• am
  • ru
  • en
print version
25.02.2008

SURVIVED ARMENIANS: ERMENI VARTO ASHIRET

   

Ruben Melkonyan

genocide (original) The Armenian Genocide caused not only massacre of 1500000 Armenians and forcedly Islamisation of thousands of them but also numerous personal and family tragedies. The instinct of self-defense and living forced Armenians make incredible steps: one of the numerous examples is the story of an Armenian family called Ermeni Varto ashiret: 1 They were able to survive through hardships and even the fact of their existence was not known tens of years.

During the Armenian Genocide was also exiled the Jizre province inhabitant Armenian Varto tribe, which used to be quite populous and rich. Being attacked on their way, the five families of the tribe runs away and finds a shelter in the well known Judi Mountain. 2 One of those families was called “Mala Varto,” that’s to say, Varto’s house. The tribe which took shelter on the mountain lived there for about 25 years isolated from the external world, knowing nothing about what had happened in Turkey and in the world during that period. They did not even know that instead of the collapsed Ottoman Empire was established the Republic of Turkey. The tribe was engaged in cattle-breading and exceptionally thanks to internal marriages went on propagating. Little by little Vrto’s tribe adopted Kurdish way of living, began wearing Kurdish traditional costumes, spoke exceptionally Kurdish, however, together with it, it preserved closed mode of a tribal life, especially internal marriages, as a result of which they were not assimilated with Kurds ethnically. It is noteworthy that they were extremely religious and preserved and continued Christian traditions in every possible way. Although the Armenians of the Kurdish speaking Varto ashiret knew only a few Armenian words and even prayed in Kurdish, but while getting married they invited Asorian, Nesorian and even Keldan priests from the neighbor villages to perform a Christian ceremony of the wedding. These Kurdish speaking Armenians, who had tens of years lived in the mountains and then among Kurds, preserved their ethnic self-consciousness and realized their difference from the Kurds they lived among quite well. And important showing of their religious self-consciousness may be considered the fact that they visited the church of the neighbor Christian Hasana village of Keldan and also buried their dead in the cemetery of the village. They were also in close relations with the Christian Keldan inhabitants of Hasana village and the only example of not internal marriages are the brides brought from there.

Only after three decades after the Genocide the Armenian tribe dared to come down the mountain and witness that their former lands were occupied by Kurds.

After tens of years the fact of the existence of Varto tribe was known by the Armenian community in Istanbul and a priest called Hrant Gyuzelyan visited the tribe head Siyament Yaghbasan. After a long interval this was the first time the survived Armenians met an Armenian priest, and thanks to his visit the Armenian tribe found out that besides them they were other Christian Armenians inhabited in Turkey. The priest Gyuzelyan suggested the tribe head Siyament to send the children of Ashiret to get Armenian-Christian education in Istanbul. Siyament Yaghbasan had 13 children, and after the death of his wife Delal they were deprived of proper care. Besides, as we have already mentioned, Varto ashiret was extremely religious and his children were often called by the names taken from the Holly Bible, and the suggestion of an Armenian clergyman was accepted with pleasure. The tribe head Yaghbasan was the first one to set an example for the tribe members and send his nine-year old daughter Rakel to Istanbul. This example was followed by the other members of the tribe, and for about 25 Kurdish speaking children were sent to the Armenian orphanage of Tuzla.

The daughter of the tribe head Siyament Yaghbasan, who went to Istanbul to learn her native language and return to her roots, later on became the wife of Hrant Dink – Rakel Dink. The children of the tribe get a comprehensive education in the orphanage, however, in the first stage an atmosphere of alienation and coldness is created, which is certainly connected with cultural differences of the surrounding they lived in. Having finished the education in the orphanage the 25 children of Varo tribe don’t want to return to the village any more, and the ashiret, headed by Siyament, makes a decision to return to Istanbul. We suppose that in making such a decision an important role played continuous clashes between the Armenians of Varto tribe and the Kurds who occupied their lands, as well as unfavorable conditions to continue national-religious identity. Thus, in 1978 the ashiret Ermeni varto consisting of 500 members moves to Istanbul. The Armenian community supports them in every possible way, by the efforts of the patriarchy and businessmen they get jobs in different fields. However, it is noteworthy that even Varto ashiret of Istanbul doesn’t change its inter-tribal traditions, including the ones connected with marriages. We can witness the sharp manifestation of this principle when Hrant Dink expresses his desire to marry Rakel whom he had known still in the orphanage. The youth of Varto tribe threaten Hrant Dink and claim to give up this thought. The issue is solved only through high intervention of the Armenian patriarch Shnorhk Galustyan. He himself asks for the hand of Rakel and the religious father can’t refuse the high-ranking clergyman.

In the beginning of 1980s the atmosphere of hostility and violence against national minorities in Turkey, especially Armenians in connection with ASALA activities, became tense. The word Armenian was perceived as a swearing, the Armenians were considered to be betrayers, the Armenian churches were attacked and the Armenian schools were mined. Day by day the persecution was becoming more and more unbearable making the survivors of Varto ashiret, like many other Armenians, think about surviving. A group of tribe members migrate the Soviet Armenia, but here instead of jobs they are given lands, but the city inhabitant Armenians don’t want to return to farming any more. At last the tribe head Siyament Yaghbasan makes a decision that they should move to Belgium, and the decision of the tribe head is obligatory for everybody. The whole tribe moves to Belgium, and today only Rakel Dink lives in Turkey as a tribe representative. In Belgium the Armenians of Varto ashiret get ingaged in tailoring, dry cleaning, fur making and they also live in the same district. It is interesting that even in Europe they have preserved their tribal traditions, especially internal marriages. Let’s also mention that the widow of Hrant Dinks still keeps in touch with the tribe members, for example, she is present at the wedding ceremonies of all her brothers and sisters in Belgium, and visits the grave of her mother in Zizre. About her real origin Rakel Dink also spoke at the sitting of the court in connection with Hrant Dink’s assassination and turning to the Judge and the ones present she said the following: “My story begins from the survivors of 1915 – Ermeni Varto ashiret. I was born in 1959 in the village of Shrnakin, at present renamed Yolaghz, in Varto tribe. The name Varto comes from the name of my father’s grandfather – Vardan.”

It is quite interesting that for many years Varto ashiret has struggled against Kurds who had captured their lands, at present as well the legal case is not closed. As Rakel Dink mentions, while dying her father, the tribe head Siyament, claimed her children to try on returning their lands.

It is quite a sad but at the same time interesting fact that how it is possible that the nation with such a high culture and civilization level of many centuries like Armenians accepted the way of living and language of Kurds, who are on an incomparably low level of culture. This phenomenon is directly and indirectly expressed in the way of living of the Kurdish speaking Armenian Varto tribe. A very interesting opinion on this issue has recently been expressed by an orientalist, and professor Garnik Asatryan, according to which: “when the new ethnos, regardless to its cultural level, acquires military importance, the way of living prevails, and the local cultural inhabitants get adapted to the new element.” That’s to say, one may suppose that in the appropriate surrounding the language and way of living of an element of fighter is considered to be a good reason for the other nations to become like them. We think that it also has a clear cut psychological side, to belong or to be like the ruling and strong nation.

However, not only the existence of Varto ashiret, but also the fact of preservation and continuation of its ethnic-religeous self-consciousness makes us think about the importance of milieu on different levels of assimilation surrounding Armenians. If Rakel Yaghbasan had stayed in the surrounding of Kurds she would have at best become a Kurdish speaking Armenian, a carrier of Kurdish way of living and culture, and that only thanks to the close mode of life adopted by her tribe. Under the influence of the Armenians surrounding she was able to completely return to her roots, and become an Armenian women, Armenian mother.


Return
Another materials of author