Part 1

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ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE

OR

The Story of Armenia

BY AN ARMENIAN

A description of the land of Armenia: its ancient and modern history; its physical features; its people, their religious beliefs, customs, etc., from the oldest dates, as recorded in Armenian Histories and Church Records. A presentation of the true causes of the recent atrocities and a detailed account of the massacres.

By Rev. George H. Filian

A native pastor, banished by the Turkish Government from the City of Marsovan, Armenia

HARTFORD, CONN. AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 1896

DEDICATION

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE MARTYRS OF ARMENIA WHO SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES FOR CHRIST THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

CONTENTS.

I. PAGE.

The Land of Armenia, 21

II.

The People of Armenia, 39

III.

The Armenian Dynasties, 45

IV.

Rulers of The Ottoman Empire, 132

V.

The Great Powers and The Armenian Question, 175

VI.

The Causes of the Atrocities, 217

VII.

The Turkish Atrocities in Armenia, 239

VIII.

The Armenians of To-Day, 334

IX.

The Future of Armenia and the Battle of Armageddon, 350

X.

Poems on the Armenian Question, 362

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FACE PAGE Portrait of Armenian Catholicos, 1 Portrait of Author, 12 City of Antioch, 17 Map of Armenia, 21 Mount Ararat, 23 Kurdish Bandits, 35 Oriental Threshing Floor, 35 Armenian Flags--Coats of Arms, 45 Lake and City of Van, 49 Oldest Church Edifice in the World, 101 Portrait of Armenian Patriarch, 108 Recent Portrait of Sultan of Turkey, 139 Early Portrait of Sultan of Turkey, 143 A Bread Seller, 166 A Zeibeck, 166 A Softa, 166 Group of Circassians, 217 Group of Georgians, 217 Kurdish Home, 239 Kurd Chiefs, 239 Kurd Woman, 239 Massacre at Sassoun, 247 Massacre at Erzeroum, 247 Massacre at Stamboul, 257 City of Harpoot, 264 Armenian Peasant Girl, 272 Mousa Beg, Kurd Chief, 272 Rev. Prof. Thourmain, 272 City of Marsovan, 280 A Water Peddler, 280 City of Trebizond, 300 Group of Armenian Children, 319 Group of Young Armenian Women, 319 Anatolia College, 335 Armenian Family, 335

PREFACE.

The problem of Armenia and the Turkish atrocities there, is in the very forefront of the world's burning questions at the present time. In every civilized land it is ranked alongside their own pressing local issues; everywhere there is not only sympathy and indignation, but a feeling of real responsibility. We are a group of Christian nations, and the first Christian nation is being exterminated. Within a few months the unspeakable Turks and barbarous Kurds destroyed more than a thousand villages and towns, murdered a hundred thousand Armenian Christians,--men, women, and innocent children,--and left 500,000 others without homes, clothing, or food, thousands of women shamefully defiled, and thousands of men put to horrible tortures. Dying in the streets, in the fields, on the mountains; dying of hunger, of cold, of storm, and of diseases bred of all these; dying of broken hearts and despair, even more, of shame and mental torture. Yet all these Armenians who thus suffered and were driven forth to starve and die like deserted animals, were absolutely peaceable,--indeed, they were totally unarmed and could not have been otherwise if they wished,--perfectly respectable, most of them comfortably off, and some of them rich. One who was last week a banker is to-day a beggar; yesterday a merchant, to-day a tramp. Why? For the main reason that he is a Christian, and the Sultan has resolved to have no more Christians in his dominion; the doom of Islamism is hanging over their heads. "If you accept Islam," they are told, "well and good; if you do not, you shall be killed--or worse--as your fellows have been."

These are all facts, proved to superfluity, though the Sultan denies them and instructs his ministers everywhere to deny them. How often has the Turkish minister in Washington, Mavroyeni Beg, officially (?) declared the Armenian atrocities to be fiction, giving the papers lying statements (which come from the Sublime Porte), and asserted that the Armenians were the aggressors! It is precisely as though one should account for a devastated sheepfold, with the wolves raging about in it, by alleging that the lambs had wantonly assailed and slain the wolves first. Some pretended to believe this rubbish; but most people, to their credit, are only the more angered and disgusted by it. The Turkish proverbs, occasionally good, are generally evil,--a significant index to the race; one of the commonest is this: "Yalan yigitin kullesi dir" (A lie is the fortress of the brave). Kill, plunder, ravish, and then deny it; not simply deny it, but charge those very things to your enemy, and make them an excuse for all you do to him or his. Such are the principles of the Sultan, the false successor of the false prophet of Arabia. At the very time when noble American and European Christians are sending help to the survivors of his massacres, to the half-million homeless, naked, starving, heart-broken beggars he has made from prosperous citizens, he coolly denies that anything has happened but the putting down of a few local riots. He writes to Queen Victoria sympathizing with her expressions of humane sentiment, but declaring that the reports were invented by evil-disposed persons; that on the exact contrary, it was the Turks who were first attacked while praying in the mosques. He assures the Queen that his measures have succeeded in restoring order.

And this same Sultan a few months ago, before the greatest of the recent massacres, wrote to Lord Salisbury as follows:--"Take the words of my honor, I will make reforms in Armenia. I will keep before me every article of the desired reforms, and will order the governors of the provinces to carry them into effect." He at once began to put this pledge of his "honor" into effect, by sending orders from Yildiz Kiosk to the provincial governors in Armenia to root out or convert the accursed infidels. Since that promise of his "honor" months have passed away; and during the time at least eighty thousand more Armenian Christians have been killed, and even death has been the most merciful "reform" he has bestowed on the land. The word in his mouth means beggaring, burning, ravaging, violating, mutilating, torturing, and assassinating. When all the leading Armenians are slain and their helpless families forced to become Mohammedans, after the women have been dishonored,--in a word, when all the Armenian Christians are exterminated, then Armenia will have been reformed. A special chapter is devoted to the person and doings of this eminent reformer.

THE AUTHOR.

A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND BIRTHPLACE.

I was born January 20, 1853, in a suburb of Antioch; twelfth child and youngest son of a family of nine boys and four girls, and therefore considered the Joseph of the family, and as a small boy went to a missionary school with my elder brothers. My father was a banker and merchant. His partner in the former business was Mr. Edward Barker, English consul at Aleppo; in the latter a Greek, Jabra Antaki, their traffic being in raw silk, for which and for silk-worms Antioch is a great center. Millions of dollars passed through his hands, and he was considered one of the wealthiest men in the city. A common saying was, "If you can drain the Mediterranean dry, you can drain Filian's money dry." This saying roused the cupidity of the local governor; he imprisoned my father, and proposed to torture and kill him, and confiscate his property. Americans would relish living under this sort of government. His partner, the consul, saved him, however, and won his undying gratitude; and when Mr. Barker died, my father gave his son a part of his own orchard for a burial ground. The son erected a beautiful $25,000 monument there, which still stands, the ground being owned by my brother, Moses Filian.

When I was fourteen or fifteen, my father lost all his money through the failure of others, became hopelessly bankrupt, and was too old to regain his position, and sank into a poor and broken-hearted old man: his Mediterranean was not inexhaustible. He often patted me and said, "My dear boy, I am sorry--I helped your brothers and gave them good educations, and I meant to do the same by you; but I cannot, for I am too poor. You will have to make your own way." He was a devoted friend of education, himself highly educated, master of three languages,--Armenian, Arabic, and Turkish,--and of strong reasoning powers, logical, imaginative, profound, and far-sighted. Moreover, he was a zealous Christian, greatly respected and liked. In person he was tall, and very stout, with large, bright eyes, and full, rosy cheeks; built like my great-grandfather, from whose elephantine figure the family took its surname. Filian means "Son of an elephant," and his descendants--about 150 in all, one of the largest single families in the Orient--have been mostly large-framed men and women.

At about fifteen I had to go to work. One of my brothers being a weaver, I learned that trade from him, and kept at it for three years, weaving both cotton and silk, and not only supporting myself, but helping support my father. Then I took up shoemaking, which paid better, but neither my father nor myself was satisfied to have me remain a common workman. He wanted me to become a banker and merchant, as he had been, and his old friends, who respected him, would have given me a chance to start; but I had always been devout from a little boy, and felt that I had a call to be a minister. While making shoes, I prayed the Lord to open the way. I often thought, "Suppose I become the richest shoemaker or even the richest banker in Antioch, what then? Shall I ever be happy? No. Then Lord, what is my call?" I believed I heard the answering voice of God in my soul saying, "I have created thee to become a minister of the gospel." So I went to a missionary of the American Board in Antioch, and consulted him; by his encouragement I went to the Theological Seminary at Marash, in Armenia Minor, and studied there three years in the preparatory course.

Before taking my theological lessons I was sent by the missionaries to Caesarea (Kayserieh) to teach in a town near by. On reaching the city the pastor of the Protestant Church invited me to preach to his congregation the following Sunday morning. I did so; the missionaries heard me, changed their minds, said I was better fitted for a preacher than a teacher, and sent me to preach at a village named Chomakli, near Mt. Argaeus. The Lord seemed to fill me with eloquence, and crowds flocked to hear me. Then the missionaries called me to a larger field, Talas, their central town; the same fortune attended me there, and steadily followed me in the other places to which I went. I will not make a long story of it. Enough to say that I always felt utterly helpless before preaching, empty of matter and words; I went to my room and cried to my Heavenly Father, and always overflowed with things to say when the time came. There was no limit to my imagination; illustrations thronged upon me by hundreds; I felt inspired from Heaven. I never wrote a sermon before preaching it, but wrote it down literally as soon as I had finished.--I wrote every Monday.--And they are all ready to be published in both Armenian and Turkish.

I was a successful preacher, but I had no theological education (though I studied my Bible hard), and felt that I needed one. I decided to go to America for it, but the missionaries opposed the plan bitterly. One of the ladies told me plainly it was a sin; that I had no right to give up a successful and useful ministry to go there. I replied that giving up the ministry would be a sin, but not going away to prepare for higher usefulness, and coming back to carry it out. Then she said I had no money to go, and did not understand English. I answered that I had faith that God would create the means. She laughingly bade me give her best regards to her friends when I came. She meant it for a joke, but I carried it out in earnest.

How I finally came to this country would take too long to tell. I will only say that I crossed the ocean by faith. When I reached New York in July, 1879, I had only 15 cents in my pocket. I worked hard day and night in a rag felt factory in the Bowery, and slept on the rags on the floor, covering myself with a piece of flannel. But the Lord opened the way. I went to Oberlin, Ohio, and studied there, supporting myself by sawing wood for the professors of the Theological Seminary. In six months I could talk English well enough to lecture, and after that time I supported myself by lecturing. Finally I was sent to Nebraska as a home missionary during the summer vacation. On my return I entered the Chicago Theological Seminary, and graduated there in 1882, after which I lectured rather widely through the country. Then I went home, and for a time was pastor of the Constantinople Evangelical Armenian Church. Later I had a call from Marsovan, accepted it, and had so large a congregation there that a church with a capacity of 2,000 was needed. I returned to this country, raised the money, left it in a Chicago bank (where it still lies in trust), and went back to build the church. That very success aroused the jealousy of some wicked men, and they falsely charged me with being the leader of the revolutionary societies in Turkey. On this charge I was banished, and now I am here again,--free and happy with my family, but full of sorrow for my dear people daily martyred by the Turks.

ANTIOCH.

The city of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, (Acts xi. 26.) was built by Seleucus Nicator, 300 B.C., and enlarged by Antiochus Epiphanes. All the civilized world was then under Roman rule; Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem were the leading cities. Jerusalem being a Jewish city, and Rome being a Roman heathen city, there was no room in either to preach the gospel freely; nor indeed in any other--the disciples were persecuted and martyred everywhere. There was just one exception--the city of Antioch; that was as free as any American city is to-day. This arose from the fact that when in the Asiatic campaign of Pompey the Great, he came about 65 B.C. to Antioch, he was received by the people with great honors; and was so charmed with the city, and his treatment, that he made it an absolutely free city for all, for every nation and for every religion, and the Roman emperors continued its privileges. When Stephen was martyred in Jerusalem the disciples were scattered; some of them reached Antioch, 300 miles north, and began to preach freely, making many converts. Barnabas was in Jerusalem, but hearing of his brethren's success, he also went to Antioch and began to preach; as he was a great orator, full of enthusiasm and faith, thousands were converted. But he was not satisfied. Crossing the Bay of Iskenderoon, about eighty miles off, he went to Tarsus, where Paul, now a convert, was living, and induced Paul to return with him to Antioch that they might preach the gospel together.

Only scholars have any idea of the greatness and beauty of Antioch at this time; it was second only to Rome, and was the second largest city in the world, with nearly a million people; so rich and luxurious as to be called the Golden City; so lovely and architecturally imposing as to be called the Queen City. The finest street ran east and west for several miles; it was of great width, paved from end to end with vari-colored marble blocks, and with marble pillars on both sides along its whole extent, on which were magnificent marble palaces of the Roman officers. In that same grand avenue were theaters, singers of both sexes, fortune-tellers, great heathen orators and philosophers, and throngs of people passing along. Paul and Barnabas stood on the marble pavement month after month for a year, full of the Holy Ghost, and proclaimed the everlasting gospel. Crowds gathered to hear them; even the officers and their wives, stretching their heads from the windows of their palaces, listened to them; they gained disciples from every rank for Christ and His religion, and the converts there first received the name of Christians.

This was my birthplace and my relatives still live there. Since the time of Christ and his disciples, Antioch has been ten times destroyed by earthquakes. In the fourth century the whole city was destroyed, and 250,000 people were buried under the ruins. That beautiful street and its magnificent palaces are now buried two or three yards below the surface of the ground. In 1872, when I was there, an earthquake destroyed the whole city, and almost in a moment several thousand people perished. Several of my own relatives and many of my friends were killed. The city has now only 25,000 people, most of them Mohammedan Turks. There are many Fellahin, and perhaps 2,000 Greeks, and 500 Armenians, but in the suburbs the Armenians are more numerous, and are the intellectual heads of the whole.

Antioch is still a beautiful and stately city, and a great center for licorice, raw silk, wheat, and soap. The finest soap is manufactured there. About thirty factories make it, from pure olive oil and daphne oil, the latter giving it a sweet fragrance. The daphne groves are very numerous. The city has excellent orchards and vineyards, orange trees, olive trees, fig trees, yeniduinya trees, palm trees, pomegranate trees. All sorts of fruits, in every season of the year, are fresh on the branches. But for occasional earthquakes, it would be a queen city yet; none could surpass its beauty or fruitfulness.

GEORGE H. FILIAN.

Translation of a letter (see opposite page) written in 1842 by the District Catholicos at city of Sis to Kevork Filian (father of the author) in Antioch:

+------------+ | Red Seal | | of | | Catholicos.| +------------| +--------------+ | Symbol in | +--------------+ | colors | | Symbol in | | representing | | colors | | an Altar. | | representing | +--------------+ | the name | Michael Catholicos, The servant of Jesus Christ | Jesus Christ.| by the grace of our Lord, the supreme father of +--------------+ all Armenians who live in Great Seleucia. I the servant of St. Gregory's right hand and most Holy throne of the Holy Mother Church. Greetings of love and blessings upon my spiritual son Kevork Filian esteemed and honored and to all who belong to his family, perpetual happiness through Jesus Christ.

Honorable Gentleman. You will be informed through my letter of spiritual greetings and blessings that truly and earnestly, more than a father, I am willing to bestow upon you my blessings and praises, and in order to show my respect practically, I feel it my duty to thank you for your hospitality, when I came to your blessed home, as a spiritual father, where I was entertained and received proper honors. The Lord bless your valuable soul and keep you prosperous and happy through the mediation of Jesus and St. Gregory. The Lord give you and to all those who belong to you, power and ability in doing good. For a long time I have desired to send to you this letter of blessing; but I have not been able. Now I am glad to send to you one of my spiritual sons Rev. Sarkis Vartabed (a preacher). When he comes he will see your good deeds and enjoy your hospitality. May 4. 1842.

AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION.

The author feels that it is due to both his Armenian readers and himself to explain why, in some points, he has deviated alike from the Armenian historians and his own conviction. It is because on these points, the Armenian records are in irreconcilable conflict with those of Rome or Persia, or both, and in a book mainly for Anglo-Saxon readers it is not possible to defy the general consensus of western scholarship, which, in my judgment, has not given proper weight to Armenian sources. I will specify only two or three items; if my Armenian friends notice other contradictions of their accepted history they will be safe in setting them down to the same cause.

It is a commonplace of Armenian history that St. Gregory, the Illuminator, the Christianizer of Armenia, was the son of Anag, the murderer of King Chosroes (see page 72) born about the time of the murder, and made himself the companion of Chosroes' son, Tiridates, partly in order to atone for his father's crime. I am very reluctant to omit this fact; but the birth of Gregory and the death of Ardashir will not fit according to western dates, though they are coherent from Armenian.

I have also given twenty years' rule and a good character to King Artavasdes, who reigned three and was a coward.

Most unwillingly of all, I have changed a very full and eulogistic account of Moses Khorenatzi, the great national historian of Armenia, for a meager and depreciating one. That he lived in the fifth century and wrote as an eye and ear witness, instead of being a not wholly veracious compiler of two centuries later, and that his history is sound and consistent, is my firm belief. That his work is better known than all other Armenian works together, and is the one native book that has become a standard western classic, shows the powerful genius of the man.

GEORGE H. FILIAN.

I.

THE LAND OF ARMENIA.

PHYSICAL FEATURES.