Arlington Advocate, MA
April 14 2005
Film explores Armenian Genocide
Thursday, April 14, 2005
In honor of the 90th Armenian Genocide Commemoration this month,
videographer Roger Hagopian will show his film “Memories of Marash:
The Legacy of a Lost Armenian Community” on Thursday, April 21, 7
p.m. in the Community Room at the Robbins Library in Arlington.
This 70-minute video traces the ancient history of Marash,
located in present day Turkey, from ancient times through the series
of massacres committed by the Ottoman Turkish government from the
late 1800s to 1923 and the final expulsion of the Armenian community.
Marash was a cultural, religious and educational center with
Armenians maintaining most of the economy. The unique and colorful
style of Marash embroidery is a lost art as demonstrated in this
video.
While the Turks, in conspiracy with the Germans, were the
obvious perpetrators, the documentary examines the actions of the
British and French in denying the Armenians a last chance to reclaim
their homeland. Broken treaties and revised agreements were the order
of the day, with Turkey the prime beneficiary.
However, the infusion of Turkish culture with Armenian,
especially the language, music and foods is irrefutable and, as the
video shows, a few Armenians avoided the deportations and were saved
by “good Turks.”
The film consists of interviews with Genocide survivors as well
as their children and experts on Marash, which was situated in
Cilicia, the south coastal region of Asia Minor. Also included are
family and historical photographs, silent movies from post-World War
I, present day video scenes of the homeland and authentic music
provided by Professor Leon Janikian of Northeastern University.
The idea for the video originated with Hagopian’s desire to tell
a family story within the context of historical events. In the
research process, the theme of the story shifted from the plight of
his grandmother to the tale of the city itself.
“Along the way, I discovered a lost, yet vibrant way of life
that had existed prior to 1915. Whenever I make these video
presentations, I always feel like I’m bringing the story home. It’s a
story that needs to be told in order to keep history alive – and not
see it forgotten. If my emotions show, that goes along with the
experience. For me, it’s a way of presenting genealogy in a way
that’s informative, educational, and enlightening. A lot of hours and
many books went into this project. It’s a legacy I wanted to
preserve,” he said.
While the story focuses on one ethnic group, the Armenians of the
Ottoman Turkish Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century, the
theme is universal. The ethnic cleansing that occurred there was the
first genocide of modern times. Although it was well documented at
the time by soldiers, relief workers, missionaries and reporters,
this holocaust has been not been properly recognized by the United
States for fear of offending Turkey, its NATO ally.
Armenians have been put in the position of having to write
books, create films and develop high school and university Armenian
Genocide study curriculums for the purpose of imploring to the world
that an entire nation of 2.5 million was, in fact, removed from its
homeland of 3,400 years through genocide, massacres and deportations,
resulting in the death of 1.5 million people in 1915.
In 1939, prior to the invasion of Poland, World War II and the
subsequent Jewish Holocaust, Adolf Hitler met with his leading
officers and exclaimed, “Who speaks today of the extermination of the
Armenians?”
Hagopian is a film maker from Lexington. A previous work on this
topic was “Journey of an Armenian Family: The Struggle of a Nation,”
the story of his father, Hurire, a Genocide survivor. He is on the
board of directors of the Middlesex Canal Association and has
produced a documentary on the earliest major canal in America.
This film is co-sponsored by the Armenian Cultural Foundation, a
private library and museum dedicated to the preservation and
enhancement of Armenian history, culture and letters. Located at 441
Mystic St., this institution was incorporated in 1945 by Vahan
Topalian (1886-1983), a well-known Armenian book collector and by a
number of his friends and benefactors. Its current president is
Robert Mirak and the curator is Ara Ghazarian.
A question-and-answer period with the producer will conclude the
evening.