ArmInfo. Ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan gave harsh answer to Chairman of the Standing Parliamentary Commttee on Defense and Security, MP from the ruling Civil Contract party Andranik Kocharyan, who today stated that it is necessary to clarify and record the names of all victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. "In the end, you need to have a list of all the victims. What if there are more or less than 1.5 million, as is commonly believed," Kocharyan explained, assuring that this initiative is also important for building relations with Turkey.
"Andranik Kocharyan is looking for and does not find the names of the victims of the genocide, or does he really want to know the number of victims of the genocide, saying: "If indeed one and a half million people were victims of genocide, can you list their names?"
However, the last words of his sentence leave no doubt, he says: "so that we can accept." That is, from Kocharyan's words, one can come to the conclusion that "recognition or non-recognition" is hampered by the lack of lists or not knowing their names," the Armenian ethnographer was indignant. In this vein, she called for a start to figure out who the MP from the ruling force means , using the phrase "we" and how many "we" there are.
The ethnographer suggested to Kocharyan to visit to the villages of Talin, Shirak, Echmiadzin, and ask the people living there the names of their grandfathers, grandmothers, children who died in the family, they keep these names sacredly.
"Just Mr. Kocharyan, take a thick notebook with you to write down these names. Of course, you won't get one and a half million, for that you have to travel to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and only after that, to other distant countries, where those who escaped from the genocide fled. You can also leave for Turkiye. Armenians live there, and 30-40 people in their families were killed. I'll give you the addresses if you need them. Go ahead, Mr. Kocharyan, this is no more difficult task than the life of several generations of people who have been haunted by the memories of these names for more than a hundred years, which you destroy with one sentence.
But I am ready to make your work easier, Mr. Kocharyan. These names are not in the archives; they probably existed in the parish books of Armenian churches, which, unfortunately, were not preserved in Turkish archives and among the current residents of former Armenian villages. They weren't kept at all. They were burned like the corpses of Armenians," added Kharatyan. In this vein, the ethnographer drew the attention of the MP from the ruling force to the fact that in 1915, the person responsible for getting rid of the corpses of Armenians was appointed and his name was Truto Aras. "Then he made a diplomatic proposal to get rid of the corpses of Armenians by burning people alive, drowning them, throwing them into the water, and only when there was a need for a massacre, they gathered them in caves and carried out a massacre there. There are many sources about cases of burning Armenians in barns and churches. Do you need their names, Mr. Kocharyan? If so, tell me, don't worry, I will send them.
Mr. Trutto Aras was a "genius", a pure work - burn, no trace. But it turned out that the proposal to drown in water was not a very good decision. Murat and the Euphrates were so filled with corpses that the water became dangerous. Cases of poisoning have become more frequent. This was before July, the massacre was just beginning, and there was still so much massacre ahead. On July 1, 1915, Talyat and Dzhemal Pasha ordered by telegram to bury the corpses and not throw them into the rivers. On July 3, 1915, in response to this telegram, the governor of Diyarbakir telegraphed Taliat: "The Euphrates is not very close to our vilayet. It is likely that the bodies sailed along the Euphrates from the vilayets of Erzurum and Kharput. Here the dying are thrown into deep pits, but more often, burned. They rarely have to be buried." In other words, he justified himself: "It's not us who throw the corpses of Armenians into the river, it's others who obediently burn them."
Burying so many people was no easy task, and who would do it? We couldn't even find anyone who would pay for it. And the stench of rotting corpses on the roads was unbearable and dangerous. I don't want to offend your tender soul by describing these cruel scenes, Mr. Kocharyan, they are truly inhumane. There were people who every day selected groups of 500 Armenians gathered in the deserts of Der-Zor, took them to the "death camp" and hacked them to death with axes. Every day, for many days, months. There are witnesses. They even wrote the names of some of them. Can you count the names of those who were killed in the deserts? In monthly terms, the average is 15 thousand. You want 1.5 million names. And if, for example, it is 1,300,000 thousand, will it be suitable? What if it's 1,700,000 thousand? You know these are intolerable facts. If If you are reading these lines, then I sympathize with you. If I were not sorry, I would send you materials.
But Truto Aras survived and the path to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Mustafa Kemal opened before him. It is possible to apply the diplomatic decision to get rid of the corpses in the matter of renouncing the memory of the corpses. As you can see, he succeeds in this too. Empires have extensive experience in internal and external memory-shaping policies. Although not everyone's memory is "washed". Sorry, Mr. Kocharyan, it seems to me that you are using the wrong words. Sometimes words have meaning, don't they," asked Kharatyan in conclusion.