On Friday, October 11, Dr. Simon Maghakyan, Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at Fresno State, continued his three-part lecture series. Dr. Maghakyan’s first lecture, presented on September 27, was entitled “The Past of the Past: Armenian Heritage in Ottoman and Republican Turkey,” and his second lecture, on October 11, was entitled “The Present of the Past: The State of Armenian Heritage in Turkey.”
Dr. Maghakyan began his presentation by discussing the works of archaeologists at the University of Münster in Germany and their recent discovery of Armenia’s oldest documented church, dating back to the mid-300s. These archaeologists are working under the Armenian-German Artaxata Project. This specific style of church, an eight-pillared or eight-quartered church, had never been seen before in an early Armenian church and is historically considered one of the earliest forms of Christian architecture.
William Dalrymple, the Scottish author of From The Holy Mountain, wrote in the 1980s about his findings and experiences following the route of the medieval merchant-explorer Marco Polo. In the summer of 1987, Dalrymple was in Eastern Turkey and he wrote about a graveyard of tombstones that he had not noticed before. The Ottoman-Turkish, Armenian, and Greek were all laid next to each other. “But… when I returned the following year the Armenian stones had all disappeared,” wrote Dalrymple. “When I asked the custodian where they had gone, he resolutely denied that any such stones had ever existed.”
In 2003, when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became Prime Minister of Turkey, he established a modern coalition and one of his first acts was renovating the 10th century Holy Cross Church of Aghtamar in Lake Van. It was a successful renovation and was turned into a museum, but only allowing the Armenians to utilize it for a religious service once a year.
Soon after facing political opinions after his decision with Aghtamar and responding to his political survival need of creating a nationalist coalition, a new Erdoğan emerged.
The main thesis of Dr. Maghakyan’s lectures, heritage crime, has been a major issue apparent throughout history. Heritage crime includes looting, vandalism, forgery, and deliberate destruction. Security and autocracy are two major parts of sovereign or state-sponsored heritage crime. Destroying sacred culture doesn’t only demoralize a targeted group; it allows authoritarian perpetrators to claim domestic legitimacy, especially when they openly get away with brazen vandalism.
Kurdish-Turkish writer, Yaşar Kemal, was credited with stopping the destruction of the Holy Cross Church of Aghtamar in the 1950s. In a photo taken by Dr. Maghakyan in an Aghtamar gift shop in Turkey, there is evidence of Kurdish shopkeepers interacting and connecting with Armenians. One of the mini church replicas had a cross on top while others did not, significant because the Turkish government had refused to put a cross at the top of Aghtamar after the renovation. In addition, instead of the Turkish “Akdamar,” it is spelled as “Aghtamar.”
“It’s much more important to try to prevent and stop the destruction that’s happening right now, than to lament the destruction that has already taken place,” said Dr. Maghakyan. One of the most prominent threats to Armenian heritage is looting, as Armenian sites have been targeted for decades. Research on looting has been done by scholars and organizations like Steven Sim, Onder Celik, Anoush Suni, Alice von Bieberstein, Research on Armenian Architecture, the Hrant Dink Foundation, Ara Sarafian/Gomidas Institute, and HAYCAR Association of Architects and Engineers. Natural disasters, hate crimes, and development is-sues have all contributed to the downfall of Armenian heritage. When it comes to hate crimes, the Alevis, Armenian Apostolics/Armenian Catholics, and Protestants are the most attacked in Turkey.
Dr. Maghakyan showed various photos of monasteries and monuments that had been looted and destroyed and showed examples of Armenian stakeholder–prompted efforts of conserving surviving sites in any possible way. Local Armenians visit the remnants of the monastery of Varagavank in hopes of continuing to protect it, as a Kurdish family continues to take care of the monastery. The speaker highlighted the vital work of two individuals – one Armenian and one Turkish.
Ara Sarafian, a UK-based Armenian scholar, shared a Turkish TV promotion video for Turkish Airlines on his social media. In this video, there is an Armenian church that was previously threatened with destruction. Sarafian mentioned there is no fence around the church to limit interaction from cattle and looters. This church is located in a part of Turkey that has been considered very anti-Armenian. Churches like this one are not even recognized as Armenian. There are about four million “treasure hunters” or looters that have taken part in this destruction and researchers like Sarafian have taken it upon themselves to consistently visit Turkey and peacefully discuss with Turkish officials what could be done about this situation.
Osman Kavala, a Turkish philanthropist, is the founder of the nonprofit organization Anadolu Kültür, a leader in attempting to preserve the historic city of Ani. Kavala is now sentenced to life in prison as Erdoğan has declared him to be an enemy of the state. The efforts of his work have been to preserve Armenian culture and even though he is now in prison, his organization is still active and continues to do all they can for the preservation of Armenian heritage in Turkey.
Dr. Maghakyan will conclude his three-part lecture series on Friday, November 8, with his lecture entitled, “The Future of the Past: Pathways for Saving Armenian Vestiges in Turkey.”
“We as researchers, as community members, as stake-holders of this important heritage can have our own impact on saving what remains of Turkey’s material Armenian past,” concluded Dr. Maghakyan.