ARLINGTON, Mass.—Starving, tortured, and enslaved, she endured the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. One among tens of thousands, at only 15 years old she survived to tell the story of her people and ravished homeland to the civilized world. On March 8 at 3 p.m., in an illustrated lecture and presentation (in English), Dr. Hayk Demoyan, the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (Dzidzernagapert) in Yerevan, in light of newly discovered materials, will share the story of Arshaluys Aurora Mardgianian.
Arshaluys Mardikian was born to an Armenian financier in 1901in the ancient Armenian city of Chmshkadzag, named after the famous Byzantine Emperor John Tzimisces. Scarred both physically and emotionally, she mustered the courage and strength to persevere against all odds. Changing her name to Aurora Mardiganian to conceal her real identity and escape possible persecution by the Turks, she told her story and gave interviews. American papers wrote articles on her heart-wrenching odyssey; among them were the Life Magazine, New York American, and Los Angeles Examiner of the Hearst family newspapers, including 14 chapters from Sun., Aug. 18 to Nov. 24, 1918.
Unlike many survivors of the Armenian Genocide, who suppressed their memories, Aurora was among the first to tell her story. The Ravished Armenia: the Christian Girl, Who Survived the Great Massacres, based on the story of her life, was published in 1918. It served as a script for the film “Auction of Souls” that was produced in 1919 and first screened in London. Aurora not only shared her story with the world, but also courageously took a role in the movie, and even agreed to help promote the film at the expense of reliving the horrors of the genocide. This took the toll on Aurora, and consumed her in the last years of her life.
Hayk Demoyan was born and raised in Gyumri (formerly Leninakan), Armenia. He studied history at the Yerevan State University (YSU) from 1993-98, received his master’s degree in 2001, and served in the Caucasian Media Institute as a regional expert from 2003-04. Demoyan represented the Armenian Ministry of Defense during the trials (2004-2006) of slain Armenian army officer Gurgen Margarian in Budapest, Hungary. In November 2006, by presidential decree, he was appointed the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, a position that he holds to this day. In 2012, he received his doctoral degree from the Institute of Oriental Studies and Institute of History of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, with the topic of “Karabagh Conflict and Turkey: A Historical-Comparative Analysis.” He is a member of the Yerevan City Council and since 2011 has served as secretary of the Armenian Genocide 100th Anniversary Commemoration Committee. Demoyan is the author of several books and numerous articles on the Armenian Genocide, Turkish foreign policy, and Turkish involvement in the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict.
Aurora Mardiganian is the personification of the horrors of the Armenian Genocide and what befell thousands of Armenian girls and women, in particular. She is the symbol of survival, resilience, and perseverance of a nation, triumphing over death and human evil. Her story is the story of thousands of orphaned Armenian girls, upon whose shoulders an entire nation was resurrected from the ashes of the genocide.
The March 8 lecture is organized by the Armenian Cultural Foundation (ACF) and co-sponsored by the National Association for Armenian Research (NAASR) and Armenian International Women’s Association (AIWAI). It is in commemoration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. The event will take place at 3 p.m. at ACF, 441 Mystic St., Arlington, Mass. It is open to the public; a reception will follow. Newly released copies of Ravished Armenia, published by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, will be available for sale. For more details, call the ACF office at (781) 646-3090.
Guest Contributor
Latest posts by Guest Contributor (see all)
- Kariné Poghosyan’s Vienna series to conclude with “Beethoven” - April 26, 2024
- Ruben Vardanyan granted permission to speak with family who plea for end to his hunger strike - April 26, 2024
- Nora Armani to perform Mercedes and Zaruhi in Boston - April 24, 2024
Will the lecture be posted as an article in Armenian weekly?
I have in my office some old 1918 sheet music for “Armenian Maid” with the likeness of Aurora Mardiganian on the inside front cover. Her thick long dark hair is parted in the center, and her attractive features are pleasant, but she seems amused at what the American onlooker does not know.
This letter appears within the music pages, with her signature:
“When you, are the Sweethearts of other lands, hear in this beautiful melody, which tells of the love of lads and maids in my native land, will you not make just a little room in your hearts for me? I am almost the only Armenian Maid left alive of all those who used to live and love in my Armenia. I had a sweetheart too, who used to sing to me just such pretty songs as this. And I use to watch for him to come into my father’s garden every night when the moon came up, and I used to make sweet plans for the time when we would walk together in a garden all our own. But the Sultan sent his soldiers through Armenia to take away all the pretty Armenian Maids, that they might be sold into the harems of the Turks. They took me too, and killed my sweetheart just as they killed the sweethearts of all the other Maids who were carried away. I was the only one who escaped to this beautiful America-but I have no sweetheart now; no one to sing pretty songs to me. Where love used to nestle in my heart now there is only the pain of memories and the lonesomeness that comes when I think of all my people lost in the Great Massacres, and of the big Sweetheart Boy was taken from me, his own Armenian Maid.”
Hmmm, it “…consumed her in the last years of her life”. Can we ask how the author knows this? I recall reading, a number of years ago, and a few years after her death, an interview with Anthony Slide who had interviewed her just before her death. He wrote that she had been entirely ignored by the Armenian community for decades, lived alone and forgotten in a “tiny, tiny, one-room apartment”, and that after her death all her possessions, including materials he had seen that related to her 1918 memoirs and 1919 film, were thrown away. In 2009 Slide said “No son, no friends, no members of the Armenian community for whom she had helped to raise so much money” were with her at the end and that “Her body was cremated. Her ashes unclaimed, and four
years later, as required by California law, she was buried in an
unmarked grave with 2,099 others.” Why could the Armenian great and good not decide that Aurora was a “symbol of survival, resilience, and perseverance of a nation, triumphing over death and human evil” before her sad and forgotten death?
It’s a certainty the community did not know or that she became a recluse on account of losing everything but her name, thanks to Turks. Hurl your daggers at your murderous ancestors.
I also read about Aurora Mardikak as she was a hyrenagitz . It is a shame that her contributions went unrecognized. I would be interested in knowing what village she was from.
Enormously shocked that the Armenian community itself relegated her to obscurity.
Gratified to see that film director Inna Sakaryan of Yerevan has now made a magnificent documentary film about Aurora Arshaluys Mardigian, at long last providing her memory with the long overdue recognition it so richly deserves. The name of the film is “Aurora’s Sunrise”. I saw it at the Golden Apricot film festival in Yerevan and was completely blown away. This film should be required viewing in all Armenian communities, everywhere, to remind them that Internal Genocide Denial
Is far more shameful than Turkush Genocide Denial.
.