Dr. Parmelee's Comments on some Euphrates College Profs and their Fate during the Armenian Genocide

A good quality photograph of seven Armenian Professors on the faculty of Euphrates College, Kharpert city during the Genocide has been located. It fits perfectly a textual commentary encountered at the Hoover Institution Archives. The commentary, missing the photograph to which it referred, had been typed by Ruth A. Parmelee, M.D. who worked in Harpoot and Mezreh as a medical missionary at the time of the Genocide. Six professors referred to in the missing photograph ended up dead either by direct `murder' or by `privations brought on by maltreatment.' Only one was `the sole survivor of the group.' The chance encounter of a temporarily disconnected photograph that allowed a match up with this existing, but similarly `disconnected caption,' is a good example of `rejoining' of `mates.' They have finally, to adopt a turn of phrase used by Armenian villagers of the region and period, `found each other again.'

The main title of this paper is not an error. Normally one tries to provide a reliable caption for a photograph. Here the situation is the other way around. In this note we report locating a photograph that matches a description. The two separated items are once more connected.

A number of years ago while we were working at the Hoover Institution Archives on the Stanford University campus we came across in the papers of Ruth A. Parmelee, M.D. an undated, 2-page much-faded typed copy of what clearly was a commentary about a photograph. A handwritten note in the upper left hand corner of the loose `commentary' asked `Where photo?' Apparently the photograph had become separated from the typed text (which incidentally, had a few corrections by hand). The location today of that photograph at the Hoover Institution Archives [ 3 ] or elsewhere is not a matter of immediate concern here. Perhaps the `Parmelee copy' will be encountered one day while someone is working there. No matter.

Recently we published an article on Groong entitled Filling in the Picture: Postscript to a Description of the Well-Known 1915 Photograph of Armenian Men of Kharpert Being Led Away under Armed Guard. This `Postscript' paper was intended to supplement a contribution written some time ago, but only recently published as `Achieving ever-greater precision in attestation and attribution of genocide photographs.' The title of the volume in which `Achieving ever-greater...' appears is The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks. Studies on the State Sponsored Campaign of Extermination of the Christians of Asia Minor (1912-1922) and its Aftermath: History, Law, Memory. Tessa Hofmann, Matthias Bjørnlund and Vaseileios Meichanetsidis are the editors. The publisher is Caratzas. [ 4 ]

Production of substantial, multi-contributor volumes like The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks... frequently takes a long while from time contributions are submitted to their ultimate appearance in print. When the release date of the volume was announced, we thought it would be useful to draw the attention of Groong's readership to it, and simultaneously make known our paper in it. Indeed, our work deals mainly with Armenian Genocide-related imagery. Another objective was to bring our `Achieving ever-greater precision in attestation and attribution...' article up-to-date. See http://groong.usc.edu/orig/ak-20110613.html

We presented additional evidence that applies directly to the photograph of `Kharpert men under arrest.' The `new' details were taken from a report submitted by Ruth A. Parmelee, M.D. to Dr. James L. Barton of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the ABCFM in Boston on her return to the United States from Harpoot in 1917. [ 5 ]

Very briefly, Dr. Parmelee described a bit of the story as it applied to some middle age and old Armenian men who had been arrested in Harpoot city, and were being taken to jail in the lower twin city of Mezreh on July 8, 1915. The excerpt from her typed commentary fits the photograph perfectly. [ 6 ]

The above is related here as background. Now to the main subject of this note on Dr. Parmelee and her commentary on `seven Harpoot Professors' as it relates to a specific photograph.

Some years have passed since we began studies on various Ruth Parmelee-related materials in various locations. We encountered a document, a commentary if you will, in the Hoover Institution Archives. At the time we mentally filed it as a `caption in search of a photograph.' In the course of consulting our files and notes for the Postscript article to Groong we encountered our photocopy of the `caption in search of a photograph' document. We had forgotten about it.

The document is clearly about seven Armenian professors of Euphrates College, six of whom had lost their lives during the Armenian Genocide. When we first came across the commentary, we thought we knew the photograph to which it must refer. So it was and indeed still is, but, as usual, there is more to the story.

Dr. Parmelee's commentary relating to our now-found `missing' photograph follows, but before we can read it in proper context, in juxtaposition so to speak, we provide a large size copy of the photograph (Figure 1). Immediately following Figure 1 we show Figure 1a. This is the same photograph except the Armenian script in Figure 1 is now replaced with English spellings. Hopefully the two images will enable one to avoid confusion as to who is who. (Parenthetically, the spellings adopted may not be flawless but we have attempted to use what appears to have been adopted by the professors, at least at one time or another.)

To begin with, we should say a bit about the photographer(s), the Soursourians. Askanaz and Haroutune Soursourian were brothers. Each had a family and they lived in Hussenig, a large village at the base of Kharpert city which was predominantly populated by Armenians. Interestingly, there is a photograph of the two brothers in a group of men in `The Armenian National School Library Committee of Hussenig in 1898' (see Deranian 1994 pg. 69). [ 7 ]

In that photograph, the two brothers look fully adult but are still young men. The two certainly look like brothers. They learned photography in Tiflis, Russia [Georgia]. They reputedly prepared their own glass plates and printing papers as well (fide Aharonean and Tashjian in Hiwseynik 1965). [ 8 ] Perhaps more importantly, they were the only photographers in the entire `state' of Kharpert. (One wonders who took the group photograph in which the two brothers are seated - perhaps an assistant?) Although the Soursourians lived in Hussenig, they are not listed in the two important village histories of that place as among the oldest prominent families. Indeed, their surname suggests their familial roots were in the village of Sorsoreh (Soursour, Sursuri) [fide e.g. pg. 226 of Teodik's Goghgota hay..., 1985 [ 9 ]] very near Kharpert city.

About five years ago, we encountered an old photograph taken by the Soursourians. The photograph, the backside which need only concern us here, bore the date `1874' and the notation `A. & H. Soursourian' [ 10 ] They announced themselves as at `Harpouth.' [the Armenian type states `Kharput']. The photo card to which the photograph of the couple is attached further states `HARPOUH UPRATES COLLEGE' (see Figure 2).

Spelling errors and peculiarities aside, the Soursourian family seems to have had a rather long association with photography by the time the 1912 collage of the Euphrates professors was made. (Our guess is that the men in the `Committee' photograph do not look old enough to have been in business since 1874. This suggests that a relative, perhaps their father or Uncle started the `business.') Whether use of `Uprates College' [read Euphrates] suggests they might have been `semi-official photographers' at the College, or otherwise directly or indirectly associated with it has not been evident, even after consulting, albeit admittedly quickly, copies of Pilibbosian's 1942 work Memoranda of Euphrates College [ 11 ] and Nazaret Piranean's Kharberdi Egherne [The Crime at Kharpert (1937) [ 12 ]]. But as we have mentioned, the Soursourians were nominally the only professional photographers in the area. The College would not have had much of a choice it seems.[13]

So far as the place-name of Kharpert being spelled or transliterated into Harpouth, it will be known by some that spellings like Harpoot, Kharpoot, Kharput, Harpout, Kharpout, Harpouth(e), Kharpouthe, Kharperd etc. became commonplace through the writings of those like the American missionaries and other missionaries and still others who were not missionaries who entered the region from the early to mid-1800s onwards. For the Turkish government at that time, Harput was how the name was spelled in Latin script, and still is. Harput was also the preferred spelling of the nominal location of the United States Consulate (actually it was in the lower city, Mamuret ul-Aziz, Mezre or Mezreh, the provincial capital). [ 14 ]

Even so, there seems to have been considerable flexibility among those writing from, to, or about the region. The early Congregationalist missionaries from America knew, of course, that the general native pronunciation of Harpoot (Har-poot) started with a guttural H (for Kh) (see pg. 5 of The Missionary Herald Vol. 72 January (1876). The spelling with an `H' has been, of course, retained, but the early reminder that the word was to be pronounced by non-native speakers starting with a guttural sound, seems to have gotten lost over time.

Only passing mention will be made here of the date 1912. It appears that the faculty (or College Administration) did not feel it necessary to spend time or money having portrait photographs taken on a regular, say annual, basis. We have come to this conclusion because in a number of collage photographs of the faculty that we have had access to, and which bear dates from 1908 to 1914, some of the same photographs have been used! [ 15 ]

Efforts to examine each of the photographs in micro detail have not been made but the following might be of some interest should an in-depth comparison be undertaken. Donabed Garabed Lulejian was, according to his records at Cornell University, born on January 2, 1875. He gave his `guardian' as Garabed Lulejian, Pharmacy Ottoman, Harpoot, Turkey in Asia. We place `guardian in single quotes since on his immigration record at Ellis Island he declared himself both a teacher and married man; his wife's name was given as `Yeghsa' [Elizabeth]. He appears to have had more photographs taken of himself and family than any of the other professors, so there are more extant photographs of him to evaluate when they might have been taken, and thereby at least come up with some rankings so far as `older' versus `younger' are concerned.

In any case, one should not be surprised that the technique of `cut and paste' has been a part of photography for many years. But we also again emphasize that our purpose here has been on matching a specific commentary with a specific photograph, not to date exactly when the constituent photographs were taken.

There is no doubt that Dr. Parmelee typed the `caption without a photograph' commentary. When she wrote it is unknown. However, it must have been written after 1917 since Professor Lulejian did not die of typhus in Erzerum until March of that year and news was not immediately forthcoming of his death. (It should also be emphasized that Dr. Parmelee was still in Harpoot at that time, indeed until spring, - she left with Consul Davis and others on 17 May 1917. Dr. Parmelee may have even heard of Professor Lulejian's death by the grapevine so to say.) The least we can say is that her commentary was more than likely no earlier than mid to late 1917. [ 16 ]

Dr. Parmelee was not the best of typists (our personal observation and assessment from having seen many of her papers) and her hand corrections to `typos' and editing are easily confirmable by comparing handwriting in her diary and the handwritten part of the report she submitted to Dr. James L. Barton and so on. [ 17 ]

It will be immediately apparent on reading the commentary that for some reason or other Dr. Parmelee did not provide specific names of the professors. As will be seen from Figure 1 they are all labeled in Armenian. (What this indicates or suggests we leave for others to decide. It may well be that her commentary was only a draft? Or, she might have been following the convention then in place of not providing names so as to `protect' family etc. If that was the case, then she would have been typing that commentary fairly soon after her return to the United States?) [ 18 ]

Whatever the reason why Dr. Parmelee's commentary lacks identifications, we have added them in English in brackets to her text to indicate that we have added them and in boldface as well for emphasis. Figure 1a also has the identifications superimposed on the photograph in English.

`When the Turkish Government began to carry out its plan of exterminating the Armenian race, the educated and influential men of the community received first attention. In May, 1915, a number of Armenians were imprisoned in the city of Harpoot, among whom were priests and merchants and five of the professors of Euphrates College. Their houses were searched for papers that might incriminate them in some revolutionary plot, and they themselves were cruelly tortured, to extract confessions of hidden fire-arms or the preparation of bombs.'

`The upper right hand professor in the group [Nigohos Tenekejian, Professor of History and Ottoman Literature, [Osmaniyan badmoutiun in Armenian] [ 19 ] had served the college for thirty five years and had shown some special talent and tact in representing the interests of the Americans and his own people to the Government. He never had shown the least disloyalty toward the rulers. Nothing could be proved against him at this time, but after most severe tortures (pulling out of hairs of head and beard, hanging by arms, beating) he was sent out with his companions, bound together and under strong guard, and killed on the road. Of this man's family only one daughter escaped. The two older sons were among twelve hundred Armenian soldiers (serving in the Turkish army) who were starved for some days and sent out to be murdered in cold blood. The wife and the younger children were exiled and never heard from again.

`The left hand man in the lowest row [Donabed Garabed Loulejian, (Biology; Botany and Zoology)] [ 20 ] was beaten until unconscious and then thrown into a foul-smelling closet. The Turkish mayor [ 21 ] himself took a hand at the beating. After some weeks of imprisonment, some favorable influence resulted in his being taken to a Turkish military hospital. After recovery from the results of his tortures, he remained in hiding until opportunity was offered of escaping on foot through the mountains into Russia. He was a great help in relief work for the destitute Armenians in the Caucasus [specifically Erzerum] until his death from typhus fever.

`The one in the center of the group [Garabed Soghigian, (Armenian Language)] [ 22 ] also died of disease, after obtaining release from prison by paying large bribes.

`The right hand professor in the middle row [Mugurdich Vorperian, (Professor of the Preparatory Department, Religion)] [ 23 ] did not suffer imprisonment but was exiled with his family in a company of rich people who were promised very safe conduct. They were robbed of all their possessions and after a few days' travel, the men were separated from the women, to be taken to their slaughter. When asked for his thirteen year old daughter by a Turkish officer the Professor replied that he should prefer death for himself and her, to a marriage to a Mohammedan Turk. The beautiful girl was kidnapped by the officer, but the father died for his principles, being taken out and killed with all the men of their company. The son of this professor [Mooshek Vorperian] had his life saved through the influence of the above-mentioned Turkish officer and later escaped into Russia and thence to the United States. His story has been recently printed in a well-known magazine. [ 24 ]

`Of these seven professors, then, four were murdered [Khachadour Nahigian, Hovhannes Boujicanian, Nigoghos Tenekejian, Mugurdich Vorperian ] and two died of disease after having suffered the tortures and discomforts of the Turkish prison [Garabed M. Soghigian and Donabed Garabed Loulejian]. Four of these men had taken post-graduate work in Yale [Donabed Garabed Loulejian, M.S. degree, 1911], Cornell [courses taken as a special student fall of 1909 and spring 1910 by Garabed Donabed Lulejian sic!], Michigan [Khachadour Nahigian], Princeton [Mugurdich Vorperian] and Edinburgh Universities [Hovhannes Boujicanian]. The only charge against them was their education.

`The seventh man [Samuel Khachadourian, Professor of Music [ 25 ] (left hand lower corner) is the sole survivor of the group. He had studied music in Germany and seemed to find favor with the Turkish authorities.'[ 26 ]

Again, we emphasize that Dr. Parmelee did not provide names in English of any of the professors. Moreover, two of them seem, again somehow or other, to have been neglected in her commentary. Nevertheless, she did count them among the four murdered! Figure 1 shows at the upper left, unmentioned, Khachadour Nahigian (Professor of Mathematics, ousoghoutiun in Armenian) and middle left figure of unmentioned Professor Hovhannes Boujikanian (Professor of Ethics and Philosophy, pareyakhosoutiun in Armenian).

All the names are provided, of course, in Armenian script on the Figure 1 photograph, as is a `one liner' of what discipline they were `professors.' We have, however, added in Figure 1a their names in English. We have also added a bit more about what the professors specialized in, i.e. additional to that provided in the Armenian. (Parenthetically, the teaching staff of Euphrates College of course included Armenians who were not full `professors.' Many non-professorial `faculty' and `staff' lost their lives in the Genocide as well through murder or in forced `deportation' or exile. [ 27 ]

One point made by Dr. Parmelee about Music Professor Samuel Khachadourian, the sole survivor among the professors, needs clarification. Since we have not done the required research to know whether he really survived or survived temporarily, we hesitate to sound definitive. President Ernest W. Riggs put it this way: `Professor `F.' Served College for over 15 years, studied in Stuttgart and Berlin, professor of music. Escaped arrest and torture, and thus far escaped exile and death, because of favor with the Kaimakam secured by personal services rendered.' Just what the personal services were, remains unclear. He may have given the Kaimakam's children free music lessons!? President Riggs mentions that two Armenian male Instructors at the College were `free'; one because he did cabinet work for the Kaimakam, the other because he was owner of the house occupied by the Kaimakam.) It did not then, as today, `hurt' to have `friends' in high places! How long it `really' helped is another matter.)

As is evident from our postings on Groong, our prime objective has been to ferret out persecution-related photographs and to examine as wide a range as possible of textual materials that can shed specific light on them. Until now, many photographs relating to the Armenian persecutions and Genocide have in-depth meaning for a handful of knowledgeable enthusiasts and collectors, and for still fewer `scholars'. [28]

For us, and a few like us with shared interests, erroneous and imprecise captions and uncritical use of some photographs have been a continued source of frustration. Recognizing the need for better attestation and attribution of photographs years ago, we have been vigilant ever since, making attempts to try to keep track of relevant images as they are encountered. [ 29 ]

We first encountered the image of the seven Yeprad College professors in a richly illustrated memorial volume in Armenian entitled Hushamatean Mets Egherni, 1915-1965 [Memorial to the Great Crime...] ed. by Kesam Aharonian and Nazaret T'op'alean (Beirut, 1965) pg. 383. Unfortunately, the photograph was very poorly reproduced, as indeed were most of the illustrations in that interesting volume. [ 30 ]

Surprisingly, the collage photograph of the seven is not in Hapet M. Pilibbosian's Hishadagaran Yeprad Koleji [Memoranda of Euphrates College]. [ 31 ] Neither is the collage photograph to be found in Manuk Chizmechean's Kharpert ew ir zavagneru [Kharpert and her Children] 1955, although again, there are quite a few photographs of faculty and students at Euphrates College. [ 32 ] Likewise, Vahe Haig's volume on Kharpert and her Golden Plain, 1959 does not have the collage photograph but it has many of the expected ones, seemingly `recycled' from earlier sources. [ 33 ]

Finally, we also chanced upon the collage photograph of the `seven professors' some time ago in Garabed B. Adanalian's Monument of the Early American Reformers and Evangelical Churches [Hushardzan Hay Awetaranakanats' ew Awetaranakan Ekeghets'woy]. This very interestingly illustrated volume, published in Fresno in 1952, is in Armenian despite its partially bilingual title page. The exact photograph with the seven ovals of the Kharpert professors is on pg. 370. [ 34 ] Typically, and unfortunately, it is poorly reproduced.

The murder of the Harpoot professors became public fairly quickly in America [ 35 ] and got into the English language newspapers and magazines and related press in relatively short order, far and wide so to speak. A quote from an article in School and Society that was prompted by a release from the American Committee on Armenian Atrocities to the effect `...according to officers of the Euphrates College, an American institution at Harpoot, report that approximately two thirds of the girl pupils and six sevenths of the boys have been taken away by death, exile or to Moslem homes. Of the professors four were killed...' (see School and Society vol. 2, October 16, 1915 pg. 563). Many other notices of the murders were taken up quickly by a wide range of publications. See for example `Armenian Tutors at Harpoot Killed. Professor at Euphrates College who took prize [$250.00] at Princeton [for best English essay on `Comparative Religions'] is executed' in The Washington Times 5 October 1915 pg. 1; The New York Times published an article on 2 November 1915 pg. 2 `Professors Tortured. Turks Afterward Put Educators of American College to Death.' [ 36 ]

In the January 1916 volume 112 (no.1) on pg. 22 of The Missionary Herald there was a portion of a page with their photographs and report of their demise. In the layout used in that notice, the title is `Martyred Professors of Euphrates College, Harpoot.' It is framed in black and the four men appear as ovals with their names and a bit about how they met their demise. [ 37 ]

In the same journal it states:- `On the evening of 20 January 1916 a large gathering (said to be more than 800) was held in [Boston's] Shawmut Congregational Church to memorialize the four Harpoot professors (cf. The Missionary Herald 112, March 1916 pg. 108). Services in the so-called Gregorian churches [the term `Lousavorchagan' in Armenian, or Gregorian as used by English-speaking `Protestants,' referring to the Armenian Apostolic National Church] for hokehankist (service for the repose of souls) were held in their memory as well in cities like Worcester, Providence and Boston.

In Reverend Joseph K. Greene, D.D.'s book entitled Leavening the Levant (1916) we again see `Martyred Professors of Euphrates College, Harpout' (cf. pg. 264 of a full page plate with good quality, large photographs (as ovals) of N. Tenekejian, H. Nahigian, M. Vorperian, H. Boujicanian). The layout is also different from the one in The Missionary Herald. Rev. Greene credits his son, also a clergyman, for having assembled the photographs for his book. (Incidentally, we will merely mention that photographs of the murdered professors used in various publications are not all identical; some show them younger, some a bit older. This suggests, of course, that whatever was readily available to hand was used.) [ 38 ]

Rev. Greene was a veteran missionary and active writer. The entire profits of his book, the preface of which was dated May 31, 1916, were to be devoted to `Armenian Relief.' The cost of the volume was $1.50 and 15 cents for postage! [ 39 ]

The Princeton Theological Seminary Alumni Association published a necrological report with more than a little detail (cf. volume 4 pg. 443) for Murgurdick (sic) Sarkis Vorperian. He had entered the `Seminary in 1913 and had stayed for a year as a Special Student at Princeton leaving America for Harpoot July 28, 1914.'[40]

Nothing will be said here of the Armenian language press and Armenian press in the English-language except the following. So far, only a few photographs, mainly poorly reproduced, and different from the collage photograph of the seven professors and its commentary by Dr. Ruth Azniv Parmelee of interest here have been found. [ 41 ]

A cipher (coded) telegram from Consul Leslie A. Davis to `Honorable Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador, Constantinople' dated June 24, 1915 sent from the American Consulate, Mamouret-ul-Aziz (Harput), Turkey but not received in Constantinople until 5 Jul 1915 reported `Professors American college have been tortured. Some others have died under torture or lost mind....' [ 42 ] Also, contemporary accounts by others thoroughly corroborate the Parmelee commentary and often with considerably more detail. [ 43 ]

For a broader perspective of what happened to those in the region including the professors see Kevorkian pg. 386 ff. [ 44 ] For additional and more general but considerably more recent bibliographic perspective of Kharpert attention may be drawn to Richard G. Hovannisian, ed. Armenian Tsopk/Kharpert, UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series; Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces (Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2002).

We have stated above that the couple of older published images of the collage photograph of the seven Yeprad College professors that we are aware of are quite poor. But not only are they poor, they are relatively small and thus awkward to read, and inevitably are cropped so as to eliminate the lower portion of the photograph with the handwriting seen in our Figure 1. Cutting off the handwriting certainly makes the photograph more professional looking, but one day certain peculiarities of the handwriting might allow identification as to who wrote the label of the print to which we have had access, and now describe.

The late Harry G. Sogigian (1913-2008) of Worcester, Massachusetts authored a family memoir entitled The Uprooting and Rebirth of the Soghigian Family (privately printed, 2002). [ 45 ] It was researched along with the collaboration of `Mary Aroian, Translator and Van Aroian, Writer.' That short book, only 80 pgs. in length, is quite interesting and richly illustrated. It has several letters reproduced in the Armenian original, and in English translation, written by Professor Garabed M. Soghigian (note spelling) to his cousin in Worcester. The professor was first cousin, by virtue of fact that the professor's father's brother's son was Harry G. Sogigian's father, Kevork Sogegian, note spelling.) [ 46 ]

The photograph of the seven Yeprad College professors is reproduced in Sogigian's book on pg. 28 under the title `Department Heads at Euphrates College 1912, Kharpert, Turkish Armenia.' The reproduction of the photograph is fairly good, and any potential criticism would stem from the final printing of the volume. Appropriately, it lacks the hand written lower portion shown in our Figures 1 and 1a.

Seeing the photograph in the book led to a telephone call to Harry Sogigian. He was getting on in years and seemed a bit confused about the exact origin of the photograph but suggested asking June Benoit or Mary Melikian at Melikian Studio about it. He said if they have a copy like the one used in his book we were welcome to it. Although the original of the `seven professors photograph' is not part of the K.S. Melikian Collection, a copy of it was made for use in the Soghigian family memoir from an available photograph. Indeed, all the copies of photographs for his book were printed initially by Melikian Studio. June Benoit made the `original' copies to be used in the final publication, and kindly provided us with the negative at a considerably later date. We scanned it and have presented it here as Figures 1 (and Figure 1a).

We have wondered whether the very first `original' photograph of the `seven Euphrates College professors' still exists. It may be too much to hope for. But, as the saying goes `You never know!' Perhaps the most one can hope for is to locate a photograph with the added Armenian script but without the space at the bottom of the print where the commentary such as that seen in Figure 1 and 1a could be written.

Indeed, our `seven Euphrates College professors' collage photograph was issued on postcard stock (3.66 inches wide X 5.732 inches high) in Paris but so far we do not have an exact date to associate with it. Certainly one can estimate approximately when it was issued. Our friends Pamela Apkarian-Russell and her husband Chris Russell own an `original' unused card and they kindly allowed us to scan it some time back. We present it here as Figure 3.

The name of R. Guilleminot, Boespflug et Cie. may be read on the back. Apparently this company is quite well known among those knowledgeable in postcards, photographs etc. An interesting website in French that gives some information on the firm states that they were manufacturers primarily of photo plates and papers. The site stresses that their name on the back of a postcard does not indicate that they were the photographers or the printers of the photograph. Neither were they publishers strictly speaking [En vérité, Guilleminot et Cie n'est pas un éditeur á proprement parler...] (http://www.corpusetampois.com/cpa-es-guilleminot.html). This suggests that someone or an organization, definitely Armenian(s), deposited the photograph with the firm and had postcards produced. The Armenian text indicates that it was intended to be used by Armenians. Presumably more than a few cards were ordered; why they seem to be so rare nowadays is not known.

The print on postcard stock issued in Paris is what was clearly used in the Sogigian book. (Perhaps we should not say `clearly', it may be that some firm in America or elsewhere issued it as well.)

Comparison of Figures 1 and 3 will show that indeed the `now found missing photograph' shown in Figure 1 probably derived from a `used' postcard similar to the one in Figure 3. If the `card' in Figure 1 was ever mailed as a postcard, it might have a legible date. Better still, it might even have a message on the backside, additional to the note on the front. The oval photograph of Samuel Khachadourian in Figure 1 (bottom right) has a big handwritten `X' underneath it. This suggests to us that he was somehow singled out by the person who marked the `X' on the card and who also wrote in English under the picture that they were professors at Euphrates College. This probably was intended to draw attention to the fact that Khachadourian was the sole survivor of the professors. Even so, all this leaves us in the common predicament of not knowing enough.

In any case, by a happy set of serendipitous circumstances, Dr. Parmelee's commentary can now be matched not only with a good quality photographic print, but with a good quality period postcard. The photographic collage by the Soursourian brothers is dated 1912, unfortunately not 1915, the year of their horrendous experiences, and the onset of the Genocide. There may be other `original' photographs in family hands. [ 47 ]

The memory of these men can now be honored not only with the photograph but with an account written in English by an American physician who was there when all the horrors were occurring!

We thank the Hoover Institution Archives for allowing access to the Parmelee commentary. Sincere thanks also go to the late Harry G. Sogigian for his cooperative spirit and willingness to be helpful. We are very grateful to June Benoit and Mary Melikian, Melikian Studio, Worcester for their crucial role in the preservation of the `seven professors' photograph in full copy form. They have clearly shown repeatedly that they believe in the adage reflecting the old Armenian villager viewpoint of Ohr mi bedk' gulli [One day it will be needed.] They could easily have cropped out the lower part of the photograph, or even discarded the negative after the task of preparing the photographic materials for the Soghigian book. Thankfully, they did not. We thank Pamela Apkarian-Russell and her husband Christopher Russell for allowing access to their postcard. Knowledgeable in a wide range of ephemera and antiques one never ceases to be amazed at what their archives will produce. We thank Cornell University Archives and Yale University Archives for the specifics as to when Donabed Lulejian was at their institutions. We thank Armine Karapetian Gulbankian for her willingness to give us her perspective as a native speaker of Eastern Armenian on the nuances of the translations to English of the specialties of the Armenian professors etc. We thank the Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg for the information on Samuel Khatchadourian when he was a student at the Königliches Konservatorium in Stuttgart. Lastly but by no means least, we thank the United States National Archives, College Park, Maryland for their kindness in allowing free access to study and copy materials such as the coded message sent by Consul Leslie A. Davis to Ambassador Morgenthau in Constantinople.

[ 1 ] Euphrates College was incorporated according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on 13 May 1878 under the sponsorship of `The Trustees of Armenia College Funds.' The objective was `To obtain, hold and manage funds for supporting Armenia College, an educational institution located at Harpoot in Turkey.' Because of objections on the part of Turkish officialdom to the name `Armenia' by special act of the Massachusetts legislature, and approved 16 February 1888, the name of the College corporation was officially altered in September, 1888 to `The Trustees of Euphrates College Funds.' The Armenian name of the establishment was Yeprad Kolej [Euphrates College]. (Information distilled from Euphrates College: Harpoot, Turkey in Asia (Thomas Todd, Boston, 1894) 20 pgs.; Constitution and By-Laws of Armenia College, Harpoot Turkey (Beacon Press, Boston, 1878, 7 pgs.; Constitution and By-Laws of Euphrates College, located at Harpoot, Turkey in Asia, as amended and adopted March 5, 1903. Incorporated under the Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1878, [Thomas Todd Printer?], Boston, 14 pgs.

[ 9 ] Teotig [Theotoros Labjindian], one of the few intellectuals who survived the Armenian Genocide, was active in writing and documenting the losses which the Armenian Nation suffered from the `Colossal Crime' until his death, virtually as a pauper, in Paris in 1928. For an English version of his Monument to April 11 see Teotig: a biography by Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian volume II of Trilogy, April 24, 1915 (Gomidas Institute and Tekeyan Cultural Association, published by Taderon Press, 2010.) For the information on Sorsori see Teodik (ed. By Ara Galaychean, 1985) Goghgot'a hay hogeworakannu'ean ew ir hotin aghetail 1915 tarin [The Golgotha of the Armenian Clergy and their Flocks in the Year of the Catastrophe 1915], New York: St. Vartan Press.

[ 10 ] The map on pg. 13 of Pierre Ter-Sarkissian, Jean-Claude Kebabdjian, and Michel Pazoumian, Photographies Arméniennes: Scènes et Portraits, 1880-1930 (Paris: Centre de Recherches sur la Diaspora Arménienne, Centre de Documentation Arménien, 1983) shows Kharpert with a `start date' of `1880' for photography as an `enterprise.' This is clearly too late. Indeed, there is no photograph of Kharpertsis (i.e. people of Kharpert) labeled as such in that interesting volume that we could find.

[ 11 ] A word is in order about how we have made entries regarding titles in the Armenian language. Throughout this paper we have used spellings and transliterations of Armenian as encountered in WorldCat. While specialists, scholars and librarians might well be taken back or even irritated at the inconsistencies of transliterations, and indeed one can always quibble about spellings, in the final analysis we believe that using the WorldCat entries will greatly facilitate locating copies of a given book. See Hapet M. Pilibbosian and compatriots, Hishadagaran Yeprad Koleji (Huradaragootyum Yeprad Koleji Sanootz mioutian), [Memorandum of Euphrates College, by the Students' Association, 1942) and Nazaret Piranean, Kharberdi Egherne [The Crime at Kharpert] (Post`en/Boston: "Payk`ar"i Tparan/Baikar Press.)

[ 12 ] Our translation in brackets of `Egherne' as `crime' [we admit that more frequently vojir/vochire is used as the word for crime] rather than the more recent renditions by some as `tragedy', `holocaust,' `massacre(s)' or even `genocide' is, we believe, more in keeping with the specific vocabulary of the period rather than those translations adopted considerably more recently, and some might label derived as more or less ex post facto. Indeed the word genocide is necessarily defined retroactively as the collective designation for the mass murder and related persecution of the Armenians by the `Turks.' The designation of Medz Egherne [translated nowadays by those seeking to be exact as the Great or Colossal Crime, but equally often as the Great Catastrophe or Great Tragedy or Great Calamity] has brought the word back into some prominence. We wish that some nominal language-regulating body would come up with defensible, precise, nuanced descriptions that bear upon what the Armenians experienced during what we now subsume under the epithet `genocide.' Surely words matter. We ourselves do not have a wide enough range of the necessary period dictionary sources or the philological erudition to rise to the challenge.

[ 13 ] One may feel confident that considerably more will emerge one of these days/years about these photographers. Similarly, the Euphrates College connection, however `formal', tenuous or indirect, will one day emerge as well, more than likely through the ever-fortuitous agency of `serendipity.' The misspellings hardly suggest that the Soursourians were well versed in English. The reason for our optimism on the Soursourians derives from the old Armenian villager saying that `If one scrapes the skin of an Armenian, a relative will surface' (i.e. Mahrminuh keress'nuh, khunamee muh ge'llah).

[ 15 ] For a published example of a postcard consisting of a `sepia' photo collage of 22 faculty bearing the date 1914 see pg. 304 of Armenians in Turkey 100 years ago: with the postcards from the collection of Orlando Carlo Calumeno, edited by Osman Köker and Orlando Carlo Calumeno, (Istanbul: Birzamanlar Yayincilik, 2005). This post - - - card has also been reproduced in `sepia color' and may be accessed on the Internet in a Master's Thesis completed in 2005 at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul by Ohannes Kılıçdağı entitled `The bourgeois transformation and Ottomanism among Anatolian Armenians after the 1908 Revolution' pg. 108 and at http://www.belgeler.com/blg/paf/the-bourgeois-transformation-and- ottomanism-among-anatolian-armenians-after-the-1908-revolution-ikinci-mesrutiyet- sonrasi-anadolu-ermenilerinde-burjuva-donusumu-ve-osmancilik

[ 18 ] Indeed, readers will be aware that The Blue Book was `censored' and names were not provided. This censorship was honored. For instance in the University of the State of New York, Higher Education Report for the School Year Ending July 31, 1917, there is a report on higher education in Turkey as affected by war conditions which is essentially an excerpt from the Bryce Report, as it dealt with the letter from Ernest W. Riggs. See pgs. 69 to 71 of
http://books.google.com/books?id=Tn2gAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=Askabed+is+a+representative&source =bl&ots=MKxDBW_HPq&sig=Yf2d6YRtV2hHtUksuKwJtoUeKnU&hl=en&ei=7EjtTZ7bIcjj0gG2hL3CAQ&sa=X&oibook_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Askabed%20is%20a%20representative&f=false

[ 21 ] In the Ottoman system of administration each of the individual provinces (vilayetler) were run by a vali or governor general. The subdivision of a vilayet, called a sanjak (sancak) was administered by the mutasarrif. The sanjak in turn was subdivided into townships or kazas (caza) headed by a kaimakam. The `mayor' referred to by Dr. Parmelee was the kaimakam Asim Bey. We have unpublished information from a missionary account (in preparation) that this nasty, indeed wicked, kaimakam had arrived in Harput in the middle of November 1914, having `left a very bad reputation in Egin.' He was described as `a drinker and a man of no character.' His wife, however, seems to have been a good woman.

[ 24 ] The story of Mugurdich Vorperian's son Mushegh (liberty taken here to spell it more like it would have been pronounced) deserves more attention than is appropriate here. For a start, Raymond Kévorkian in his The Armenian Genocide, A Complete History (2011) draws attention in his note 124 on pg. 903 to a report by Mushegh Vorperian in the Nubar Library, Paris. That is sure to provide significant information. Once in the United States, Mooshek (sic!) Vorperian played an active role under the auspices of The Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief in making the plight of the Armenians known (cf. e.g. The Tacoma Times 1 September 1917 pg. 3 for an advertisement `Boy Refugee Speaks' (refer to http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=Washington&date1=1860&date2=1922&proxtext=Boy+Refugee+Speaks&x=0&y=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows&searchType=basic; see also The New York Times 12 November 1917 pg. 12; also his `A Refugee's Story' in The New Armenia vol. 10 no. 1 January, 1918 pgs. 9 and 10). His talks at various fundraiser meetings and rallies organized by well-known, American ( non-Armenian) public personages, and attended by rather large crowds seem to have inevitably ended with `I plead with you for help for my people.'

[ 26 ] He is said by at least one source to have attended the `University of Berlin' but we have only verified that he was in Stuttgart for study at the `Königliches Konservatorium für Musik.' He was 30 years old when he entered on 15 November 1907 under the name Samuel Hachadoorian. He studied violin under one Alexander Eisenmann, a name that is apparently of considerable consequence in the world of the history of music and pianoforte etc. There is no information as to when he left the Conservatory but very interestingly they have an address where he resided, Senenfelderstr. 38! (Information courtesy of the Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg.) The President of Euphrates College, Ernest W. Riggs stated that he was at both Berlin and Stuttgart! He certainly needs to be investigated much more than the perfunctory information given here, especially since he is described by Dr. Parmelee as the sole survivor of the professorial group.

[ 27 ] Mention must be made here of a non-Armenian professor at Euphrates College who was murdered as well. Ashur S. Yusuf, an Assyrian, was much-loved and appreciated by all. He was arrested at the same time the Armenian professors were on May 1, 1915. Mr. Yusuf clearly was a very interesting man but this is not the place to go into detail about him (cf. Vahe Haig's Kharpert... pgs. 376-377, where he gives a mini-biography and a photograph. For an attractive photographic collage of the faculty of Euphrates College dated 1908 see pg. 153 of Frank Andrews Stone, "The Life and Death of Armenia or Euphrates College, Harpoot (Kharpert), Turkish Armenia," Armenian Review 30, no. 2 Spring, 1978 pgs. 148-63. The Euphrates College campus was an extensive operation and the physical plant comprised twelve buildings. There were quite a few Armenians involved in the day to day operation and other activities. The College buildings included Boys' College, Boys' High School, Boys' Dormitory, Dormitory Annex, Wheeler Hall (Auditorium), President's House and three other residences, Girls' College and High School, Primary and Kindergarten, and Self-help Shops etc. Even though the College had been substantially re-built after the conflagration of much of the physical plant during the massacres and `troubles' of 11 November 1895 in which 8 of the buildings had been destroyed, it was long recognized that there was not enough room for `The American College' to grow and plans were provisionally made to relocate the campus to the lower city. (For a brief account with a photograph of the re-construction of the campus, see Rev. H[erman] N[orton] Barnum `The new Euphrates College', pgs. 10-12 of The Missionary Herald vol. 99, for the year 1903). Needless to say, this never came to pass. With the Armenians `gone,' plans to resuscitate the College through a prospective massive fund drive proved unrealistic (see e.g. pg. 261 of Cass Arthur Reed, 1921 `Problems of American Education in the Middle East', D.Ed. Thesis, Harvard University). Reference must also be made to a recent biography of Teotig and a translation of his `Monument to April 11 [24]' by Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian (London, Taderon Press, 2010). On pgs. 145-150 biographical sketches of the Euphrates professors and other intelligentsia are given along with some oval portrait photographs.

[ 31 ] The most conspicuous part of the title page of that important volume happens to be in English. It says `Memoranda of Euphrates College (Formerly Armenia College) 1878-1915.' The rest of the volume is virtually all in Armenian. It does have a few pages or parts of pages in English. One such page that has served us in good stead is one whereon the names of the Armenian professors and instructors etc. are provided in English. It is from this list that we have taken the spellings that we use in this note. (This list appears to be taken from a College Report.) There are many interesting photographs of the entire faculty, singly or in groups etc. but not the one of the `Martyred professors' in question.

[ 34 ] G. B. Adanalian/K.P. Atanalean, Monument of the Early Armenian Reformers and Evangelical Churches. Hushardzan Hay Awetaranakanats' Ew Awetaranakan Ekeghets'woy. K'nnakan Tsanō'Utiwnnerov / Grets' (Fresno: California, Crown Printing Co., 1952). There are several other photographs of faculty and student groups from Euphrates College in this work. An attractive feature of many of the captions in this volume is that there are many identifications.

[ 36 ] The `Special to the New York Times' stated that the letter to the Armenian `Bishop' of Boston was made public by Rev. Robert K. Smith. Robert Keating Smith (Harvard, class of 1893; Cambridge Episcopal Theological School graduate, 1895) seems to have been an interesting and very active man. He was involved, for instance, in the publication of a volume that attempted to have American clergy familiarized with some of the lesser known Churches whose members, like the Armenians, were coming into America as immigrants. Edward Melville Parker et al., The People of the Eastern Orthodox Churches: The Separated Churches of the East, and Other Slavs; Report of the Commission (Springfield, Mass. [s.n.], 1913). For an electronic version of Parker's edited 120 pg. volume see http://www.archive.org/details/peopleofeasterno00epis

[ 41 ] For example, in the Friday 6 June 1958 issue of Hairenik, commemorating and memorializing the loss through murder some 50 years earlier of the Armenian professors at Yeprad College, there is an image which was used in the early Armenian press. Again, the photograph is not the image of the seven professors under consideration here. But while we are at it, mention may be made of an especially nice informal photograph in The Survey volume 35 (1915) pg. 261 that shows Donabed Lulejian with two other Armenians, one A. Chmichian (sic) (at Harvard University) and Roupen Stepan Racoubian at Columbia University; Columbia Master of Arts, 1911). They are described as `Former Officers of the Armenian Students' Society of America.' Donabed. Loolejian (sic) and the others are shown in a relaxed pose. See http://books.google.com/books?id=RfsqAAAAMAAJ&pgPA261&lpg=PA261&dq=R.+Racoubian+at+HarvaRD&sourcebl&ots=5PzjeBmX9I&sig=86Hh-XAkFrVOC6vljNWHzzVOYxo&hl =en&eiøLbTdODLue70QH_pc3aDw&sa=X&oi=book_result &ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=R.% 20Racoubian%20at%20HarvaRD&f=false Also for a photograph that shows him looking considerably morose is in The New Armenia volume 10 no. 4, April 1918 on pg. 59 in an article written by Bertha S. Papazian entitled `Two Grim Prayers.'

[ 42 ] See Foreign Relations, 1915, Supplement pg. 983, refer to. http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1915Supp.p1241&id=FRUS.FRUS1915Supp&isize=M and to be found at United States National Archives, College Park, Maryland; a discussion of the rest of the decoded message need not be covered here. It is enough to say that there is no need whatever to question the accuracy of Dr. Parmelee's commentary.

[ 43 ] A few references may be given as well that provide accounts of direct personal involvement, such as eye-witnessing the situation in Kharpert and what was happening to the professors. See especially, Piranean, 1937 (loc. cit.), Tacy Atkinson Diaries (entry dated June 7 and 8) and passim (edited and published, 1976, and the account by Mrs. [Pampish, title reserved usually but not exclusively for wives of Protestant Armenian Badvelis (ministers), suggesting that she was `learned', i.e. for a start could read and write] Esther [Yester] Mugerditchian. Her detailed account was written first in Armenian (not seen by us). Pampish Mugerditchian's experiences were serialized in English and also appeared as a small paperbound book From Turkish Toils: The Narrative of an Armenian Family's Escape (New York: G.H. Doran Co., 1917/1918). For an online electronic copy see http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031215563 or http://www.scribd.com/doc/7641431/Armenian-genocide-The-Narrative-of-an-Armenian-Familys-escape-1918or http://www.armenews.com/IMG/fromturkishtoils00mgrich.pdf. Mrs. Mugerditchian's daughter Alice Muggerditchian Shipley wrote a book as well about what happened to her family in Turkey. See her We Walked, Then Ran (Phoenix, Ariz.: A.M. Shipley, 1983). Alice Shipley also gave a very interesting and telling interview on film in Dr. J. Michael Hagopian's film Voices from the Lake (Armenian Film Foundation, Thousand Oaks, CA., 2000.) Her perspective was that of a young girl eye-witness living in the neighborhood where the professors lived. More formal accounts may be found in Leslie A. Davis' Report Slaughterhouse Provinceand Henry H. Riggs' Days of Tragedy etc.

[ 46 ] It was not unusual among immigrant Armenians to encounter surnames that were spelled differently even within the same family. This was often due to the fact that immigration occurred at different times. Thus, the spelling `Soghigian' had many variants. For example, Harry G. Sogigian's father's name was later reduced to George Henry Sohigian, fide his naturalization paper 12 November 1918, see pg. 23 of Sogigian. While we are on the matter of names, we do not know what the middle initial M. of Professor Soghigian's name refers to. From the Figure 1 photograph it is clear that the 20^th letter of the Armenian alphabet Մ is used, as indeed it is on his stationery and in his signature in correspondence to his Worcester cousin.

[ 47 ] Professor Lulejian's younger brother Melkon Lulejian (1877-1963) a pharmacist [`chemist'] who escaped massacre under remarkable circumstances died at the age of 86 in New Jersey. Professor Lulejian's wife `Elizabeth' [Yeghsa] and his four children survived the `deportations.' Of his two sons, Ara (born 1902) died in 1973 at the age of 70 in the Philadelphia area; Professor Lulejian's other son Dickran [Richard] (born 1909) died in 1983 at the age of 74 in Philadelphia (cf. e.g. Social Security Death Index). This scant information on the sons (we did not make any attempts to see what became of the daughters) has been included as an aside to show how a little investigative work can provide leads to finding family descendants. Through a `ripple effect' this often grows into a major genealogical exercise. The Armenian Press accounts of the period might well be a source of reliable information on the photograph as well as information on the families. Neither should one underestimate Internet `chat' and `genealogy' groups. Indeed, for many details and an attractive early photograph of the Luleljian family group see http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/h/e/d/David-Hedison-MA/PHOTO/0002photo.html. Finally, a recent paper by Taner Akcam on an able physician, Dr. Chilingirian, goes into considerable detail on how he was murdered. Both family papers, photograph and Turkish Archival sources were used to reconstruct that sad story. Listings of the many murdered intelligentsia have long been available but they need to be fleshed out with details that bring their humanity back into profile. See Taner Akçam, `The Chilingirian murder: a case study from the 1915 roundup of Armenian intellectuals' Holocaust and Genocide Studies vol. 25, pgs. 125-143 (2011).

Armenian News Network / Groong

Finding a Photograph for a Caption: - - - Dr. Ruth A. Parmelee's Comments on some Euphrates (Yeprad) College Professors and their Fate during the Armenian Genocide[ 1 ]