Before Apple There Was Tobacco

(Dedicated to my childhood friend from Keurkune: Ara Ghazarian)

Vahe H. Apelian

Very recently Ara Ghazarian asked me if I have written anything about the cultivation of tobacco (tutun) in Keurkune. I checked my files. In fact, it turned out that I have. Here is what I wrote.

Much like Steve Job’s Apple computers that changed the world, apple revolutionized Keurkune’s way of life and living. The transition to apple was not seamless and did not come about without hardship. The fields that became the orchards were used primarily to produce two essential yearly crops to make living possible in Keurkune: wheat as a staple for food and tobacco as the only source of cash revenue. Keurkunetsis teamed, pulled their resources together, braved the years waiting the newly planted apple orchards to come of age to produce the apple.

The cultivation of silkworm in Kessab, for all practical purposes, had subsided if not ceased after the genocide. Tobacco cultivation most likely started in greater Kessab after the First World War, in early 1920’s, during the French mandate, when France became the colonial ruler of Syria and Lebanon. The trade in tobacco was the monopoly of the French in Syria. The tobacco growers could only sell their product to “regie”, which became a household word in Kessab. Incidentally, Wikipedia defines regie as a kind of government monopoly (tobacco, salt, etc.).

The monopolized trade in tobacco in Kessab went this way. Kessabtsis would plant the tobacco. As the plant started growing, at some point officials came and gave an estimate of how much tobacco the field was expected to produce and thus they set a quota. The grower was expected to meet the quota. If the quota were not met, the grower would be severely penalized forfeiting all profits.

Growing tobacco was a messy business. Tobacco was first germinated. I have no recollection of that phase. It was then transplanted to the fields until it matured. The matured leaves were harvested and were brought home and needled through their stem on long needles. Once the needle was full, the leaves were pulled to the string threaded to the long needle. A wooden hook would have been fastened at the end of the string. When the string, in turn, was full of tobacco leaves, it was detached from the needle and another hook was tied. The string laded with tobacco leaves was then hanged on wooden racks made up of parallel wooden bars placed the strings’ length apart. The rack full of tobacco leaves was left outside for drying.

Needling tobacco was a communal affair. Families came together, sat around the huge pile of tobacco leaves, and wore an overall because tobacco leaves left a sticky mass on the hands and on the dress. My grandparents teamed up with their khnamis, uncle Josephs’s brother-in-law Asadour and in-laws Norits and Lydia. I would also join them. I was the first grandchild of my grandparents and my paternal grandparents dotted on me. My maternal grandmother made sure that at the end of the summer when I returned to Beirut, I returned a few pounds heavier. That is why I was always given the easiest part of the needling; the pile of large leaves. The large leaves naturally have larger stems making needling much easier and lessening the chance of pricking the index or the middle finger as the leaves on the needle were pulled on the string mostly with the aid of these two finders. Anytime anyone of them pulled a large leaf from the pile, it would be thrown in front of me.

Needling the large pile of leaves would last long, a whole day if not more. Meanwhile, food would be cooking on the fireplace. Electricity had not reached Keurkune yet. Thus there were no radios. Even transistor radios, if available, had not reached Keurkune. But there would be no need for them. There would be a lot of light-hearted and mundane chatter going on.

After all the tobacco leaves were thus stringed and hung across the racks; they were left in the open air for drying. Moisture, God forbid rain, damaged tobacco leaves. Any time when there was the slightest likelihood that it might rain, the stringed tobacco leaves were collected from the racks and brought home and hanged inside until the weather was judged dry enough to put them out again for drying. I remember one night my grandfather suddenly woke up and asked us to bring the tobacco leaves inside. He had suspected that it might rain.

 I had always remained under the impression that tobacco was dried in open air until, in my late teens, I saw the movie “A Summer Place”, the iconic move classic by Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee. Tobacco in the movie was cultivated under cover and dried indoors with heat. Keurkunets relied on nature. They cultivated tobacco in the open air and dried its leaves in the open air.

Once the tobacco was dried, they were bundled up and weighed. Should the weight fall below the set quota, the Keurkunetsi would look to supplement by purchasing tobacco from the neighboring Turkmen villages. Decades have come and gone by since those days and to this day, whenever I recall those days with a child’s apprehension, I wonder. Why was it that the Keurkunetsis usually could not meet their quotas, while the Turkmen villages would have surplus tobacco? Were the inspectors friendlier to them? The Keurkuenetsis would make an arrangement with the Turkmen and in the cover of night they would head to their village and bring dried tobacco home. Then there came the art of bundling them together in such a way that upon inspection, the purchased tobacco would not stand up from the rest.

Smoking was not uncommon in Keurkune but it was ceremonial. Villagers kept a stock of the best leaves for their enjoyment. The leaves were first minced with sharp knives, fluffed up and kept in a tin tobacco case. The minced tobacco was placed on a thin paper held between the two fingers. The paper was then moistened with licking and rolled into a cigarette.

Kids were always tempted to smoke too. It wasn’t easy at all to get hold of the precious tobacco leaves. There was another source of smoking for kids, dried sentzgan leaves. It is a plant that grows in the wild and probably belongs to the tobacco family. Its leaves are small, the size of olive oil leaves, but sticky much like the larger tobacco leaves and dry like tobacco leaves. I can safely claim that all the kids growing up in Keurkune have tried smoking it in their youth. And when the word came to us kids, that cotton tipped cigarettes had come around we tempted to wrap cotton at the tip of paper without much success.

Apple, for all practical purpose, wiped tobacco planting in Keurkune, ushering the village into a new era.

Under the Same Roof

(Lest it will be forgotten)

Vahe H. Apelian

I spent my teenage summers in Keurkune, Kessab in our paternal grandparents’ house with them and with my Uncle Joseph and his family as one extended family. In fact, my brother Garo spent a year or two in his early childhood in Keurkune year around.

My paternal grandfather Stepan had become the natural inheritor of the family’s ancestral house, as he was the only survivor.  The house is built with double layered stones. On the outside, the walls remained uncovered and each stone block remained visible. The inner surfaces of the outer walls and as well as the inner walls partitioning the rooms were covered with a special mix the villagers made to plaster the walls. It was a mix of minced wheat stalk and clay that put a heavy white to off-white plaster coat on the walls. In hindsight, I realize that the coat acted as an excellent insulator against cold and moisture. On one of the inner walls, there was a cavity that probably was made by design by not placing a stone there. The cavity served as the treasury of the Keurkune’s church where my grandfather kept the meager Sunday offerings of nickels and dimes in a tin can. 

A typical house in Kessab then

The width of the outside walls is such that, as a kid, I used to sit on the window sill and gaze at the mountains. The windows had wooden panels for cover but no glass. The floor and the ceiling were made of wood. Wooden logs extended from wall to wall. On these wooden logs, wood panels were fastened. Some, if not most, of the ceiling logs were blackened over time. It was said that the blackening was also due to the attempted torching of the house. Turks, who had taken over the house after forcing the local Armenians out had attempted to torch the house when they vacated the region and fled as The World War I was ending with the defeat of Turkey that would lead to the dismemberment of the once powerful Ottoman Empire. Among the blackened wooden logs across the ceiling, a few silkworm cocoons had remained lodged. They were yellowed a bit but remained very visible against blackened logs. My grandparents had raised silkworms at one time.

 The roof of the house was covered with special blue dirt the villagers called "kuyrock". There were a few quarries in the vicinity of the village that yielded this bluish stone. These blue stones are light and easily crushed. They were overlaid on the roof and rolled over with a big round stone that used to be found on the roof of each house. During rain, the roof would leak at times. The next day I would see my grandfather laying more blue dirt at the spots and go over them with the roller.

The interior of a typical house in Kessab then.

The house, much like the other houses of the village, had a special place for clay water jars. My grandfather filled the earthen jars with water he fetched from the spring. It was my treat to have him seated me on the saddle of our donkey on the way to spring. He fetched the water in four tin containers. Two tin cans were placed on each side of the saddle. After he filled the tin cans with water, he capped them with small gasli - laurel – tree branches with leaves on them. On our return, I would trail the donkey with him. At home, he poured water from a tin can into the two earthen jars we had at home. As I grew older I could tilt the jars myself and fill the brass cup we kept next to the jars. We all drank from the same brass cup. Water from the jar remained refreshingly cool to drink. I later learned that it is due to evaporation as the clay jars were porous and they would ‘sweat’ and evaporation kept the water surprisingly fresh and cool to drink, in a natural cooling process, during the hottest days of the summer.

Almost every room of the house had a fireplace. My grandmother and Aunt Asdghig prepared food on the fireplace in the room we used as the kitchen and the dining room. The fireplace in the other rooms was used for warmth during the cold days of the winter. At times my grandmother would cook in these rooms as well. Smoke coming from the chimney of a house meant life. Woo (վայ) to the house that had no smoke coming from its chimney. Hence comes the common Armenian expression we use to this day: Moukh Marel, մուխը Մարել (extinquish one’s smoke).

 The house is two stories high and each floor was an almost exact replicate of the other with a center hall with a door opening into each of the four rooms on the second floor. Two rooms of the first floor did not have a door that opened to the central hall and could only be accessed through its adjoining front room, each of which had a door that opened to the central hall. For a while, we used the lower right-hand side room as the kitchen and the dining room. We sat on the floor around a round floor table. A kerosene lamp illuminated the table during dinner. Its adjoining inner room was used to store hay for the animals. We called the room hartanots.

For many years the lower left-hand side room, which also had a door that opened to the courtyard, served as the stable along with its adjoining inner room and housed our chicken, donkey, and cows. The ceiling of this front room that served as the stable i.e. the floor of the upper room had collapsed during the baptism of my father and had remained unfinished up to my early teens. Therefore I would view, by looking down the door on the second floor, the stable below on the first floor. I have seen our cow give birth to a calf there and our chicken nest and end up with colorful chicks that immerged from the eggs to my utter impatience and periodic checking with my grandmother. These naturally raised chicks were colorful and beautiful indeed, unlike the dull off-white colored chicks grown commercially nowadays. The animals and we lived under the same roof.

The courtyard was walled. The oven – toneer – was located on the right-hand side of the entrance. Further to its right was the outhouse. My grandmother baked bread in the oven.  Every week she would prepare the dough a day before and make a cross sign on the dough and cover it to ferment. The next day she would bake the bread by plastering the handful pieces of wetted dough on the inner side of the upright oven heated by burning sticks.  It was customary for us kids to visit the ovens of the village after the baking was over to fish charred bread pieces remaining on the inner wall of the oven. We called these charred and blackened pieces of bread kurmush. Charred as they were, but they tasted great! Later on, my Uncle Joseph had a bakery erected on the same spot and operated it for many years. He ran the bakery once a week and more often during Christmas and Easter. The villagers would bring their dough there to bake bread or the different pastries they made on special occasions.

Our grandfather returning from the market on a Saturday and being met by the younger grandchildren and grandmother

There was a mulberry tree in the courtyard, a remnant of those days when they raised silkworms. The tree also supported the grapevine that gave succulent red-colored grapes we called ouzoumlek. These types of grapes are not used to make grape molasses and are only for consumption as fruit for dessert.

The courtyard would become busy in the evening as our grandfather returned from the fields. The cows would be milked and then driven to the staple. The chickens would naturally head there in the evening and get their sleep above ground on logs. My grandmother would collect the eggs the hen laid. She could tell that a hen had laid an egg by the hen’s vocalization during the day. I later learned that hens lay eggs only during the day. That is why the lights remain on day and night over the commercial coops for hens to continue laying eggs day and night.

The house had a wooden balcony on the second floor. Spectacular view came into view from the balcony and the far ends of historical Antioch where Apostle Paul reached proclaiming the Good News. An invisible border separated Syria from Turkey.  Parts of the serpentine road that connected the region to the world beyond also came into view. We used to call the road zivti Jampa, which means the paved road. It was then the only road in the region that was paved and connected Kessab to the outside world. I believe the road was laid and paved by the French during their colonial rule over Syria after the First World War.

Our grandfather Stpean was born in 1897 and was driven out in 1915. He never alluded to the house as having built after he was born. In all probability, the house was built in the later part of the 19^th century. The house is well over 100 years old and bridges three centuries, 19^th to 21st. The house had remained as it was up to my early teens. Additions and renovations have changed the house. However, the main structure of the house is the same as a testament to its solid stone foundation. Rarely has a house remained with an Armenian family for over 100 years. I am not sure if our paternal grandfather was born and raised there, but three generations of his descendants were born in there: my father Hovhannes and uncle Joseph, my cousins, both of whom studied in the American Universit of Beirut. Stepan, studied agriculture  and Ara studied medicine; and Stepan’s children Tsolag, an engineer with a Ph.D. degree, Shoghag and Hovag, being the last.

Aram Manougian in Van

Aram Manougian in Van

By Mattheos Eblighatian

Translated by Vahe H. Apelian

Edited by Jack Chelebian, M.D.

This segment is from Mattheos Eblighatian’s book titled, “A Life in the Life of My Nation”. His sons Melkon, M.D. and Krikor, Attorney at Law, have edited the book  (1987). The chapter is titled “Aram Manougian”. In 1913 Mattheos Eblighatian was appointed prosecutor general in Van. The community leaders in Istanbul had told him that only Aram and Ishkhan are authorized to contact him in Van with caution.

“Before reaching a resolution of the case, one evening, around 10:30 pm, I was busy studying the dossier when the maid informed me that a visitor by name of Manougian wanted to see me.

At the beginning, the name did not ring a bell. When I looked at the maid quizzically, she said – “It’s Aram Pasha”.

Of course, with much interest, I welcomed the man whose activities in Van constituted the crux of the people’s daily conversations.

He was a bit taller than mid-height, with a thick mustache; broad-shouldered, and looked between 30 to 40 years of age. He was the exact opposite of Ishkhan. From the very first sight, he left a good impression. From the beginning, our conversation took such a turn as if we had known each other for many years.

Alluding to the assassination of the dentist, he noted:

“You left us in an awkward situation. Fortunately a week ago I received a letter from Zartarian, which was a relief. We like people who are cautious, but you took it a bit to an extreme by not keeping any contact with us - and noted smiling – that such an extreme disassociation could have had unpleasant consequences. Zartarian, at your urging also advises us to be cautious. I was waiting for the past few nights for you to be alone for an opportune time to visit you”.

-                “How did you find out that I was alone?’ I asked lightheartedly.

-                “From the maid”, he answered.

Of course, it had not occurred to me until that day, that in my house, I lived under the surveillance of the Tashnagsoutium (Armenian Revolutionary Federation).

It was well past midnight when Aram departed. In those two hours, he amply elaborated on the situation in the countryside and naturally dwelt upon issues that had to do with the judiciary. “Presently the pressing issue – he said – is the retaliation for the assassination of the teacher Raphael. The organization has dealt severely with the perpetrators. A few persons have been apprehended because of it”. Naturally, I promised to study their case.  He also elaborated to a great extent on their mutual relations with the governor. Both sides had established good relations with each other and were keen on keeping the relations on track.

I was extremely appreciative of this candid conversation with Aram because it was important for me to know as how to proceed under certain circumstances. We came to an understanding of my future relations with them. I was to deal only with Aram and Ishkhan and those seeking my assistance should contact me only through either one of them.

And it became that way to the very end. Issues that had to do with the judiciary would be addressed to me by Aram and often in my office. This was not something that would raise any concern for anyone. Aram had free access from the governor’s office to every other official’s. Everyone’s issues would land squarely on his lap. In the market, there would always be a crowd around him. Most of them were villagers whose issues it would become Aram’s to resolve. Let it not surprise anyone when I note that I first heard these things from the governor himself, who visited me a few evenings every month. In close circles, the governor would lavish much praise on Aram’s legendary austerity. He would tell me that the majority of the salary Aram received from the educational department of the Akhtamar region; he spent preparing the pleas the villagers addressed to the government. There would be days when he absolutely had no money is his pocket. There also would be days when he would not have had any food, being so engrossed in his myriad tasks that he would not have the time to think about food.

Indeed, I also ascertained later that at times he did not seem to know whether he was hungry or not. He liked to drink tea without sugar. At times he would place a cube of sugar in his mouth and drink tea that way. When he happened to be in the court at lunchtime we would have something to eat together. I realized that he had lost the habit of having lunch with regularity. That would become more obvious to me when he would have his lunch with me in the evenings. He had a sociable, lively, and a cheerful temperament. But when it came to national issues, Aram’s demeanor would completely change; he would speak forcefully and at times roar like a lion.

As I said earlier, Aram and the Governor cultivated an amicable relationship and both wanted to keep it that way. But there were instances when that relationship would cool down, even got strained, because of disagreements about general or specific issues. The most important issue of contention between the two had to do with the Kurds.  Much can be said about the Armenian-Turkish, Armenian-Kurdish, and Turkish-Kurdish relations. Discussing them would take us far and beyond. Suffice to note a few words to shed light on the issues mentioned here.

It is well known that three nations cohabit on our native land, Armenians, Kurds, and Turks. In spite of the fact that the latter was the newcomer and a minority, the Turks had become the ruler of the land and had established themselves firmly. In the beginning, the demography was not what it is presently. But from the very beginning, the Turks had strived to make the Turks the majority in any area. The Turks, who did not discriminate in the means to achieve their goal, had initially acted with total impunity. Massive massacres, displacements, forced Islamization (i.e. Turkification), devshirme, that is to say rounding up four to five years old Christian boys and raising them as Islamized Janissaries and resorting to administrative gerrymandering so that the Turks would become the majority in any province. For example, geographically Hadjin and Zeitoun were not far from each other but each was in a different administrative area, with one being incorporated in the province of Adana while the other in Aleppo. In the same manner, the Armenian inhabited Van was tied to the Kurdish Hakkari and both were incorporated in the province of Van.

The basic policy of the Turks was “divide to rule”.

The situation with the Kurds was different. The government did not move against them with the same zeal. Foremost, the Kurds were Muslims. Consequently, they were spared from the calamities that befell upon the Armenian, and thus, over time, had grown in number. The government was unable to subjugate the multiparous and multifarious Kurds, and hence was obliged to treat them differently although the aim remained the same, that is to say, to curtail their number. First, the government encouraged mixed marriages. By marrying a Turkish woman, a Kurd would become cultured and be part of the dominant race. The government opened a lot of opportunities for them and would allow them to exploit and usurp Armenian owned properties and labor without restraint. The second option was creating divisions among the different Kurdish tribes and alternatively siding with one against the other. Thirdly, by incorporating them in the hamidiye (cavalry), where the Kurdish forces were smothened with kindness. These were exercised for so long that they had become second nature to the Turkish officials. It should be noted that the Turkish officials benefited greatly from such treatment.

After the proclamation of the constitution, the situation undeniably changed. For the Kurds, subjugating the Armenian with impunity became much more difficult although not impossible. Kurds lost some of the ill-gotten gains they had, and the Turks’ influence was diminished. The Armenians gained some freedom to maneuver and out of necessity took matters into their own hands to respond to the daily realities they faced.

It also became clear that the Kurdish menace did not have final and un-remediable consequences. Ishkhan would explain as follows. During the Hamidian period, the Armenian villagers hardly survived living hand to mouth existence and did not have an extra loaf of bread to offer to the hungry Armenian freedom fighters – fedayees – roaming on the mountains. During the few years of the Constitution, when the Armenian villagers could at the very least harvest what they planted, their misery had noticeably diminished and life had become much more tolerable. Of course, there were a lot of land disputes remaining from the Hamidian period that needed resolution. There was the issue of security that was paramount with the Armenian leadership.  That is to say how to curtail the massacres of the yesteryears when the Turkish government continued to encourage the Kurds and at times even joined them with arms to punish the “traitor Armenian infidels”.

The Armenians naturally did not want the Kurds to remain instruments in the hands of the Turks to be used against them. The Turks on the other hand, having their long-term goals in mind, always looked for ways and means to pit the Kurds against the Armenians. For this very reason, the Governor persecuted fiercely unruly Kurdish bandits but encouraged the Kurds who attempted to subjugate the defenseless Armenians. The Turkish government aimed to make impossible fostering any amicable relationship between the Kurds and the Armenians. Thus, there were inevitable sharp differences between Aram and the Governor regarding such issues vital to the Armenians."

Who Was Mattheos Eblighatian? – Part 2.

Translated by Vahe H. Apelian

Edited by Jack Chelebian, M.D.

This translated segment is from the book titled “Mattheos Eblighatian – A Life in the Life of my Nation – Eyewitness and Participant Testimonials 1903-1923. His sons Melkon, M.D. and Krikor, Attorney at Law, edited the book, Antelias, Lebanon 1987.

Kirkagac (forty trees), located close to Izmir, was a small town whose residents, be they Armenian, Greek and Turks, were well-to-do thanks to the cultivation of common madder whose pulverized root yielded a pigment called Alizarin, which had been used since ancient times as a red dye for leather, wool, cotton, and silk. Once the chemistry of Alizarin was discovered, enabling its synthesis industrially and much cheaper than extracting it naturally; the economy of kirkagac suffered greatly. From those boom times, there remained two storied, marble-floored houses, the Mother of God church, the Naregian School for boys and the Vartouhian School for girls.

Mattheos Eblighatian was born on October 21, 1881, during the economic depression of kirkagac. He was the firstborn son of shoemaker Melkon Eblighatian and his wife Takouhi Missirlian. Thanks to his innate quest for learning and his maternal uncle Hovhannes Missirlian’s moral and financial support, the young Mattheos studied in the local Naregian School for boys and later in national schools in the province of Izmir. Subsequently, at the cost of great hardship, he managed to complete his secondary and higher education in Istanbul attaining his Doctor in Jurisprudence degree at a time of great political uncertainty and danger.

In his notes, Mattheos Eblighatian asserts that the Hamidian tyranny, without putting official obstacles, nonetheless resorted to every means to prohibit Armenians from pursuing studying of law. In the summer of 1898, in spite of such restrictions, he managed to reach Istanbul but “failed” in his law school entrance examination. During his oral examination, the professor had asked, “Are you an Armenian?” Upon hearing his affirmative answer, the examiner had told him outright “get out” marking a zero next to his name.

Distraught, Mattheos Eblighatian returned to Izmir and followed the course at Sultaniyah Turkish school, repeating his four years of secondary education and becoming fluent in Turkish.

In 1903 he tried again and in spite of travel restrictions, succeeded in reaching Istanbul and registering in the school of law. The oral examinations were canceled simply because the number of the applicants exceeded five hundred. During the written examination Mattheos Eblighatian correctly noted his registration number but next to the initial letter of his name M, he put down a made-up name to cover his real identity. In those days the Turks did not have the practice of using the family name. Taking advantage of this loophole, many Armenian students had managed to slip through the “forbidden zone”.

In reality, Mattheos Eblighatian had ranked the fourth among the five hundred and five students and finally, in his own words, had set foot in the “promised land” and after six years of study, he attained his precious law degree.

In spite of the persecutions by the bloody Hamidian regime, Mattheos Eblighatian entered the rank and file of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and remained its faithful and active member until his death, assuming important responsibilities.

*****

Thanks to his memoir published in this book, it will be possible to follow the turn of events in his life from 1909 until the beginning of 1923, first as a judge, then as the translator for Major Hoff, the Norwegian inspector of the reformation promised for the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire; then as the executive director of Armenian National Relief in Istanbul and finally the First Republic of Armenia’s Relief and Reconstruction Ministry’s representative in Istanbul, as of July 3, 1920.

To complete this period of his life, we note the following. When the Ottoman Government sided with Germany during the First World War, Mattheos Eblighatian was in Istanbul and was tasked with the nominal role of assistant to Robert Graves who was the director of the inspectors of the Armenian reform package devised by the European powers. When that office was abolished in March 1915, the Turkish Government’s planned anti-Armenian annihilation policies had already begun to be implemented. To avoid capture, Mattheos Eblighatian for months hid first in Istanbul and then in Ayden (Izmir Province) where the Armenians were as yet exempt from the deportation orders. Finally in November 1916, thanks to the intervention of a Turkish friend, he enlisted in the Turkish army under an assumed name, in his own words “to save his own skin”. He served first as a conscript and then as an officer in charge of provisions for the coastal defense regiment situated on the Big Island, Boyukada, in the Sea of Marmara.

During that period he married his compatriot, Miss Marinos (Marie) Chilingirian on October 30, 1917. They were blessed with two sons: Melkon-Norayr and Krikor-Bared.

His last office was short lived because on November 29, 1920, the Republic of Armenia became part of the Soviet Union. In spite of this, with the permission of the Allied Powers occupying Istanbul, Mattheos Eblighatian, for the next two years, ran the duties of Armenia’s Istanbul Consulate as the Director of Diaspora Affairs but practically with the authority of a general consul. A strange situation had come about because the consulate issued Armenian passports to Turkish Armenians in the name of the First Republic of Armenia that had ceased to exist. It is important however to note that all governments accepted these passports, as a result, a large number of endangered Armenians who lived under the constant dread of renewed Turkish persecution were able to find refuge abroad. As months went by, their number grew. Garo Kevorkian, who was an eyewitness to this large Armenian exodus, noted the following.

“Whoever was in Istanbul in those days surely must remember those bitter and horrible days. The successes of the Kemalist Army, the fall of Izmir, the risk of the inevitable capture of Istanbul had given way to an indescribable plight…there had come about an exodus that was growing by the day involving people of all socio-economic classes.

One could not count the crowd of Armenians lining up in front of the Republic of Armenia’s Istanbul consulate. They would wait in line for hours and days to get passports to go abroad. The Republic’s diplomatic representative Ferdinand Tahtajian, and especially Mattheos Eblighatian acting as consul, toiled for months to facilitate the exodus of thousands of applicants, who were not citizens of Armenia, by granting them Armenian passports, which were recognized by all other governments”. (Amenoun Darekirk (Everyone’s Yearbook), 1961, page 601).

But, by the order of the British authorities, the Republic of Armenia’s consulate in Istanbul was closed in December 1922, ending all its activities.

Right after the closure of the embassy, and along with many others, the Turkish police started looking for Mattheos Eblighatian. Fortunately, one day in plain daylight, on a busy street, sensing danger, he evaded capture by the police by quickly hurling himself into a passing streetcar. Finally, as a fugitive, he found refuge on an Italian ship that was on its way to Bulgaria. Coincidentally on the same ship happened to be Patriarch Zaven who was leaving Istanbul for good (December 10, 1922).

Mattheos Eblighatian eventually reached Romania’s Ploesht city where a few months earlier, he had sent his family, his mother and two brothers (Mikael and Bedros).

Romania became the first stop of his life as a refugee.

He was planning to immediately depart to Syria and settle in Sanjak of Alexandretta, having learned that Arabic and Turkish were equally used in an official capacity there. This way, there would be an opportunity for him to practice law or be appointed as a judge.

Circumstance, however, forced him to relocate to Greece instead. He stayed in Athens for the next six years instead of traveling to Syria primarily because of financial constraints. Those were years of financial insecurity and deprivation during which he accepted any job that came his way. For a while, he worked in a factory that made stockings and did minor clerical work in Greek lawyers’ offices. Like most inhabitants of Izmir, he knew Greek. Mrs. Eblighatian, in turn, sold her beloved violin. She also gave sewing and dressmaking lessons and helped alleviate the financial situation of the family. They lived in a small house next to the Armenian refugee camp.

In Athens, Mattheos Eblighatian assumed an active role in the life of both his nation and his party.  He contributed to Nor Or  (New Day) daily. He regularly penned analytical articles there.

Finally, in 1932, he managed to depart to Aleppo where he became the principal of Haigazian coed school, teaching at the same time history and ethics to the higher grades.

In 1935 he settled in Antioch where he practiced law for some time. Later he was appointed to the court of justice. He remained in that capacity until the Sanjak of Alexandretta was ceded to Turkey. During the fall of 1939, he reached the city of Latakia through Kessab. After remaining jobless for a year, by the order of the Syrian Government in 1940, he was appointed to the court of justice in Latakia, simultaneously assumed the role of district attorney for Kessab and of the nearby Qastal Maaf, a Turkmen region. Once every two weeks, he would depart to Kessab or Qastal Maaf.

In the final analysis, these positions are all secondary for someone who at the age of thirty-three was the president of Van’s court of justice. We have mentioned them simply to be comprehensive in the chronology of his life.

Nonetheless, his last court appointment may be considered symbolic.

During the Second World War, the people lived in a financially dire situation. Grain, flour, bread, sugar, coffee, soap, gasoline, fabric, and all such necessities had all gradually disappeared from the market only to appear on the black market prohibitively expensive. In spite of the government’s severe measures, the unscrupulous merchants plundered the people with impunity. In every city of Syria, the government appointed a sole judge to oversee the distribution of provisions to the people.  Some of these appointees, in turn, considerably enriched themselves. The Government, entrusting his impartiality and fairness, appointed Mattheos Eblighatian as the sole judge overseeing the distribution of vital provisions in greater Latakia. He ran the office with remarkable initiative and competence until in 1947 when he was called to retire, earning the unanimous respect of the natives.

Mattheos Eblighatian passed his remaining years in Latakia. Every spring, much like the early sparrows, he came to Kessab to the house he had there where he would stay for seven months. He had a boundless affection for that native Armenian hamlet that reminded him of his birthplace kirkagac.

He passed away on September 30, 1960, at the age of 79. His remains are interred in the Armenian national cemetery of Latakia.

Melkon and Krikor Eblighatian.

Who Was Mattheos Eblighatian? – Part 1.

Who Was Mattheos Eblighatian? – Part 1.

Translated by Vahe H. Apelian

Edited by Jack Chelebian, M.D.

This translated segment is from the book titled “Mattheos Eblighatian – A Life in the Life of my Nation – Eyewitness and Participant Testimonials 1903-1923". His sons Melkon, M.D. and Krikor, Attorney at Law, edited the book, Antelias, Lebanon 1987.

“I was born in the city kirkagac (Գըրգաղան) in Izmir province, on October 21, 1881. In 1897, I graduated from Mesrobian School of Izmir. After graduating from the public gymnasium in the same city, in 1903, I was accepted to the Constantinople Law University and in 1908 I graduated with Doctor of Jurisprudence degree.

During the Ottoman Government’s constitutional period, I was appointed as a judge first in Yeberos Yania (Եպերոսի Եանիա) and then in Aleppo. In the summer of 1913, I was appointed the general prosecutor in Van and six months later the president of that city’s Court of Justice.

In July 1914, I was appointed the translator for the Norwegian Major Hoff who was tasked with inspecting and verifying the implementation of reformations in the Armenian provinces.

On June 14, 1919, I was appointed the executive director of the newly established National Relief in Istanbul. While keeping my role in that capacity, on July 3, 1920, by the edict number 4839 of the Armenian Republic’s Relief and Reconstruction Ministry, I was appointed the same ministry’s representative in Istanbul and on July 5, 1920, with the edict number 4863 I was appointed the director of Diaspora Affairs.  Since the National Assembly resolved that the authority to appoint the Director of Diaspora Affairs would be transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Republic’s Relief and Reconstruction Ministry, with their September 25, 1920, edict number 6629, removed me from my post as their representative, but with September 28, 1920, edict number 5546 from the Republic’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hamo Ohanjanian, I was posted as the temporary representative of the Republic of Armenia in Istanbul and my salary and other details were conveyed to me by representative Tahtajian.

The Republic’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with edict number 5548, dated 28 September 1920 to F. Tahtajian, noted that Mattheos Eblighatian is being considered for the position of General Consul and that the Ministry is awaiting his acceptance to send him the relevant official documents. During that period, it is known that the Turks and the Russians attacked our free and independent Republic. My ties with Yerevan were severed and I, remaining with the title of “Director of Diaspora Affairs”, and with the consent of the Allied Powers’ authorities in Istanbul, carried out the tasks of the newly established consulate of Armenia in Istanbul until December 1922, when by the order of the British authorities we were forced to shut down the consulate.”

Mattheos Melkon Eblighatian

*********

This handwritten biography is prepared by Mattheos Eblighatian himself and entrusted to his family a few years before his death “so that the newspapers would not publish erroneous information” about him at his death.

His writing resembles an official report much more than an autobiography. But most of those who knew him personally would attest that’s exactly the way Mattheos Eblighatian was, a lawyer in the scientific sense of the word. He was “a tall, gentleman, solemn, reticent. A man who avoided talking about himself and having others speak about him.”  (Gayz Goganian).

His Holiness Karekin II Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia also characterized him similarly, noting:

“Whenever he came to our ancestral village (Kessab), he projected the image of a deliberate, calm and a nobleman, to the whole village, and especially to the adolescents who, like myself, viewed him with reverence and respect. We did not, nor could we at that age and in that context, know him. But whenever he walked with his cane up the hill on the narrow streets of the village or whenever we found him sitting in a public meadow with a newspaper in his hand; we thought that there was the story of our nation embedded in him and he was the paragon of healthy national consciousness and human nobility and virtue.”

 Only his family members, close relatives and a few of his bosom friends knew that the solemn and impeccably attired judge would transform whenever he returned home every day precisely at his customary time. He would remove his “outside” clothes and would put on a comfortable wear, his slippers, nightcap on his head and occupy his customary seat on his cushion next to the water-pipe Mrs. Marie Eblighatian would have prepared for him. In his home, he would turn into the cheerful, witty, optimistic ordinary man that he was at his core, who enjoyed the pleasures of life.

He had an astonishing memory and would gladly talk about his birthplace kirkagac (Գըրգաղան), and especially about Armenia, its nature, climate, notable cuisine, harvests, customs and particularly its waters and springs. But he rarely made any reference to his life and the role he played in his nation’s life.

After entreaties over many years, he finally decided to write and publish his memoirs, which appeared in the “Hairenik Monthly” in Boston in issues ranging from 1951 to 1956. His eyesight had already weakened. So, instead of writing, he was compelled to have a dear friend stay with him in his house for a year jotting down the memoirs he narrated. After the publication, he found the style of the writing not to reflect his own. He also noted errors, minor omissions, duplications, and in a few instances erroneous interpretations. Naturally, he was not pleased and felt the need to revise and correct. Without a doubt, it would have been preferable to re-edit all of it not a series but as a book. Unfortunately, the author no longer had the stamina and the time to accomplish the task.

For that reason, in this book, the reader will come across some duplications, in spite of the fact that many have been removed. The author probably made these duplications consciously to refresh the reader’s memory because the articles were published on a monthly basis over a  long period of time with some serials a year or two apart. To emphasize the link between various segments we resorted to adding subtitles.That is why we resorted to subtitles in an effort to link the articles. Finally we, as the editors, had to choose a title for the book because the components were not yet put together under a common title.

It should also be noted that Mattheos Eblighatian’s autobiography ends in December 1922, whereas he passed away thirty-seven years later. Those were daunting years of exile during which the family moved from one country or city to another five to six times. Therefore we resorted to filling some gaps before and after the ending of his biography. Unfortunately, our information is also partial and circumstantial abstracted from his notes, letters, and testimonies of relatives.  (To be continued).