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.