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A Hero and a Homeland for Armenians in America: Photography and the Construction of Cultural Memory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2010
Extract
Both portrait and landscape, historical scene and contemporary monument, and, ultimately, both engraving and photograph, this image contains the keys to a significant story from modern Armenian cultural history. In the years following World War I hundreds of Armenians immigrated to the United States, where through the creation of objects such as this picture, they reconstituted their community, emphasizing the longevity of their history, their unity as a minority culture, and their identity as a diaspora.
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References
NOTES
1 Image (Arzouian 5-84) is from the holdings of Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives, Watertown, Mass., courtesy of Haigouhi Arzouian, Worcester, Mass.
2 General Andranik's name is transliterated alternately with a “d” or a “t” as the third letter. Project SAVE spells the name with “t” as General Antranik, but the “Andranik” seems to be the more common spelling and will thus be used here.
3 Antranig Chalabian, General Andranik and the Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Southfield, Mich.: Antranig Chalabian, 1988).
4 The Armenian myth of origin, the Haik and Bel story, takes place around Mount Ararat. Razmik Panossian notes, “In terms of popular perceptions this story is just as important in modern nationalist thinking as ‘objective’ history.” Panossian, The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Comissars (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 51.
5 “General Antranik, Noted Fighter Dies; Commanded Armenian and Russian Forces Against Those of the Turks,” The New York Times, 2 September 1927, sec. Amusements, Hotels, and Restaurants, 17.
6 “ALMA Armenian Legionnaire Traveling Exhibit Begins Nationwide Tour,” The Armenian Reporter, 19 August 2009, http://www.reporter.am/go/article/2009-08-19-alma-armenian-legionnaire-traveling-exhibit-begins-nationwide-tour (accessed 23 September 2009). For information on the recruitment of Armenians for the Battle of Arara, see Christopher Walker, “World War I and the Armenian Genocide,” The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, vol. II, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), 267.
7 In 1925 the Armenian Martyrs Monument of the Battle of Arara was moved from its original site on the battlefield in Arara, Palestine, to the Armenian Cemetery of St. Savior's Convent in Jerusalem, near the patriarchate, where ceremonies are held annually on 24 April to commemorate victims of the genocide. See Meron Benvenisti, “Extract from the Book Ir Ha-Menuhot,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Armenian Studies Program, Genocide Commemoration, 2004 (Jerusalem, Israel: Hebrew University, 28 April 2004); the original text in Hebrew is Ir ha-Menuhot: Bate ha-ʿAlmin shel Yerushalayim (Jerusalem: Keter, 1990). For a current location of the monument and a description of the memorial services see, “Jerusalem Armenians Mark 86th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide,” The Armenian National Committee of Jerusalem (25 April 2001), http://www.atour.com/~aahgn/news/20010425e.html (accessed 18 September 2009).
8 Dickenson Jenkins Miller, “The Craftsman's Art: Armenians and the Growth of Photography in the Near East 1856–1981” (Master's thesis: American University of Beirut, 1981), 45.
9 “Armenians to Ask Mandate: Mission Here to Plead for Safety from Turkish Offenders,” The New York Times, 23 November 1919 and “Armenian Mandate Assailed by Gerard: Role Proposed for America Would Benefit No One but the Turks, Says Ex-Ambassador,” The New York Times, 8 December 1919.
10 “Armenians Eulogize General Andranik; Speakers at Memorial Meeting Mourn Him as Greatest Hero of Native Land,” The New York Times, 10 October 1927, sec. Sports, 21.