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A tulip by any other name

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  • A tulip by any other name

    A tulip by any other name


    Ottawa Citizen
    May 10, 2005 Tuesday Final Edition


    A tulip by any other name: Turkey's attempts to
    change politically
    troublesome names should not extend to the beautiful
    Tulipa armena


    by Antoine S. Terjanian, Citizen Special



    It is that time of year after the Winterlude season
    is over, when
    Ottawa starts attracting tourists again. It is the
    time of the world
    famous Canadian Tulip Festival.


    The festival originated with the generosity of
    Princess Juliana of
    the Netherlands and the Dutch people. She expressed
    her gratitude to
    Ottawa, where her family found refuge during the
    Second World War, by
    sending us an annual gift of 20,000 tulip bulbs.

    Ottawa photographer Malak Karsh, in love with the
    beauty of the
    tulip, conceived the idea of the Tulip Festival. He
    founded it and
    promoted it.


    His Armenian family having moved from Mardin, after
    the Armenian
    genocide of 1915-1923, Malak was familiar with the
    splendour of this
    flower in his original homeland.


    When it was decided that playing on the Tulipomania
    of the 18th
    century would bring an exotic flavour to the Tulip
    Festival, Malak
    worked on the idea and brought it to fruition. In
    his typical spirit
    of "peace and friendship," he involved the Turkish
    embassy in the
    project, and a Turkish pavilion has been part of the
    Tulip Festival
    for a few years now.


    Some people now believe that tulips originated in
    Turkey, and a few
    are even aware that Sultan Ahmed III bankrupted the
    Sublime Porte
    (The Ottoman government) in 1730 because he
    speculated on tulips as
    the bubble burst at the height of Tulipomania.


    In her recent book The Tulip, even famous
    gardener-author Anna Pavord
    forgets that when she went hunting for one
    particularly beautiful
    variety of "brilliant red tulips" in "Eastern
    Turkey," she had
    actually set foot in historic Armenia. Pavord
    recounts her first
    encounter with a truly indigenous variety of tulips
    there: Tulipa
    armena. She writes: "On the road between Askale and
    Tercan [sic], we
    came across an isolated group of tulips, with at
    least two dozen
    flowers in full bloom. ... We excavated one bulb and
    ... established
    that it must be T. armena, for it did not have much
    wool under its
    tunic."


    Then, on the same page, Pavord goes to describe a
    strange encounter
    with a wolf. She writes: "The ... T. armena
    conundrum was rolling
    around my head like a riddle. I opened my eyes to
    find a wolf
    silhouetted against the sun. ... Only inches from my
    eyes, were the
    tulips, brilliant red blazes in the foreground.
    Behind them was the
    wolf, stark against the sky. When I sat up, it
    bolted away,
    disappearing into a low cave under a neighbouring
    rock crag. The
    conjunction of the two was ... enigmatic ... I
    thought still of these
    tulips, slashes of brilliant blood welling from the
    bare ... slopes
    of the mountain. Wolves were nothing to them. ...
    Millennia had
    passed by on this slope, while the wild tulip
    slowly, joyously had
    evolved and regenerated itself. Even now ... the
    tulips were plotting
    new feats, re-inventing themselves in ways that we
    could never dream
    of."


    I am as puzzled by this encounter with the wolf as
    Pavord seems to
    be. It brings to mind the very recent attempt by the
    Turkish
    government to change the scientific names of local
    animals. In a
    story aired last March by the BBC, a Turkish
    official was quoted as
    saying that many old names were contrary to Turkish
    unity:
    "Unfortunately there are many other species in
    Turkey which were
    named this way with ill intentions. This ill intent
    is so obvious
    that even species only found in our country were
    given names against
    Turkey's unity," a ministry statement quoted by
    Reuters news agency
    said.


    Some Turkish officials say the names are being used
    to argue that
    Armenians or Kurds had lived in the areas where the
    animals were
    found. The name changes affect the following: Red
    fox, known as
    Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica, would become Vulpes
    Vulpes. Wild sheep,
    called Ovis Armeniana, would become Ovis Orientalis
    Anatolicus. Roe
    deer, known as Capreolus Capreolus Armenus, would
    become Capreolus
    Cuprelus Capreolus.


    Will the Turkish government also attempt to rename
    T. armena, the
    brilliant red beautiful wild tulip? Will it try to
    change the name of
    the apricot from Prunus Armeniaca? How far will
    Turkey go to try to
    wipe out any evidence of Armenians from their
    historic homeland? How
    far will the genocide extend?



    I sincerely hope that Turkish citizens of good will,
    will on their
    own put an end to these deceitful tactics of their
    government.


    Perhaps Pavord's vision was prophetic. Like the
    Armenians, the
    brilliant red tulips did regenerate themselves.
    Gagach is the
    Armenian name for tulips, and every year on April
    24, mountains of
    these gagachs, brought by individuals in memory of
    their fallen
    family members, accumulate in front of the eternal
    flame at the
    Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia.


    So next time you visit beautiful Ottawa in May for
    the Tulip
    Festival, remember it might as well be named "Gagach
    Festival."


    Antoine S. Terjanian is an Ottawa resident who spent
    a year working
    for sustainable development in the Republic of
    Armenia, as a
    volunteer.


    GRAPHIC: Photo: Julie Oliver, The Ottawa Citizen; Flower
    Power: Malak Karsh
    dreamed up the idea of the Ottawa Tulip Festival,
    since his family
    immigrated to Canada from Armenia, he wouldn't
    appreciate the attempt
    to remove Armenia's link to the flowers' historic
    roots.
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