Shirin Manafov

A Russian writer who witnessed the events of 1916 exposes the myth about this genocide

In June 2013, Mikhail Meyer, Doctor of History, Professor, Director of MSU Institute of Asian and African Studies, Turkologist, made a statement on Armenian hoaxes in the program "Turkish March" on Kultura TV channel which caused a great scandal. He was asked a question on Armenia genocide and his answer was: “This is our common problem.  In 1915, some 1.5 million Armenians lived in Turkey. Thus, allegations that more than 1.5 million Armenians died must have been false. Because in fact many Armenians died during the evacuation from combat zones. This statement caused outrage of Armenian diaspora. But the facts confirm M. Meyer’s rightness.

In 1987, a two-volume edition by Sergey Gorodetsky, a poet of ‘Silver Age’ from Saint Petersburg was issued by the Moscow publishing House “Khudojestvennaya Literatura”. The famous poet took part in the events of 1916, in Turkey, and his two stories - Gardens of Babylon and The Scarlet Whirlwind were included in the second volume. 

Below is an excerptum from this novel and essay of reminiscences.

In his essay about his meeting with Hovhannes Tumanyan, Gorodetsky writes: “In the spring of 1916, I arrived in Tiflis as a correspondent for the newspaper Russkoye Slovo. Soon after, he left for the city of Van.

Is it believable that the Russians can easily leave their field of victories and the Caucasus? Is it believable that the Russians only at the behest of the Tsar went to the Caucasus and now when this behest lost force, they come home?". The essence of the theme of his memories is this.  The second chapter of the story "Gardens of Babylon" is called "Escape". In this chapter, Gorodetsky described ‘the second escape’ and he himself witnessed it as a newspaper reporter.  The Kozaks detachment (unit) accompanied the runaways and the author witnessed the process.

From the essay "Van": "By the autumn of 1916, it was secretly revealed that Russian army left Van…". As the best horse – unforgettable Kurd was in my detachment, I took the responsibility of ascertaining opportunities to go further. We could face obstacles at any moment.  And the people followed the leaving army. We were moving with our vans at the tail end... The escape of the Armenians in the year of 1916 was much more dangerous than in 1915.

Why did they escape?

The author answered: “The reason was fear. There were Armenian units as the part of the Russian Army that killed local Muslims.”