Table Of ContentBEING AN ARMENIAN IN ANATOLIA:
NARRATIVES OF LOSS AND RECUPERATION
CAN ÖZDEN
BOĞAZİÇİ UNIVERSITY
2014
BEING AN ARMENIAN IN ANATOLIA:
NARRATIVES OF LOSS AND RECUPERATION
Thesis submitted to the
Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
in
History
by
Can Özden
Boğaziçi University
2014
Being an Armenian in Anatolia:
Narratives of Loss and Recuperation
This thesis of Can Özden
has been approved by
Prof. Dr. Arzu Öztürkmen _________________________________
(Thesis Advisor)
Assist. Prof. Evangelos Kechriotis _________________________________
Prof. Dr. Meltem Ahıska _________________________________
July 2014
Thesis Abstract
Can Özden, “Being an Armenian in Anatolia: Narratives of Loss and
Recuperation”
This thesis, which is based on an oral history research with Armenians who
have migrated from Anatolia to Istanbul in the last few decades, investigates
the formation of Armenian identity in the present. As there are no official
records about Armenians living in Anatolia and those who had converted to
Islam after the genocide and as recent studies are very limited in number, the
most important document becomes oral history narratives. Analyzing
Armenians’ lived experiences, memories and postmemories in narratives, this
thesis argues that the Armenian identity is associated with resistance against
the state and societal norms. Yet this resistance takes multiple meanings and
forms. It is indeed subjects’ gender, social class and local identity that largely
determine how they tell their stories of resistance and against whom they
should resist. Conversion, marriage and migration emerge as main strategies
of Armenians in Anatolia to survive and protect their identity. Furthermore,
this thesis shows that the 1915 stands as the origin of familial histories and
personal life stories as due to the genocide many Armenians today cannot trace
their genealogy in the pre-1915 era and as they start telling their life stories
with the 1915. This thesis, therefore, argues that the 1915 is not simply a date
that points to a specific time in history but an era in which Armenians still live.
Accordingly this thesis looks at how some major events that occurred after the
genocide such as confiscation of Armenian properties, the Democrat Party’s
election victory, September 6-7, the emergence of ASALA and assassination
of Hrant Dink are experienced and narrated by Armenians.
iii
Tez Özeti
Can Özden, “Anadolu’da Ermeni Olmak: Kayıp ve Telafi Anlatıları”
Geçtiğimiz yıllarda, Anadolu’dan İstanbul’a göç etmiş Ermenilerle yapılan
sözlü tarih araştırmasına dayanan bu çalışma günümüzde Ermeni kimliğinin
nasıl oluştuğunu incelemektedir. Soykırımdan sonra Anadolu’da yaşamaya
devam eden ve Müslümanlaşan Ermenilerle ilgili resmi kayıt olmadığı ve bu
konuda yakın zamanda yapılmış araştırma eksikliği sebebiyle sözlü tarih
anlatıları en önemli kaynak oluyor. Bu tez, bu anlatılardaki Ermenilerin
deneyimlerini, hafızalarını ve postbelleklerini analiz ederek, Ermeni
kimliğinin devlete ve toplumsal normlara karşı direniş ile bağdaştırıldığını
iddia ediyor. Bu direniş birçok anlam ve biçim alıyor. Aslında kişilerin
toplumsal cinsiyeti, sınıfı ve yerel kimliği, onların nasıl direndiğini belirliyor.
Din değiştirme, evlilik ve göç Anadolu’daki Ermenilerin hayatta kalabilmek
ve kimliklerini koruyabilmek için kullandıkları temel stratejiler olarak ortaya
çıkıyor. Ayrıca bu tez Ermenilerin soykırım sebebiyle 1915 öncesi
soyağaçlarını bilmemeleri ve hayat hikâyelerini 1915 ile başlatmaları
sebebiyle 1915’in tüm aile ve kişisel hikâyelerin başlangıç noktası olarak
görüldüğünü gösteriyor. Dolayısıyla bu tez, 1915’in sadece tarihsel bir
zamana değil, Ermenilerin hala içinde oldukları bir döneme işaret ettiğini
iddia ediyor. Aynı şekilde, soykırım sonrası yaşanan Ermeni varlıklarına el
konulması, Demokrat Parti’nin seçim zaferi, 6-7 Eylül, ASALA’nın ortaya
çıkması ve Hrant Dink’in öldürülmesi gibi olayları Ermenilerin nasıl
deneyimlediğini ve anlattığını inceliyor.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Professor Arzu Öztürkmen for
the guidance and support she provided me during the writing process of this
thesis. I also thank Meltem Ahıska and Evangelos Kechriotis for reading
my thesis and making precious comments for its betterment. I also present
my thanks to Sarkis Arik, Vartkes Hergel and Mari for sparing the time to
introduce me to people who helped me for this thesis.
My dear friend Haydar Darıcı has been a continuous support in almost
every stage of this research. Without his motivation and academic and
spiritual support, this work could not have been completed. I am also
thankful to my friends Duygu Şendağ, Meltem Şendağ, Selim Özgen, Neşe
Kaya and Emine Kaçar for the help and support during the course of this
thesis.
I acknowledge my graditute to Agos, Belge Publishers and Aras Publishers
since their publications enabled me to have an insight about my thesis topic.
I am also thankful to Aylin Yılmaz for correcting the format of this thesis.
Lastly I would like to thank my parents Nazire Özden and İmam Özden for
always being there for me and supporting me in everything I do. It is to
them I dedicate this thesis.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 1
Turkish History Writing and Armenians ............................................. 3
A New Approach in the Turkish History Writing ............................... 8
Proliferation of Different Genres on the Armenian Genocide and
Armenians .......................................................................................... 11
Oral History and Armenians .............................................................. 17
Cultural Memory and Post Memory .................................................. 20
CHAPTER II: ON METHODOLOGY AND REFLEXIVITY .................... 24
CHAPTER III: THE 1915, ARMENIAN IDENTITY AND SELF-
REPRESENTATIONS IN LIFE-HISTORIES .................................. 30
The Beginning and Ending of Stories and Histories ......................... 34
Armenian Identity: A Constant Struggle and an Honor .................... 38
Self-Representations in the Narratives .............................................. 43
Conclusion ......................................................................................... 59
CHAPTER IV: “SURVIVAL TACTICS” IN ANATOLIA: CONVERSION,
MARRIAGE AND MIGRATION ................................................... 61
Conversion ........................................................................................ 61
Marriage ............................................................................................ 73
Migration ........................................................................................... 81
Conclusion ......................................................................................... 89
CHAPTER V: PERIODIZATION OF THE TURKISH REPUBLIC .......... 90
History of the Turkish Republic as a History of Confiscation .......... 91
Deeds and Land Registry Cadastrate ................................................. 98
Important Events and Figures .......................................................... 101
Conclusion ....................................................................................... 114
CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION ................................................................. 116
APPENDICES ............................................................................................. 121
A. Transcription of Interview with Krikor (Turkish) ........................... 121
B. Transcription of Interview with Krikor (English) ........................... 138
C. Transcription of Interview with Satenik (Turkish) .......................... 156
D. Transcription of Interview with Satenik (English) .......................... 182
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................ 205
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Until I started my university education, my mother had not told me that she is
a granddaughter of a convert Armenian woman who lost all her family in 1915
and had to marry a Muslim man (who was my mother’s grandfather) and
convert to Islam. Before she told her grandmother’s story, I had no knowledge
about Armenian converts in both my father’s and mother’s families except for
some photographs I saw on our family photo album. On the photo album, there
were three photographs in which there were modern looking families in front
of suburb houses in the United States. We were told that they were our relatives
who migrated abroad. Women were without headscarf, their clothes were very
different and they had totally different appearances from the rest of relatives
in the album who appeared in traditional clothes in different parts of
Adıyaman. When I learned my mother’s grandmother’s story, whose name
was Agavni but changed to Fatma, I wanted to reach those people but my
cousins who went to the US for their language education said that they could
not find them although they tried a lot.
Still, before Hrant Dink’s assassination, I did not have any interest on the
history of Armenians and did not feel any belonging to the Armenian
community. Though I still do not identify myself as Armenian, Hrant Dink’s
assassination triggered me to research on convert Armenians and their lives in
different parts of Anatolia after the establishment of the Turkish Republic.
In this thesis, I will analyze how Armenians who came to Istanbul from
different parts of Turkey tell their life histories in relation to their gender,
1
local identity, class and present perspectives on the politics and history of the
modern Turkey. Through narrative analysis of the life histories that I
collected, I will look at how their own Armenian subjectivities are
constructed and how they narrate their stories as a continuation of the 1915.1
I will also try to understand how local identity, gender, class and political
orientation shape those narratives and create both similarities and differences
at the same time. Lastly, I will try to explain narrators’ understanding and
periodization of the Republic of Turkey. As seen in the discussion about
memory and oral history later in this chapter, my purpose in this thesis is not
writing an alternative history on the basis of experience and memory. This is
because life stories do not give us direct access to experience but rather they
give us some clues about how subjects interpret and make sense of their own
experiences. What my thesis does, therefore, is to open up a space for and
interpret this form of interpretation.
Until recently, the Armenians living in Turkey, had not been a subject
of historical inquires. Nearly all researches have dealt with the “events of
1915”. History, culture, literature and also Armenians’ current problems and
demands as citizens were ignored. While the silence on the Armenians was
another aspect of the forgetting 1915, it has continued even after the
1 According to the article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Conventions on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “genocide means any of the following acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group’s conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”
However, as the majority of informants used ‘1915’ to refer to the Genocide, I will also use the
same word.
2
emergence of public debates about the genocide in the 1990s. Before
reviewing the literature on Armenians which started to flourish during the
last decades, I will try to analyze the silence on 1915 in the Turkish
historiography that turned into a remembering after 1970s and 1980s as a
result of the political conjuncture at the time. What is interesting is that this
silence continued until the 2000s when it comes to the issue of the
Armenians who survived and continued to live in Anatolia.
The Turkish History Writing and the Armenians
When history writing is in the service or under the influence of nationalism
and nationalists, it only gives favorable accounts of a nation. That how those
favorable accounts are produced is another issue. In order to understand how
history is produced, Michel-Rolph Trouillot looks at the silences of the past
and argues that the production of history is always influenced by the power
holders. He asserts that what we know about the past is that “which is said to
be happened.”2 Thus, he suggests that we have to look at the actors who
participate in the production of history.3 I would argue that as the nationalism
was the main discourse that power holders used, the accounts that they
produced are not immune from the nationalist discourses. Therefore, I agree
with those scholars who emphasize the importance of forgetting and
silencing in the production of history when the issue is an event that involves
shameful acts of a nation. In the Turkish history writing, the same process of
2 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, (Boston,
Mass: Beacon Press, 1995), p. 2.
3 ibid., p. 25.
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