Genocide in Us: How Creative Artists Depict the Armenian Genocide
April 27, 2008
On April 24, 1915 the Turkish government began to implement a policy that amounted to the genocide of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. On that date hundreds of Armenian intellectuals were forced from their homes, taken to Constantinople, and murdered. While European powers fought each during World War One, subsequently embroiling the U.S., 1.5 million Armenians were brutally murdered. The survivors of the genocide ended up all over the world, thus creating the Armenian diaspora. As an Armenian-American I grew up hearing about the genocide, just as every other Armenian-American did. As a Creative Artist, the works of Armenian creative artists which deal with the genocide and its implications for the survivors and their descendants are powerful. I offer up the following list of my favorite of those works, plus a poem of my own, as a tribute to both the victims and survivors of the Armenian genocide.
Arshile Gorky’s paintings
Born Vosdanik Adoian in 1904 in the Armenian village Khorkom, Arshile Gorky was an Armenian artist who influenced the Abstract Expressionist art movement. His father emigrated to the U.S in 1910 in order to avoid being drafted into the Turkish army, and left his family behind. In 1915 Gorky, his mother, and three sisters moved to the Russian-controlled part of Armenia. His mother died of starvation in 1919 during the forced march in Yerevan (the present day capital of Armenia). As an adult Gorky channeled his grief over losing his mother and his homeland into his paintings. In his painting “The Artist and His Mother,” Gorky depicted himself as an adult standing next to his seated mother. The sadness in the eyes of both his mother and himself in the painting reveal the deep sadness Gorky carried with him until his death by suicide in 1948.
Siamanto, Armenian poet
Born Atom Yarjanian in 1878, the Armenian poet Siamanto became famous for his moving poems. After his father’s death, he fled Europe and lived in Paris, Vienna, Zurich and Lausanne. He went to Constantinople (present day Ankara) after a new Turkish constitution was announced. He came to the U.S. after the massacres of Armenian residents of the city Adana, and spent a year in Boston. He returned to Constantinople, focused on writing, and is believed to have been among the group of influential Armenians killed in Constantinople on April 24, 1915. Siamanto’s poem “A Handful of Ash” is an elegy for Armenia and his fellow Armenians who were being slaughtered by the Turks:
O my homeland, promise that after my death
A handful of your holy ashes
Will come to rest, like an exiled turtledove,
To chant its song of sorrow and tears.
Siamanto’s poem “The Dance” powerfully tells the story of 20 young Armenian women who were brutally killed by a group of Turkish men: Suddenly from afar a black, beastly mob Brutally whipping the twenty brides who were with them, Stood in a vineyard singing songs of debauchery.
William Saroyan, Armenian-American writer
Born in Fresno, California to survivors of the Armenian genocide, William Saroyan wrote about the day when General Antranik, an Armenian hero, came to visit Fresno in his short story, “Antranik of Armenia.” In the beginning of the story the year 1915, the year General Antranik visited, is noted as “the year of physical pain and spiritual disintegration for the people of my country, and the people of the world.” Richard G. Hovannisian, in his book The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, said of Antranik of Armenia, “With great pride he eulogizes the power of survival and continuity, which for him were the great characteristic qualities of his people whenever they were faced in history with the threat of extinction.”
Blood Cries by Marie Ourganjian
Blood Cries
Common bonds tie us all together
— the arteries and veins that weave inside our bodies
like tributaries snaking off from a river:
everyone bleeds red
Red flowed from the sons and daughters of Armenia,
its rivers raggedly seeping into the earth.
Red flows from the sons and daughters of Sudan,
their blood cries to my Armenian blood,
“Shame on humanity.”
God weeps,
His tears fall,
showering down upon us as we slumber.
Red still flows,
its shame burning the walls of our souls,
melting the dividers
that separate us from them.
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[…] The Free Articulator carries an entry by Marie Ourganjian on the impact of the Armenian Genocide on art in the Diaspora. As a creative artist, the author of the post also offers her favorite examples of such work as well as one of her own poems on the 1915 massacres and deportations The survivors of the genocide ended up all over the world, thus creating the Armenian diaspora. As an Armenian-American I grew up hearing about the genocide, just as every other Armenian-American did. As a Creative Artist, the works of Armenian creative artists which deal with the genocide and its implications for the survivors and their descendants are powerful. I offer up the following list of my favorite of those works, plus a poem of my own, as a tribute to both the victims and survivors of the Armenian genocide. […]