My Father's Destiny: The Golgotha of Armenia Minor
translated from French by Diran Meghreblian
with a preface by Yves Ternon
London: Gomidas Institute, 2015,
176 pages, illustrations
ISBN 978-1-909382-15-2, paperback,
Price: UK£16.00 / US$22.00
To order please contact books@gomidas.org
Every destiny is unique, but that of a survivor stands out because it wasn’t interrupted when the multitude were destroyed. He is like a piece of wreckage that is thrown by the waves onto a beach after a storm to reveal the scale of the disaster and cerry with it – its echo reverberating from generation to generation – the last scream of the dead: ‘Do not forget us’ –Yves Ternon (from introduction to My Father’s Destiny)
My Father’s Destiny is one of few English language accounts of the Armenian Genocide in Sivas, the province with the largest Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. This work is composed of a translation of Aram Gureghian’s memoirs written at the age of 16 following the Armenian Genocide; the Gureghian family’s subsequent fate in exile in France and Soviet Armenia; and an account of the Armenian Genocide in Sivas – the ancestral homeland of the Gureghian family. This highly readable work was originally published in French (1999), then in Turkish (2004) and is now available in English.
Table of Contents
Preface (9)
Foreword (17)
Note: Extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (19)
MY FATE
From Sepasdia to Malatya (31)
From Malatya to the river Murat (36)
From the river Murat to Megharji (38)
The Separation from my family (48)
My life in the village (51)
My arrival at Ourfa (53)
The heroic battle of Ourfa (55)
My life in Turkish orphanages (57)
My liberation by Armenian soldiers (59)
The reunion with my brother Armenag (60)
My departure for France in September 1922 (64)
During the war (1939-1945) (66)
The repatriation of 1947 (75)
Departure for Armenia (75)
Note: The re-emergence of the Armenian Question (75)
First attempts to escape, before even reaching Armenia (80)
Arrival in Yerevan (81)
Our daily life in Soviet Armenia (82)
Note: Deportations to Siberia (87)
Stalin’s death (89)
My studies, the Komsomol and military service (92)
Christian Pineau in Yerevan (94)
My father in prison (96)
Note: Soviet Armenia (101)
Trips to Russia and first vacations (102)
April 24, 1965 in Yerevan (105)
The return to France (107)
My Father Testifies about the Genocide (111)
Hatred of the Turk? (113)
Epilogue (115)
THE GOLGOTHA OF ARMENIA MINOR (117)
Armenia (118)
The Armenian Question (119)
Resistance gets organised (121)
The Genocide (122)
The deportation, the final solution (125)
Achieving perfection (127)
Armenia Minor (or the Province of Sepasdia/Sivas) (131)
General points (132)
The province of Sepasdia before the 1915 genocide (133)
The town of Sepasdia (134)
A few famous Sepasdatsis (136)
The population (137)
The massacres of 1895 in Sepasdia and the
vice-consul of France (137)
The first round-ups and killings of men in 1915 (140)
The deportation of the town (143)
A testimony about the massacre of intellectuals (147)
A few testimonies from the Sepasdatsis (150)
The resistance (154)
The heroic battle of Shabin-Karahissar (156)
Survivors of the "labour battalions” - mountain fighters (158)
Archbishop Knel meets Talat at Sepasdia (162)
Notes (165)
Selected bibliography (175)
My Father’s Destiny is one of few English language accounts of the Armenian Genocide in Sivas, the province with the largest Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. This work is composed of a translation of Aram Gureghian’s memoirs written at the age of 16 following the Armenian Genocide; the Gureghian family’s subsequent fate in exile in France and Soviet Armenia; and an account of the Armenian Genocide in Sivas – the ancestral homeland of the Gureghian family. This highly readable work was originally published in French (1999), then in Turkish (2004) and is now available in English.
Table of Contents
Preface (9)
Foreword (17)
Note: Extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (19)
MY FATE
From Sepasdia to Malatya (31)
From Malatya to the river Murat (36)
From the river Murat to Megharji (38)
The Separation from my family (48)
My life in the village (51)
My arrival at Ourfa (53)
The heroic battle of Ourfa (55)
My life in Turkish orphanages (57)
My liberation by Armenian soldiers (59)
The reunion with my brother Armenag (60)
My departure for France in September 1922 (64)
During the war (1939-1945) (66)
The repatriation of 1947 (75)
Departure for Armenia (75)
Note: The re-emergence of the Armenian Question (75)
First attempts to escape, before even reaching Armenia (80)
Arrival in Yerevan (81)
Our daily life in Soviet Armenia (82)
Note: Deportations to Siberia (87)
Stalin’s death (89)
My studies, the Komsomol and military service (92)
Christian Pineau in Yerevan (94)
My father in prison (96)
Note: Soviet Armenia (101)
Trips to Russia and first vacations (102)
April 24, 1965 in Yerevan (105)
The return to France (107)
My Father Testifies about the Genocide (111)
Hatred of the Turk? (113)
Epilogue (115)
THE GOLGOTHA OF ARMENIA MINOR (117)
Armenia (118)
The Armenian Question (119)
Resistance gets organised (121)
The Genocide (122)
The deportation, the final solution (125)
Achieving perfection (127)
Armenia Minor (or the Province of Sepasdia/Sivas) (131)
General points (132)
The province of Sepasdia before the 1915 genocide (133)
The town of Sepasdia (134)
A few famous Sepasdatsis (136)
The population (137)
The massacres of 1895 in Sepasdia and the
vice-consul of France (137)
The first round-ups and killings of men in 1915 (140)
The deportation of the town (143)
A testimony about the massacre of intellectuals (147)
A few testimonies from the Sepasdatsis (150)
The resistance (154)
The heroic battle of Shabin-Karahissar (156)
Survivors of the "labour battalions” - mountain fighters (158)
Archbishop Knel meets Talat at Sepasdia (162)
Notes (165)
Selected bibliography (175)