Agn and Agnetsis, Ottoman Bankers

Vahe H. Apelian

Sometime ago, I ordered "The Amiras: Lords of Ottoman Armenia" book from Amazon.com (but had to cancel my order because of unavailability). Reading about the book before requesting a copy, I came across a comment made by the author of the book Pascal Garmont. He said that most of the Amiras hailed from the city of Agn and he wondered whether the Armenian Agnetsis were inheritors of a special gene pool that put them on top of the fiscal game in the Ottoman Empire.

The Amiras were bankrollers of the Ottoman Empire. In other words, they were the Rothschilds of the Ottoman Empire. Their prominence was so obvious that the first American missionary Rev. William Goodell to set foot in Constantinople (on on June 9, 1831), on behalf of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM), noted the following in his memoir "The Armenians were an enterprising people, and the great wealth of the bankers, who were nearly all Armenians, made them very influential throughout the empire, even with the Turkish officials, who were largely dependent upon them for pecuniary advances and assistance. The various connections of these people with different parts of the country, and the influence which they were in a position to exert, in promoting the spread of the Gospel in Turkey, made it exceedingly desirable that they should embrace the truth."

It was the European powers that put an end to this influential class of Armenian Amiras when they established the Ottoman Bank in 1856. The bank was Ottoman by name only. The European powers and their big bankrollers owned and operated the bank that the Armenians occupied for 14 hours on August 14, 1896, under the leadership of young Papken Sunni who hailed from Agn. 

Wikipedia notes that on September 15, 1896, three weeks after the raid of the Ottoman Bank by members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation as a response to the Hamidian massacres, Turkish authorities organized a new massacre in the city of Ağın. Ottoman troops killed "upwards of 2000 Armenians" including "many women and children" according to a report by the French ambassador. Of the 1500 houses located in the Armenian quarter of Ağın, 980 were pillaged and burned. Ağın was chosen to be the target of the massacre because the leader of the bank raiding party who was killed at the start of the raid, Papken Siuni, was native to the city of Ağın. According to a report by the British Consul at Harput, the pretext used to attack the city's Armenian quarter was that the Armenians of the said city were "set to cause trouble" but it would not surprise me that the real cause was the wealth of the Armenian inhabitants of the city. 

It should be noted here that the financially well-to-do Agnetsis had bought their safety a few years earlier and thus had spared their city from the widespread killing and ransacking during the early Hamidian massacres (1894-1897).

Courtesy Houshamadyan.org

Armenian authors have written a number of books about the Amiras, the great enterprising Armenian bankrollers of the Ottoman Empire who mostly hailed from Agn. I have my own interpretation as to why the cunning sultans bestowed upon these Armenians the special title that distinguished them as a class. Amira is derived from an Arabic word and it means princess. The sultans trusted and valued the services of these enterprising Armenians and yet they would not have wanted to draw the envy of the Turks. Hence the ever-cunning sultans came with the title Amira, princess. No self-respecting Turk would have liked to be titled, princess. The Turks must have envied the special relationship these Armenians had with the prevailing Sultan and yet they would not have wanted to be caught dead with such a "demeaning" title.

The Armenian word "ag" means spring and ‘agn" would mean "the spring". The Armenian Wikipedia notes the following about the city of Agn: According to tradition, after the destruction of Ani, part of its population came to the location and finding a cold water spring, next to it, formed a new city naming it Agn. During 1300 to 1311, the Armenians arriving from Ani founded their own neighborhood with Saint Hagop Church".

Agnetsis were not only money smart as great bankrollers.  The Armenian Wikipedia further notes that the Agnetsis have had a number of prominent persons in culture, medicine, education, arts, law and as civic and clerical leaders. Along with young idealist revolutionary Papken Sunni, other prominent Armenians are:

Arpiar Arpiarian (Արփիար ԱրփիարեանՕ (1851-1908), - novelist, publisher, literary critic and editor.  

Missak Medzarents (Միսաք Մեծարենց) (1886-1908) - poet

Krikor Zohrand (Գրիգոր Զոհրապ) (1861-1915) – writer, statesman, lawyer and philanthropist.

Siamanto (Սիամանթո) (1878-1915) - poet

Arshag Chobanian (Արշակ Չոպանյան) (1872-1954) – writer, literary critic, philologist, journalist and civic leader.

Minas Cheraz (Մինաս Չերազ) (1852-1928) – writer, editor, translator, civic leader.

Nikol Kalenderian (Նիկոլ Գալանտերյան) (1881-1944) - compositor

 Yeghia Chelebi Keumurjian (Երեմիա Չելեպի Քյոմուրճյան) – Note: Chelebi was an honorific title given to persons of prominence.

Archbishop Ardavazt Surmelian (Արտավազդ արքեպիսկոպոս Սյուրմելյան) - clergy

Levon Kasparian (Լևոն Գասպարյան) – Medical doctor.

Many regard the great middle-age poet Nahabed Kouchag (Նահապետ Քուչակ) hailing from Agn.

The Armenian Wikipedia further notes: "For almost 200 years, the great dynasties of Amiras in Constantinople and Smyrna hailed from Agn."

Those who hail from Agn may shed further light on this unique city and its famous Armenian inhabitants, the Agnestsis.

Albert Apelian MD, a Social Diagnostician As well (1/2)

Vahe H. Apelian

 

Dr. Albert Apelian came from a prominent family of Kessab. He was the son of Dr.Soghomon Apelian who was one of the very first Armenians to graduate from the medical school of the American University of Beirut. In 1907, the beloved American Missionary in Kessab Effie M. Chambers sent his uncle Bedros Apelian to study ministry in her alma mater in Iowa. Rev. Bedros became a well-known minister on the East Coast.  His, that is to say Albert's brother George was a medical doctor as well. His other brother Robert was a pharmacist. Both of them also immigrated to the United States. Only his brother Hagop remained in Kessab. One of Albert's sisters was married to Hetoum Agha Filian of Moussa Dagh. Her great-grandson Levon Filian is the AMAA director for the West Coast. His other sister Mary was married to Dr. Avedis Injejikian. Her son Gabriel Injejikian became the pioneer of the Armenian day schools in the U.S. Not much is known of his third sister.

Dr. Albert Apelian was born in 1893 during a period of spiritual and cultural revival in Kessab. Ani Apelian, the long-standing principle of the Armenian Evangelical School of Kessab and his grandniece, in her article in the booklet published during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the school (1952-2002), citing Rev. Dirkan Kherlopian noted that two years after its founding in 1846 in Constantinople, the newly established Armenian Evangelical denomination had found adherents in Kessab who laid the foundation of the Armenian Evangelical School there. Rev. Garabed Tilkian claimed that the school was established in 1852, which came to be accepted as the official date of its founding as there were no records to substantiate the claim for the earlier founding. Many Kessabtsi aspiring young men were  thus given the opportunity to be educated in Kessab. Many of whom furthered their education elsewhere.

In 1909 Kessab also lived through the pogrom known in our history as the Adana Massacre that was not confined in that city alone. Young Albert’s family survived the pogrom thanks to his prominent father.

In 1912 he graduated with a Bachelors of Science degree from the Aintab Central College, which later became the famed Aleppo College. His graduation dissertation was about Kessab.

In 1917 he graduated with a medical degree from the American University of Beirut. Much like his prominent father, the Turkish authorities drafted him also to serve in the Ottoman Army during the World War I.

On February 13, 1921, he set foot in the United States as another immigrant and after having acquired the necessary credentials he embarked on the practice of medicine but noted in the introduction of his books that he always devoted time for writing.

Dr. Albert Apelian remained a lifelong physician in Belmont, MA. But he also distinguished himself as a prodigal literary figure who wrote in Armenian (mostly), in Turkish (he claimed) and in English. He wrote under the literary pen name Epilents (Էբիլենց).

His prodigal literary output of four medical books in Armenian, four novels in Armenian as well, lasted less than a decade and started almost right after his immigration to the United States as if the country unleashed his latent literary talent. His nephew, Soghomon Apelian Hekimian, the son of his brother Hagop, secured and entrusted his graduation dissertation from the Aintab College to Yervant Kassouny, the eminent man of letters and distinguished editor of Armenian Evangelical periodical "Chanassar". Yervant Kassouny edited the manuscript by footnoting valuable information and thus he put the manuscript in context and had it published as a book in 2002. Albert’s last book “The Antiochians” (see https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-antiochians-by-dr-albert-apelian.html) was published decades later after his prodigal decade-long literary output. 

The cover of the Armenian novels Dr. Albert Apelian wrote.

The chronology of his books   is as follow:

“Գեսապ եւ իր Գիւղերը» (Kessab and its Villages). The manuscript was  written in 1912 as a dissertation paper in Aintab College and was published in 2002, edited by Dr. Yervant Kassouny.

"Հէքիմարան» (Hekimaran) - Published in 1924, 350 pages.

«Մատեան Մանկաց» (Children's Manuscript) – Published in 1925, 254 pages.  

«Հայ Մայրերու Մենտորը» (Armenian Mothers' Tutor) -  (information missing).

«Հնգամեայ Զրոյցներ" (Five Years Long Discourse: 1923-1928). – Published in 1928, 410 pages.՝

«Անահիտ կամ Հայ Ֆլէփփըրը» (Anahid or the Armenian Flipper) – Published in 1929, 166 pages.

 «Զմրուխտ Մատանին» (The Emerald Ring) – Published in 1929, 138 pages.

"Աշ-Գար» (Ash-Kar) – Published in 1930, 116 pages.

«վաղուան Արշալոյսը» (Tomorrow's Dawn) – Published in 1930, 116 pages.

His novel in English, “The Antiochians” was published in1960.

Dr. Albert Apelian claimed that he also had a number of unpublished literary works. Along with these books, he contributed regularly to Armenian journals such as in “Hairenik” and others.

The covers of his medical books.

Garbis Harboyan MD, recently reviewed his medical book, «Մատեան Մանկաց» (Children's Manuscript). Dr. Garbis Harboyan MD is the author of a four-volume medical books sequel. Dr. Harboyan found Dr. Apelian's book medically sound and well written and very informative. His medical books were intended for the Armenian general leadership and were well received. He claimed that they became out of print soon after their publications. Let us bear in mind that these medical books became available to the Armenian readership at a time when reading in Armenian was the norm and most of the Armenian immigrants were not sufficiently fluent in English to read in the language of the country they were adopting. It is no surprise that his medical books became a valuable and helpful source of information for the immigrant Armenians of his generation.

There is an underlying sentimentality that exudes in the introduction of these books in Armenian, be it medical or novels. Young Albert Apelian dedicated his dissertation to his academic mentor in sentiments not seen in such scholastic work anymore. He dedicated his first book "Hekimaran" to his father with trepidation asking his father to kindly accept his work as a token of his appreciation for having instilled in him the love of medicine. He dedicated his «Մատեան Մանկաց» (Children's Manuscript) book to the memory of the Armenian children of his "tortured nation" who perished during the genocide and to the mothers to raise their lion cubs who one day will avenge their martyred brethren and collect their remains in a pantheon dedicated to them.

Unlike his medical books, his Armenian novels are understandably fictions. However, they are based on actual social issues and aspirations of the times. His book «Անահիտ կամ Հայ Ֆլէփփըրը» (Anahid or the Armenian Flipper) depicted the young Armenian American generation caught in the frenzy of the roaring twenties.

He dedicated his novel  «Զմրուխտ Մատանին» (The Emerald Ring) "to the gallant tales of those who believed in guns as a legacy to the upcoming generations so that they too will continue on the struggle to realize our big dream of a united and free Armenia where our inheritors will live the honorable life of an independent people".

He dedicated his last Armenian novel, «վաղուան Արշալոյսը» (Tomorrow's Dawn) to his two daughters Laura and Aileen – he will father a third daughter later on – so that "they will get to know and love Armenia through this novel” and quoted: "when will I see seated on the throne an Armenian prince writing orders in Armenian characters?".

He dedicated his book "Աշ-Գար» (Ash-Kar) "to the victims of unfortunate marriages". The title is made of the first two letters of the Armenian word autumn and the first three letters of the word spring. In this book he covered a rarely discussed social issue. He noted that many Armenian young men came to America before the genocide to earn money and return to their homeland and set their lives in order. The genocide deprived them to do so and they remained in America but their dreams of having an Armenian family of their own remained alive.  They went overseas in search of suitable younger mates or resorted to marriages arranged by mail. He noted, in his introduction that "the Armenian women came, caravan after caravan, to join their mates on the other side of the Atlantic whom they had known by pictures. This is how the Armenian immigrants married by the hundreds and thousands” he wrote resulting in "unfortunate" (դժբախտ) marriages.  He ended his introduction writing that never should the autumn be paired with the spring henceforth. It is plausible that many had confined their marital problems to him as their medical doctor.

He published his last Armenian book in 1930 and henceforth abruptly stopped publishing any more for the next thirty years. He married Zabel Arakelian and fathered three daughters. Much like any father, he surely remained engrossed in his medical practice to provide for his growing family and understandably could not devote sufficient time anymore for writing.

The Covers of "Kessab and Its Villages", "The Antiochians"

The books he wrote in Armenian during that productive period stand out by his command of the Armenian language and fluency of expression, especially for a medical doctor who was not trained in arts let alone in the Armenian language. Surely he was a naturally endowed writer, but his command of the Armenian diction is something else. His mastery of the Armenian language, his choice or words, remain a rarity.

He published his last novel "The Antiochians" in 1960, three decades after he published his last Armenian novel. He considered "The Antiochians" the crowning achievement of his writing legacy and the fulfillment of his father's prediction that one day he may write a long novel.  In 1909, when the family had escaped for their lives and were living in a tent, Albert kept his siblings occupied by telling them stories. It is then his father had noted that one day he might write a "roman”, a novel in French.

The transformation of Albert Apelian is evident in his last novel “The Antiochians”. He has ceased writing in Armenian anymore. The poetic sentimentality he displayed in the introduction of the books he wrote in Armenian three decades earlier, almost right after his emigration, is not there anymore. He had survived the onslaught of Kessab in April 1909, right after the Adana massacre. He had also survived the genocide of the Armenians in 1915.  With his last novel, Albert Apelian comes across having completed the last phase of his life as a bona fide Armenian American citizen much like many immigrants of his generation who adopted the United States as their own having found there a hospitable and a safe haven. 

Albert Apelian MD, the family physician who was also an astute social diagnostician as well, passed away on November 14, 1986.

Note: Garo Konyalian  arranged the pictures 

Albert Apelian M.D.: "The Antiochians" (2/2)

Reviewed by Vahe H. Apelian

Kessab is located at the southernmost border of the historical Armenian Cilicia on the Mediterranean Sea, almost equidistant between coastal cities of Latakia, Syria in the south and historical Antioch or Antakya, the capital city of Hatay province of Turkey in the north. For centuries, Kessab, along with the rest of the Armenian Cilicia, remained under the Turkish yolk. As an outcome, the Kessabtsis traded  with Antioch in the north and remained almost oblivious of Latakia in the south. That is how I explain Albert Apelian chose titling his last novel  “The Antiochians”, instead of the Cilicians. 

Dr. Apelian had The Antiochians published in 1960 by Vantage Press Inc. Most of its 312 pages had appeared in weekly installments in Hairenik Weekly of  Watertown, Massachusetts and in the Nor Ashkhar, a New York biweekly.

The novel's plot is an account of the unfolding of the lives of Kevork Agha Matossian of Kessab and Keorkineh and that of his descendants. Matossian, a gentleman farmer “could trace his ancestors to the fourteenth century, to the first kings of Armenian Cilicia”. He was a tall and handsome man. “What a powerful leader this man would have made, had he lived in France,” had said the French consul in Antioch, present-day Hatai in Turkey. Matossian had silkworm and silk business dealings with the French. 

Through his association with the French consul and with lots of baksheesh–bribe in Turkish--Matossian succeed to have his son, Haig, appointed Antioch’s medical doctor. Haig, newly graduated from medical school at the American University of Beirut (AUB), falls in love with Osanna Melidonian soon after his return home. An orphan, who had been brought up and educated by American missionaries, was a teacher in Kessab. The newlyweds make their home in Antioch where their son, Ara, is born. His parents sent him to Kessab early on so that he would grow in Kessab instead of Antioch.

Ara lives through the ordeal of the 1909 pogrom, the sacking of Kessab, and the Armenian Genocide while a medical student at his father’s alma mater in Beirut. During the First World War, he is drafted in the Ottoman army. After the war, he moves to the U.S., completes his medical training and starts a successful practice. He marries and has a son Vahakn. Dr. Ara loses his wife to cancer and then his only child in the Second World War. Distraught, he returns to his ancestral village and finds his mother had died just a few days before his arrival. He ends his life there and is buried in the family’s ancient cemetery in Keorkineh thus putting an end to Kevork Agha Matossian’s lineage.

The author said of the novel, “despite its historical background and true-to-life picture of Armenian people, places, and customs is a work of fiction from beginning to end”. It is a superbly narrated book. His descriptions of events and places are akin to a pictorial presentation. The narrative is “liberally spiced with foreign words, phrases, most of which are easily understood when taken in their context”. 

 Dr. Apelian’s narration of historical events indicates a sharp mind that analyzes events with a revealing insight. Two caught my attention. In 1909 most of the Kessabtsis were able to flee to safety when their villages were also attacked in the aftermath of the Adana Massacres that decimated the Armenian population of that city and some of its surrounding towns. Kessabtsis have historically attributed their survival to their fighters who, for few hours, held at bay the marauding Turkish mob thus giving time for the Armenian population to flee. It turns out there is more to this interpretation. Had it not been for the outright help of their neighboring Turkmen village Faku Hassaan (pronounced now as Fakassan), the fleeing Kessabtsis would not have been able to secure a southwestern passage to the Mediterranean Sea and have their representatives reach Latakia to ask the French and British consuls' help to evacuate to safety the survivors reaching the sea. Also the sudden change of guard in Constantinople, due to the dethroning of Sultan Abdul Hamid, and his replacement with the more moderate Sultan Reshad came at this opportune time enabling the French and British consuls to send boats to evacuate the escapees, without concern for repercussion from the Sublime Porte.

The other revelation for me was his analysis of the Dardanelles campaign. Historically it has been claimed that had the Turks not emerged victorious over the Allied forces, they would not have had the opportunity to commit the Genocide of the Armenians. According to Dr. Apelian, “no one can definitely be sure whether or not British diplomacy at that time favored an early occupation of Constantinople. A premature collapse of the Sultan’s government could seat a victorious Russia at the peace conference”. Dr. Apelian’s keen grasp of such historical events indicates that he had an intimate knowledge of Armenian history, more than one would expect from a busy medical doctor. 

Despite the author’s assertion that any similarity of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental and unintentional, a reader who has a rather intimate knowledge of Kessab is bound to draw a parallel between the novel and actual people and places. For example, Dr. Albert S. Apelian, 1893 (Kessab) - 1986 (Massachusetts), was the son of Dr. Soghomon Apelian, the first Kessabtsi Armenian to graduate from the AUB medical school. Dr. Soghomon's wife Ovsanna was a teacher in Kessab but she hailed from elsewhere. Father and son Drs Soghomon and Albert, were drafted to serve in the Turkish Army during the First World War. 

Albert Apelian regarded The Antiochians the crowning achievement of his writing career, a fulfillment of his father’s prediction that one day he might “write a long novel”. He attributed his interest to his father’s encouragement.  

 Dr. Albert S. Apelian ended his introduction of the novel writing with “It is self-evident that truth must prevail, or we shall all perish! And the truth is to be found everywhere, even in the pages of a work of fiction.”  Indeed, the book is as much fictional as it is a personal account of that crucial period in Armenian history.

The Antiochians' plot has Victorian flavor. All in all, it is a very readable book, especially for Armenians who hail from Kessab, It depicts and preserves for posterity a way of life long bygone now on that coastal Cilician town Kessab.

Embroidery of Gratitude

By Vahe H. Apelian

The embroidery in the picture measures approximately 4 feet by 4 feet. it was made available to the Armenian readership for the very first time by Anna Lee Hein-Langlitz and Danette Hein-Snider, the grandnieces of the beloved American missionary in Kessab, Miss E.M. Chambers. I  reported about the embroidery in Keghart.com on November 16, 2009, see “A Century-old Relic Comes to Light – Embroidery of Gratitude”.

The embroidery most likely was presented to Miss Chambers sometime late 1911 or early 1912 as she brought it with her when she returned home in Iowa in May 1912. The embroidery most probably was sewn by the women of Kessab and was presented to her as an acknowledgment of her dedicated services to the community at large between from 1904 to1912. 

The inscriptions on the embroidery are both in English and in Armenian. The following is sewn along the upper portion: “TO MISS E M CHAMBERS A MEMORY OF GRATITUDE”

 

“WE WILL NEVER FORGET” is sewn in the middle around what appears to be a cross.

The Armenian inscription, along the lower portion of the embroidery, reads: “Երախտապարտ Քեսապի Հ.Յ.Դաշնակցութիւնէն”, “IN GRATITUDE FROM KESSAB ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION”. 

The battle-hardened Armenian Revolutionary Federation is not an organization that would have been swayed by easy sentiments. Its members must have believed that they had every reason to express their feelings of gratitude to her to have with her thenceforth throughout the remaining years of her life. 

Miss Effie Chamber’s missionary work in Kessab extended from 1904 to 1912. She left a legacy of goodwill and was endearingly remembered well into my youth.

The embroidery is an undisputed historical piece. Each and every one of us owes a degree of gratitude to the Chambers family for safeguarding the embroidery in the family in Iowa for the past over 100 years. When I offered Anna Lee that I will cover the expenses to have the embroidery professionally photographed, she declined. She taught the heat and the flashlight in the photographer’s studio might damage the embroidery. As a result, we have these pictures taken by her daughter at her home.

Such has been the care that Chambers family has displayed in safeguarding part of our history in Iowa, both symbolically, in way of the embroidery rendered by a grateful people, and in perpetuating the goodwill towards the Armenians by one of their own, Miss Effie Chambers. 

Anna, Annie, and Annais

(A Ramification of the Armenian Genocide)

By Vahe H. Apelian

In memory of my maternal aunt Anna Chelebian I never knew in person.

The name Anna first appeared in the maternal side of our family in the person of my maternal great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother Karoun (Apelian) Chelebian’s mother. Anna was from the Boymoushakian family of Sev Aghbuir (black spring), one of the 12 villages of greater Kessab.

Sometime late 19th century, most probably in autumn when the fields were harvested and the families had stocked the summer’s bounty for the long winter ahead, young Hanno (Hovhannes) Apelian of Keurkune and Anna Boymoushakian of Sev Aghbuir were married. Anna’s father and Hanno’s prominent father Bedir most certainly arranged their marriage. Their wedding festivities would have lasted a week and held in Keurkune, the Apelian family’s ancestral village.  

Meanwhile, a similar ceremony would have capped the wedding festivities at the bride’s home where the women would have congregated and sang a song in the person of the bride thanking her parents for having raised her and articulating her sadness in leaving her parental home and her joy in building her own. Anna’s family would have then helped her mount a decorated horse and would have escorted her to the church in the groom’s village accompanied by a group of the groom’s relatives and friends who would have come to the bride’s house to accompany her to the church.

Hanno’s and Anna’s wedding may have taken place by the Armenian Evangelical rite. Hanno’s influential father Bedir was one of the early advocates for the village to embrace the Armenian Evangelical faith, which had started in Istanbul in 1846. Some of Bedir’s sons, later on, would opt to take their prominent father’s name as their family surname and branch out as the Bedirians of the Apelian family, which continues to this day.

My maternal grandmother Karoun, who would marry Khacher Chelebian, was born into Hanno and Anna Apelian’s traditional family along with her three brothers, Diran, Serop, and Kerop. It also so happened that her brother Kerop eloped and married a girl also named Anna from the Titizian family of Kaladouran who was known in greater Kessab for her beauty and free spirit. Kaladouran is the Kessab’s coastal village where the Titizians have their hamlet named after their family as Titizlek, much like the Manjikian family of Kaladourn who calls its hamlet Manjeklek. 

In time Kerop Apelian left his pregnant wife Anna and their firstborn child Kevork behind in Keurkune under the care of his parents, Hanno and Anna and his sister Karoun and joined his two brothers in New York to have his family join him after settling in the New World. When his pregnant wife gave birth to their second son, Kerop sent word from America to name him James for the family was to join him in America. But that was not to be.

In June 1915, the once young bride and groom but now grandparents, Hanno and Anna were forcefully uprooted from their home along with their daughter Karoun, my maternal grandmother, and their daughter-in-law Anna-the-bride (Anna harse) and her two children Kevork and James. Only my grandmother Karoun and her young nephew James survived the ordeal. The rest fell victims to the first genocide of the 20th century.  Having left by herself, her relatives thought that it was best Karoun was married to the eligible bachelor Khacher Chelbian in their makeshift camp in Deir Attiyeh, a town an hour’s drive north of Syria’s capital city Damascus.

LtoR:Hovhannes, Khacher, Zvart, Antranig, Karoun, Anna Chelebian

After the World War I ended and the Turks, who had occupied Kessab vacated it, my grandmother Karoun and her husband Khacher and her young nephew James, against seemingly insurmountable odds, managed to return to Keurkune and moved into her parental house and resumed their lives anew. The young couple named their last child and second daughter Anna most likely in memory of her maternal grandmother, my grandmother Karoun’s mother Anna (Boymoushakian). Anna’s elder siblings were named Antranig, my mother Zvart, and Hovhannes.

My grandmother Karoun’s nephew James Apelian, whom she raised, married Khatcher Chelebian’s niece, Sirvart Chelebian, and the couple named their first-born daughter Anna as well, most likely in remembrance of the infant’s paternal grandmother Anna (Titizian), Kerop Apelian’s wife. Years later James' son, Kevork George Apelian, immortalized her paternal grandmother in his novel titled “Anna Harse”. 

But, James and Sirvart Apelian’s firstborn daughter Anna died in her infancy. My grandmother’s youngest child Anna also died of pneumonia when she was vivacious seventeen years old beautiful girl and was also buried in the Keurkune’s ancient cemetery next to her father Khatcher who also had died due to pneumonia at the age of 38. Anna’s tombstone reads in Armenian: “Here rests Anna K. Chelebian (1928-1945), “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mathew 5:8).

The name Anna thus became prejudicial in the family but the memory of the two Annas lingered on. My grandmother Karoun ruled out naming Anna any daughter henceforth born in the family at large. Thus, a variation of the name Anna evolved in the persons of my maternal cousin Annie (Chelebian) Hoglind, and in the person of Annais (Apelian) Tootikian. Both of them are now proud mothers and grandmothers.

Was it Stockholm Syndrome?

Vahe H. Apelian

Stockholm Syndrome is a term I came across for the first time in my Freshman Psychology 101 course. It was an elective course. The term gave me a whole new perspective about my maternal grandmother’s unusual recount of her ordeal during the Genocide.

My maternal grandmother Karoun (Apelian) Chelebian with her children and their spouses and her first grandchild, me.
Standing LtoR: Hovhannes Chelebian, Zvart (Chelebian) Apelian, Hovhannes Apelian, Antranig Chelebiab,
Seated LtoR: Kohar (Apelian) Chelebian, Vahe H. Apelian, Karoun (Apelian) Chelebian, Siran (Toutikian) Chelebian.

Wikipedia defines it as follows: “Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them….The FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.” Psychologists offer varying explanations of this seemingly contradictory behavior. It may be that it is the last resort to safeguard one’s sanity.

My paternal and maternal grandparents were orphaned survivors of the Armenian Genocide. They were driven to their extermination along with the rest of their parental families and Kessabtsis in July 1915. The popular account in Kessab is that their ordeal lasted three years and three months, placing their return to their villages sometime in the fall of 1918 to weather the winter ahead without necessary provisions. Somehow they overcame the odds pitted against them. 

I was their firstborn grandchild. Their other grandchildren would trail me by some six years and longer. It may be because of that I seemed to have enjoyed their special attention, although I did not have the pleasure of knowing my maternal grandfather, Khacher. He had passed away at the age of 38 due to ‘pneumonia’ leaving his young wife, my maternal grandmother Karoun (Apelian) Chelebian, a young widow raising their 2 sons and their 2 daughters. Their eldest child, my later maternal uncle, Dr. Antranig Chalabian, was a 10 years old lad when his father passed away.

Stepan Apelian

My paternal grandfather Stepan also survived the Genocide and returned to the village without having anyone else from his immediate family.  He was a quiet man. His whole life outside his family and work in the fields revolved and involved the Armenian Evangelical church of Keurkune, which he served his whole life as its life-long treasurer and trustee until almost the last few years of his life. He was very evasive when it came to my youthful curiosity about his life during the Genocide. My brother Garo was named after his brother Garabed. He also seemed to have a sister who survived the Genocide but we never found out where she lived or if she in fact survived.

Sarah Mousajekian Apelian

My paternal grandmother Sarah survived the ordeal and managed to return to Kessab with her mother and no else from her immediate and extended family. She was a gregarious woman. She had become the de facto medical custodian of the village. There was no birth, dislocated joints or broken bones she was not called to attend. She was illiterate. I was not yet in my teens when I discovered that she did not know how to read. It happened this way. I had accompanied her to the market to purchase reading classes during one of her rare visits to Beirut. The shopkeeper offered her an Armenian newspaper to read to pick the right eyeglasses. She declined the offer telling him that she does not know how to read to my dismay, bewilderment, and unease when all adults I thought knew how to read. Our paternal grandparents’ house was the only one in the village that was known after her instead of her husband when households in greater Kessab were referred to by the patriarch of the family. She was married to my grandfather when she was fourteen years old and he was twenty or so.  The surviving relatives had thought that the two should get married to chart their own course together. 

My maternal grandmother Karoun's case was altogether different. I associate the Armenian Genocide with her more than with anyone else because for many years we lived together in the same apartment in West Beirut. She was fifteen years old when she was driven from her home with the rest of her parental family. She and her young nephew James were the only ones who survived from their family and returned to Kessab having married, on their way, to my maternal grandfather Khacher in their makeshift camp in Deir Attiyeh, Syria. She was a refined woman in manners, in conversation, in her choice of words. Almost every night I would find her kneeling on her bed and praying with a barely audible but intense murmur. My mother has told me that she read the Bible once a year, every year. She had her family’s milestones inscribed in a beautiful handwriting in her Armenian script Turkish reading Bible that I now treasure.

When the family talk came to Genocide she would tell us that the Turkish gendarmes that accompanied their caravan displayed empathy. They would encourage them, she would tell us, to endure a bit longer for their ordeal would soon be over. They showed care and concern to their plight, she would say. I was a high school student and I would often wonder how could that be for at times in the silence of the night she exhibited a scary scene. Every now and then, far into the night, when everyone in the family would be sleeping suddenly she would scream in a terrifying agony and fear. We would immediately rush to her bedside and wake her up. I do not recall seeing her sweating or showing any outward sign of distress. She would then go back sleeping peacefully completely oblivious of the experience a moment ago. God only knew what had remained buried deep in her unconscious mind.

It was in that Psychology 101 class when the day’s lecture dealt with Stockholm syndrome that it occurred to me that my maternal grandmother might have demonstrated, in her conscious state, the symptoms of that affliction but her true feelings feelings of fear and terror came about when her unconscious mind took over.

I took leave of her in early July 1977 in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War. Having secured my immigration papers from the U.S. Embassy in West Beirut, where she lived with my uncle, I was to go to East Beirut the next day. In the morning I crossed to East Beirut with a convoy leaving the Armenian community center. It turned out that we were the last to do that dangerous crossing dodging snipers' bullets.  She had passed away that very night after an apparent stroke. We heard the news of her death the following day through a radio station announcement where a relative worked, as the telephone lines were not working. Later, my maternal uncle and aunt told me that she had agonized over my departure and had died that very evening.

 Upon hearing the sad news, my mother said that she will not wear black. She said she did not want to bid me farewell in black attire. My parents and I could no longer return to West Beirut.  My uncle and aunt accompanied her body to Kessab and had her buried in the Keurkune’s ancient cemetery next to her husband Khacher and daughter Anna.

Those were hectic days. I embarked on my immigrant's journey to the U.S. on a yacht that operated from East Beirut to Cyprus. I was to catch a plane from there to Athens and from there to the U.S. That was the only route available for leaving the country. After all these years, and whenever I think of those days I see my mother waving a white handkerchief as the boat left the shore and sailed into the sea and she gradually disappeared from view while the mountains of Lebanon came in a majestic full view. 

I also cannot do away with the association of Stockholm syndrome and my maternal grandmother’s unusual depiction of her ordeal during the Genocide even though many of my family members have told me that it was her deep-seated Christian faith of forgiveness that drove her and not such a syndrome.