The third most informed person in Armenia talking about revealing the truth, staying awake at nights and sharing his feelings
Director of National Archive of Armenia, historian, doctor of History Amatuni Virabyan together with the head of scientific-research department Gohar Avagyan received President Prize in 2014, for the 3-volume collection of documents “The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Turkey: Testimonies of Survivors” (1916-1917) published in Armenian and a selected collection published in English.
“I was always told to submit my work for a prize… Frankly speaking, I wanted to submit the work as Gohar Avagyan had carried out a huge work and I wanted her to receive a prize, well the prize also includes a monetary award, and I considered her worth receiving it. So, we decided to submit our work… and back in 2014 when we were awarded with President Prize, we had a very pleasant sensation, as all the members of the jury had almost unanimously approved our work”, Amatuni Virabyan recalls. He also mentioned about the terrible feelings he has had while studying the testimonies of Genocide survivors.
“In 2002 we started our journey working on documents which had long been archived for so many years in a secret regime. Those were the people’s testimonies, which had been written down within 1-2 years following the events, mainly by people who carried out the project, since many of the survivors were illiterate. We found out that not all the testimonies had been preserved. And whatever we had on hand, were difficult to read and decipher. It was also hard on the emotional level as well, because while reading the details of the crime, we would very often fail to sleep at nights. People had described all the details, and the person who wrote everything down added that he was upset and unable to continue. She writes about losing her children, about her husband being slaughtered; it was difficult for us as well.
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While compiling manuscripts, there were words that cannot be deciphered. There was a case when I tried hard for two days to read one word, before I realized it was the greatest expression of cruelty, it was a name to an organ of a human body, the document described which part of the body they started torturing the person. I revealed to myself how the genocide was conducted. The elite, the police, the military have not personally participated in this. It was conducted through coercion, by Circassians”.
– Similar to journalists, you are also a carrier of huge information, but we are dying from our temptation to publish and share the information we possess, while you, having compiled this much, how do you resist the temptation?
– I know a lot of things. In our country, in case I do not possess the largest scaled information, then I am on the 3rd or 4th place, as information carrier. I know everything about our history of the 19th and 20th centuries, I know all the details, and there are things that only I know. But the whole problem here is that I realized there are things better be kept untold. Many citizens turn to me to learn about their grandfather, their parents, if they partook in the war and what has happened to them. I check and I see that this person has been kept captive, he has taken some actions for the sake of Germany, and the Soviet authorities have sentenced him to death or shot dead. Can you imagine if I tell all these things to those people, do I have the right to, no, I should take care of this person, he should live in peace, not every truth should be told right away. People turn to us to learn who exactly has betrayed their father, grandfather, who is to blame for their lost childhood. Some know that their grandfather was a victim back in 1937, and they are proud of it, while we study and see that their grandfather has been imprisoned ten times and has had a completely another fate. But we do not tell them the truth, or we do say that we do not possess the archived documents because of the flood of May 26, 1946, in Yerevan. We do not have the right to make all the things known to public, well there is a term as state secret, and a moral secret”.
Amatuni Virabyan continues his study of testimonies by Genocide survivors, there is still a lot of information to be published, he says “It’s the duty of my soul to publish all of it, and I will do it”. There shall still be a 4th and 5th volume to come. The work has already been published in Turkish and Russian, while the Spanish volume is foreseen in the coming years – attempting to contribute to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Hripsime Jebejyan
The President Prize to the Republic of Armenia is initiated and funded by the Boghossian Foundation (Belgium-Switzerland). The Award Ceremony is organized by “Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund. The prizes are conferred by the RA President and the representatives of the Boghossian Foundation annually in May.
“Aravot” daily
27.02.2020
