The city of Antakya, where for thousands of years Sunnis, Alevis, Arabs, Orthodox Christians, Jews and Turks lived in peace, also boasts another group of people: Armenians.
In fact, the Armenians here even have their own village, which lies under shadows cast by trees hundreds of years old and was founded on the slopes of Musa Mountain. It is a tiny, clean and neat village. The village is called Vakıflı, and it is one of 35 villages connected to the district of Samandağ in Hatay province.
The history of this village stretches far back. According to sources, it has a history of around 1,800-1,900 years. The architecture of Vakıflı reflects the culture and the beliefs of those who have lived here for so long. For example, there is the Vakıflı village church, left over from the 19th century and restored in 1997. The cemetery that sits at one end of the village is where Armenians have been buried for hundreds of years. We head into the garden behind the church to relax as we are walking around the village, and we encounter villager Kuhar Hanım, who says to us, “Let us ask you before you can ask us, ‘In coming to this village, where did you come from?’” In asking this, she underscores that she has lived in Vakıflı since birth and has never lived anywhere else. We are accompanied on our tour of this village by headman Berç Kartun, who tells us a bit about the population of Vakıflı.
In the 1940s, the village of Vakıflı had the largest population in the region. But along with the rush to emigrate to Europe that began in the 1960s, the population of the little village dropped sharply. And then, of course, there were all those who went off in search of an education in Turkey’s larger cities. The population of Vakıflı had dropped to around 300 by 1964, and nowadays it is much lower even, at around 70-80. Most of those left living in Vakıflı are over the age of 60. There are around 17-18 children who live here. Interestingly, the total number of people who are officially registered as coming from Vakıflı -- including those who live in Europe, or in İstanbul -- is 2,000. Those who now live far from Vakıflı make it a point to visit their home village, especially during holidays. For example, there is the Feast of the Assumption, which takes place on the second Sunday of every August, and this brings back Vakıflı villagers from all over the place. On days like the Feast of the Assumption, the population of Vakıflı swells to 1,000. Also, there are the Vakıflı Armenians who return to their home village for their annual vacations. One of these is Ohannes Silahlı, who lives right across from the church. He himself is a financial consultant and works in İskenderun. He comes to Vakıflı every two weeks to visit his mother and sometimes chooses to spend his weekends here. Another example of this sort of arrangement is retired teacher Canik Çapar, who along with his family was forced to emigrate to Germany but still returns every spring with his family to vacation here.
Vakıflı does not have many people. Most of its original residents moved to big cities, some in search of jobs, other pursuing an education. Those who remain in Vakıflı work in organic agriculture.
Vakıflı: the last Armenian village
The true significance of Vakıflı lies neither in its original architectural nor in its history, but in the fact that it is the only Armenian village that exists outside of Armenia. This is the only village left that has been inhabited from the very beginning by Armenians and where the order of life has not really changed all that much since. Actually, until 1938, there were six Armenian villages that were strung around Musa Mountain in this region, keeping Vakıflı company. However, turmoil in the years following the end of World War I, as well as the turning over of Hatay (which had been under French occupation) to the Turkish Republic, prompted many of the local Armenians to leave. In the end, most of the people living in the other five Armenian villages near Vakıflı decided to move to Syria, where they began new lives.
During these turbulent times, most of the people of Vakıflı decided to become citizens of the Turkish Republic. There were, of course, those who left Turkey, too. In fact, every family connected to the village has at least one relative or friend who left Turkey. The ones who stayed in Vakıflı were the ones who could not bear to leave the lands where they had lived for so long. One of these people is 78-year-old Aracsi Teyze, to whose home we were invited for evening tea. She was separated from her mother and father when she was just 6 years old, as she did not want to leave the village with them, despite her very young age. Her mother and father wound up leaving her under the care of an uncle who had no children of his own. For years and years, Aracsi never saw her mother or father.
We ask one of the oldest residents of Vakıflı, Avadis Demirci, what reasons the villagers who stayed had for not leaving, as so many other Armenians in the region did.
Demirci was born in 1914 and is the father of five. Despite his age, he is dynamic both in his attentiveness and his responses to our questions. “Atatürk was a real man. He said ‘Peace at home, peace in the world.’ We believed these words, and believed that we could live happily and peacefully in Turkey. … And, thus, we decided not to leave the land of our forefathers,” he says. Interestingly, he notes that those who wound up going are now regretting the decisions they made at that time. “Those who left these lands come back now and look around. And I say to them: ‘What, you think your house would be left? You should have taken your homes with you when you departed’.”
Of course, a certain level of trust in the state was not the only reason the villagers of Vakıflı decided to stay. They are tied to this land. They love it dearly and cannot imagine living anywhere else. As mother of three, Kuhar (whom we mentioned at the start of this article) puts it: “We do what we can to see that our children stay here because there is nowhere else in the world like here.” So saying, she summarizes the real reasons for local residents not wanting to leave Vakıflı.
This being the sole and last Armenian village in Turkey, it is impossible to avoid discussing some of the problems faced by Armenians in Turkey. The first Vakıflı resident we talked with about this topic with was Ohannes Silahlı. Ohannes attended the Armenian School in İstanbul during his high school years and studied alongside Hrant Dink. After high school, he moved from İstanbul back to the Hatay area and then moved to İskenderun, where he began working. We ask him whether he had any problems finding a job. He says: “On the contrary, my being Armenian actually made finding a job easier. People have the preconception that Armenians are dependable and honest people. So for this reason, wherever I went, I was able to get what I wanted done.” Of course, there are some examples that counter this. For example, Canik experienced many difficulties obtaining a job due to being Armenian. In fact, as a result of some of his experiences, he decided to renounce his citizenship, becoming German instead. Now he lives with his wife in Germany. As for the village elder Avadis, he asserts that the problems faced by ethnic minorities never come from everyday citizens of the nation but rather from the leaders. He says: “We live all together in Antakya, whether Alevi, Sunni or Arab. We know each others’ languages, respect each others’ religions and celebrate each others’ holidays all together.”
Village marriages
The people of Vakıflı have always married within the village. Here is how Ohannes described the situation: “In the Armenian community, marriages need to be normally between two people who are at least seven degrees removed in relation from one another. But we have broken this rule a bit. In fact, we have always decided to ‘give away our girls’ within the village itself, so that we have fewer problems and misunderstandings.” We ask whether it was always like that, inquiring whether they never married outside the village in Vakıflı. He responds: “Of course. In fact, Kuhar Hanım’s sister-in-law is a Muslim Alevi named Ayşe. And there is a man named Agop related to the village headman whose wife is Turkish. And then there is uncle Avadis, whose son, painter Artin Demirci, is married to a Muslim. These people all love this village, and all return here.” As for Avadis Bey, he sums it up by saying, “Once someone loves someone else, there’s no way you can stop them.”
Organic agriculture
In touching on the general atmosphere of Vakıflı, you can’t skip over another factor that generally distinguishes this village: It is Turkey’s only village officially certified to do organic farming. Vakıflı boasts citrus fields where no chemicals are used to grow the crops. It seems there is no one in the village not engaged in some form of organic farming. Everywhere you look, you see oranges, mandarin oranges and different kinds of citrus fruit. Every home we visit wants to share some of their fruit with us. In fact, the village of Vakıflı has won prizes from both the Turkish National Olympiad Committee (TMOK) and the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) on this matter. A total of 650 acres of village land are used for organic farming. In 2004, the village earned 1 million euros in export profits. But now, business is not as good as it used to be since they are having some troubles finding middlemen to sell their goods. When they do find sellers, the prices are too low.
SEVİM ŞENTÜRK – Today’s Zaman
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