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Hayastan or Bust. -
Re: Recovering Iportant Things Lost During The Genocide
Every single compensation case for the Armenian genocide, whether against financial institutions or museums, constitute good precedents for the reparations that Turkey will eventually have to pay. -
Re: Recovering Iportant Things Lost During The Genocide
IS GETTY A "REPOSITORY" OF STOLEN ARMENIAN ARTIFACTS?
Appo Jabarian
Executive Publisher / Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine
211 June 11, 2010
Last week, the news on Armenian Church's legal action against the J.
Paul Getty Museum, demanding the return of seven pages ripped from
a sacred Armenian Bible dating back to 1256, made national and
international headlines.
The lawsuit, initiated and filed by attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan on
behalf of The Catholicossate of The Great House of Cilicia's Western
Prelacy in La Crescenta, California reached a worldwide audience.
"As of June 9, an astounding 96,500 Google hits indicated the extent of
the widespread dissemination of the initial details of the lawsuit.As
of June 10, Google hits had surpassed 112,000."
The ranks of the world and local media outlets included several
TV networks, major print and web-based dailies such as The Los
Angeles Times, Associated Press, www.ABCnews.go.com, www.KTLA.com,
www.ArtsJournal.com, www.StarTribune.com, www.TMZ.com,
www.news.YAHOO.com, www.CathNews.com, www.wikipedia.org,
www.GlendaleNewsPress.com, www.artdaily.com, and numerous others.
According to legal documents related to the case "Western Prelacy v.
Getty," and filed at the Superior Court of California, in the County
of Los Angeles, the seven pages, stolen during the Armenian Genocide
(1915-1923) from the Zeyt'un Bible only surfaced in 2007.
The eleven-page "Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial" specifies that
"The Catholicossate did not discover that the seven missing pages
(canon tablets) of the Zeyt'un Gospels were being housed in the Getty
Museum in Los Angeles until June 2007 when attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan
discovered them by chance and informed the Catholicossate. This action
- brought before June 2010* is therefore properly brought within the
three-year statute of limitations of Cal. Civ. Code Proc. 338 (c),
which contains the discovery rule stating as follows: 'An action for
taking, detaining, or injuring any goods or chattels, including actions
for the specific recovery of personal property. The cause of action
in the case of theft, as defined in Section 484 of the Penal Code,
of any article of historical, interpretive, scientific, or artistic
significance is not deemed to have accrued until the discovery of the
whereabouts of the article by the aggrieved party, his or her agent,
or the law enforcement agency that originally investigated the theft'
(italics added). Plaintiff, through its attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan,
made a timely demand on Defendants for return of the seven pages
(canon tablets) of the Zeyt'un Gospels, and Defendants have failed
and refused to deliver the property to Plaintiff."
The introduction of the lawsuit reveals that "At the time the
seven pages of the Zeyt'un Gospels were acquired by the Defendants
(hereinafter referred to as "Defendants" or "Getty"), they knew
or should have known that the Zeyt'un Gospel manuscript pages were
stolen, and belonged to the Catholicossate, the rightful owner of the
Zeyt'un Gospel manuscript, which was commissioned by the Catholicos
Constantine I of Bardzerberd, and had become a cultural treasure for
the Armenian Orthodox Church."
The Armenian Church's lawsuit indicates: "Unbeknownst to the
Catholicossate, the seven missing stolen pages (canon tablets)
of the Zeyt'un Gospel Bible ripped from the full manuscript that
became stolen property eventually ended up in a private collection
of a family in Watertown, Massachusetts, where they were loaned
to the Pierpont Morgan Library in 1994 for an exhibition entitled
"Treasures >>From Heaven." The family's name remained anonymous at
that time. The Catholicossate was never informed by the family or by
the Pierpont Morgan Library of their possession of the seven missing
stolen pages which clearly were part of the entire Zeyt'un Gospels
Bible manuscript. Upon information and belief, Defendants acquired,
through purchase or otherwise, the seven stolen pages ripped from
the Zeyt'un Gospels Bible sometime after the Pierpont Morgan Library
exhibition in 1994.
"During World War I (1915-1918), one and a half million Armenians were
massacred by the Turks. In 1921, when the French forces evacuated
Cilicia, a second wave of massacres ordered by Kemalist Turkey took
the lives of another three hundred thousand Armenians. The rest of
the Armenians were forced to leave their homeland and found refuge
mostly in Syria and Lebanon. The Catholicossate in Sis was robbed
and ruined by the Turks. Catholicos Sahak II followed his flock in
exile. After wandering in Syria and Lebanon, in 1930, he established
the Catholicossate in Antelias, Lebanon. Thus, a new era opened in the
history of the Catholicossate with the organization of Dioceses and
the founding of a new theological seminary. The Armenian people spread
all over the world and looked to the Catholicossate with new hopes
and expectations," specifies the document prepared by Mr. Yeghiayan
and his associates.
In an article by The Associated Press titled "Armenian church sues
Getty museum over return of pages ripped from sacred Bible dating to
1256," Sue Manning wrote: "Michael Bazyler, a Chapman University law
professor and member of the plaintiff's legal team, said Thursday that
attorneys hope the pages can be returned during negotiation rather
than litigation. 'We contend these seven pages are stolen property,
and they can never get title," Bazyler said. "We are asking for the
return of the seven pages back to the church.' ... Bazyler believes
this is the first case filed in the United States for the return of
cultural or religious objects taken around the time of World War I,
when historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed
by Ottoman Turks."
"It's a matter of historical identity and preservation of the Armenian
culture. ... It's important everyone realizes that," said Western
Prelacy board member Levon Kirakosian to The Associated Press.
In an interesting turn of events, "in or about 1947-1948, Catholicos
Karekin sent the Zeyt'un Gospel Bible to the same Dr. H. Der Ghazarian
in Aleppo to authenticate its provenance. The Bible was authenticated
and was sent back to the Catholicossate minus seven (7) illustrated
pages(canon tablets) that had been ripped from the manuscripts and
stolen from it. The Catholicossate attempted to find out, but has
never been able to determine, the perpetrator of the theft of the
missing seven canon tables from the Zeyt'un Gospel. Upon information
and belief, His Excellency Shnork, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul,
subsequently took the Bible and gave it to the Madenataran Museum
in Yerevan, Armenia, (the main repository for Armenian manuscripts),
where it is presently located, minus the seven missing pages (canon
tablets)."
During the critical days of the Armenian Genocide, the full Armenian
Church hierarchy in procession paraded the Zeyt'un Bible through every
street in Zeyt'un in order to create a divine firewall of protection
around the city. At or about 1915, the Zeyt'un Bible was taken from
the church in Zeyt'un and handed to the descendants of an Armenian
royal family, Assadur Agha Surmeliantz, the Sourenians, who because
of their connections with the Turks were not deported until spring
1916 when deported to Marash.
On March 25,1916, the prominent Sourenian family which was safeguarding
the Zeyt'un Bible, along with the other Armenians of Zeyt'un, was
deported from Zeyt'un to Sultaniye near Konia. ...
Sourenian, the Patriarch of the Sourenian clan, brought the magical
Bible to Marash with him, in order to save it from certain destruction,
and also to be protected by its divine power. Relenting to ardent
requests of a friend, Doctor H. Der Ghazarian, Assadur loaned the
Bible to him for a few days. The Sourenian clan was unexpectedly
exiled once again, while the Bible remained with Doctor Der Ghazarian,
who ... joined the French Army and retreated with them ... Dr. Der
Ghazarian's two sisters managed to deliver the Zeyt'un Gospel Bible to
the American missionaries in Marash. It is believed that the Zeyt'un
Bible stayed in Marash when Armenians returned from the deportation
under the protection of French forces (1918).
However, the Armenians were later evacuated when the French left
in 1921, and the Armenians escaped to Aleppo (1921-23). The exact
location of the Zeyt'un Gospels after this postwar time period is
unknown. ... In 1928, a Dr. Liman (or Lyman), sent word from Marash to
the "Zeyt'un Compatriotic Union" in Aleppo, informing them that he was
in possession of the "Zeyt'un Bible" and was ready to transfer it to
them. Soon after, when Dr. Liman was visiting Aleppo, a delegation of
"Zeytounzis" went to see him. ... Liman told the delegation that he
could not bring the Bible out himself from Turkey but was ready to give
it to them if they would send someone to Marash. Otherwise, he wanted
to entrust the Bible either to the American "Bible House" in Istanbul,
or to the Armenian Patriarchate there. He was told to pass it on to
the Patriarchate of the Armenian Church, the legal complaint states.
According to the Getty website "The Zeyt'un Gospels, made in the
scriptorium at Hromklay for Katholikos Constantine I in 1256, are
the earliest signed work of T'oros Roslin, the most accomplished
illuminator and scribe in Armenia in the 1200s. These canon tables were
separated from the manuscript at some point in the past and eventually
acquired by the Getty Museum, while the rest of the manuscript is in
a public collection in Armenia."
(http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/...ls?artobj=5929 --
last visited June 9, 2010).
While having them on display Getty didn't have the decency to
properly define the proper identity of the stolen seven pages as
being "Armenian." But far more astonishingly, in reference to those
illegally appropriated Armenian cannon tables, Getty chose to use the
word "separated." Of course it would not volunteer to use the word
"stolen" instead.
Now Getty should have the decency to meet its moral, financial, and
legal obligations to the rightful owners of the stolen seven pages,
the Great House of Cilicia and its jurisdictional representative in
Western United States, the Western Prelacy.
Talaat Pasha, one of the prominent leaders of the Young Turk party
and one of the triumvirate that perpetrated the Armenian Genocide
talked about leaving only one Armenian alive to be placed in a museum.
To his and his successors' deep disappointment, he could not push
Armenia and Armenians into oblivion. The opposite has happened.
Armenians not only did not become a permanent fixture in a museum but
also they have made a resounding comeback on the world stage. They
are determined to take back what rightfully belonged to them.
Getty Museum's officials' future actions will tell whether Getty is
a "repository" of stolen cultural artifacts of historic value or a
legitimate exhibition hall featuring items that are legally acquired.
This initial step in freeing the seven stolen pages of Armenian
Bible from illegal possession by The J. Paul Getty Museum may be the
first slice of justice for the genocide-stricken Armenians. But this
small yet very meaningful legal step may surely lead to comprehensive
justice regarding their ancestral lands in Western Armenia and Cilicia,
and hundreds of cultural and religious properties that continue to
be illegally occupied and confiscated by Turkey.Hayastan or Bust.Comment
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