A Journey Through Genocide-stricken Provinces Of Ottoman Turkey

[Hovik]

AZG Armenian Daily #092, 21/05/2005


Armenian Genocide

A JOURNEY THROUGH GENOCIDE-STRICKEN PROVINCES OF OTTOMAN TURKEY

The www.twentyvoices.com website created by Montreal office of INFIVA
news agency offers a unique opportunity for a travel in Ottoman
Turkey. The website functioning since the 90th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide on April 24 represents testimonies of 20 survivors
of the atrocities in 1915.

Those 20 voices accompanied with sound effects and imagery unveil
the tragedy of the Genocide. Visitors of the site have the chance to
travel through 20 provinces of the Ottoman Empire and to listen to
the voice of a survivor telling about his/her painful experience.

While creating the website INFA agency cooperated with its webmaster
Araz Artinian who is now working on "The Genocide In Me" documentary.

By Melania Badalian

[Gavur]

'the Genocide In Me': Young Montreal-armenian's Introspection

The Armenian Genocide is a persistent wound whose influence on the third post-genocide Diaspora generation can be traced by watching Canadian-Armenian Araz Artinian's "The Genocide in Me" documentary. The film was presented to the Canadian audience last year. Having watched it recently, I was positively impressed.

The 53-minute film with a proper and impressive soundtrack consists of 3 main parts that are respectively shot in Montreal, USA and Turkey.

Under the weight of "national contemplation", the twenty-odd young Armenian born in a foreign land points out: "Everything that happens to me is connected with the 1915." As many of her peers, she wants to get deeper in the necessity and importance of preserving national identity in a foreign environment, to understand what prospects mixed marriages can have.

"Marriage with foreigners opens doors for assimilation," her grandpa explains. The girl has heard a lot about the Genocide from her grandpa and father who was born to the genocide survivors in Cairo.

Later on, while moving to Canada, her father with a meaningful name of Vrezh-Armen (Vrezh meaning revenge) receives an instruction from Father Barsegh Ferhadian, headmaster of Mkhitarian School that saw its closing those days, to "open an Armenian school" wherever he gets. Vrezh-Armen fulfills Father Ferhadian's instruction and builds "Surb Hakob" School in Montreal with an intention to bring up the new generation of Armenians. Specialized in architecture, he gets actively involved in public life becoming a prominent intellectual in the Armenian community and heading Horizon three-language (Armenian-English-French) weekly newspaper.

The young lady, who has been brought up in such atmosphere, leaves first to the US where she obtains heartbreaking interviews from Genocide survivors Alice Ter-Barseghian, Hakob Asaturian, Gevorg Palian, Vardanuysh Poghosian, Vardan Harutyunian and others and afterwards leaves for Turkey to see for herself, to assess and understand what had happened. She visits deserted villages, ruined and defiled churches, listens to stinging and sarcastic words, tries to befriend a Turkish young man who cynically suggests to forget the past and begin a new life with him but then she changes and sticks closer to her national identity as though recalling the words of a Genocide survivor that a child who has gone through Genocide quits childhood.

Documentary filmmaker, Araz Artinian created the www.twentyvoices.com website last April as a contribution to the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

DVD of "The Genocide in Me" was made by Information & Twenty Voices Company. Ian Quenneville and Nathalie Barton are the co-producers of the documentary; Andrea Henriques is the editor.

The presentation of the film in the US took place at the Kendall theatre of Cambridge on November 19 where the film director answered the viewers' questions and autographed the film leaflets.

By Hakob Tsulikian
AZG Armenian Daily #018, 02/02/2006