The Istanbul Convolution
Sitting in a cell in the NSS, Macho reflected on the series of events that landed him in this position. He had been kept in his cell for two days, continually yelled at and asked questions about who he was, why he was in Armenia, and what he was doing with the contraband they caught him with at the airport.
He was scared about what was going to happen next, but he managed to keep his mouth shut and hoped the others would do the same.
Gomitas is one of Armenia’s cultural heroes. A priest, he was responsible for taking the folk music found in Anatolian Armenian villages and transcribing them for generations to come. Gomitas was a resident of Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire’s initiation of the Genocide, but was spared from the fate that many other prominent Armenians suffered.
Four years after escaping the fate his compatriots suffered on April 24th, 1915, Gomitas would move to Paris and eventually die in a psychiatric facility there in 1935.
After a year studying in Yerevan, Dil was set to return to Istanbul. Dil, like Macho, was a Turkish citizen studying in Armenia. But, where Macho was Armenian studying for a four year degree, Dil was a Kurd who had come on a yearlong study abroad program.
As is tradition, Dil was accompanied by Macho and other friends wishing to say goodbye. They made their way to the entry point, beyond which admittance was forbidden save for ticket holders and where they were to say their final goodbyes.
Instead the group of them, Dil and Macho included, were rounded up and arrested by Armenia's National Security Service.
The NSS is what replaced the KGB in Armenia after the Soviet Union collapsed, and is responsible for maintaining Armenia’s security and interests. Like the KGB of old, the NSS is tasked with following persons of interest and acting when a crime is being committed.
Additionally, the NSS provides border security, stands guard for the Prime Minister, and runs Armenia’s cryptography operations.
A few months prior to being arrested, Macho was at Dil’s apartment during a makeshift get together. Macho noticed a pile of old books in the corner of the apartment and began to peruse them.
Many of them were hand written, with delicate pages, so much so that Dil, upon seeing Macho read them, asked that he be very careful, explaining that the books were a hobby of his, specifically collecting rare and original prints.
Among the books Macho found a dusty, worn, half filled notebook which he claimed for himself. The binding and aged paper appealed to him, and he would go on to use it for his studies. Over the next few weeks he wrote in the notebook regularly, filling it with notes from his psychology class, scribbling lewd drawings on, and writing Turkish curse words in the margins for his own amusement.
One subsequent day, Dil was visiting Macho when he saw the notebook, became visibly upset, took the book back and left.
The Matenadaran is many things. It is a research institute. It is a museum. It is a repository for Armenian illuminated manuscripts and books of cultural importance. It is the largest such repository, and as such an important site for the preservation of Armenian culture.
The collection at the Matenadaran is a national archive which belongs to all Armenians. Within the collection are materials gathered over centuries and donated by private and public sources. These texts include translations of book from other languages, of which many of the originals have been lost.
This building and what it holds is a physical representation of Armenia’s place in history, a true national treasure irreplaceable in its substance.
As Macho sat in that cell with some of his friends wondering what was going on, an NSS officer finally painted the picture for him.
A man at the Matenadaran seeking to make some cash on the side was selling off priceless, irreplaceable manuscripts on the cheap. Dil, having been made aware of this scheme, or even possibly helping initiate it, had been purchasing the books as they became available, with the intent to take them to Turkey and sell them off to collectors.
It is difficult to illustrate the awful, horrid nature of this plan that sought to steal and appropriate one of the last vestiges of Armenian culture and give it to the people who had tried to erase them from the earth, as if rubbing rock salt into a centuries old open wound.
What no one involved seemed to guess was that the NSS was onto them from the beginning and had allowed Dil to attempt to leave the country to catch him and any other possible conspirators in that final moment.
Macho may not have been privy to the crime; but nonetheless, for two days with no food or water, worried he would be prosecuted or worse.
For two days, the interrogators tried to ascertain who the idiot was that defiled that book. For two days Macho remained silent. The notebook he had taken, the one he wrote notes in, drew cocks on, and covered in Turkish swear words was none other than that of his fellow Istanbul-Armenian, Gomitas.
He was scared about what was going to happen next, but he managed to keep his mouth shut and hoped the others would do the same.
Four years after escaping the fate his compatriots suffered on April 24th, 1915, Gomitas would move to Paris and eventually die in a psychiatric facility there in 1935.
After a year studying in Yerevan, Dil was set to return to Istanbul. Dil, like Macho, was a Turkish citizen studying in Armenia. But, where Macho was Armenian studying for a four year degree, Dil was a Kurd who had come on a yearlong study abroad program.
As is tradition, Dil was accompanied by Macho and other friends wishing to say goodbye. They made their way to the entry point, beyond which admittance was forbidden save for ticket holders and where they were to say their final goodbyes.
Instead the group of them, Dil and Macho included, were rounded up and arrested by Armenia's National Security Service.
Additionally, the NSS provides border security, stands guard for the Prime Minister, and runs Armenia’s cryptography operations.
A few months prior to being arrested, Macho was at Dil’s apartment during a makeshift get together. Macho noticed a pile of old books in the corner of the apartment and began to peruse them.
Many of them were hand written, with delicate pages, so much so that Dil, upon seeing Macho read them, asked that he be very careful, explaining that the books were a hobby of his, specifically collecting rare and original prints.
Among the books Macho found a dusty, worn, half filled notebook which he claimed for himself. The binding and aged paper appealed to him, and he would go on to use it for his studies. Over the next few weeks he wrote in the notebook regularly, filling it with notes from his psychology class, scribbling lewd drawings on, and writing Turkish curse words in the margins for his own amusement.
One subsequent day, Dil was visiting Macho when he saw the notebook, became visibly upset, took the book back and left.
The collection at the Matenadaran is a national archive which belongs to all Armenians. Within the collection are materials gathered over centuries and donated by private and public sources. These texts include translations of book from other languages, of which many of the originals have been lost.
This building and what it holds is a physical representation of Armenia’s place in history, a true national treasure irreplaceable in its substance.
As Macho sat in that cell with some of his friends wondering what was going on, an NSS officer finally painted the picture for him.
A man at the Matenadaran seeking to make some cash on the side was selling off priceless, irreplaceable manuscripts on the cheap. Dil, having been made aware of this scheme, or even possibly helping initiate it, had been purchasing the books as they became available, with the intent to take them to Turkey and sell them off to collectors.
It is difficult to illustrate the awful, horrid nature of this plan that sought to steal and appropriate one of the last vestiges of Armenian culture and give it to the people who had tried to erase them from the earth, as if rubbing rock salt into a centuries old open wound.
What no one involved seemed to guess was that the NSS was onto them from the beginning and had allowed Dil to attempt to leave the country to catch him and any other possible conspirators in that final moment.
Macho may not have been privy to the crime; but nonetheless, for two days with no food or water, worried he would be prosecuted or worse.
For two days, the interrogators tried to ascertain who the idiot was that defiled that book. For two days Macho remained silent. The notebook he had taken, the one he wrote notes in, drew cocks on, and covered in Turkish swear words was none other than that of his fellow Istanbul-Armenian, Gomitas.
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