Turkish Officials Honor Ara Güler While Reluctant to Mention His Armenian Heritage

With all the attention coming from Turkish authorities, one thing, however, was hard to not notice: Ara Güler’s Armenian roots were not highlighted by the officials at all and got just a few sometimes controversial mentions in the Turkish mainstream press of recent days. Some indirect references to Güler’s Armenian heritage have been made by press during the coverage of liturgy at the Armenian church and his funeral at the Armenian cemetery. Hurriyet mentioned that Dle Yaman and Groong were played at the funeral without noting that those were Armenian folk songs. The same newspaper featured that some soil was brought from Shabin Karahisar, from Güler’s father Dajad’s tomb, to be scattered his grave in Istanbul – yet again providing no details about the Armenian profile of this community or the artist’s parent.

The author was able to locate only one article in Sabah’s English edition that clearly stated that Güler was an Armenian. More liberal media outlets questioned why Güler’s Armenian descent remained unmentioned throughout his life.

“Was Ara Güler an Armenian? Who was his father? These questions are being asked after the death of the master-artist,” a piece in InternetHaber mentioned. The publication found out that the original name of Ara Güler was Aram Gülerian.

Some pro-governmental mainstream publications called him a “Turk.” Paradoxically those statements often appeared in the same piece that would refer to the Christian liturgy for Ara Güler conducted at the Beyoglu Armenian church of Istanbul.

Recently another great Armenian, Charles Aznavour passed away. The French government and public from President Emmanuel Macron to endless media publications would continuously highlight Aznavour’s ethnic origins. President Macron even twitted in the Armenian language. However, Turkish officials turned out to be reluctant to do anything similar for Ara Güler, a man who did so much work to make Istanbul recognizable and prominent in the world of international photography.

As for Armenians and other peoples of the world, Ara Güler had one additional underappreciated achievement: the great photographer claimed that he had been able to track the traces of Noah’s Ark while taking pictures on the mountain of Ararat.