Sassoun and the Armenians of Sassoun after the Genocide and up to this day – part II
By Sofia Hagopian
Horizon Weekly
Trnaslated by Goryoun Koyounian
(2nd and final part)
Read part I of the article here
1. The region of Pozgan or the original Sassoun
After the genocide, there were few villages in this region with a remnant Armenian population: Keliekouzan, Kaghkig, Semal, Shenig, Aghpig. Apart from Kaghkig, which now comprises the Sason district of the Batman province, the remaining above-mentioned villages encompass the Moush district.
The Armenian populations of the villages listed above have entirely converted to Islam; the process of Islamization began in the later half of the 1930s and kept going until around the mid-1940s. Although some families covertly managed to preserve certain Christian traditions, nevertheless in the following years most of the Armenians who settled in Moush transitioned to a fully Muslim lifestyle.
In the 20 years following the genocide, there was periodic emigration of Armenians from these villages towards Qamishli and Aleppo.
In the 1930s, during the Kurdish uprisings, those Armenians who had not ascended on the mountains eventually departed to Western Turkey along with Kurdish rebels. After a while, some of them decided to return to their homeland, Sassoun.
Over the years, under the close supervision of the state, many of the Armenians of these villages relocated to other villages in the fields of Moush and in the center of the district; this resettlement continued all the way up to the mid-1990s.
A big chunk of these Armenian populations speaks Arabic, while others speak Kurdish. We might be able to find some who speak Armenian, particularly among the older generation.
In this case, the converted Sassountsis are distinct in their religious fanaticism, but also by the sheer number of people in these villages who purposefully hide their identity. Usually, despite facing repeated persecutions, there aren’t many people living a covert lifestyle, given that all of them know each other. However, in these parts of historic Sassoun, there are numerous instances of individuals passing off as Kurds or Arabs. Even though in some regions of Sassoun issues related to Armenian identity and the genocide are discussed openly, there still exists a climate of fear and a habit of hiding one’s identity in such villages as Keliekouzan and Semal. It is interesting to see, however, that even those Armenians who have no intention to discuss anything related to their Armenian roots choose to marry only similarly converted fellow Armenians.
Recently, there has been a noticeable shift in terms of the willingness to scrutinize and come to grips with the history and Armenian identity, a renaissance of sorts, particularly among the youth, most of which now live in the city of Moush. This evolution was largely aided by the founding of the first Hayrenagtsagan Union (an Armenian organization) of Moush. Most of the population of Keliekouzan now lives in Moush, though apparently 2 large families of Armenian origin now live in the village. A significant and active chunk of the population of Semal now lives in one of the peripheral villages of Moush; meanwhile, there is little clear information regarding the Armenian families who remained in Semal, because they’ve not only assimilated in terms of religion, language, and culture, but they also adamantly refuse to talk about their past, even though those who settled in Moush insist that there definitely are more than a few Armenians left in Semal. The same situation prevails in the villages of Shenig and Aghpi. This is starkly different from Kaghkig, whose inhabitants not only assert their Armenian identity, but even maintain active relations with Sassountsis from Armenia and across the Diaspora. Among the Armenian families of Kaghkig, one converted family now lives in Moush, three others have chosen to stay in the village, and a few Christian families have settled in Istanbul.
2. Khoulp and Khiank (currently the Khoulb region of the Diyarbekir province and the Sason region of the Batman province)
Armenian sources refer to these two areas as one larger region, even as they were split up a long time ago. Today, Khoulp is completely attached to Diyarbekir, while Khiank is part of historic Sassoun (‘Sason’ in modern times).
The Armenian villages of Khoulp are: Aharonk, Pasour, Khroutch, Parga, Shirnas, Ardgounk, Karug, Tiaha, and Tchgse.
The Armenian villages of Khiank are: Arkhount, Perm, and Pate.
The Armenians of Khoulp and Khiank suffered a gloomy fate after some of the most deadly Kurdish tribes who participated in the genocide of Armenians settled in these regions. The surviving Armenians, besides being looted, were then forced to serve these tribes as slaves.
There were some among those who were Islamized before and during the genocide who managed to preserve their identity thanks to repeated inter-communal marriages, though they gradually began speaking only in Kurdish. Later on, many of them would even go on to play important roles in the Kurdish movement.
During the genocide and in the years that followed, the entirety of the Armenian population of Khoulp converted to Islam.
They’ve retained some Armenian national dances as well as certain Armenian cuisine specialties. The Armenian families of the Khroutch, Pasour, and Parga villages are very large and active. These days, a national awakening of sorts seems to be brewing among them, reflected especially in the willingness to assign Armenian names to the children, in the increasing interest in the Armenian language and Armenian culture, in the gradually flourishing links with relatives in Armenia and in the Diaspora, and so on. While there are some exceptions, most of them only marry other converted Armenians.
The Kurdified Armenians of the Pate village now live in Silvan, are active participants in the Kurdish national movement and had already broken their links with other Armenians long ago. The same can be said of some descendants of the sole surviving family of the Perm village, who now live in the center of Batman; they’ve similarly forgotten about their Armenian roots a long time ago. Nevertheless, some of their relatives have gone the opposite direction, preserving their national and religious identity and, later, settling in Istanbul. The inhabitants of the rest of the villages in Khoulp, however, have all abandoned their Armenian identity.
The Armenians in the Arkhount village also merit particular attention, as some of them have remained Christians to this day. Within the Khiank region, they’re the ones who have been most successful in preserving their national identity and religion.
The number of this village’s population has periodically fluctuated; at one point, there were 42 homes. Some of those Armenians who had been forcefully converted to Islam had covertly managed to preserve certain national and religious traditions, habits, and rituals for quite a long time, and in some cases, if conditions were to allow, they would be open about their Christian lifestyle. And even though there were no fluent Armenian speakers left among them, anyhow, many of the parents would later settle in Istanbul where they would convert their children and send them to Armenian schools.
Some of the Armenians of the Arkhount village abandoned their homes as the Kurdish PKK began directing military campaigns against the government; this was when villagers would be required to cover for the pro-government village troops and fight against the Kurdish rebels. A significant portion of the Kurdified Armenians of Arkhount refused to fight against the PKK and moved to Western Turkey, primarily Istanbul. Today, the Armenians of Arkhount have their own Union of Expatriates in Istanbul, the Herenti (Kurdish for Arkhount) Armenian Union.
Another reason for the exodus of the Arkhount Armenians was the periodic repression carried out by their Muslim neighbors, which prompted some of the Armenians to convert to Islam while others preserved their faith and left the village. Many of those who converted did so purely on a formal basis so as to avoid persecution. After accepting Islam, they maintained the tradition of inter-communal marriages, separating themselves from the Kurds.
Saint Arakelots monastery, Mush (photo: westernarmenia.com)
The outrageous attacks on Christians that occurred in the 1960s were a permanent feature here. The Christian population of the village officially became Muslim in 1968 when the church of Arkhount was turned into a mosque and the Christians were now listed as Muslims. The Turkish press did not publish these details; the newspaper ‘Hurriyet’ was quick to portray this as a Christian population’s voluntary conversion to Islam and even cited the following words from the religious leader of Arkhount: “We’ve long since been sympathetic to this religion, and our souls will be at peace”.
However, it was clear that the Armenians of Arkhount mounted resistance; during the fighting, three Armenians and three Kurds were killed.
Concerning the ‘Hurriyet’ article, we should note that this was the usual narrative following each case of Armenians being forcefully converted to Islam: spreading information about “the Armenians’ voluntary conversion” through the press and neighboring Muslim populations, discovering a few Armenians who have voluntarily converted to Islam and generalizing about the entire Armenian community based on those isolated cases through propaganda, and finally allocation of land to some of those Armenians.
3. Khapltchoz and Hazzo (currently the Sason and Kozlouk regions of the Batman province)
A large section of the Hazzo region of historic Sassoun, having been detached from Sassoun and renamed Kozlouk, has turned into one of the regions of the Batman province, while Khapltchoz corresponds to the center of modern Sassoun, a portion of which now takes up the regional center of Sason. The Armenian villages are Gousked, Hazzo, Hasopig, Iritsank, Pirshenk, Gorov, Gomeg, Kharver, Natopan, Tere, Patermoud, Koram, and Engouznag. We would not be mistaken in stating that, as far as Sassoun is concerned, the Armenians left after the genocide mostly resided in this area. It is especially noteworthy that small Armenian communities managed to prevail, living in the Maratoug mountainside, near the mountainous villages of Khapltchoz.
Most ‘Arabized’ Armenians of Sassoun live in this region, and the populations of all the villages listed earlier speak Arabic. However, this group of Armenians has perhaps been the most successful when it comes to preserving its ‘Armenianness’ (ancient beliefs and traditions, songs, dances, the cuisine, and until the 1980s, some villages even managed to preserve the Armenian language), doing its best to avoid establishing any conjugal relationship with foreigners.
This region is also home to the largest population of Christian families, many of which departed to Istanbul in the 1970s and the 1980s, as the threat of forced conversion and various forms of repression was looming in all those areas in Western Armenia where Armenians remained. Here, a significant portion of those who converted to Islam (probably around 70-80%) did so during this period, not during the genocide, and those who preserved their Christian faith left to Istanbul. Of course, the Armenian language also gradually gave way to the Arabic.
It is also worth noting that the Armenians of this region are neither leftists nor pro-Kurdish. Quite on the contrary, they might literally be deemed ‘anti-Kurdish’ (we’ll come back later on the issue of ‘Arabized’ Armenians and their role in the Kurdish movement in more detail).
In the Khapltchoz region, the Pirshenk village was probably home to the largest Armenian population. Here, there were more than 10 Armenian homes, although the numbers would fluctuate throughout the years. Today, there are 3 Armenian homes left, one Christian and two Muslim. Although the number of homes with covert Armenians is fewer in Iritsank than it is in Pirshenk, nevertheless, both are fairly equally populous. About 30 years ago, as a result of the religious repression that prevailed, these Armenians left their homes to settle in Istanbul.
There are probably about 3 Christian families in the Gomeg village. The final remaining converted Armenians are in the Hasopig, Natopan, Kharver, and Gorov villages.
The Christian Armenians of the Gousged village settled in Istanbul in the 1960s and 1970s (by the way, the story of the shooting of the 10 Gousged Armenians somewhat reflects the situation of the Sassoun Armenians in the years between 1927 and 1938, during the Kurdish uprisings; the bullets were fired by Turkish soldiers in 1937, even though these Armenians had no link whatsoever with the Kurdish rebellion and were brought to the scene of the shooting through deceit) (5). There were quite a few Armenian orphans kept in the home of the Kurdish ‘Agha’ of the Patermoud village; some of them managed to escape and avoid enslavement, but many Armenian girls and women were assimilated in Patermoud through forced mixed marriages. Many of these orphans, by marrying among themselves, succeeded in avoiding assimilation, though they did not convert back to Christianity. Currently, there are similar Armenian families living in one of the villages of Moush. The single Armenian family of the Tere village now lives in Silvan, the grown-ups having converted to Islam arguably at the time of the genocide, after being orphaned.
The Armenians of the Hazzo village departed to the Qamishli region of Syria probably in the 1930s.
The Engouznag and Koram villages, to this day, are home to Islamized Armenians, though they are relatively uneasy about issues related to their Armenian identity because of their proximity to the administrative center of Sassoun and because they’re further away from the other Sassoun Armenians who, for the most part, live in high-altitude, mountainous villages. Several Armenian women and girls of Koram and Engouznag have been kidnapped by Arabs and Kurds.
4. Psank (currently the Sason region of the Batman province)
The Armenian villages are: Hrout, Mechkegh, Pshoud, Pkse, Khntsorenk, Megdenk, Rapat, Zilan.
After the genocide, the Hrout and Pshoud villages were home to the largest Christian Armenian populations in the entire Sassoun, at least until the 1980s. Many of them spoke a fluent Armenian, though the youth spoke much more in Arabic. Today, there are virtually no Christians left, and while there are a few converted Armenian families, their numbers are diminishing year by year.
The Armenians of Megdenk and Pkse are actually part of the same larger family, and comprised the final two Megdenk Armenian families of Sassoun following the genocide. However, the Kurds of the Gento tribe, established in Megdenk (which, incidentally, is the birthplace of Kevork Chavoush), forcefully relocated these two families to Pkse, where they continue to live to this day, though, a century later, are made up of 30 families instead of two. The Armenians of Pkse are Muslims, they do not know the Armenian language and speak Kurdish. The population of the Pkse village was among those who refused to fight the Kurds, and as a result Turkish soldiers burned down Pkse three times in the 1990s. The last remaining Armenians of the Rapat and Zilan villages left in the 1930s and 1940s, while those of Mechkegh and Khntsorenk left in the 1970s.
5. Modgan (currently the Moudg region of the Bitlis province)
The Armenian villages are: Nitch, Arpi, Shenisd, Aghpntcher, and Kerho. Today, there are 9 Islamized Armenian families in Shenisd, relatively numerous, and who, again, marry only among themselves. There are probably a few converted Armenian families in Aghpntcher. As for Nitch, it’s been home to the largest Armenian population of Modgan both before and after the genocide. The number of Armenian families living here after the genocide is unclear, given that, due to various circumstances, the Christians of Nitch would often leave the village and then return later. The people of Nitch would also move to neighboring villages, most prominently Arpi. Today, one can find numerous Armenian families of Nitch and Arpi in Istanbul, who, upon reaching the city, converted to Christianity and reestablished their Armenian names. Currently, Nitch is home to one Christian home and several Islamized ones, while in Arpi, virtually all are Islamized (14 homes).
The main distinctive characteristic of the Armenians living in Modgan and particularly in these two villages is that, after the genocide, both the Christians and the converted ones preserved the Armenian language for 8 to 9 decades. While most of the Armenians in the villages of Modgan, besides Armenian, knew with equal fluency the Arabic, Kurdish, and Zaza languages, there were also Armenians who only knew how to speak Armenian. Furthermore, even their Arab and Kurdish neighbors would speak with them in Armenian.
The Armenians of the Kerho village were exiled in 1937. Only two Armenian families managed to return to the village after the exile to western Turkey; one of them converted to Islam and remained there, while the other, having failed to make a living in Kerho, first went to Sghert and then settled in Istanbul. After spending many years as covert Christians, upon reaching Istanbul, they officially converted to Christianity (6).
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Sevan Shenol, Mehmed Tchemli, Asdghig Paltche, Tavit Aroush, Pesse Kapak, A. Sharkle, Veysi Zenkil, H. Agtash, Isahag, Tuncay, Avni and Melissa Zunkior, N. Hountour, Garod and Roupen Avche, Nouri Tash, Orhan Kape, Irfan Kez, Melike Agkoush, Silva Z, Nazan Z, Ayhan Terince, and Arsen Temir, for all their support in the preparation and writing of this paper.
(2nd and final part)
Read the first part of the article here:
5. Ferman Toroslar, Sürgün, Aras Yayıncılık, 2013.
6. Ferman Toroslar, Sürgün, Aras Yayıncılık, 2013.