Cultural boundaries which indicate one’s inclusion/exclusion within a specific community have existed among ethnic groups for centuries, demarcated through language, customs, religion, and appearance. In addition to these markers, an ancient means of indicating group membership employed tattoos, creating boundaries based on inscriptions on the body. During the Armenian Genocide, Armenian women and children were often “branded” for life. As commodities of Arabs/Kurds/Turks, they were tattooed by their “owners” with tribal markings on their once unblemished faces and hands. With each new owner, new symbols were tattooed, creating a kaleidoscope of patterns and designs. This proprietary action, marking the body to control it, was commonly used to mark slaves. Imprisoned within their tattooed skins, the fate of many Armenian children was sealed. As a result of symbols inscribed on their bodies, they were reluctant to cross this cultural boundary to rejoin the Armenian community. Many who attempted to reunite with their compatriots encountered discrimination. Using Armenian Genocide survivor testimonies, this paper will analyze the practice of tattooing and its aftermath of creating a cultural boundary for Armenian children. This study draws from eyewitness testimonies to examine the ways in which visible markings of tattoos created boundaries, serving to exclude individuals from the Armenian community. Through the viewpoint of survivors, this study addresses the following questions: How did Armenian children respond to carrying indelible tattoos on their faces and bodies? How were they treated once they returned to the Armenian community? How did the tattoo serve as an enduring identity marker etching the boundaries of possibility for their lives?

Before 1915, the Hakkâri highlands held the world’s largest concentration of Christian Assyrians. Today, their descendants are estimated to number more than 600,000, scattered in nearly 50 countries on six continents. None of them, however, actually live in Hakkâri, which has been devoid of Assyrian communities since 1925. In the past 90 years, not only have visits by Hakkâri Assyrians to their homeland been spasmodic and clandestine, but there has been almost no dialogue or relationship between them and the Turkish Government – until recently. Despite having been estranged from their homeland for so long, Assyrians from Hakkâri have not only maintained their language and heritage, but also cultural traits unique to the region, wherever they have resettled. Additionally, they still strongly identify with the villages and districts they had been forced to abandon. This paper, drawing from a number of sources, will endeavour to briefly outline the historic presence of Assyrians in Hakkâri, detail their expulsion from the region between 1914 and 1925, as well as describe the area and its inhabitants since the catastrophic events that transpired. Issues such as the resettlement of Assyrians elsewhere and the settlement of Kurds in Assyrians villages will also be discussed, along with the impact of this separation and appropriation. Moreover, the perspectives of Hakkâri Assyrians regarding their “homeland” will be outlined, as well as the shaping and reshaping of self-perceived social identities amongst them. It will also explore their engagement with and consideration by local Kurds who have lived for the greater part of a century without their once numerous neighbours – yet with the constant visual memory of their former presence. Furthermore, issues of memory will be touched upon, revealing something of the internal debates and dynamics within the Hakkâri Assyrian community, which has been living in diaspora, both within the Middle East and in the West, for nearly a century. Finally, the importance of preserving the Hakkâri region’s historical and cultural legacy, as well as the question of properties and ownership of cultural monuments, will also be highlighted.

According to scholars, naming is a potent boundaries-making ritual, and an effective tool for creating us-them distinctions. During the Armenian Genocide, when incorporating members of other groups into their group, Turks required the renaming of the individual as part of the conversion process into Islam. The act of renaming was considered a prerequisite for membership into the group. This paper will present strategies employed by children during the Armenian Genocide to resist attempts at Turkification, and their tenacious efforts to maintain their Armenian identity and culture, in particular, their name. Data will be drawn from 200 oral history memoirs of Armenian Genocide survivors, collected from 1960 to 1980s. Genocide survivors describe their rejection of attempts to rename them. Some children refused to accept a Muslim name even if defying their captors could lead to death. Many survivors provide examples of their determination to cling to their name. For example, a female survivor recalls rejecting attempts at renaming her with a Muslim name, and engages in defiant assertions of her ethnic and religious identities. Genocide survivors recalled exhortations from dying parents to remember the names of family members as well as their own names. The admonitions of these parents reveal the importance they placed on naming, and their recognition of the significance of a name in maintaining one’s identity. Other survivors narrate ways in which they were stripped of everything – their family, their clothes and even their name. Children describe the difficulty of maintaining their identity and refusing to submit to attempts at renaming. They share their struggle to cling to the identity of an Armenian Christian. Some are unable to continue in their refusal to change their name, and eventually succumb to attempts at renaming. Genocide survivors had been stripped of every connection to their Armenian identity and culture. Having lost everything, they struggled to thwart attempts at obliterating their name and their identity.

“We Kurds, in the name of our ancestors, apologize for the massacres and deportations of the Armenians and Assyrians in 1915,” said Diyarbakır Mayor Abdullah Demirbaş in September of 2013. “We will continue our struggle to secure atonement and compensation for them.” Other Kurdish leaders have offered more qualified apologies for Kurdish participation in the Genocide. There are reasons for that: unlike the modern Turkish state—the direct successor of the Ottoman Empire, which carried out the extermination campaigns that culminated in 1915—the Kurds were not unified in a single entity and most were aligned with their respective clans, or aşirets, some of which did not take part in the atrocities. Moreover, Armenian and Kurdish relations have been mixed, and there have been several instances of cooperation between both peoples even in the early years after the Genocide, including forces sent by Sheikh Barzani to aid Armenia’s General Andranik in 1920 and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s support for the Kurdish Ararat Republic in 1927. Based on the Armenian-Kurdish history of conflict and cooperation in the 20th century, we will try to chart where relations between both nations are headed. Turkey’s Kurds started to adopt a more favorable stance towards Armenians in the early 1980s with the onset of the PKK uprising. But at the local level—in villages and towns in Eastern Anatolia—tensions persisted due to everything from gold digging to the kidnapping of Armenian women. And in the grand scheme of things, we will analyze whether a potential understanding the Kurdish leadership may reach with Turkey would be at the expense of their improving ties with the Armenians and their stance on the Armenian Genocide. The bibliography includes the following list, but is not limited to it: Barzani, Mesud: Barzani ve Kürt Ulusal Özgürlük Hareketi (I) Istanbul, 2003 Beşikçi, İsmail: Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası’nın Programı (1931) ve Kürt Sorunu, Istanbul, 1991 Jihanian, Krikor: ՏԻԳՐԱՆԱԿԵՐՏԻ ՆԱՀԱՆԳԻՆ ՋԱՐԴԵՐԸ ԵՒ ՔԻՒՐՏԵՐՈՒ ԳԱԶԱՆՈՒԹԻՒՆՆԵՐԸ. Ականատեսի պատմութիւններ, Cairo, 1919 Jwaideh, Wadie: The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development, Syracuse, New York, 2006. Öcalan, Abdullah: Kürdistan: Devrim Yolu; Manifestosu, 1993 Sassouni, Garo, ՔԻՒՐՏ ԱԶԳԱՅԻՆ ՇԱՐԺՈՒՄՆԵՐԸ ԵՒ ՀԱՅ-ՔՐՏԱԿԱՆ ՅԱՐԱԲԵՐՈՒԹԻՒՆՆԵՐԸ . ԺԷ դարէն մինչեւ մեր օրերը, Beirut, 1969 Sayan, Celal: Le mouvement national kurde, 1918-1938, Paris, 2002