The official reconciliation process between Turkey and Armenia may now be frozen, but a late January book exhibit in Yerevan suggests that the undercurrent for dialogue and understanding between the two long-time enemies remains strong.<\/p>\n
The 170-page book, published in Armenian, Turkish and English and titled Speaking to One Another, features stories based on interviews with 35 Armenians and 13 Turks. The interviewees recount family recollections of the 1915 massacre in Ottoman Turkey that left hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians dead. The stories also illustrate how memories shape views on Turkey and Armenia today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe exhibition is part of the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement process,\u201d said Ragip Zik, a project coordinator for Anadolu K\u00fclt\u00fcr, an Istanbul-based non-governmental organization that handled research for the Turkish portion of the book. \u201cWe are trying to convey certain thoughts to the two nations through art, and we believe that people are more powerful\u201d than politicians.<\/p>\n
Anadolu K\u00fclt\u00fcr and Armenia\u2019s Hazarashen Center for Ethnological Studies shared research responsibilities. The 400,000-euro (about $548,800) project was financed by Germany\u2019s Foreign Ministry and implemented under the auspices of the DVV International (Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association).<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally, it was very hard making people talk, but it\u2019s my belief that the time will come, when that obstacle will be overcome, too,\u201d said Zik, the project coordinator for Anadolu K\u00fclt\u00fcr. Exhibitions based on the book\u2019s research were staged in January in Turkey and Armenia.<\/p>\n
One of the Turkish interviewees, Necmi, a 70-year-old schoolteacher from the Anatolian town of Divri\u011fi, remembers his mother recounting how the sound of footsteps one night in 1915 prompted her to look out on the street. \u201c\u2019People tied to one another by ropes were going by in silence. Many were moaning and coughing. They just walked off,\u2019\u201d he recollected her saying. \u201cAnd my father used to say, \u2018We woke up one morning and there weren\u2019t any Armenians left in Divri\u011fi.We went into the houses and they just stood empty. In one of the houses, the dinner table was set, with a soup pot with spoons around it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Anadolu K\u00fclt\u00fcr obtained such interviews through \u201ctrusted personal contacts,\u201d the reason why the book contains far fewer Turkish interviews than Armenian, Zik said. None of the Turkish participants agreed to have their photograph taken or published.<\/p>\n
For some Armenian visitors to the Yerevan book exhibit, the Turkish interviews held greater interest. \u201cWe know our history. The Armenians\u2019 recollections are more or less the same, but we don\u2019t know those of Turks and this is a unique opportunity,\u201d said Mariam Siradeghian, a 29-year-old post-graduate student at Yerevan State University\u2019s Faculty of Eastern Studies. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be able to approach those people and talk to them, so this project has let me have some virtual communication with Turks.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an analysis that prefaces the Turkish section of the book, one researcher, Leyla Neyzi, a Sabanc\u0131 University professor of anthropology, writes that Turkish \u201c[m]emories of Armenians were commonly tinged with nostalgia and regret. Often, an idealized image of the Armenian would emerge from these accounts: intelligent, hard-working, disciplined, well-educated, generous.\u201d<\/p>\n
The accounts often boiled down to a simple concept, Neyzi wrote, \u201cthat if only the Armenians \u2018had not left,\u2019 their village, town, city and country might be better off today.\u201d Zik noted that the book\u2019s exhibits in Turkey were mostly welcomed. \u201c[S]urprisingly, there was no attack, and even the media gave rather positive responses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book\u2019s Armenian section, entitled \u201cWhom to Forgive, What to Forgive,\u201d similarly attempts to look beyond standard accounts of the 1915 massacre. \u201c[O]ur primary task was to present the recollections of those people who were part of that history, or their descendants, that are often ignored\u201d in public discussions about the issue, said ethnographer Hranush Kharatian-Araqelian, head of the Hazarashen Center.<\/p>\n
While project participants say they do not expect the book to influence either Turkish or Armenian official policies, some Armenian observers believe that just allowing Armenians and Turks to make \u201can important step toward getting to know each other\u201d is a key contribution by itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important to know what they think, how they feel, what their memories are regardless of politics and state policies,\u201d commented Ruben Safrastian, director of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences\u2019 Institute for Eastern Studies. \u201cThis is a unique dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saribek Tovmasian, an Armenian interviewee who lost family members in 1915, echoed that view. \u201cIf they are speaking out and starting to consider their recollections as something important, then there\u2019ll come a day when we\u2019ll hear the word \u2018sorry,\u2019 and our pain, the pain of our ancestors, will be relieved,\u201d the 58-year-old Tovmasian said.<\/p>\n