Armenian Literature

Good news yesterday morning: German MPs recognise Armenian 'genocide' amid Turkish fury. What's good about that? Well, the documentation seems pretty clear that what happened in 1915 meets the threshold for being described as genocide. (Just like the USA's treatment of North America's First Nations/Native peoples does--which I bring up because, while the US does live in a glass house and should throw no stones, we can still recognize it.) Similarly Germany. So kudos to Germany, or rather, some of Germany's politicians, for being willing to acknowledge what I think is a pretty obvious truth, even though it may not be particularly politically expedient to do so. From the reading I've done on the Armenian genocide, it sounds like the main reason the US doesn't officially recognize this Armenian genocide is for self-serving political interests: Turkey is a strong US ally in a volatile region.

I suppose I'm naive: I find it hard to understand why acknowledging historical errors, even crimes, is so problematic. When I say, "I've done some reading and it sounds like the Armenian genocide of 1915 was, in fact, genocide," that doesn't mean that I think today's Turkey is horrible, its people racist, or anything like that. I suppose the trouble comes from questions of restorative justice, reparations, and the like. And that is both understandable and difficult to resolve. I unfortunately have no answers.

But for purposes of educating ourselves (this was supposed to be a book blog, after all!), here's a useful list of "essential Armenian literature." I've only read 1.5 of these books, so I have lots to go for a more nuanced and overarching view of the Armenian people and their history, but it just so happens that the two books from this list I've read dealt with the events of 1915 (and then I had to go look up some more info on what happened, as I'd never heard of it at all prior to reading these books!).

OK, so, which 1.5 books did I read?

• Black Dog of Fate, by Peter Balakian: I thought this was very well-written, readable, informative, and insightful. Definitely recommend.
• The Sandcastle Girls, by Chris Bohjalian: This one gets so much hype, and I had such high hopes. It was remarkably similar to Black Dog of Fate, but I couldn't finish it, though I started it first. Why? Because I have an aversion to literature using genocide as a backdrop for a sappy love story. Oh, sweet little white missionary falls in love with a dangerous-but-sensitive Turk. I just couldn't. A lot of other people could and did, but I honestly found it insultingly bad, for cheapening the very events it tries to shed light on. Just my opinion, but it is very much my opinion.

I absolutely want to read more, but (a) time is so short and my reading list is so long, and (b) I had trouble finding copies of the other titles on the list, so I'll have to do more looking.

And as noted above, it's hard to know what to do, in hindsight, to try to do something to improve the lives of people affected by these events. As usual, my go-to social welfare nonprofit was Kiva, which does have loans to folks in Armenia. Presumably there are also individuals of Armenian descent in other countries represented there, but it'll be hard to guess who, exactly, so looking at Armenia proper seemed like a good start. (Periodically there are also loans available to folks in Turkey, but it looks like Kiva's field partners there are relatively new to the Kiva interface, so there are comparatively few loans to Turkish residents fundraising at this time.)