Kirkus Reviews (Print)
January 1, 2015, Thursday
FOUR YEARS IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KURDISTAN;
An Armenian Boy’s Memoir of Survival
An account of tragic years in Armenian history.In 1915, Haigaz
(1900-1986), born Aram Chekenian, his mother and sisters became
victims of Armenian persecution by Ottoman Turks, forced from their
homes to march across the Syrian Desert. Starving and destitute, they
came to a village where they discovered that other Armenian boys,
after converting to Islam, found work as servants in Turkish
households. Acceding to his mother’s pleas, the young Haigaz became a
willing convert.
For the next four years, he lived among Kurdish tribes, tending sheep,
reaping crops, feeding chickens and serving as a trusted messenger.
Living in intimate proximity to the families, he learned their
customs, secrets and, with astute cunning, vulnerabilities. After
immigrating to America when he was 21, Haigaz began to write and
publish his memories of the massacre that killed his father and
brothers, and he mined his experiences in short stories that were
published in The Armenian Review. The author adapted some of those
stories for a memoir, published in Armenian in 1972 and now
translated, condensed and edited by his daughter. Haigaz tells a
harrowing story of barbaric cruelty by Turks against the people they
considered infidels. Nevertheless, after he converted to Islam-a
simple matter of declaration-he was treated humanely. When his first
master died, Haigaz moved to the household of his younger brother, a
“sensible, modest, and godly” man who had not taken part in the
Armenian massacres and, in fact, “could not kill a chicken or watch a
sheep being slaughtered.” His only vice seemed to be a great love of
alcohol, though forbidden by the Quran. Haigaz reveals intertribal
struggles and betrayals as world war raged in the background. In the
spring of 1919, with the Ottoman Empire defeated, he saw his chance to
escape. A richly detailed testimony to a young man’s courage in the
face of unspeakable horror.
Publication Date: 2015-03-26
Publisher: Maiden Lane Press
Stage: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-940210-06-3
Price: $26.95
Author: Haigaz, Aram