Sisters of Mercy and Survival: Armenian Nurses, 1900-1930
By Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill
“Richard and Tina Carolan” Literary Fund
Antelias, 2012
Reviewed by Karin Saghdejian
A 1921 photograph of Armenian nurses at Annie Tracy Riggs (ATR) Memorial Hospital in Mezireh (present-day Elazig, Turkey) and a childhood memory of an April 24 commemoration in Hamilton, Ontario, compelled historian Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill to write her latest book Sisters of Mercy and Survival: Armenian Nurses, 1900-1930.
Published in 2012 in Antelias, Lebanon, the book focuses on the role of Armenian nurses in Western-run medical institutions in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East before and after World War I.
The book is also a detailed research of the formation and operation of the American hospital networks and nurse training schools in the various provinces of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. It’s a rare study that aims to shine light on the dedicated work of the Armenian pioneer nurse generation, the unsung heroes of a nation who toiled tirelessly in these medical facilities at times of great catastrophe.
Using documents in 5 languages from more than 15 archives in North America, Europe, Armenia, and the Middle East, Kaprielian-Chuchill sets the historical framework in which the Western medical institutions were established, and gives details of their operations together with the relief efforts of the Armenian charitable organizations.
Kaprielian-Churchill dates Armenian medical practice back to medieval times with Mkhitar Heratsi, and through the 18th and 19th centuries when Western-educated Armenian doctors were the sultan’s personal physicians and brought the newest practices to the Ottoman Empire. Well before the missionaries started their clinics, Armenians built hospitals and recruited Armenian women to serve as nurses, a remarkable progress compared to the Turkish women who started Western-style training only in late 1920’s.
She elaborates on the system of hospitals, clinics, and training schools Western missionaries built in the provinces and their role in advancing medicine within the empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hospitals flourished in Aintab (the Azariah Smith hospital), in Mezireh (ATR), in Van, Marsovan, Sepastia, and Marash.
One of the results of the spread of missionary hospitals was the need for nurses. Armenian women were widely recruited and trained in general medicine and especially in midwifery according to the most advanced Western practices and methodologies. She concludes that the missionary medical workers together with Armenian medical professionals planted the roots of a modern healthcare system in the Ottoman Empire.
In a cruel twist of fate, these very health facilities and medical personnel were forced to serve the Turkish war machine during World War I and, later, the survivors of the ensuing genocide.
Amid war, the American charitable initiative Near East Relief (NER) emerged to provide emergency food, shelter and medical services to thousands of Armenian orphans and refugees. Armenian nurses once again were destined to play a critical role in NER hospitals and orphanages in Sivas, Aintab, Aleppo, and Kharpert. Digging in the NER archives, Kaprielian-Churchill elaborates on the types of medical services offered and the many cases treated in these hospitals
The huge concentration of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, coupled with the influx of what remained of the Armenian population in Turkey as a result of Kemalist nationalist purges of 1920-24, rendered the new nation of Armenia virtually destitute. Kaprielian-Churchill recounts the tremendous amount of NER relief resources that went towards containing the epidemics and sheltering the orphans in Armenia. Perhaps NER’s most instrumental role was evacuating an estimated 22,000 Armenian orphans from Turkey between 1920 and 1923.
After the war, another American organization, American Women’s Hospital (AWH), arrived in Turkey, the Caucasus, and Greece, and played a huge role in sheltering and treating the post-genocide-era survivors, especially women and children. Between 1923 and 1933, AWH established medical facilities and nurse training schools in Armenia and in Greece, where as many as 100,000 Armenian refugees were admitted. Kaprielian-Churchill gives detailed accounts of AWH hospitals in Salonica, Kokkinia, and Dirgouti, where tens of thousands of tortured Armenian women and orphaned children received medical care.
Kaprielian-Churchill observes that genocide fundamentally changed the traditional attitudes towards nursing. It was no longer a degrading, menial job but essential work for the survival of what remained of the Armenian nation. Nurse training programs began again in ATR in Mezireh and in Gyumri’s Winchester training school for nurses, which she considers the first Western-style training school in Armenia.
Alongside the American medical facilities in the region, she singles out three hospitals that practiced advanced medicine, and where Armenian women were a major component of the medical staff: Holy Saviour (Sourp Pergich) Hospital in Constantinople, the private Altounyan Hospital in Aleppo (which had a nurse training program and the only X-ray machine in the entire Ottoman Empire), and the Syrian Protestant College of Beirut (later American University of Beirut, where the nursing program was established in 1905 with two Armenians nurses as its first graduates).
Kaprielian-Churchill also spotlights the work of Armenian humanitarian organizations, namely the Armenian Red Cross (later Armenian Relief Society), Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), and for a period the Hai Bedagan Khach (leftist pro-Soviet charity), as the main agents of national relief work during and after the genocide. She tracks the interesting facts of their early formation at the beginning of the 20th century with their many chapters and affiliates in North America, England, and the Middle East. She goes into great length detailing their assistance in refugee-filled Aleppo and famine- and epidemic-stricken Armenia.
The emergence of the Armenian Red Cross and AGBU, which even attempted to amalgamate in North America in 1921, in times of national crisis legitimized them in the eyes of the nation. When all the pre-war structures had collapsed, they acted as essential agents of social and medical services, she concludes.
At the end of the book, Kaprielian-Churchill gives short bios of the Armenian nurses at ATR, the most advanced nursing school in the Ottoman Empire, who played a fundamental role in establishing and advancing Western-style nursing in the region and hence became pioneers in the field.
The 12 chapters of the book are punctuated with a compilation of rare and telling historical photos of the hospitals, patients, nurses, doctors, and orphanages. As the author intends, they form a photographic album telling the story of the nursing experience of Armenian women.
The volume is a valuable study that brings back to life the countless hardworking Armenian women—often left in oblivion—who played a major role during a critical juncture in the history of the nation.
Karin Saghdejian
Latest posts by Karin Saghdejian (see all)
- An Interview with Designer of Genocide Monument in Vancouver - May 7, 2014
- Book Review: ‘Sisters of Mercy and Survival: Armenian Nurses, 1900-1930’ - September 13, 2013
This seems like a great book. How can I purchase a copy?
I would love to read this book, but you did not give an address as to where I could buy one! Please let me know if you are selling this book through your publication.
Rita Dilanian
You may find the book on Amazon. :)
Sisters of Mercy and Survival
By Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill
Dear Isabel,
This is Berjouhie Devejian, a retired registered nurse in Fresno, CA, the daughter-in- law of Araxie Ghougasian Devejian that you interviewed for your book in 1998 in Fresno.
I was inspired by your book and the lives of all those nurses, pharmacists and doctors who have contributed enormously to mankind.
It is remarkable how you have referred Mrs. Araxie few places in your book which we are so grateful. She was worthy of mention. She passed away in December 1999. An orphan of the massacre, she was the ideal Armenian nurse, who worked truly hard all her life, may God bless her soul. We are honored that you came to Fresno and interviewed her so extensively in her own home.
Your book is a fascinating collection of archives of the historical journey of Armenian nurses and the recognition of nursing in general during and after the massacre. Your study definitely has indicated their courage and selfless dedication.
I was amazed to read that in the Ottoman Empire “the thirteenth century is considered the golden age of Armenian medicine with increase in the number of hospitals, medical schools and extensive medicinal herb gardens . . .” Armenians provided doctors, pharmacists, and nurses to the missionary clinics and hospitals, collectively giving hundreds of years of devoted service.”
This is a remarkable history of mostly American missionaries, Armenian doctors and nurses demonstrating as Christians not only by their words, but by their lives and the loving service they rendered to those who came to the hospital for care with high standards. “They were educated, intelligent, compassionate with good character were all dedicated to serve humanity and their monumental contribution has been phenomenal in saving lives, struggling to survive in a corrupt and crumbling empire.”
How enlightening it was to read the remarkable stories of our past heroes. I have frequently encouraged my friends to read your book.
Once, I got to know you through our St. Paul Armenian Church during a Valentine Dinner activity, how much you made us laugh while you were telling us about our past-to-present love history of our Armenian couples. Wish you could come again and we will hear you one more time.
We have a rich intellectual cultural history. In spite of our agonizing 20th century massacres, the Armenian people stayed progressive. They proved over the centuries to all the world that we will continue to progress in all facets and win justice above politics with new resolutions, to stop crimes against humanity and the Turkish denial has to end.
Take care and hopefully to see you one day in Fresno again. God bless you and your family with good health. You are a remarkable historian!
Sincerely,
Berjouhie Devejian
Fresno California