Armenian News Network /
Groong
THE POWER OF A
PHOTOGRAPH AND ITS RECYCLING OVER TIME
Armenian News Network / Groong
April 23, 2021
Special to Groong by Abraham D. Krikorian and Eugene L.
Taylor
Long Island, NY
In addition to misidentification or
incorrect attestation of images, one is confronted on occasion with relevant
images that have been, or are still being used without
specific qualification as to when they were originally used, or where or by
whom they originated. Whether this has an effect on suitableness for their use
in a specific, more modern-day presentation the user will have to decide.
One photograph from the post-Hamidian
massacres period that has special significance in this connection is that of a
very poor Armenian mother with her three children. In the course of our
investigations some years back, we discovered that this photograph was
available online from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division.
It was a picture that had special appeal for a number of reasons that we shall
explore, including the fact that downloading was cost-free since it was out of
copyright and the negative was in the public domain. One appreciates at a
glance that this photo shows very graphically the abject poverty of an Armenian
mother and her kids. All are in rags. Their overall condition is deplorable.
Additional to the rags, the mother has
a desperate, forlorn, pitiable and austere look on her face. Despite this, her
general look may be described as stoic. Not much is discernible about her very
young babe in arms even upon close examination. Certainly
one has no idea about the baby other than it must be very young. An older daughter
stands at her side and is clearly very sad. The look on her face will certainly
evoke deep sympathy on the part of any viewer. The child being carried on the
mother’s back, has her right hand on her mother’s shoulder and is peeking out
at the camera. She is a beautiful child and her large, sad eyes straightaway
become a focal point for this painful and distressing photograph (See Fig. 1
below).
When one learns a bit more about the
photograph and the personal family drama it portrays, it assumes a still more
heart-breaking dimension. It is not merely about poverty. It is about some of
the horrible consequences associated with surviving the massacres (and later,
the Genocide), against the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. It portrays
dramatically the predicament that many women and children found themselves in
when husbands and fathers were killed. This was all the more tragic in a
traditionally patriarchal society. The photo may be taken to represent many, if
not all mothers who were survivors of massacre, genocide and genocidal violence
in any of its several dimensions.
Fig. 1.
"Armenians." Bain News Service publisher. Library
of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Reproduction Number:
LC-DIG-GGBain-27081; Call Number LC-B2-4626-3 [P&P].
In 2010 we published our research about
this sad image online on Armenian News Network Groong. Our delving into this
photograph established that the photograph was taken in Kharpert [Harput city] at the request of American missionaries at the
Eastern Turkey Mission station of the American Board and was to be used in
efforts to attract funding to help with their work with Armenian orphans from
the massacres of 1894 - 1896. We presented as detailed and richly
illustrated an analysis as was possible in view of the information available on
this photograph at that time.
The original photo was first published
in the December 1900 issue of a magazine that went by the name Helping Hand Series sponsored by the
National Armenian Relief Committee which had been set up and operated from
Worcester, Massachusetts. The Helping
Hand Series was overseen and
administered by Emily Crosby Wheeler (1853 - 1936). Her parents were the
pioneer missionaries at Harpoot, Crosby Howard
Wheeler and his wife Anna. (For our complete posted 2010 paper see “Widowed
through Violence, Dirt Poor, Desperate, Burdened with Heart-Wrenching Decisions
Concerning Her Three Children: the appalling woes of an Armenian woman from Geghi [Գեղի] (Erzerum
Vilayet) after the Hamidian Massacres: A publicity photograph of 1899” by
Abraham D. Krikorian and Eugene L. Taylor, Armenian News Network - Groong,
September 7, 2010.
https://groong.org/orig/ak-20100907.html
Our main conclusion was, of course,
that the photograph was not directly related to the horrendous genocide
initiated by Ottoman Turkey against the Armenians in 1915, or any of its
subsequent tragic events and consequences. The image pertained to tragedies
that befell survivors of the Hamidian massacres ̶
widows and children of those many Armenian men who were murdered. (We
will not attempt an analysis of the actual number murdered. It is a contentious
issue that we will not get into here. When we decide to put on our ‘cynic’s
hats’ we generally quip – “LOTS!”)
What’s more, in terms of our learning a
great deal more about the image, we were able to learn the place of origin of
these survivors; even Christian names could be connected with two of the
children. Regrettably there was no record of the family surname.
An article entitled “Plea for Armenia”
published in 1909 in various US Newspapers and The Survey magazine (New York, a magazine of social and political
issues, volume 22, May 15, pgs. 249-251) provides a succinct evaluation of the
situation at that time for Armenians in the Turkish Vilayet of Mamouret-ul Aziz [Kharpert province, ‘central’ Armenia]
and, specifically for us and our ‘family portrait because its background
harkens back to the Hamidian and post-Hamidian period in Kharpert.
Quoting from the
article we read: -
“After the 1895 and 1896 massacres,
central Armenia became a veritable field of orphan asylums. Different
missionary organizations, the French Roman Catholic, German Lutheran, the
American missions, established scores of them, at least two in each principal
town, numbering in all in the neighborhood of 150 throughout the interior
provinces….
“Furthermore, there had been for
eighteen months famine in Asiatic Turkey. The 1895 and 1896 massacres, brutal
though they were, did not decrease the supply of breadstuffs, because the
farmers had done their summer work and the massacres came in October. Now
[1909], the disturbances are coming at a critical time. This is the month for
the farmers to plant. Should the seed time go past and another summer’s crop
fail, hunger would claim the country. Long, long before the outbreak of the
current troubles, it has been harassed in two ways that leave it weak. The
Christian is the farmer of Asiatic Turkey. The
famine has not been God’s sending. [our emphasis]
“The
old regime of the sultan is wholly responsible for poor conditions. Bribery
and oppression at the hands of subordinate officials could be traced to his
encouragement. Chiefs of different Kurdish tribes and influential Mohammedans
have forcibly taken away the tillable land from Christians, on one pretext or
another, mainly threatening that they would betray them as revolutionary, men –
which is the biggest fear of the country, - and have turned these tilled lands
into wild cattle pastures. On the other hand, taxation has been growing heavier
and heavier every year. The sultan’s official goes to the poor widow who has
only one son of eighteen, a sole protector and supporter who tills the land
with a yoke of oxen, the only treasures that he owns. The official conducts
away forcibly that yoke of oxen and sells it at auction and leaves him
helpless…”
“Orphanage, famine and poverty – the
toll of the massacre is not complete even with these. We must add sickness. In
1895 in those cities that were along the rivers, the bodies of the dead were
thrown into the water after lying about the streets for a week or more. But in
most of the towns the bodies were left on the ground on the outskirts of the
cities, without burial; dogs ate them and became ferocious, and the decayed
skeletons threatened cholera, had it not been for the approaching winter
season. That winter, half as many as were massacred died of exposure and
typhoid fever.…
“Under the constitution the provinces
were to elect representatives with free votes. Instead, the Turkish officials
threatened the public, especially the Armenians, into casting their votes for
certain Turkish tyrants, most of whom were the leaders of the 1895 massacres.
However, the Armenians succeeded in having eight representatives, two of them
the most able lawyers of their country. During the nine months of the
parliamentary session, repeated complaints came from the provinces that the
usual atrocities were growing worse.”
Readers will know the
rest.
This background provides what we think
is an excellent perspective for our photograph to be understood in a broad and
proper context.
We decided long ago that it was
important to communicate our findings specific to this photo to the Library of
Congress so that proper reference to it could be added to the much too
superficial and quite general description “Armenians.”
We received no acknowledgement from the
Library of Congress but finally, after considerable time, we noticed that the
Library made reference to our Groong posting. The L of C entry accompanying the
photo now reads: -
“Summary:
Photograph shows a poor, widowed Armenian woman and her children, Markarid (on her back) and Nuvart
(standing next to her). In 1899, after the murder of her husband in the
aftermath of the Armenian Massacres of 1894 -1896, the family walked from their
home in the Geghi region to Kharpert (Harput), eastern Anatolia (western historic Armenia,
Turkey) seeking help from missionaries. Photograph was published in Helping Hand Series Magazine (Armenian
Relief Committee) in December 1900 and an image of Nuvart
wearing the same clothes appears in the December 1899 issue of the same
publication.
(Source: http: https://groong.org/orig/ak-20100907.html)
Reproduction
Number: LC-DIG-ggbain-27081
(digital file from original negative. Rights Advisory: No known restrictions
on publication. For more information, see George Grantham Bain Collection -
Rights and Restrictions Information https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/274_bain.html.
Call
Number: LC-B2-
4626-3 [P&P
The appeal at that time of the family
‘portrait’- or more accurately ‘fatherless family portrait’ - was clearly very
quickly appreciated by those spear-heading fund-raising efforts for the German
missionary establishment at Mezereh/Harput as well. We described in our original post that the
image was reproduced in 1901 in a German work under the title Deines Bruders Blut, Geschichte aus Armeniens Leidenstagen
[Thy Brother’s Blood, a Story of Armenia’s Days of, Agony, Fr. Bahn,
Schwerin-i. Meckl., our
copy is dated 1900 but quite a few subsequent ‘editions’
or printings were released which do not include the photograph. The ‘editions’
of Deines Bruders Blut with the image that we feature below which were
released at least until 1921 in Schwerin, Germany are rare, even in German
libraries. The “Deutscher Hülfsbund
für christliches Liebeswerk im Orient'' was the
so-called “corporate author” of these and subsequent ‘editions (See http://liberarius.de/verlag-friedrich-bahn/margarete-von-oertzen/).
Fig. 2.
Image of a
desperately poor Geghi family with a minimal
generic-style description provided on the Library of Congress negative.
“Armenian Widow and Her Children.” On the left we see daughter Nonig, her name was formalized by the missionaries, whether
perfectly accurately or not in Armenian, to Nuvart.
This image was printed in Deines Bruders Blut was based on a
photograph that appeared on the cover of The
Helping Hand Series, vol. 2, No.1, December 1899. The image also appeared,
somewhat cropped, on the cover of volume 2, No. 3, June 1900. (We are not sure
exactly where in the Kaza of Geghi
we are dealing with.)
This is probably as good as any place
to mention that we have encountered a few times a Postcard of the Geghi Mother and kids (See Fig. 3 below). The label is
confused and merely states “Arminian Refugees. After the Massacre” [note
spelling error using an “i” instead of “e”] This has
been designated in a published work as deriving from the year 1901 (with no
evidence so far as we can see). We ourselves have not seen anywhere a date of
postal cancellation on a Postcard photograph and thus cannot attest to the
given date when the card was at least being sent, so to say. The card is
numbered No. 239 – presumably in a numbered series of one sort or other. We
have not been able to delve further into this matter. A card was offered on
eBay not that long ago and the selling price was a ridiculous $1000.00 US!
Fig. 3.
“Arminian Refugees.
After the Massacre.” Note the use of the incorrect designation “Arminians” rather than “Armenians.” The spelling Arminian
might bring to mind for some versed in theology adherents to a kind of
Christianity that had nothing whatever to do to with Armenians. But surely, not
very many people would have even heard of “Arminians”
much less who the term represented or their religious philosophy or beliefs.
(As it turns out, the “Arminians” challenged
vigorously the doctrine of Pre-destination adhered to by the Calvinists.)
Details on How Our Image Seems to
have made a leap from relatively poorly known in 1900 to considerably better
known from late 1916 onwards
Lacking any information to the
contrary, we are now obliged to make a leap from 1900 to 1916 as to when one
might encounter use of the Geghi family photograph to
engender sympathy for victims of atrocious genocidal actions against Armenians
in Turkey.
To be more exact, it seems that it was
in the latter part of 1916 that ‘our’ photo of the destitute Geghi family resurfaced. The book in which the photograph
was published was advertised as “newly published” in November 1916. We have no
evidence that the photograph was used earlier than November 1916. The period of
the Genocide is generally taken as 1915 onwards of course. We would not be
surprised to learn that the photograph was used earlier but that question will
have to remain unresolved until something turns up.
In light of where it was published, the
photo certainly would have been accepted as typifying accurately situations
that were widely encountered during the Armenian Genocide. The caption to the
photograph simply reads “Fleeing from Massacre”.
Fig. 4.
“Fleeing from
Massacre.” Scanned from the book In the
Land of Ararat: a sketch of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Freeman Barrows Ussher,
missionary to Turkey and a martyr of the great war written by her Father
Rev. John Otis Barrows (1916, Fleming Revell, New York, photograph published
opposite pg. 136.
The key point is that the book was
written by someone who knew quite a lot about conditions among Armenians in
Turkey. The full title of the book is, as given in the caption, In the Land of Ararat, a sketch of the Life
of Mrs. Elizabeth Freeman Barrows Ussher, Missionary to Turkey and a Martyr of
the Great War. It is now rare on the used book market, but it has been
reprinted under the aegis of Trieste Publishing and others. The explanation
given for their reprinting the original volume is “This work has been selected by scholars as being
culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we
know it.” It also has been made available online by digitization (See https://archive.org/details/inlandofararatsk00barr).
Although
the volume written by Rev. Barrows (himself a missionary amongst the Armenians
in his early ministerial career) to honor and memorialize his daughter who was
martyred in service in the summer of 1915 was well known by the missionary
establishment, it seems fair to say that the photograph became much better
known during the period of the Late Ottoman Genocides. This later period became
broadly defined as that of “reconstruction” in particular. The picture was used
to represent and describe a typical refugee or genocide survivor Armenian
mother. Some even went so far as to designate her as an example of an “Eastern
Madonna.” An image in the April 18, 1918 issue of the New York Tribune (NY)
bears the caption “The plight of the mothers is the saddest of all - for such
victims of Turkish depravity death seems a blessed release.”
We
would argue that such a photo would quickly become a dominant image in
imagining and understanding assailed Armenian motherhood in Turkish Armenia.
Fig. 5a.
The 1900 image is on the left side of this picture in this
article in the New York Tribune,
Sunday April 28, 1918 pg. 6 is the 1900 image. Here, the family faces right.
The full, indeed quite detailed, newspaper article, written by Agnes V.
Williams, is entitled “Turk and Hun Turn Armenian People into Procession to a
Graveyard.”
Fig. 5b.
An enlargement of the image with the caption “The plight
of the mothers is the saddest of all ̶
for such victims of Turkish depravity death seems a blessed release.”
Agnes
V. Williams, author of the New York Tribune article shown in Fig. 5a served for
a few years as Editor of New Near East,
the magazine published by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief
and its successors. She also wrote features for various newspapers.
Regrettably,
we haven’t been able to learn much about Agnes V. Williams. She married Leslie Newlon Hildebrand in February 1920 at her home in
Princeton, New Jersey and gave up her duties at New Near East magazine of The Near East Relief by the end of 1920
after giving three years of service. She certainly was in a very good position
to write an authoritative article on the reality of the Armenian Genocide. She
and her husband Leslie, born in Iowa in 1892, lived after their marriage in New
York City. He was involved in newspaper work ever since the time of his
graduation from the University of Iowa in 1914. His work in New York City was
merely described as that of a publicist. It has been difficult to dig up much
more on that.
The
Sunday Magazine section of the San
Francisco Chronicle, January 5, 1919 included an image of ‘our’ family (See
Fig. 6a). It is in a full-page treatment and focuses on the events dealt with
or alluded to in the film “Ravished Armenia.” The article title was “The Most
pathetic Ambassadress in History.” The caption to the image reads: - “One of
the Eastern Madonnas ̶ a Typical Refugee Mother. Nearly Half a
million children have been orphaned.”
Fig. 6a.
Scanned from San
Francisco Chronicle, Sunday January 5, 1919, “The Most Pathetic
Ambassadress in History” by Ethel Thurston, pg. 3
Fig. 6 b.
Close-up of the Geghi Mother and
kids shown in Fig. 6a.
Shortly thereafter, The
New York American for January 19, 1919 included in its Photogravure Section
an image of ‘our’ family captioned “An Armenian woman of Geghi
(we prefer spelling Geghi since it is western
Armenian pronunciation) with her three little fatherless children; they were
rescued after they roamed for days in the mountains.” The two-page spread in
which the photo was embedded is titled “Armenia and the Scriptures, Scenes from
the unhappy land whose people trace their descent from the Family of Noah.” The
photogravure attempts to relate some of the misery at that time, but the only
‘real’ photo included is that of the Mother and children. The other
illustrations are only drawings of a historic nature. The page size of the New
York American was 10 by 17 inches so there would be no problem seeing ‘our’
Mother and kids in some detail.
Fig. 7.
Image of Geghi mother in
original sepia color.
Let us jump ahead a bit further. A year later, in the
January 1920 issue of the New Near East,
one encounters an interesting photograph showing the full front of the building
housing the Campaign Headquarters of the Philadelphia Branch, Near East Relief.
At the upper reaches of the building is a large signboard reminding the readers
that “Hunger Knows No Armistice.” Sticking up from the sign is an image of
‘our’ distraught Mother and her kids. It is a large-scale painting, not a
photographic print. In our opinion, the image clearly was not painted by a
particularly talented artist.
Fig. 8a.
Image of page from the Near
East Relief’s Philadelphia Headquarters.
Fig. 8b.
Cropped image to focus on the imagery (from New Near East vol. IV. Jan. 1920. No.
7, total number 31. Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Archives who kindly
allowed us to photograph their copy of the issue. There is yet another issue of
The New Near East vol. 6, no.4,
January 1921 pg. 22 that shows the Philadelphia Headquarters with a sign with
‘our’ family that refers to those fronts with elaborate signs for fund-raising
purposes as “a speaking front.”
A
photograph of the building with its sign board may be seen in Fig. 8c below.
Fig. 8c.
Photograph
dated September 23,1920, taken at South Broad Street near Chestnut in
Philadelphia. Courtesy of the R.C. Maxwell Company Collection at Duke
University Archives, Durham, North Carolina.
Fig. 8d.
Close-up of the Philadelphia Headquarters billboard.
Thus, it will be clear to the reader that an appealing yet
sufficiently communicative and horrifying image, justifiably viewed as
well-suited to fund raising for women and children in 1899 - 1900 was retained
for use almost a generation later for survivors of genocide and horrendous
treatment in general, under even more dreadful and vastly more widespread
circumstances. The original purpose in 1900 was to showcase what we would now
refer to as a “before” shot of pathetically destitute children rescued from an
ominous fate that was sure to befall them had they not been ‘saved alive,’ that
is taken in and rehabilitated by the missionaries. The follow-through on this
story seems to have paid no attention to the Mother or the baby. They might
have fallen through the cracks, or arguably more likely, they might well have
become victims of the genocide.
There
is likely no need to belabor the fact that this image has been used over the
years in a very large number of contexts. Inevitably the photograph of the
family is now used primarily in connection with the Genocide of Armenians that
began in 1915.
One
volume in German by the Academic Director of the Lepsius
House in Berlin, Rolf Hosfeld, uses the image of the Geghi family on the cover of a work entitled Tod in der Wüste.
Der Vӧlkermord in der Wüste
[Death in the desert. Genocide in the Desert.] (2015, C.H. Beck, Munich.)
There is a translation into Turkish available [Çӧlde Ölüm: Ermenerilerin
soykırıma uğraması (2008) Eysenyurt, Istanbul put out by ‘Transaction Publishers’
or specifically “Dönüşüm Yayınları” and it appears that the cover
image used is the same one used in the German publication.
Readers
will now know that the image has nothing directly to do with any specific
‘death in the desert,’ or ‘genocide in the desert’ but clearly can serve to
communicate the distress that ‘deported’ Armenian Mothers faced while trying to
‘save’ their young children. The tragic fact is that many Mothers died in the
genocide either through direct murder by convicts released from jails, and by
studied violence, or death from the trials and tribulations of deportation,
hunger, disease and exposure to the elements. A Mother, such as our Geghi Mother with three children would absolutely represent
the exception, and by no means the ‘rule’ to the extent that few mothers could
have saved ‘three’ children.
As
a very relevant aside we bring the Reader’s attention to a posting made back in April 23, 2016 by Krikorian and Taylor entitled “Armenian Immigrants
Rebuilding their Lives in America” https://groong.org/orig/ak-20160423.html.
In that contribution we drew special
attention to the fact that in the photograph taken in Worcester, Massachusetts
of some of the ‘Ashvuntsi’ villagers one could note
the rare circumstance of two ‘Grandmothers’ from the ‘Old Country’ who had
survived the Genocide AND had been able to ‘save alive’ their children. That
was a rarity; indeed, so much so that the grandchildren of these two women were
the only ones we knew personally who had a ‘biological Grandmother.’ One in
particular, became what one might term “a grandmother at large” and was called
‘Granny’ by kids who knew she was not their biological grandmother but were
pleased to have any person they could call “Granny.”
Also,
printed cards with pleas begging “Save a Life” – Armenian orphans were used in
various places, Kansas being one of them, in the ‘reconstruction’ period fund
raising efforts. Fig. 9 below is an image of one.
Fig. 9.
Example of a card used to solicit support.
Because of the inherently generic nature of human
motherhood, we would argue that one can justifiably use the ‘original’ photo in
pretty much any context one wishes.
We have seen that trying to track down the recycling of
the photograph has yielded an interesting history that goes far to defend any
subsequent use to get the message across. The fact is that the most
knowledgeable people, like Rev. James L. Barton who wrote the Introduction to
Rev. Barrow’s book, were involved in promoting the story of victimization. They
never found any problem with the Geghi mother and kids photo.
Below
is a 300 dram stamp issued in 20015 by the Republic of
Armenia to honor Armenophile novelist, essayist,
journalist and poet Anatole France (1844-1924) includes an image of our Geghi mother and her children (Fig. 10).
Fig. 10.
Stamp issued 23 April 2015 commemorating the Armenian
Genocide and primarily honoring Anatole France, the famous French man of
letters. The stamp was designed by David Dovlatyan
and Vahagn Mkrtchyan. It is printed by offset and is
40 x 30 mm in size.
In
yet another medium, the image of little Markareed of
‘our’ Geghi family was used recently in the outside
packaging of the documentary DVD “Orphans of the Genocide.” Mention was not
made as to the origin of the image. (Fig. 11).
Fig. 11.
Orphans of the Genocide.”
Directed by Bared Maronian,
2013. 91 minutes.
In 2015 ‘our’ family was featured on the soft cover of the
translation from Armenian into Turkish of the 1919 volume by Aram Andonian entitled Ayn
Sev Orerun [Այն սև օրերուն]
– “Those Dark Days” (See Fig. 12). This might well have been the perfect
occasion to use a cover that was more directly synchronized with the events
recounted in Andonian’s book.
There
are certainly many photographs of the genocide (1915 to 1923) available that
get the message across quite effectively. But, “No”, it seems that those who
put out old works with ‘new’ covers prefer to use what they believe is tried
and tested. Besides, why be burdened with copyright or other issues?
Again,
we found no mention of the origin of the image used on the Turkish translation
cover below.
Fig. 12.
Cover of the Turkish translation.
There
is little doubt that the cover used on the Turkish translation derived at some
point or other at the Library of Congress or a copy like it from some other
location.
A
point that we wish to interject here as an aside is this. In our opinion the
original 1919 Armenian language book had an attractive soft cover and it could
have arguably been used to some advantage in any reprinting effort. It would
have reflected accurately, moreover, on tastes of the period. We suppose it is
a matter of preference (Figs. 13a, 13b and 13c).
Fig.
13a shows a full-page reproduction of a rare cover on the 1919 first printing.
Fig. 13b focusses on the lowermost part of the page. Note the human skull on
the lower right. Fig. 13c provides the reader with a “desaturated” version of
the colored cover. This helps give a feeling for the cover should one not wish
to go through the expense in printing color.
Fig. 13a.
Cover of the first Armenian edition published in Boston in
1919.
Fig. 13b.
Cover cropped to allow focus on the lower part of the
page.
Fig. 13c.
Desaturated with Photoshop to get rid of color and perhaps
make the image more visible.
Readers
will surely be interested in reading a relevant discourse on Aram Antonean’s book Ayn Sev Orerun by Dr. Khatchig Mouradian article in the Armenian Weekly entitled The Book with a Black cover (See https://armenianweekly.com/2016/01/13/mouradian-the-book-with-a-black-cover/).
Continuing on the use of the Mother and her children
photograph in various settings, it will be noteworthy that some enterprising
entrepreneurs took the initiative a few years ago to produce a picture pendant
locket that featured a colorized image of the Geghi
mother and her children. The colors are vibrant and
colorization added considerably to the attractiveness of the pendant. It seems
that few were produced and it may well turn out that
this item will be appreciated as a rarity. (Figs. 14a and 14b)
Fig. 14a.
Photograph of the pendant.
Fig. 14b.
Close-up of colorized picture pendant.
A modern reprinting of the Armenian original book by Aram Andonian – made in India
incidentally, uses a very plain soft cover. The title page put out by the Dashnag “Hairenik” press in 1919
is shown in Fig. 15a. The formal entry
on the cover of the reprint has blunders since it reads “Ayn Sew Rerun: (Patkerner).” We have written to the publishers, Gyan Books
Pvt. Ltd. in India to tell them that a serious mistake has occurred. There is
no word in Armenian as “Rerun” – it should read “Orerun”
(pronounced -oreroon) – meaning days or times. And, the word for black -- sev is
far more accurate than ‘sew.’ Moreover, the ISBN given by Gyan is similarly
botched up. ISBN comprise 10 digits. 13:0 4 4444006 891174 is certainly odd
enough to render it useless.
Fig. 15a.
Title page in Armenian of “Hairenik
Press, Boston, 1919 printing.
Fig.
15b. shows a formal entry of the 1919 volume in the WorldCat.
Fig. 15b.
Copy of the WorldCat entry on
the first edition. The WorldCat attempts to
render all those publications known throughout the world
in various libraries.
There
are sure to be new fresh and imaginative uses of the image, and hopefully new
findings about the photograph will emerge that will allow synthesis of a
detailed time scale as to its publication ‘history’. This should provide still
greater understanding of how it evolved from the post-Hamidian massacre 1899 -
1900 period image to a photograph that is still very much appreciated for being
able to encapsulate at least one crucial aspect of the horrors of the Armenian
Genocide – namely, how difficult it was to show any measure of resilience. The
strength of Armenian motherhood prevailed to the extent it humanly could,
against overwhelming odds. It also emphasizes in no small measure the apparent
resignation of the kids (at least the two in the photograph old enough to feel
the pain) to the care of their mother.
Closing
Commentary
One
might argue that the main take-home lesson from this presentation is that one
should not feel that a specific photograph must be viewed as valuable only if
it can be precisely attested and attributed, that is to say, if it can
accurately be affirmed as to what the photograph represents (attested) and if
the photograph can be identified with a person(s) (attributed). The photograph
may not even necessarily conform exactly to the desired time-period.
In
the case under discussion here wherein a missionary’s father, himself at one
time a missionary, re-introduced an image into the literature of the Armenian
Genocide – whether wittingly or not – and the re-utilization of the image after
apparently being deliberately selected for use in fund-raising by a responsible
body such as the Near East Relief, more than gives some real legitimacy to the
issue.
It
may have been merely the issue of its ease of accessibility. Recall that the
Turkish government did everything in its power to prevent dissemination of
information on what it was doing to the Armenians - especially photographs of
the events!
We
have over the years, repeatedly emphasized those features which might best be
called the “the preferred desiderata” when it comes to selection and use of
photographs. These should be achievable provided some work is put into the
‘project.’ It is certainly to be preferred but as we have seen, not the only
approach.
This
paper essentially constitutes a rather complete paper trail from ‘our’ original
photograph of destitution and need, and its deliberate adoption for fund
raising and educational purposes. To be sarcastic about the matter of need, it
seems to come down to the Yogi Berra cliché “it’s déja
vu all over again.”
We
have provided the reader with a detailed paper trail of the Geghi
Mother and her kids photograph and have hopefully given a broad perspective of
what the Armenian widows and orphans had to go through.
Two
pages from a journal called The Homiletic
Review published in 1899 paint a broad picture. These are shown below as
Fig. 16a and Fig. 16b.
The
pages give not only a broad view of the situation but some very detailed
specifics of “The Present Armenian Condition.” Interestingly, there is some
mention of The Helping Hand Series
that played such a prominent role in getting the story out about ‘our’
Family. Raising funds was no easy task.
What
funds and support that was raised was ALWAYS considerably less than was needed.
Even though this description applies to an area of eastern Turkey, somewhat
remote geographically from Mamouret-ul Aziz, the
actual situation described in detail, is totally applicable in terms of our
needy Kaza of Geghi mother
and her kids.
Fig. 16a.
From The Homiletic Review (April, volume 37,
1899) pg. 384.
Fig. 16b.
From The Homiletic Review (April, volume 37,
1899) pg. 385.
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