Memory and messages: the creation of Armenian Museum

Armenians represent today one of the biggest Christian communities in Turkey. About 50,000 Armenians live in Istanbul,[39] while there are other communities mainly in the south-east of Turkey.[40]

The relationship between Turkish and Armenian people was negatively affected by the sad epilogue of the Armenian Question, which Armenian communities erased from their ancient settlings in Eastern Anatolia during the last century of the Ottoman Empire.  Although the definition of an univocal initial date is still controversial, it is largely recognized that the Armenian Genocide can be seen as the final stadium of a long period of violence, started in the year 1878, culminating with a massive, planned, extermination of Armenian people during the years 1915-1917 (Flores, 2006).[41]

The topic of the genocide has been negated for long time by the Turkish Government; based on the assumption that the number of declared death was too high. At the same time, until the 1960s,[42] the Armenian communities themselves avoided the topic for its emotional implications. Nevertheless, the issue of the genocide and the assimilation politics implemented by the Turkish government toward the Armenian community acquired international relevance in light of Turkey?s European candidature. It was in this frame that in December 5, 2004, the first Armenian museum, Surp Pırgiç Ermeni Hastanesi Vakfı Müzesi, opened its doors.

The two-room museum is located in the Armenian Hospital of Yedikule (Yedikule Ermeni Hastahanesi). Thehospital was built during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1832), and is one of this recognized minority?s foundations (vakıf) which, on the basis of the Treaty of Lausanne, allowed religioous minorities to provide assistance to their communities. In fact, it is considered a modern and functioning hospital, in which not only Armenians but also Turkish people could find help.

The museum was created in the office of the building and, according to official statement, its creation derived from a long-cherished idea of endowing the Armenian communities with a place for remembering their history. Therefore, it was the same foundation that took care of restoration works and exhibition choices.

The nature and the nucleus of the exhibited objects are quite heterogeneous, since the first section of the museum contains portraits and photos and objects of eminent Armenian people.  The second part includes firmans and decrees of the Ottoman time, religious objects belonging to the annexed church, medical equipment used in the Hospital, and finally a section with examples of ceramics.

[39]In Istanbul, Armenian settlements could easily be found in the European area as Kurtuluş, Yedikule.

[40]See: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (2005); Flores (2006); Herzig and Kurkchiyan (2004).

[41]According to estimates, during the genocide period, approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed. On the 24th April 1915 in Istanbul more than 800 representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia were arrested and subsequently shot. During the following two years from a population of approximately 3 million Armenians in the eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire, were killed 1.5 million. More than 600,000 became refugees (Guerzoni).

[42]The year 1965 signed the commemoration of fifty years from the Genocide.