das linoleum
denn es weiß nicht wo baku liegt
aus:
Aber das sind Ausnahmen
Tomaž Šalamun [1]
I've recently read the poem "But these are exceptions" [Aber das sind Ausnahmen] by Tomaž Šalamun, and it probably refers to the Schengen Agreement and the Baku pogrom, and also depicts people fleeing. When I heard about the Baku pogrom in 1990, I had to admit that I hadn't noticed it at all during my trip through Armenia. But I came into contact with the problem in Armenia when we visited the genocide memorial in Yerevan. And so I want to start with talking about the Baku pogrom, and then introduce the Armenian Genocide Memorial and what it actually stands for, and what extensions it could also stand for, because the genocide of the Ottoman Empire still is an issue. The ethnic cleansing continues, most recently in Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenian: Լեռնային Ղարաբաղ, Russian: Нагорный Карабах).
The Baku pogrom (Armenian: Բաքվի ջարդեր) was directed against the ethnic Armenian inhabitants of Baku in 1990, when Azerbaijan still had been part of the Soviet Union [2]. Armenians were raided, robbed, beaten, murdered, expelled from the city, some appartments were arsoned, and all started on January 12th 1990, so that there will be the 35th anniversary of these hineous crimes in six weeks. The progrom lasted for seven days. Unlike the Sumgait pogrom in 1988, the Soviet army wasn't late for only three hours, but for a whole week. As the attackers had lists of Armenians and their addresses the pogrom hasn't been spontaneous.
Massacres of Armenians had occurred in the 1890s and 1909 in the Ottoman Empire. However, the systematic destruction of the Armenian people (the proper word is genocide [3]) in the Ottoman Empire during World War I took the lives of an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians only during the march into the desert of Syria without sufficient water, starvation and the dispersion of survivors in concentration camps. After the constitution of the Turkish Republic, the Kurds, who helped in the genocide, and the Alevis replaced the Armenians as internal enemies in the 1920ies, they still suffer nowadays, as the Turkish army bombs Kurdish settlements. Only Turkey, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan deny the genocide, but „34 countries have recognized the events as genocide, concurring with the academic consensus.“
The Armenian Genocide Memorial complex (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանության զոհերի հուշահամալիր) or shorter after the locality Tsitsernakaberd (Armenian: Ծիծեռնակաբերդ) is Armenia's official memorial dedicated to the victims of the Armenian genocide during World War I in the Ottoman Empire [4]. The construction started after demonstrations demanding an official recognition of the genocide during 1965 and were completed in 1967. Wikipedia: „The 44-meter stele symbolizes the national rebirth of Armenians. Twelve slabs are positioned in a circle, representing the twelve lost provinces in present-day Turkey. In the center of the circle, at a depth of 1.5 meters, there is an eternal flame dedicated to the 1.5 million people killed during the Armenian genocide.“ Among the people, who were committed to relieving the distress of survivors after the genocide, were Anatole France, Franz Werfel, Henry Morgenthau Sr., Fridtjof Nansen, Pope Benedict XV, and more. There are also graves of soldiers, who died in the Nagorno-Karabakh war, and an alley of trees to commemorate the victims.
Our local guide told his personal story of how he experienced the genocide in his family. He comes from Istanbul and his grandmothers survived just by chance. We observed a minute's silence at the memorial itself and the guide sang a very moving song for us. After all, he had been trained as a singer.
The Armenian Genocide Memorial commemorates primarily the genocide of the Armenian people during World War I, but sadly crimes against the Armenian people and its heritage are still being committed to this day [5].
Links and Annotations:
[1] Translation: „the linoleum / because it doesn't know where baku is” from: “But these are exceptions”, title of the book as well of this poem. “Tomaž Šalamun (1941–2014) was a Slovenian poet who was a leading figure of postwar neo-avant-garde poetry in Central Europe ...”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toma%C5%BE_%C5%A0alamun
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsitsernakaberd
[5] We'll have to talk about this topic, when I tell you more about the Armenian cross-stone or khachkar (Armenian: խաչքար).
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