Fırat Güllü: Writing on Armenians Real and in Fiction

Arman Vartanyan left a legacy of strange plays with unusual titles. Have you read them, and have you ever tried to use his style in your novel?

During our research, we saw that Vartanyan was one of those secretive writers who used a language difficult to understand. He didn’t like to talk much about his works. It is not easy for the readers or the practitioners who want to stage his plays to understand his texts without doing some research and making some extra effort to explain them. Although his plays “Tokhor” (The Least Weasel), “Gangruk” (The Blister) and “Akhasel” (The Ritual Doll) were successfully translated into Turkish, they failed to attract the attention of non-Armenian-speaking Turkish readers. It was a very enriching experience for me to deal with these elusive texts while preparing for the seminar. While writing the novel, I tried to include the powerful metaphors that these texts created in my imagination. I hope I was successful.

I hope your novel will be translated into Armenian and we will be able to read it. Your books on Armenian topics surely are interesting to Armenian readers, but do they have also Turkish audience?

My previous research books of a non-fiction nature have attracted attention within a narrower academic group. The novel was published in April. Unfortunately, during the year publishing houses couldn’t be able to meet with readers in book fairs due to the conditions created by the pandemic. Despite this, the information I received from my publisher is that the readers’ interest is quite good. From the conversations I had and the various messages I received I got the impression that the readers approached my novel with sympathy. I can say that it has gained an appreciation especially in the Armenian community of Istanbul. Honestly, that makes me very happy.

 Is there a special reason to dedicate your novel to our mutual friend (alas, now diseased) Yervant Baret Manok?

Baret was a person who believed that regardless of the foreign policies of the states, people could improve their relations through dialogue peacefully. His optimistic vision has always inspired me. As you know, unfortunately, we lost him at a very early age, and there’s still a lot of things he can do. He knew that I was writing this novel, and especially in the scenes took place in Venice, the effects of our trips along the streets of this city with him in the summer of 2013 are felt, but unfortunately he did not have the opportunity to see the novel completed.

You visited Armenia twice some years ago. You are among Turkish intellectuals who try to build a dialogue with Armenians through culture and common past. But now after last year war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in which Turkey played the main role, it seems extremely difficult to figure this dialogue. What do you say, how can we proceed?

As you know, the relations between our countries were considered as a taboo in the first period when Armenia gained independence. At the beginning of the 2000s, we lived a relatively democratic period inside the country which led Turkey’s relations changing positively with its neighbors with the start of the European Union admission processes. The conference titled “Ottoman Armenians in the Last Period of the Empire” held at Bilgi University in 2005 became an important turning point. The assassination of Hrant Dink caused a serious social reaction among a wide group in society. Turkish intellectuals who were interested in Armenian culture discovered Yerevan, and a visible activity began to be experienced in non-official cultural and intellectual relations with Armenia. The efforts of the Hrant Dink Foundation to develop humanitarian relations between the two countries have received a positive response. However, the last Armenian-Azerbaijani war has also shown that there is still a long way to go in this regard, and any effort to be made has great value.