Krikor Balakian

Krikor Balakaian (1922)

Krikor Balakian ( Armenian Գրիգորիս Պալագեան , transliteration Grigoris Palagean; * 1875 in Evdokia (today Tokat ); † October 8, 1934 in Marseille ) was an Armenian bishop , eyewitness to the genocide and witness in the Talaat trial in Berlin .

Life

Krikor Balakian was a graduate of Karin's Sanasarian College (now: Erzurum ). He studied architecture in Germany for two years and eventually became an engineer-geometer. He was ordained a Vardapet (actually means doctor; Armenian title for the higher clergy within the Armenian Apostolic Church ). Krikor Balakian was one of the approximately 250 Armenian leaders arrested in Istanbul on “Red Sunday” , April 24, 1915 .

One group was taken to Ayas . With 190 other Armenians from the capital, Balakian was deported to Çankırı, northeast of Ankara . Of these, only 16 were supposed to survive. In a group of 48 deportees, he marched from Çankırı towards Der Zor . On the way he managed to win the trust of Gendarmerie Captain Şükri Bey . He found out about the plan of extermination against the entire Armenian population. Balakian managed to escape from Islahie. First he was able to go into hiding as a worker on the Baghdad Railway , where both Turkish deserters and Armenian refugees were used as slave labor. When Armenian workers were slain between Maraş and Bartsche, Balakian fled to another section of the Baghdad Railway and, with the help of German engineers, disguised as Mr Bernstein , escaped to Paris via Constantinople.

At the Berlin trial of 1921 against the Talaat Pasha assassin Soghomon Tehlirian , he appeared - alongside Johannes Lepsius - as a witness for the defense. The German court was so shocked by the reports of genocide in the Ottoman Empire that the former Interior Minister Talaat was one of the main culprits that Tehlirian was acquitted.

Krikor Balakian subsequently became prelate of Manchester , London and finally Bishop of Marseille. Two churches were built in Marseille and Nice (église Ste Marie, 1928) under his direction, as well as various chapels and schools.

Services

His memoirs The Armenian Golgotha are a major source of genocide. In it he describes his experiences during the deportation . Krikor Balakian was one of the few surviving leaders to report on the genocide. Since Komitas Vardapet belonged to the same group of arrested people as Balakian, his statements about the traumatization of the famous composer and founder of Armenian classical music are of particular importance. Komitas probably escaped murder through the intervention of a high-ranking Turkish friend; his mental state deteriorated rapidly after the experience of deportation and massacre. He died in a psychiatric hospital in Paris in 1935.

Works

• Հայ Գողգոթան [The Armenian Golgotha; Armenian Original], Volume 1, Congregation of Mechitarists, Vienna 1922, Volume 2, Imprimerie Araxes, Paris 1959. (French translation: Le Golgotha ​​arménien , Le cercle d'écrits caucasiens, La Ferté-Sous-Jouarre 2002 (Volume 1) ISBN 2-913564-08-9 , 2004 (Volume 2) ISBN 2-913564-13-5
• Armenian Golgotha. A Memoir of The Armenian Genocide, 1915–1918 , translated by his great-nephew Peter Balakian and Aris Sevag, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 2009 ISBN 978-0-307-26288-2
• Churches of Ani

literature

• Wolfgang Gust: The Armenian Genocide 1915/16. Documents from the Political Archive of the German Foreign Office. Verlag zu Klampen, 2005, ISBN 3-934920-59-4
• Peter Balakian : Black Dog of Fate. 1997, ISBN 0-7679-0254-8 , German: The dogs from Ararat. Fischer TB, 2004.
• Grigoris Palakjan: The Armenian Golgotha. In: Pogrom. May 1980.
• Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian: Archeology of Madness. Komitas. Portrait of an Armenian Icon. 2001, from page 116, ISBN 0-9535191-7-1