AN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
by Kinga Kali

Budapest Sun, Hungary
April 25 2007

April 25, 2007 08:00 am | The Armenian Genocide of 1915-17 is
commemorated around the world on April 24, wherever Armenians are
living – and that includes Budapest, where cultural events have
accompanied a solemn remembrance of one of the worst massacres of
the last century.

After more than 90 years, the Mets Yeghern (The Great Calamity,
in Armenian) that killed 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey (as well as
many Greeks and Assyrians), it is still a matter of much controversy,
officially denied or not recognized by many countries, despite
eye-witness accounts, documentary and photographic evidence, the
testimony of thousands of survivors and decades of historical research.

Silence often shrouds the issue in Hungary as well and, despite,
or perhaps because of, Hungary’s 150 years of Ottoman occupation,
Hungary still doesn’t officially recognize the Armenian genocide.

The Turkish state denies that its Ottoman predecessor committed
genocide, and protests vehemently against countries and individuals
who insist otherwise.

Armenians may shiver, in fact, that an alley in Budapest’s beautiful
Castle District is named after Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern
Turkish state – and if that state is the successor of the Ottoman
Empire, then isn’t Turkey responsible of the crimes committed by the
Young Turk Party, of which Ataturk was once a member?

Ataturk himself was, in fact, scathing about his people’s behavior
towards the Armenians. At a military tribunal in January 1919, he
said, "Our compatriots committed inhuman crimes, they resorted to
every kind of despotism, they organized deportations and massacre,
they burnt babies alive sprinkled with petrol, they raped women and
girls. They brought such insupportable conditions to people, that no
other people had seen before in history."

Failing to punish

But, as President of Turkey, Ataturk, failed to punish the perpetrators
of those crimes, and the barbarous events of 1915-17 fell into a deep,
silent and secure whirlpool of oblivion.

Due to this terrifying ethnic cleansing, the Armenian Diaspora is
now much bigger than the population of Armenia itself, and Hungary
is home to a significant Armenian community.

Armenians first arrived in Hungary in the 13th century, when legend
says 300 Armenian families fled Ani, one of Armenia’s ancient capitals,
the so-called city of the Thousand Towers, to escape the Tatars.

After wandering in Crimea, Poland, and Moldova, in 1672 they arrived
in Transylvania, where they were settled by Duke Mihaly Apafi and
functioned independently as traders.

They established four towns and initially used their own tongue,
before learning the language of the surrounding people: Hungarian,
Romanian and German. In the late 18th century, Armenian traders
migrated to the Hungarian Plain, and the descendants of these traders
are the foundations of the Armenian community in Hungary.

Over time, they assimilated the culture of the Hungarians they lived
alongside and, nowadays, Hungarian-Armenians don’t speak the language
of their ancestors, although they are well aware of their Armenian
origins. "We are Hungarians during the week, and Armenians on the
weekends, in church," they often say.

The second "layer" of the Armenian community constitutes descendants
of those who arrived after the events of 1915 in Turkey. There is
often tension with the earlier arrivals, because the "newcomers"
refuse to accept those who use Hungarian as their mother-tongue as
real Armenians.

Paradoxically, this year’s Week of Armenian Culture was organized by
the Hungarian-Armenian group, mainly the Transylvanian Armenian Roots
Cultural Association and the Metropolitan Armenian Self-Government,
which was not directly affected by the events in Turkey.

Paying homage

They paid homage to the Armenian martyrs of the Mets Yeghern by putting
flowers at the Armenian Khachkar (a stone cross made by Armenian
monks) near the Danube, close to Petôfi ter, and, from April 19-25,
several cultural events commemorated the genocide.

These include an exhibition of archive photos, entitled The First
Genocide of the Twentieth Century, in Árkad Galeria (Pest, District
VIII, Rakoczi út 30.), at the opening of which a book Nikolaj
Hovhanniszjan: The Armenian Genocide, was presented.

On April 22 at Bela Bartok’s Memorial House, there was a concert
introducing music from the Armenian Miniatures for Piano album,
released during the week. The CD includes a selection of music by
Aram Hachaturian, Komitas and Bartok.

These events surely deserve the support of all those who would give
a belated reply to Hitler, architect of the Holocaust, who allegedly
asked his Nazi aides on August 22, 1939, "Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

The First Genocide of the Twentieth Century – Archive Photographs
Until April 27.
Árkad Galeria Pest, District VIII.
Rakoczi út 30.

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