For Artsakh: A Story of Survival and a Brief History of the Disputed Region
Kevork Chakarian, featured in an issue of The National Geographic, standing in front of his bakery in Aleppo, Syria.
My father tells me that his grandfather ate a quart of yogurt before he went to bed every night and always took him to his haircut appointments. He tells me that his grandfather loved his children. He tells me that my great-grandfather was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide.
Born in 1888, Kevork Chakarian was a soldier prior to the start of the Armenian Genocide. At 27 years old, he was married to his wife, whom he had four children with. As a means of survival, he worked a position for the Turkish Ottoman Army. Upon being told the Ottoman government’s dispositions of Pan-Turkism in the Caucasus, or the political union of all Turkic people, Kevork understood this meant that they would have to eradicate their largest barrier – their neighboring Christian Armenians. Thus, he deserted his post in the army and fled the Turkish gendarmes by night in order to return to his wife and four children at their family home in Kilis, a town once populated by Armenians in what is considered to be present-day Eastern Turkey. He escaped with the notion that since the murders, death marches, and other atrocities had begun in the west and were moving slowly towards the east, he would make it in time to save his family.
I imagine that Kevork felt a sense of urgency in returning home to his family. I imagine he hoped for the best but prepared himself for the worse. Unfortunately, the latter unfolded. Instead of being met with the familiar faces of his wife and children, he returned to an abandoned home, void of any implications of occupancy. What I imagine he considered to be his heart and his home was now missing and empty.
Kevork found his way out. Being near the Syrian border, he and his remaining neighbors fled to the warm hands of the Syrian people. He simultaneously hoped to find that his family had sought refuge there, as well, but to no avail. Kevork found warmth near the oven of a bakery in the city of Aleppo. So long as he worked and baked, the well-intentioned owner of the bakery promised him a place to sleep in the shop and an endless supply of bread to keep his stomach full.
Kevork envisioned reuniting with his family but money stood in his way. His neighbors hinted at the possibility that his wife and children had ended up in Moscow, Russia since another group of the Kilis neighborhood had fled there. Then, there was the other outcome – they were massacred.
Kevork eventually acquired the bakery he had found hope, warmth, and an abundance of bread in. As the excerpt from The National Geographic pictures above shows, he adorned his shop with necklaces and rows of bread and baked goods. He started a new family, never forgetting the possibility that his first wife and children could be out there somewhere. In the late 1950s, after his diligent work and perseverance paid off, his son suggested that they embark on a trajectory to Moscow in an attempt to search for his preceding family. My great-grandfather and grandfather spent months in Moscow with one another, broadcasting ads in papers with their hotel address and additional information. They hoped to meet someone with an ounce of information about his family's whereabouts, but they never heard back. My father relays this story to me now, saying “for Kevork, his family was dead and his heart completely broken.”
Here we are, 105 years after Kevork found refuge in a bakery from Turkey’s atrocities, and Turkey’s ally country, Azerbaijan, is shelling the civilians of Artsakh, otherwise known as Nagorno-Karabakh. Artsakh is a landlocked, indigenous Armenian region, and is the historic tenth province of fifteen in the Kingdom of Armenia. In 1921, the Caucasian Bureau of the Russian Communist Party Central Committee established that Artsakh would join Armenia; however, the next day, Stalin intervened, deciding, without any votes, that Artsakh would become appended to the newly established Soviet Azerbaijan. This arrangement was profoundly opposed and contested by the 95% Armenian population who called Artsakh their home and felt their culture and very being would be compromised by Azerbaijani policies. After the final dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Artsakh’s Armenians fought for independence, as they wanted to reunite with Armenia. With growing opposition from Azerbaijan, Artsakh became a de facto republic or an autonomous region. Due to political incentives, however, Artsakh is internationally considered as a region belonging to Azerbaijan. Despite how understandable these descriptions may seem, the escalating situation over the disputed region is not so simple, as each party defends its own.
The war over Artsakh officially began in 1991, with a ceasefire put in effect in 1994 by the OSCE Minsk Group. Until 2016, the ceasefire was generally respected, until April 2nd of the year, when Azerbaijan led a large-scale offensive along the line of contact, leading to the Four-Day War. A senior member of the US State Department stated that there was “an estimated 350 casualties including civilians,” as a result of the oppositions.
In July of 2020, Azerbaijan launched a military offense on Artsakh’s town of Tavush, targeting a school, homes, and a textile factory producing face coverings, under the cover of a global pandemic.
On the morning of September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan opened fire on Artsakh’s capital, Stepanakert, killing twenty, including 18 soldiers, a woman, and two children, and wounding hundreds of others. These numbers continue to rise. Turkey is sending mercenaries from Syria and military aid to assist in the attacks upon Artsakh’s Armenian civilians. Volunteers and members from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation along with Armenian’s over the world are enlisting to proceed to the frontlines alongside the Armenian Army.
As these tensions escalate and attacks threaten to become a full-blown war, it is important to reflect on the deeply rooted intentions of each side. Azerbaijan’s ally is Turkey, a country whose leaders perpetrated the Armenian Genocide of 1915, murdering 1.5 million Armenians as a measure in attempting to accomplish their desires of Pan-Turkism across the Caucusus. After Azerbaijan’s attack in July of 2020, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey referred to “brother Azerbaijan” in a press conference, stating that, “We will continue this mission, which our grandfathers have carried out for centuries, in the Caucasus again” (Defend Armenia) suggesting the notion of Pan-Turkism and the annihilation of Armenians in Artsakh. This statement should not be taken lightly, as a leader of a country is threatening the obliteration of an entire ethnic group. Similar anti-Armenian sentiment is on the rise across the globe, with the Grey Wolves of Turkey taking to the streets earlier in 2020 and chanting, “Death to Armenians.” On the other hand, Armenia is defending themselves and their rightful lands. Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island issued a statement that “Armenians have a right to defend themselves when attacked” (Armenian Assembly). As the conflict progresses, both sides will face extensive damage and loss of human life, but it is only one country’s goal to entirely exterminate the other. Armenia is persisting toward survival, for their inalienable right to unobstructedly live on and govern their indigenous land.
This matter isn’t a mere “clash” between two neighboring, feuding countries with a tumultuous past. This isn’t a crisis that can be de-escalated by tweets “urging both sides to resort to peaceful negotiations.” This isn’t a political essay, either. This is an indication that there is a human rights crisis occurring in a foreign land that you have probably never heard of. This is a reminder that silence allows history to repeat itself. We are seeing the very consequences of silence unfold in front of our eyes.
To the international community: I know Artsakh seems to be some kind of a mythical, faraway land ridden by war. I know you may have never been aware of Artsakh’s very existence before this. I know this may seem too foreign for your perception. I know you may not care. So, let me offer you images of Artsakh’s children, who speak and sing the Armenian language and dance to Armenian music. They are the embodiments of their family members lost in decades of attacks and war.
Images of Artsakh’s churches, cultural centers, and surreal landscapes. They are an embodiment of a tenacious, unrivaled culture.
Let me remind you that this faraway place is not as distant as you may think. Artsakh is an embodiment of endurance and viability. Like my great-grandfather who kneaded the story of survival with his fists, I will continue to do the same with my pen, for Artsakh is, was, and forever will be Armenia.
