “Joanna d’Arc” and “Kichen” ships hurrying to the mountain by the Mediterranean Sea.
“It was foggy at that time and Turks could not see the Armenians. The French ships saw that we spread a sheet on the mountain asking for help. The captain of the ships told us to wait for three days after which he’d come and take us. I remember it well. We were eight children – five sisters and three brothers. My father’s name was Yesayi, my mother’s name was Zaruhi,” she says.
The French battleships, passing through the Mediterranean Sea, noticed the white sheets spread on the top of the mountain that had red crosses painted on them and the inscription: “Christians are in Danger”. Fires were burning around them. On September 13-15, the French transported them (400 people) to Port Said where they got help from the Armenian community of Egypt. They lived there for four years in tents, earning their livelihood in different trades – comb-making, spoon-making, shoe-making, carpet-weaving, needlework.
Trfanda suddenly remembers with pride that the parents of the first president of independent Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, were from their village. “His mother is my cousin. She was born at the time when the French ships appeared in the sea, and that’s why she was given the name of Azatuhi (Free). Many children were born on the ship and they were named Kichen in honor of the freedom brought to them,” she says.
In July 1919, the Musa Ler people were given the opportunity to return. But they found only ruins where homes once stood.
“Our houses were half-ruined and burned, the orchards were destroyed. The people yet having not overcome infectious diseases contracted in Port Said began to restore what had been destroyed and cultivate the orchards that had run wild,” says Trfanda.
However, 20 years later, on July 23, 1939, British diplomacy granted to Turkey the province of Alexandrette, also including Musa Ler. It became impossible for Musa Ler people to live in those places; they left for good. They were transferred to Pasit meadows (Syrian shore), then with great suffering and losses to the semi-desert of Lebanon – Aynchar.
Azniv says: “It took hard labor and iron will to build a school and a church in Aynchar, to cultivate those desert territories to turn them into an area full of fruit trees. The Armenian village of Aynchar exists even today.”
However, Mother Trfanda moved from Musa Ler to Beirut where she got married. Her five children were born in Beirut. In 1946-47, during the years of mass repatriation, 70 percent of Musa Ler people – nearly 700 families and one of them was Trfanda’s – returned to Soviet Armenia. Trfanda now has 26 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Today, many live in a village named for their beloved home, Musa Ler, near the Zvartnots Airport outside Yerevan. Each September, the village hosts a great festival of harisa (a stew made from grains and lamb) to commemorate the day they were rescued.
Trfanda says she read Franz Werfel’s “40 Days of Musa Dagh” and that it is all about them.
Shake describes the people of Musa Ler in a special way: “They are very willful, stubborn, keep their word. And for them conscience and honor come before all.”
Trfanda interrupts her daughter and says that she would describe the people of Musa Ler extraction more precisely: “We are really highlanders. If we say that matsun is black, then it is black, it is impossible to change that. We are very smart.”
Azniv says that the link among Musa Ler people is very strong. Even today the villagers of those six villages are like relatives. They marry their children among themselves, if they say that some girl is a Musalertsi, then it means that she is from among themselves. Trfanda adds: “Let the bride bring no dowry with her, we don’t need any dowry, her being a pure child is enough for us.”
The incessant yearning of Musa Ler people is handed down from generation to generation. Everyone cherishes the unfulfilled dreams: to return to the land of their forefathers one day. Azniv says: “This yearning is deep rooted in everyone’s hearts. If they are told now: ‘Go, we give your lands back’, they will run back like one man, and even I will.”
Shake has booked a trip to Musa Ler through a travel agency and will go there with a tourist group in August. Trfanda says: “Bring me a handful of earth from the village, bless your eyes.”
Mother Trfanda slowly begins to sing one of the songs that she used to sing in her native village: “…They’ll take me to the gallows and from the gallows I will cry in a subdued voice – ah Armenia…”
Link
Comment