Armenian
News Network / Groong
Images That Are So Wrong On All
Accounts, And Should Have Been Discarded, Insist On Persisting
Armenian News Network / Groong
July 19, 2022
by Abraham D. Krikorian and Eugene
L. Taylor
Probing the Photographic
Record
LONG ISLAND, NY
Our
work over the years since retiring has sought to accurately clothe the massive
amount of writing widely associated with the Genocide against the Armenians by
the Turks, with photographs and imagery that can be attested and attributed. [1]
Our
contributions, both posted online and print-published, emphasize that it is
much more difficult to achieve the stated and wanted ends of absolute accuracy
than one might initially suppose or hope for.
Recognizing that desire for absolute accuracy may be a bit unreasonable
given the many years that have elapsed since the events and the topic and
nature of imagery, we have modified the goals so as “to achieve as much
accuracy as possible.”
Taking these
inconvenient realities into consideration, we have devoted considerable effort
in describing and analyzing what one may term “alternative” means of getting
the point across. This means summarizing
and analyzing use of period cartoons and contemporary graphic representations
of the Armenian genocide and genocide-related events.
In addition
to the anticipated challenges that regularly need to be met, one sometimes
encounters incredible blunders in the literature – ranging from innocent errors
to outrageously brazen attempts at deception.
Ignorance abounds and enables all these shortcomings to hold sway.
Even after
they have been found out, carefully corrected, and made available to the public
at large, it has proven in our experience very difficult to have these blunders
removed from use or circulation, or to make ameliorating corrections by careful
emendations in captioning.
One
especially egregious example involves a contrived photograph assembled from
several individual photos that have nothing to do directly with the claimed
subject matter. See https://groong.org/orig/ak-20100222.html entitled “The Saga Surrounding a forged photograph from the era of the Armenian
Genocide demonizing and vilifying a “Cruel Turkish official.”: A part of the
rest of the story” by Abraham D. Krikorian and Eugene L. Taylor February
22, 2010. With a bit of luck and a great
deal of perseverance, we resolved the exact nature of the invented photo and
analyzed the unpleasant reactions which such fakery generates. Whether correcting serious blunders of this
sort encourages dropping such bad examples from use remains to be seen. In our experience, ignoring corrections seems
to be the norm these days.
Below we
deal with another example of wrongly used imagery that is literally nothing less
than stupid in light of the fact that well-known American religious leaders
were involved in producing the work in the first place.
We have
committed ourselves to explaining this unpardonable stupidity because we want
to underscore our conviction that some degree of awareness and judgement must
surely exist if one is to engage in finding and using appropriate
‘genocide-related’ imagery. One should
not simply ‘decorate’ a text with ‘randomly selected’ imagery.
In the final
analysis, one cannot help but ask if something about an image looks ‘funny’ or
does not fit an expected pattern, should not one have enough wits to look a bit
more into the matter? Apparently not
necessarily. Especially if the main
objective of the blunderer is to merely dig up things to fit a distorted
perception of reality.
One blunder
that began many years ago and persists to this very day, involves ridiculously
captioning an etching “Horribly tortured
for their Christian faith.” It is on
page 402 of a volume written by Protestant Missionary Frederick Davis Greene,
M.A., and published by American Oxford Publishing Co. in 1896. The hefty work is entitled “Armenian Massacres or the Sword of Mohammed
containing a complete and thrilling account of the terrible atrocities and
wholesale murders committed in Armenia by Mohammedan Fanatics, to which is
added the Mohammedan Reign of Terror in Armenia.” Chapter XXVIII of this work is authored by
Judson Smith D.D., a corresponding secretary of The American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions and runs from pgs. 396-404. The way the book was assembled does not make
it possible to implicate any given author with ‘credit’ or ‘discredit’ in
imagery used.
See Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Even
a glance at the etching should raise the question whether such perversely
elaborate procedures would have been put in place to torment Armenians in
Hamidian Turkey. Apparently, those
adherents to the Christian faith involved in assessing the etching for use must
not have heard of the Hindu Religious Thaipusam
festival celebrated by the Tamil community in India and in its
diaspora. (See “Thaipusam festival -
Kuala Lumpur'' – 2001. Tamil-speaking Hindu festival in which
gratitude and faith are most prominent. https://youtu.be/wRPYip_xsPc). Neither would they apparently have heard
about Hussein Ibn Ali, the Grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and the special
commemoration of the month of Ashura, especially among Shia Muslims. Recital of the Ziyayat Ashura and
self-flagellation rituals as engaged in by believers throughout the world,
especially by men, have become fairly well-known. We do not pretend to understand the details
followed throughout the world, but self-“cutting” and “gashing” has been
outlawed in some countries like Iran and Lebanon. The truth is that all these actions
considered by us in ‘the West’ to be outlandishly violent, are accepted
sincerely by observants to signify struggle against injustice.
Enter Vasily Vereschagen
The respected Russian artist Vasily Vereschagin (1842-1904)
is perhaps best known by Armenians and those interested in imagery pertaining
to the Armenian Genocide, for his large (127 x 197 cm) canvas sarcastically
named “Apotheosis of War.” (See Barooshian, Vahan D., 1993, “V.V. Vereschagin: artist at War”,
University Press of Florida). This
painting dated 1871 shows piles of skulls that were naively misidentified by a
scholar in 1980 who should have known better, as those of Armenian genocide
victims. Despite immediately correcting
the error once found out, the mistake caused a loss in prestige and credibility
way out of proportion to the mistake.
As it turns
out, this seriously miscaptioned etching “Horribly
Mutilated for their Christian Faith” that we shall now deal with, derives
from a different work of Vereschagin’s.
Whether this miscaptioned etching was known as coming from a work by
Vereschagin or not, will never be known.
Vereschagin spent some of his early career in the
Caucasus. See Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Vereshagin in 1863. From Andrei Konstantnovich Lebedev (1958)
“Vasilii Vasilevich Vereschagin”
Moskva,” Iskussiv pg. 40.
There he
witnessed the activities associated with Muharram [or Moharrem and variant
spellings] at Susha, the capital of
the old Khanate of Karabakh. The place
today is well-known to Armenians, and is spelled Sushi with an ‘i.’ The city name in the French language at the
time, was spelled Schoucha. As we write, it is located in Artsakh, the heatedly disputed territory
of Nagorno-Karabagh, wherein Azerbaijanis and Armenians compete for
control.
Figs. 3a.
and 3b. show the location of Schoucha.
Although the labeling is in French, it should present no problem in
enabling anyone to figure out where it is located. Fig. 3a. is a map from page 242 of the
translation from Russian to French of Vereschagine
(1869) that shows the land strip between the Black and Caspian Seas. Fig. 3b. is an enlargement of a region from
the same map. The city of Schoucha has
been underlined in red in both maps.
Fig. 3a.
Fig. 3b.
Vereschagin described the ongoings at Schoucha in
considerable detail and enriched it with elegant sketches and artwork. (See Schimmelpennick van der Oye, David
(2009) Cahiers d’Asie Central, 2009,
Vasilij Vereschagin’s canvases of Central Asian Conquest, pgs. 179-209.) Spectacular etchings of Vereschagin’s
drawings made on site may be found in the French journal Le Tour du Monde, Journal des
Voyages, ed. by Édouard Charton 1869, tome XIX, pgs. 238-336. [The particulars of the translation of
Vereschagine’s (sic with the final ‘e’)
paper from the original Russian into French is “Voyage dans les Provinces du Caucase. (traduit du Russe par Mme. et M. Le Barbier (Ernest) 1864-1865. Texte et dessins inédits. Seconde partie. La Transcaucasie. “De Tiflis
A Schoucha.” The caption to the etching (p. 265)
considerably later presented as “Tortured
for their Faith” is simply captioned in French in 1869 – “Martyrs- Drawing by B. Versechagine.”
Fig. 4a.
Etching captioned in French “Funeral procession at Schoucha.
Drawing
by Emile Bayard after a sketch by Vereschagin.” (First drawn in 1865.)
Fig. 4b.
Detail from Fig. 4a.
By 1876, a
very similar in theme but different etching of a “Martyr” standing alone, and still another etching described as a “Religious Devotee” who had engaged in
self-torture, appeared in a book on Bible Lands published in America (see Fig.
5). The description accompanying these
two etchings were quite accurate and no reference was made to either as
involving torture for their faith – Christian or otherwise.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 6.
(From pg. 765 of Van Lennep, 1876).
Fig. 7.
(From pg. 769 of Van Lennep, 1876).
One reads in
the same book by Rev. Van Lennep:-“The
practices of the howling dervishes [a special sect of Muslim ascetics] also
illustrate the “cuttings” of the ancient heathen priests, such for instance, as
are described in the graphic account of the scene on Mount Carmel, when the
prophet Elijah contended with the prophets of Baal: “They cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and
daggers, til the blood gushed out upon them.” Indeed, the language of Jer., xli, 5, seems
to imply that the Hebrews sometimes imitated their heathen neighbors in this
matter, in connection with the worship of Jehovah, though positively forbidden
by their law.”
Rev. Van
Lennep further explains “Our modern
dervishes indulge in these practices only on special occasions, as, for
instance, when a procession is organized and proceeds to the suburbs of a town
to pray for rain, or for deliverance from some public calamity: they then
exhibit some of their fanatical performances calling upon God, and cutting
themselves with knives and swords, so that the blood runs, or piercing their
almost naked bodies with wooden or iron spikes, from which they hang small
mirrors. They sometimes become so
exhausted with pain and loss of blood as to faint away, so they have to be
borne off”.
Rev. Van
Lennep continues “We give two drawings
taken from life [no source given], among the devotees who figured in a Muslim
procession at Shoosha, in Armenia. They
were not dervishes, but common people carried away by a similar impulse, who
hoped to render themselves acceptable to God by voluntarily undergoing these
voluntary tortures. One of them cuts his
forehead with a sword, so that the blood gushes out; he wears a sheet in front
to protect his clothes, and his face is covered with clots of blood.” (Van
Lennep, 1876 pgs. 767-768.)
These
etchings, Fig. 6. and 7. above, reproduced from pgs. 765 and 769 of Rev. Henry
Van Lennep’s Bible Lands: their modern
customs and manners illustrative of scripture, with maps and woodcuts.
Harper & Brothers, New York, 1876, were from the same original yet
unspecified source. Fig. 6 is simply
captioned “Self-torture of Religious
Devotee,” and Fig. 7. is “Muslim
Devotee Cutting Himself Like the Prophets of Baal.” (For explanation of Baal see The Holy Bible 1
Kings 18, on Elijah and the Prophets.).
We have
included below (Figs. 8., 9., 10. and 11.) high quality scans of figures from
the original print publication in French which we own, that was released in
1869. We hope that the presentation of
more than a few of the relevant images illustrating the events will help
emphasize the sheer scope and detail of the events. One will agree that the use of the one that
ended up bearing the erroneous caption “Tortured…”
seems to have been selected with a motive.
Fig. 8.
From pg. 259 of Vereschagin, 1869.
Fig. 9.
From pg. 263 of Vereschagin, 1869.
Fig. 10.
From pg. 265 of Vereschagin, 1869.
Fig. 11.
From pg. 276 of Vereschagine, 1869.
“Portrayal of those with gashes and slashes [les balafrés] at the final
dramatic representation.”
Drawing by Ḗmile Bayard after a
sketch by Vereschagine.
Conclusions
In an attempt to bring this entire theme of using ill-chosen
images even after they have had more than enough time to come to a much-needed
closure and finish, we will now jump ahead and briefly note a more recent use
of the Vereschagine image of two ‘Martyrs’
as shown in Fig. 10. They appear on the
cover of a rather costly volume compiled and published in 2015 by Vitaly Ianko
entitled “Armenica. An annotated
bibliography, or a list of books on Armenia and Armenians published in Western
languages up to 2015 and omitted in main bibliographies.” - published by
Stillwater Publications, Pawtucket, R.I., a self-publishing firm. So far as we have been able to discern, it is
available only through eBay, and that situation in itself may be viewed as a
’blessing’ because we predict the volume will inevitably get a limited
circulation due to its cost if nothing else. We are quick to emphasize however,
that not having seen with our own eyes this volume that bears the archaic term Armenica as its title, we cannot
meaningfully comment on any captioning or description that might accompany the
imagery on the cover.
One can only
hope that the early error first made many years ago in 1896 invoking and
presenting the etching of martyrs as portraying the suffering of Armenians is
not repeated. It is a sad but perhaps
understandable fact that too many people see things through the eyes of a
people who are well aware of the suffering their ancestors underwent at the
hands of the Ottoman Turks. These
sufferings are dramatic and extensive enough so as to never require conjuring
up of ever-more-dramatic visual ‘proof.’
Perhaps we
may attribute more than a bit to the Gladstonian mentality of the unmitigated
barbarousness of the Turk. On that view,
surely the Turks were/are blood-thirsty brutes.
See https://groong.org/orig/ak-20210617.html “Beheading as portrayed in cartoons
from the Ottoman Turkish period” by Abraham D. Krikorian and Eugene L. Taylor
June 17, 2021.[2]
Whatever the
motivation may have been or still is in the eyes of some, using false attestation
and attribution is hardly the way to teach and learn.
Whether that
perception of the importance of accuracy is true or not, we have adopted and
rigorously adhered to the view that inaccurately attested and attributed
photographs detract significantly from telling the story of the Armenian
Genocide in such a way that it is properly portrayed and understood and
believed.
Endnotes