Armenian Fiction supports the notion that "Armenians have... slain more Turks than Turks have Armenians."

Armenian Fiction supports the notion that "Armenians have... slain more Turks than Turks have Armenians."

"...Armenians were like that."

 On occasion, even works of fiction can be a useful means of gaining some insight into history. This is particularly true when one attempts to sort out the conflicting versions of events which typify Turco-Armenian history of the era of the First World War. A case in point is found in a short-story published by the British author Michael Arlen (born: Dikran Kuyumjian) in 1924. Specifically, his collection of short stories entitled, These Charming People, includes a story called “The Man With The Broken Nose.” The “man” in question, an Armenian, engages in the following conversation with the unnamed narrator and his friend, Tarlyon:

 

‘You see sir,’ he said gravely, ‘I know all about killing. I have killed many men.... ‘

‘Army Service Corps?’ inquired Tarylon.

‘No sir,’ snapped the stranger. ‘I know nothing of your Corps. I am a Zeytounli.’

 ‘Please have patience with me, I begged the stranger. ‘What is a Zeytounli?’

He regarded me with those smoldering dark eyes; and I realized vividly that his nose had been broken in some argument which had cost the other man more than a broken nose.

‘Zeytoun,* he said, ‘is a fortress in Armenia. For five hundred years Zeytoun has not laid down her arms, but now she is burnt stones on the ground. The Zeytounlis, sir, are the hillmen of Armenia. I am an Armenian.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Tarlyon murmured.

‘Why?’ snapped the Armenian.

‘Well, you’ve been treated pretty badly, haven’t you?’ said Tarlyon. ‘All those massacres and things....’

The stranger glared at him, and then he laughed at him. I shall remember that laugh. So will Tarlyon.

Then the stranger raised a finger and, very gently, he tapped Tarlyon’s shoulder.

‘Listen,’ said he. 'Your manner of speaking bores me. Turks have slain many Armenians. Wherefore Armenians have slain many Turks. You may take it from me that, by sticking to it year in and year out for five hundred years, Armenians have in a tactful way slain more Turks than Turks have Armenians. That is why I am proud of being an Armenian. And you would oblige me, gentlemen, by informing your countrymen that we have no use for their discarded trousers, which are anyway not so good in quality as they were, but would be grateful for some guns.’

He left us.

‘I didn’t know,’ I murmured, ‘that Armenians were like that. I have been misled about Armenians. And he speaks English very well.. . ‘

‘Hum,’ said Tarylon thoughtfully. ‘But no one would say he was Armenian if he wasn’t, would he?’*

 

This is an interesting crack in the portrait Armenians have so carefully drawn of themselves as ‘helpless victims of the ruthless Turks.’ Here, some sixty-two years ago, an Armenian author let down his guard for a moment and in a passage of ‘fiction’ managed to shed a great deal of light on the real nature of Turkish-Armenian relations during World War I.

Someone might well direct the attention of Dikran Kuyumjian’s son, Michael Arlen, Jr., the author of Passage to Ararat, in which the myth of Armenian innocence is raised to new heights, to his father’s short-story, “The Man With the Broken Nose.”

 

*Quoted in Grant Overton, Cargoes for Crusoes. (New York & Boston), 1924. See the essay entitled: “A Reasonable View of Michael Arlen,” pp. 266-276.

 

The preceding was published as "Quote of the Month" in the Winter 1986-87 issue of ATA-USA

 

Avetis Aharonian, From Sardarapat to Sevres and Lausanne;Armenian Review, Vol. 16, No. 3-63, Autumn, Sep. 1963, pp. 47-57. p. 52 (second paragraph). Avetis Aharonian "Your three Armenian chiefs, Dro, Hamazasp and Kulkhandanian are the ringleaders of the bands which have destroyed Muslim villages and have staged massacres in Zangezour, Surmali, Etchmiadzin, and Zangibasar. This is intolerable. Look — and here he pointed to a file of official documents on the table — look at this, here in December are the reports of the last few months concerning ruined Muslim villages which my representative Wardrop has sent me. The official Tartar communique speaks of the destruction of 300 villages by the Armenians." p. 54 (fifth paragraph). "Yes, of course. I repeat, until this massacre of the Muslim is stopped and the three chiefs are not removed from your military leadership I hardly think we can supply you arms and ammunition. It is the armed bands led by Dro, Hamazasp and Kulkhandanian who during the past months have raided and destroyed many Muslim villages in the regions of Surmali, Etchmiadzin, Zangezour, and Zangibasar. There are official charges of massacres by the Armenians."

ADDITIONS FROM GUENTER LEWY'S BOOK
(The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey, A Disputed Genocide, 2005, p. 114.)

"The Turks had killed and exiled all Armenians, looted their homes, burned down their houses. The Russian victorious armies, reinforced with Armenian volunteers, had slaughtered every Turk they could find, destroyed every house they entered. The once beautiful Bitlis city, under the retreated feet of defeated soldiers and incoming armies, was left in fire and ruins."

Haig Shiroyan, Smiling through the Tears, p. 186

"Having disposed of about sixty Turks living in the village [of Fundejak, near the city of Marash] they [the Armenian villagers] were ready to fight for their lives."

Pastor Abraham H. Hartunian, Neither to Laugh Nor to Weep: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, trans. Vartan Hartunian, p. 58

The above massacre is confirmed by American relief worker Stanley Kerr, drawing on another Armenian source. (The Lions of Marash: Personal Experiences with American Near East Relief, 1919-1922,p. 19.) Guenter Lewy adds: "The pastor's choice of the word 'dispose' to describe the killing of Turkish villagers is typical of Armenian writing, in which, as [Gwynne] Dyer has correctly observed, "Muslim massacres of Christians are a heinous and inexcusable outrage; Christian massacres of Muslims are, well, understandable and forgivable." [Turkish Falsifiers and ArmenianDeceivers," p. 105.]