Author: Harut Sassounian

The United Nations’ General Assembly held its annual session Sept. 24-30, 2019 in New York City. The participants were heads of states and high-ranking officials of UN member countries, including Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. Surprisingly, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev was absent — a big mistake on his part!

The first speech was delivered by Erdogan on Sept. 24, 2019. After speaking about the lofty notions of justice and equality, which are constantly violated by Turkey, Erdogan once again complained about the fact that Turkey is not represented among the five Permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, UK, France, China and Russia) which have a veto power. Long before Turkey is admitted to such an exclusive club, India, Brazil, and possibly Germany should have a priority over Turkey. Erdogan also misrepresented Turkey as the country that “has inflicted the first and heaviest blow” to ISIS terrorists in Syria. In reality, Turkey has been the biggest supporter of ISIS terrorists! Surprisingly, Erdogan blamed Greek Cypriots for Turkey’s continued occupation of Northern Cyprus. He also criticized Israel for its mistreatment of Palestinians.

Turning to the Caucasus, Erdogan stated: “it is unacceptable that Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding areas, which are Azerbaijani territories, are still occupied despite the [UN] resolutions adopted.”

Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, addressed the UN General Assembly on Sept. 25, 2019, condemning Azerbaijan for its unwillingness to resolve the “Nagorno Karabakh” (Artsakh) conflict. He said that the solution to the conflict must be acceptable to all three populations of Armenia, Artsakh and Azerbaijan.

Regarding Turkey, Pashinyan stated that “by refusing to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia, overtly assisting Azerbaijan against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, Turkey remains a serious threat to Armenia and the Armenian people, who had experienced the deep tragedy of the genocide and continue to face the fierce denial of truth and justice.”

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2019, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov stated that “rather than wasting time on attempts to mislead the international community and its own people, Armenia must drop its lousy attempts to prolong the unsustainable status quo and faithfully comply with its international obligations.” The sooner Armenia gives up its “aggressive and hostile policy in the region,” the better it would overcome its “serious political, economic and social burden,” Mammadyarov said.

Armenia’s UN delegate exercised his “right of reply” to Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Mammadyarov’s speech, accusing him of distorting the conflict of Nagorno Karabakh. Armenia’s representative then mentioned the Azeri massacres of Armenians in Sumgayit, Azerbaijan, in 1988. He added that Nagorno Karabakh was never a part of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s representative then responded with his own “right of reply.” The Armenian and Azerbaijani delegates proceeded to deliver a series of remarks replying to each other’s accusations.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displeased with Erdogan’s criticism of Israel at the UN General Assembly, condemned him harshly according to the Jerusalem Post: “Prime Minister Netanyahu slammed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday calling him a liar and saying that ‘he who doesn’t stop lying about Israel, he who kills Kurds in his own country, he who denies the terrible crimes against the Armenians — that person should not preach to Israel.’”

Netanyahu’s comments did not please Armenians around the world who pointed out that under his leadership Israel has rejected the veracity of the Armenian Genocide and blocked the acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide by the Knesset (parliament). Netanyahu’s words were viewed as simply a disingenuous attempt to use the Armenian Genocide as a tool to bash Erdogan, while Israel itself has not acknowledged the Armenian Genocide. This is the height of hypocrisy by Netanyahu!

As I have repeatedly pointed out, the Israeli government, as the leadership of a nation that has suffered genocide itself, should have been the first country to recognize the Armenian Genocide, not the last. At this late stage, even if Israel were to recognize the Armenian Genocide, it would be a pointless exercise as dozens of countries and international organizations have already acknowledged the Armenian Genocide. By continuing its shameless refusal to recognize the Armenian Genocide, the Israeli government is simply tarnishing its own reputation in the international community.

Even the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi joined the political fray in New York by meeting with the President of Cyprus and the Prime Ministers of Armenia and Greece to indicate his displeasure at Turkish President Erdogan’s siding with Pakistan in his UN speech. Such a meeting is definitely in the interests of Armenia, Cyprus and Greece in order to counter Pakistan’s cozy relationship with Turkey and Azerbaijan. In June, the Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Cyprus and Greece met in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia to discuss an expansion of their relations. All three countries share the common goal of opposing Turkish hegemony in the region.

To end on an amusing note, Pres. Erdogan refused to sit at Pres. Trump’s table with other heads of states at a banquet given by the U.S. President at the United Nations last week, since Egyptian Pres. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, whom the Turkish President abhors, was sitting at that table. Erdogan’s chair remained empty, depriving him of the golden opportunity to brainwash Pres. Trump during dinner!

This is part IV (final-part) of the letter exchange between the two historic

figures Armin Wegner and Franz Werfel.

Armin Wegner wrote to Franz Werfel: “Of course, I do not know your own

connection with Asia Minor, and I can be fooled by guessing it. Strangely,

I have found that the Jewish soul, in the frame of German and Prussian

characters, makes them better able to imagine than the majority of German

poets can, that this Asian soul usually stands much further away and stays

more alien to the descendant of the European crusaders. This probably has

its deep foundation in the law of antagonism.

I have no right to ask you to give up your project. That probably

wouldn’t help much either. But you will certainly not be grateful to

me if I, who from the first moment of our meeting, passionately loved

and venerated your poetic work, ask you to consider all my thoughts,

which I submit to you here. Precisely because I appreciate you, not

only as a writer, but I also know the depth of your humanity, I can do

so with a clear conscience. Perhaps it will cause you to drop an

unfinished project that has barely begun, or to go beyond to design a

shorter novelistic study, as it originally began?

I need not emphasize the immense gratitude and the deep reassurance

that would fulfill me, having the opportunity to complete and market

my work without fear of competition. Truly, I cannot give up my

project, which has become my mission from my deepest, profound

experience, for which I have sacrificed laborious years of toil under

the greatest hardships and struggles, and for the sake of it, stood in

the background for so long.”

Werfel responded on Dec. 23, 1932 from Vienna: “Let me first briefly

tell you the story of the formation of my Armenian novel. Since the

war, I have been to the Middle East twice (for several months) – the

first time in 1925, the second time in 1929. In Damascus, I had a

shocking experience with Armenian children, which, to some extent,

made an epic plan virulent in me, which already existed since I first

heard of these things; perhaps just after the war. I do not know for

exactly how long. Oftentimes, in my method of writing, the dramatic or

epic plans grow in the darkness for many years before they are strong

enough to entice me to work. (I wrote the Verdi novel part time in

1911 and completed it in 1923.) In the case of my Armenian novel, I

started studying and sketching only last year. Of course, the work

progressed rapidly during the summer, and today I have already

finished more than half of my book. (around 400 printed pages.)

Be that as it may, I naturally like to acknowledge your primary

concern and bow to you for being an eyewitness. However, I am almost

reluctant to point out that there is no material legitimacy in the

field of poetry [creative writing]. You indicate it several times in

your letter. There are, perhaps, ‘personal’ substances that may belong

to the peculiarity of a particular writer – the World War, with all

its chapters, of which the Armenian tragedy is one, may by no means

count on these substances. Fairly considered, you have in your great

experience and your fateful connectedness, a tremendous advantage over

me, who cannot create his work based on experience, direct exposure,

grasp of senses, but only from imagination, inventiveness and thus

some historical documents. With such a competition, therefore, the

worry should be far more on my side.

But I believe, dear Wegner, that we can both be very calm, because our

works will certainly be completely different. Mine uses documented

facts of only one single episode that covers a few pages in the Alster

collection of Lepsius. The episode serves me as the framework for a

universal human happening, for a symbolic development, for figures

purely invented, it is not an end in itself but only an occasion. Nor

will there be much talk of atrocities and massacres in my book. I will

set aside all the documentary stuff. The human destiny of the invented

characters alone will be important. The scene I am referring to, the

contents of which have become known to you through the newspapers, has

very little to do with the actual novel. The scene I am referring to,

the contents of which have become known to you through the newspapers,

has very little to do with the actual novel. A multi-volume work like

yours will project a gigantic and magnificent painting of the Armenian

destiny, with ten thousand details. While mine, I hope, will be a

story limited to a certain region and a small fragment of people. The

emphasis will be more on the mythical-human side rather than the

Armenian cause.

Lastly, I am surprised about the muffled suspicion that sounds from

certain lines of your letter.

You are suggesting that I had heard of your correspondence with the

Prussian Academy and Paul Zsolnay Publishing House, and might have

been inspired to write my Armenian novel. In fact, I entered the

meeting room of the Poets Academy for the first time in my life

fourteen days ago, and, as far as publishing correspondence is

concerned, my own stuff is already annoying enough.

But is it possible that you seriously believe that the facts of your

work could stimulate my choice of substance and put you off your work?

You are a poet and, therefore, you know that it is not us who choose

the substance, but the substance chooses us. Nothing is more sensible

to me than that everything I write is essential, i.e., dictated from

within.

Until yesterday, from your books I had only the beautiful volume ‘The

Face of the Cities,’ which I admire and love very much. Unfortunately,

I haven’t read any of your prose. Since I work a lot, I read almost no

novels or short stories. I just got the mail with your open letter to

Wilson. The real glow of your words deeply moved me.

Please do not overestimate the rivalry of our works. They go different ways.

For me, and globally, you are a great authority on the Armenian cause,

through knowledge, experience, and connectedness. This was shown to me

in just the few pages I went through yesterday. The glow of these

pages, however, also suggests that your publisher cannot be unhappy,

even when another, be it a layman or artist, tries to serve the same

mission.”

Fortunately, Franz Werfel was not dissuaded by Wegner to give up his

plans to write “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.” On the other hand,

Wegner published only the first volume of his planned four-volume

book, depriving the world of his precious eyewitness accounts of the

Armenian Genocide.

The California Courier will publish in a four-part series the exchange
between the two historic figures Armin Wegner and Franz Werfel

Armin Wegner wrote to Franz Werfel: “Radio and press continued to

feed on me. In the end, a severe illness knocked me down, which I

haven’t overcome to this day. I was commissioned by a book club to

write an in-depth work on Jewish Palestine. It stole laborious hours

from my great Armenian novel, which would have been finished long

ago, under other circumstances. Nevertheless, I have finished the

first volume, although it still needs a revision. The draft of the second

volume is about half way done, as well as parts of the fourth volume,

which I had started previously.

When I returned from a sanatorium in Meran on December 12 (fairly

recovered), and ready to go back to work again, I heard that you had

read a chapter from a proposed Armenian novel in Berlin. By the way,

the public oration of some sections of my Armenian novel took place on

an evening in the Herrenhause, which the Association of German

Narrators organized for me in November 1930, and which was reported to

the press at that time.

Dear and honored Franz Werfel, you may now ask with certain rights,
why I am writing all this to you? Isn’t it always charming to see
different poets use the same material as they shape it according to
their temperament, personality and creativity? How many various
Madonna paintings do we appreciate based on this artistic impulse,
directed to the same motives in the times of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance? And, has this somehow affected the fame, success and
creativity of the artists? Didn’t it strengthen it, on the contrary?

Unfortunately, we live in other times today, not in an age of cultic
community as we did then. In our case, we also deal with a work in
which documents from the years of the Armenian deportation are a
necessity. Documents which I, despite my own personal experiences,
used heavily, as well. I must necessarily draw a parallel, where in
some places, the content – in isolated cases, even in the exact
wording – completely match. I see this when I have the newspaper
reports of your last lecture in which all of those facts are listed,
which Johannes Lepsius so vividly left in his journal in his own
written judgment about his interview with Enver Pasha.

I hope you don’t misunderstand me! It is not only the right, but the
duty of a writer to use such documents. Nevertheless, it is not
pleasant to see such parallels revealed in the eyes of the public. In
every poetic work, it’s not only the invention, but all the facts
operate with and for the work, which the poet draws from the events
and intellectual currents of his or her time. Contemporary history,
even many literary works of their contemporaries, becomes a quarry for
the significant artist, from which he or she breaks the building
materials for their work. Emerson recognized this very well when he
called Shakespeare a “library” of his time.

The moment I explain this to you, you will also understand the concern
that has come my way, since I heard of your new project. Deep down,
internally, such concern is certainly not the case. The characters of
each poet are necessarily filled with his own flesh and blood, no
matter how much he takes them from history, just as a good portrait at
the same time shows the features of the master who painted it. But
outwardly and economically, this concern is bigger; because your
message forces me, at least regarding my first volume, which I would
like to postpone until the completion of the second one, to publish it
sooner than I intended.

I cannot stay indifferent if a genius, a much more famous and
successful poet, like Franz Werfel, should come out with a novel that
echoes with the conclusion of my own theme. Because with that he will
take away from the public the punchline stuff that my work amounts to,
and for which it was actually written. Obviously, I cannot finish the
last volume and publish it, before completing the other volumes.
Perhaps my fear, caused only by the newspaper notes about your
lecture, is unfounded, but imagining your book published makes me feel
like a North Pole explorer, who after months of life-threatening
hardships, arrives at the pole, realizing that someone else had
arrived before him a few days earlier.

If I make this presentation so detailed to you, it will first of all
be to prove to you the extensive background of my work, with regard to
the shaping of the destiny of Armenia. But there is also another
reason that moves me – I am told by members of the Academy, and by
friends who attended your last lecture, that you had said that the
whole thing would initially be an indeterminate plan, and you did not
even know if you were going to execute it at all. If this is correct,
then my message should probably not be without influence on your
decision.

It is possible that you, as a member of the Academy of the Arts, had
heard of my plans, and the honorary award bestowed to me two years
ago. Or, perhaps, my offer to the publisher Zsolnay, who is so close
to you, or at least through literary circles in general? I suppose
this is not the case, since, as a rule, writers knowingly do not
cultivate the same materials at the same time, especially not when a
project is in an advanced stage.

On the other hand, it proves once again the genius of your poetic
vision, to devote your time and talents to the same formidable event.
And yet, I was not only fighting for my own life’s work here, but I
also would have to warn you against continuing it.

Despite the equality of all primal humanity, Asia, the Asiatic
characters, and Turks as well as Armenians, are so utterly remote from
us that the design of Asia for any European poet, if he really wants
to penetrate into the interior, remains an enticing as well as
dangerous mystery. Although I have lived in the country for many years
in close relationship with Armenians and Turks, although my Armenian
and Turkish friends have provided me with rich personal, unpublished
material, and although my own records of the Armenian people and their
deportation fill out numerous booklets, documents which I have left,
with the consideration of my planned work, to my dear friend Johannes
Lepsius, yet I know the infinite psychological difficulty of the task.

Even for you, it is possible, that this dangerous labyrinth, once it
gets you, will lure you deeper and deeper. I do not know. If I had
known beforehand to what extent my Armenian novel and the work on it
would expand with the years, would I have had the courage to dare to
get involved with it? My participation in this human tragedy has
probably been the deepest and most central shock of my entire human
experience.”

Article to be continued next week.

This is the continuation of the letter written by Armin T. Wegner to Franz Werfel in 1932 which is being published for the first time:

“Already in 1915 I became friends with Johannes Lepsius. As I traveled by train, from Constantinople through Asia Minor to Baghdad, I witnessed the entire deportation. I repeatedly sent material to Lepsius for his collection. I have lived in close relationship with Armenians and Turks for several years, and have spoken their language, albeit very imperfectly. Hiding under my stomach bandage, I smuggled the pictures that I had taken of the horror scenes in the desert. I transported them, at the risk of death, across the border along with the refugees’ letters to the American embassies.

In 1919, in a public event in Urania [a scientific society in Berlin], with the help of Johannes Lepsius, I showed the pictures in a sensational lecture. As a result, almost a pogrom broke out between the immigrant Armenians and Turks. Soon afterwards I published my book, “The Road of No Return” (“Der Weg Ohne Heimkehr”), revealing personal experiences from that time. I related most of the experiences from the days of the deportation, for my Armenian novel.

At short intervals, two more books were published – “In the House of Happiness,” (“Im Hause der Glückselligkeit”) and my “Turkish Novels,” (“Türkische Novellen”) which also include two stories from the persecution of Armenians. At about the same time, in 1921, my novella “The Storm on the Women’s Bath” (“Der Sturm auf das Frauenbad”) – the description of an Armenian massacre – appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt. In the same year I published the stenographic report “The Court Case of Talaat Pasha” (“Der Prozess Talaat Pascha”), to which I was invited, along with Johannes Lepsius and others, as a witness.

In 1925, I began to write my Armenian novel, which I had already planned during the war. The first announcements of the work can be found around the same time in the Kirschner, and in Albert Sörgel’s history of literature, where the book had been announced with the title “The Expulsion” (“Die Austreibung”). But, as I set out to portray the vast epic of deportation and extermination of an entire race of people, I soon realized that my work would be piecemeal if I confined myself to describing only the end of this tragedy.

So the work grew under my hand, more and more, beyond what I originally had planned. The entire fate of the people, and the struggles of the peoples of the Middle East, should be presented in it. The antagonism of races, religions and classes were laid bare. It was not my will, but the inner nature of that work, which became a four-volume novel. I’ll give you a short outline of the blueprint that I shared with the academy two years ago.

The first volume deals with the prehistory of the novel – the youth of the main hero, who was born in a small Asian town in 1890. In 1896, during the massacres of Abdul Hamid, he loses his parents and grows up an orphan in the Syrian orphanage in Jerusalem. The actual content of the first volume, then, describes life in a small Asian city, the contrast of the Turks and Armenians, their conflicting as well as common revolutionary activities, and it finally leads to Constantinople in the court of Abdul Hamid. This volume will be titled “In the Shadow of God.”

The second volume, titled “Eternal Hatred,” leads first into the mountains of an Armenian village. It shows the differences between Kurds and Armenians, and finally depicts the outbreak of the revolution of 1908 in Asia Minor and Constantinople, the removal of Abdul Hamid and the victory of the Young Turks, and ends in a general fraternization and reconciliation of Turks and Armenians in the age of the Constitution.

The third volume, which will probably carry the title “The Scream of Ararat,” begins with the outbreak of the World War. This volume will also contain the conversation between Lepsius and Enver Pasha, which Lepsius himself has so impressively recorded. The novel always shifts between the ruling classes, the leading authorities, and the people. The Young Turkish leaders, and the whole diplomacy of Europe, play their part. The book ends with the actual beginning of the deportation.

The fourth volume, titled “The Desert,” then brings the extermination of the Armenian people in the steppes of Mesopotamia. This part also contains the scenes of those two thousand refugees who had rescued themselves on a mountain and were then brought to Egypt by a ship of the Entente – scenes that I suppose to be the inspiration for the title of your planned book, “The Forty Days Musa Dagh.” An epilogue to the last volume describes the murder of Talaat Pasha in the streets of Berlin.

The entire work is expected to retain the repeatedly announced title “The Expulsion.”

Although I began writing the Novel as early as 1924, it was interrupted by my other poetic and journalistic works. In the years 1925 to 1927, the project matured to its full extent, and from the beginning of 1930, I had to start the whole work once again. In 1928 my novel “Moni” (the novel of a two-year-old child) was published in the “Berliner Tageblatt.” At the same time, I offered the book to the publishing house Zsolnay in Vienna (in March 1928), and declared my readiness for a contractual bond for my planned work in progress, the Armenian novel, as a great portrayal of people. But Zsolnay refused. I then signed a contract with the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt in Stuttgart (in the spring of 1928), for my multi-volume novel on the Armenian deportation, and at that time I received a considerable advance.

The great economic hardship, the pressure to feed a family and the not quite satisfactory sales of my other books, slowed down my work. Driven by financial obligations, I had to accept extensive journalistic work, again and again, which required long trips to foreign countries. In 1930, Thomas Mann applied on my behalf to the Prussian Academy of the Arts (Section of Poetry), referring to my work. At his instigation, I submitted to the Academy a more detailed plan of my great Armenian novel. I enumerated the various stations of the above listed individual volumes. Fortunately, the academy gave me considerable support for this work. But unfortunately, all of these sums were not enough to allow me to labor on the huge work with peace of mind.”

Armin Wegner, a German soldier and medic, was sent to the Ottoman Empire during World War I, while the two countries were allies. Wegner was stationed along the Baghdad Railway in Syria and Mesopotamia, where he witnessed the deportations and mass killings of Armenians, subsequently known as the Armenian Genocide. He wrote several books describing his eyewitness accounts.

Contrary to the Ottoman prohibition of taking pictures during the Armenian Genocide, Wegner took hundreds of rare photographs and smuggled them into Germany. At the Ottoman government’s request, he was arrested and some of his photographs were destroyed. He succeeded, however, in hiding many other negatives in his belt. In 1919, Wegmer sent a letter to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the Peace Conference, advocating for an independent Armenia. In 1921, Wegner testified at the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian who was accused of assassinating in Berlin Talaat Pasha, the Turkish mastermind of the Armenian Genocide. Tehlirian was found not guilty by the German court and released from jail. Along with his wife, Wegner visited the Soviet Union and Soviet Armenia in 1927-28. In 1968, he was invited to Soviet Armenia by the Catholicos of All Armenians and awarded the Order of St. Gregory the Illuminator. Wegner died in Rome in 1978, at the age of 91. Some of his ashes are buried in Armenia.

Wegner’s illustrious counterpart was Franz Werfel, a Jewish-Austrian novelist, playwright, and poet. He was well-known for his novel, “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,” which described the Armenian resistance to the Ottoman troops during the Genocide.

Werfel visited the Middle East twice in 1925 and 1929. While in Damascus, Syria, he encountered Armenian children, survivors of the Genocide, who were in destitute condition, which inspired him to write ‘The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.’ The world famous novel was published in Germany in 1933. Werfel lectured throughout Germany about the Armenian Genocide, as a result of which he was accused of spreading anti-Turkish propaganda. The Nazi newspaper ‘Das Schwarze’ denounced him for carrying out propaganda against “alleged Turkish horrors perpetrated against the Armenians.” The same German newspaper, suggesting a link between Armenians and Jews, condemned “America’s Armenian Jews for promoting in the U.S.A. the sale of Werfel’s book.” His books were burned by the Nazis. He was forced to flee and eventually settled in Los Angeles where he died in 1945. His body was reburied in Vienna in 1975.

Interestingly, these two distinguished pro-Armenian writers clashed with each other when Armin Wegner wrote a lengthy letter on December 14, 1932, asking Franz Werfel not to write his novel, ‘The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,” because he was in the midst of writing his own four-volume book on Armenians. Werfel responded to Wegner with a short letter on December 23, 1932, explaining that their planned books did not conflict with each other, as they were about different aspects of the Armenian Genocide. I would like to thank Zaven Khatchaturian, President of Armin T. Wegner Society of USA, who translated both letters from German into English. The German original of both letters are kept at the Shiller-Nationalmuseum und Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach/Neckar, Germany. Here are excerpts from these two historic letters:

Wegner wrote from his home in Berlin to Werfel in Vienna: “When I returned to Berlin from Meran, a few days ago, after a long and serious illness, the first thing my friends told me, and what I read in the newspaper soon after, was: Franz Werfel is writing a novel about the downfall of the Armenian people. I saw, in the eyes of my friends, that they were afraid to upset me with this news, which they didn’t want to keep from me.

You must know dear comrade and master that I myself have been writing a voluminous novel about the fate of the Armenian people. I am surprised that you have not heard of it through my numerous publications, if not otherwise, by my letter to the Prussian Academy of the Arts, Department of Poetry. In the fall of 1930, I set out in more detail the project of my Armenian novel. This letter became the reason that the Academy gave me more support for my work on it. Or, perhaps, because of my writings on Armenia, and the well-known fact, in literary circles, that I was involved with the development of the fate of the Armenian people, inspired you to turn to this huge thing on your own way.

You can justifiably reply that history is the field of every man and artist, and that no one can deny them the opportunity to choose the area for his artistic work that appeals to them and entices them. However, you will understand that the message of your plan filled me with a certain anxiety, when you hear the lifelong attachment of fate between me and the demise of the Armenian people as a human and artistic experience.

It may happen, and it has repeatedly occurred, that two poets simultaneously and independently of each other (or even knowingly) grab the same substance. It happened recently – two dramatists almost concurrently, wrote a play about the Panama Canal (likewise two writers wrote the play The Captain of Köpenick). Such is the misfortune of the one who comes later, even if he is perhaps the stronger artist, and, as a result, the success of his creation suffers. In such a case, it is one work among other of the artist’s works, which he may or may not give up easily. However, sooner or later he must cope with the flop. In my case it is the work of my life.

In the years 1915 to 1917, I was a member of the Turkish Army in Turkey, and became one of the few individual European eyewitnesses to one of the most terrible tragedies of humanity in the course of the millennia – perhaps, only surpassed by the tragedy of World War I, of which it was a part. As my relationship with Armenia goes back to my boyhood days, and my family’s ties to the Middle East have been around for generations, I did not feel caught up in this shattering experience. The first testimonials I wrote were more human than poetic. In the spring of 1919, before the books of Lepsius could appear in open bookshops, Theodor Wolff published, in the Berliner Tageblatt, my then well-known letter to Wilson on the demise of the Armenian people. I am sending you a copy.

(To be continued next week)

A coalition of 20 Armenian-American organizations announced the formation of a “Pan Armenian Council of Western USA” on August 15, 2019.

The coalition members are:

Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America

Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America

Armenian Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Nareg of North America

Armenian Evangelical Union of North America

Armenian Revolutionary Federation of Western USA

Armenian Democratic Liberal Party Western District

Armenian Relief Society of Western USA

Armenian General Benevolent Union, Western District

Armenian Missionary Association of America

Homenetmen Western USA

Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society of the Western USA

Armenian Youth Federation of Western USA

Unified Young Armenians

Armenian National Committee of America Western Region

Armenian Assembly of America Western Region Office

Armenian Bar Association

Organization of Istanbul Armenians

Armenian Youth Association of California

Armenian Society of Los Angeles

Iraki Armenian Family Association of Los Angeles

These are respectable organizations that have carried out admirable work in the Armenian-American community.

The Council announced that “other community organizations which desire to be part of this collective effort and have a minimum of 300 active members are hereby invited to become members of the Council.”

Furthermore, the Council explained that “the advisory nature of this Council and its decisions are not binding on any of its member organizations. Thus, the Council’s existence does not confer upon the Council any authority over the activities of its member organizations.”

The Council stated that its mission is:

 • “To implement and realize projects of a pan-community nature.

 • To encourage and assist projects which advance the collective interests and the rights of Armenian communities across the Western United States.

 • To undertake steps to resist actions and efforts which are contrary to the collective interests and rights of Armenians.

 • To gather and apply the Armenian Community’s resources for the benefit of the Community’s interests as well as the welfare of the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh.

 • To always be mindful of the collective welfare and security of the Armenian Community.”

These are all worthwhile goals for the benefit of the local community as well as the interests of Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora. Anytime Armenians of all walks of life join hands, it is a good thing. As we all know, unity is strength. The more Armenians get organized and speak in one voice, the more powerful they become as a global nation.

The member organizations of the Pan Armenian Council met on August 16, 2019, at the Western Diocese in Burbank, California, and signed a joint statement. Even though the event was publicized as a press conference, no opportunity was provided to the attending journalists to ask questions and clarify certain important issues.

Here are some of the questions I would have liked to raise at that conference:

1) What prompted these organizations to establish such a Council at this time?

2) Prior to the creation or recreation of such a Council, a similar coalition with almost identical membership existed from 2013 to 2015, under the banner of “the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee – Western USA.” Why was the latter disbanded in 2015 and reconstituted now, losing the opportunity for four years of collaborative efforts? As one of the co-chairmen of the Centennial Committee I had repeatedly urged the group not to disband it after the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide in 2015. Furthermore, as I reported in my October 8, 2015 editorial, during the Sept. 26, 2015 worldwide conference of the Armenian Genocide Centennial State Committee in Yerevan, Armenia, with the participation of representatives of Armenian Genocide Committees in 40 countries, a resolution was adopted to form a “Pan Armenian Council” which would supersede the Centennial Committee. An organizing committee was appointed composed of high-ranking Armenian government officials and major Diaspora organizations. Unfortunately, the envisaged Pan Armenian Council did not materialize and the 40 chapters of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee were disbanded.

3) If the purpose of the newly formed Pan Armenian Council is to establish a coalition of Armenian organizations in Western USA, the community already has had such a coalition for a decade, functioning under the banner of “United Armenian Council of Los Angeles” composed of 39 Armenian organizations.

4) The name of the new Pan Armenian Council should have been something like “Coalition of Armenian Organizations of Western USA.” Pan Armenian means that all Armenians in Western USA are members of this Council, whereas only members of certain organizations are represented in it. The great majority of Armenians, who are not members of any organization, are not represented in this Council.

5) Even though two of the three traditional Armenian political parties are in the Council, the third one, the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, for some unknown reason, is not represented in the Council. There are other major Armenian organizations that are not members of the Council, such as the Armenian Professional Society, and Armenian Engineers and Scientists of America. More importantly, the huge community of immigrants from Armenia is not adequately represented in the Council.

Finally, the true Pan Armenian Council or an entity with a similar name should be elected by the votes of all Armenians in the Western USA or throughout the Diaspora, not just by members of several organizations. Only such a democratic entity can claim to represent all Armenians and speak in their name.