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交會的所在：追尋亞美尼亞人的蹤跡
After centuries of prominence as a world power, Armenia has withstood every attempt during the 20th century to destroy it. With a name redolent both of dim antiquity and of a modern world and its tensions, the Armenians founded a civilization and underwent a diaspora that brought many of the great ideas of the East to Western Europe. Today, shrunk to a tenth of its former size and wracked by war with Azerbaijan and by earthquakes, its people still retain one of the world's most fascinating and misunderstood cultures.
411 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1993
42 people are currently reading
446 people want to read
About the author
Philip Marsden
46 books49 followersPhilip Marsden is the author of a number of works of travel writing, fiction and non-fiction, including The Bronski House, The Spirit Wrestlers and The Levelling Sea. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and his work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Cornwall.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
October 14, 2023
Oct 12, 1110am ~~ Review asap.
Oct 13, 730pm ~~ I read this book hoping to get a better understanding of Armenia, of why the Armenian people have been targets of hatred and discrimination for centuries, and of why very few people in this wide world seem to care about what is happening there.
I learned a lot but I still do not understand how human beings can be so spectacularly stupid as to persecute a group of people to the point of exile and extermination.
I very greatly doubt that we were ever supposed to behave this way towards each other.
I'm sorry, I am pretty disgusted with the whole world right now, this is the best I can do today.
Oct 13, 730pm ~~ I read this book hoping to get a better understanding of Armenia, of why the Armenian people have been targets of hatred and discrimination for centuries, and of why very few people in this wide world seem to care about what is happening there.
I learned a lot but I still do not understand how human beings can be so spectacularly stupid as to persecute a group of people to the point of exile and extermination.
I very greatly doubt that we were ever supposed to behave this way towards each other.
I'm sorry, I am pretty disgusted with the whole world right now, this is the best I can do today.
November 17, 2016
3.5 stars.
This might be the reason why I am so interested in Armenia. Because Armenians have survived the darkest horrors that history remembers, and they can be found everywhere in the world. Despite their homecountry becoming ever smaller, being ruled by other countries such as the Soviet Union in recent years, they have survived as a people.
But let's get back to the book. Philip Marsden was once in eastern Turkey, where he found a bone during a walk. He came across a shepherd, who just said to him: "Ermeni", Armenians. This gave me the shivers. You can walk around eastern Turkey and find bones of Armenian people massacred in 1915. Or at least, you could at the time. (The book was written in 1992, so this must have happened some years earlier). This is so horrible I can't even start to think about it. However, afterwards Marsden goes through a cave where Armenians were basically buried alive in 1915. It's a very powerful experience, we can say he comes back a different person than he was before.
And that's when he decides to travel around Europe and the Middle East to find Armenians, and finally go to Armenia itself.
We must bear in mind this is a very old book, and that the author's journey takes place shortly after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This makes the book very dated, but at the same time an interesting historical document, despite its not being a history book. We must understand we are going to find history only incidentally in this book. This is actually travel literature.
So the author starts on a journey that will take him from Venice, to Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria, Eastern Europe (namely Romania and Bulgaria), and finally Armenia. Marsden says to an Armenian woman he meets: «[...] I wanted to find out why the Armenians had survived so long». His is a genuine interest, a genuine love for this people who has been persecuted through time like only Jews have been. His is not an anthropological or historical interest. He is genuinely interested in the people. And yes, in their history of course, but also in their stories.
He gets to talk to an incredible number of Armenians during his long journey (we are talking months, not weeks). He finds Armenians where he least expects to find them. He gets to talk to someone and eventually finds out they are Armenian. This happens very often during his journey. Armenians really are everywhere.
I should also add that Marsden learned the Armenian language before going on his journey. So he can talk freely to the people and has no problem in that respect. That's what makes him always welcome everywhere he goes. The Armenians are a hospitable people, they make their guests feel at ease, especially so if they sense a genuine interest in themselves as a people. So they always greet Marsden as a welcome guest, a friend even. Many times they don't want him to pay, for hotel rooms for instance. Many times they let him stay overnight in their home. Many times they invite him over to lunch or dinner. Many times they give him a lift to wherever he needs to go. Marsden is always at home when he is among Armenians.
We follow him in his travels. He goes to those places in Syria where the Armenians were deported in 1915. He wants to understand, to see for himself. And he says something which is very interesting, from an historical point of view. He talks about the genocide in a way that makes us understand it wasn't yet common at the time to speak the word. It's still difficult today, in some countries (think Turkey), though on the other hand there are a great many countries today that have acknowledged the 1915 facts as genocide. It wasn't so at the time the book was written.
To sum it up, this is not a heartwrenching account of the genocide. Not an historical account. You will find some heartbreaking moments, quite a lot of historical facts, but that's not you should be looking for when approaching this book. Most of all, you will find a people, the Armenians. Their friendliness, their grief, their will to live. That's what you'll find in here. If you're looking for history, this is not the right book for you.
More than a million Armenians died in the last years of the Ottoman empire, a half on Anatolia's total. The Turks had managed to do what numerous powers had tried before them: they managed to finish Armenia, though not the Armenians. In most of the world's cities you can find Armenians – Armenian newspapers in Armenian script, Armenian restaurants. In exile the Armenians are curiously resilient; only the Jews have resisted assimilation as fiercely. In the mountains of Colombia there is a small town actually named Armenia where they serve 'Antioch-style' beans. In Paris the first-ever café was opened in 1672 by an Armenian, as it had been earlier in Vienna, by the same Armenian spy who had helped break the Turkish siege. At the siege of Vienna the Polish King Jan's private doctor had been an Armenian, as was the doctor to the harem of Akbar the Great, the Mogul emperor whose adopted Armenian son was regarded by the Jesuits in India as the greatest poet of his time.
The 'Polish Byron', Słowacki , had an Armenian mother, as does the chess-master Garry Kasparov, as did Gurdjieff, as did the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustadi who ruled the entire Arab world during the twelfth century, except for Egypt where a few years earlier Armenian vizirs held power, and Jerusalem what the hereditary Crusader rulers had long had Armenian blood coursing through their royal veins. When Richard the Lionheart was married, in Cyprus, his best man was an Armenian; the last king of Armenian Cilicia, exiled in France, taught the French king to play chess. It has even been suggested that the Man in the Iron Mask was none other than the Armenian patriarch of Constantinople.
The first yoghurt in the United States was manufactured by the Armenian family Columbissian. The particular green ink of the US dollar bills was developed by an Armenian, as was the MiG jet, named after Mikoyan, whose brother was the longest-standing member of Stalin's Politburo, and the first to denounce him. Abel Aghanbekyan, an Armenian economist, produced the blueprint for perestroika.
They shouldn't really exist at all. They should have been destroyed, written out of history by its worst horrors. But they have survived. Instead of a footnote to the story of these border regions, the Armenian can be read like a kind of subtext.
This might be the reason why I am so interested in Armenia. Because Armenians have survived the darkest horrors that history remembers, and they can be found everywhere in the world. Despite their homecountry becoming ever smaller, being ruled by other countries such as the Soviet Union in recent years, they have survived as a people.
But let's get back to the book. Philip Marsden was once in eastern Turkey, where he found a bone during a walk. He came across a shepherd, who just said to him: "Ermeni", Armenians. This gave me the shivers. You can walk around eastern Turkey and find bones of Armenian people massacred in 1915. Or at least, you could at the time. (The book was written in 1992, so this must have happened some years earlier). This is so horrible I can't even start to think about it. However, afterwards Marsden goes through a cave where Armenians were basically buried alive in 1915. It's a very powerful experience, we can say he comes back a different person than he was before.
And that's when he decides to travel around Europe and the Middle East to find Armenians, and finally go to Armenia itself.
We must bear in mind this is a very old book, and that the author's journey takes place shortly after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This makes the book very dated, but at the same time an interesting historical document, despite its not being a history book. We must understand we are going to find history only incidentally in this book. This is actually travel literature.
So the author starts on a journey that will take him from Venice, to Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria, Eastern Europe (namely Romania and Bulgaria), and finally Armenia. Marsden says to an Armenian woman he meets: «[...] I wanted to find out why the Armenians had survived so long». His is a genuine interest, a genuine love for this people who has been persecuted through time like only Jews have been. His is not an anthropological or historical interest. He is genuinely interested in the people. And yes, in their history of course, but also in their stories.
He gets to talk to an incredible number of Armenians during his long journey (we are talking months, not weeks). He finds Armenians where he least expects to find them. He gets to talk to someone and eventually finds out they are Armenian. This happens very often during his journey. Armenians really are everywhere.
I should also add that Marsden learned the Armenian language before going on his journey. So he can talk freely to the people and has no problem in that respect. That's what makes him always welcome everywhere he goes. The Armenians are a hospitable people, they make their guests feel at ease, especially so if they sense a genuine interest in themselves as a people. So they always greet Marsden as a welcome guest, a friend even. Many times they don't want him to pay, for hotel rooms for instance. Many times they let him stay overnight in their home. Many times they invite him over to lunch or dinner. Many times they give him a lift to wherever he needs to go. Marsden is always at home when he is among Armenians.
We follow him in his travels. He goes to those places in Syria where the Armenians were deported in 1915. He wants to understand, to see for himself. And he says something which is very interesting, from an historical point of view. He talks about the genocide in a way that makes us understand it wasn't yet common at the time to speak the word. It's still difficult today, in some countries (think Turkey), though on the other hand there are a great many countries today that have acknowledged the 1915 facts as genocide. It wasn't so at the time the book was written.
Since I'd left Aleppo I had not seen anything to suggest what happened in these regions. I hadn't expected to find anything new – I had enough images of my own. But I had thought that seeing the places might make it easier to understand. It hadn't; it had made it harder. I had been to a quiet oasis, and was now walking a pleasant strip of land beside the sacred Euphrates. Who was to say that that was not all these places were?
And I sensed for the first time the madness of having to prove it happened. How shrill the cries become when there's so little evidence, no corpse to grieve! What was it to mourn amidst that uncertainty, in exile, with nothing to touch, no preserved Auschwitz, nothing but an ancient language and a broken generation now almost extinct – and for a monument the blank wastes of the desert?
To sum it up, this is not a heartwrenching account of the genocide. Not an historical account. You will find some heartbreaking moments, quite a lot of historical facts, but that's not you should be looking for when approaching this book. Most of all, you will find a people, the Armenians. Their friendliness, their grief, their will to live. That's what you'll find in here. If you're looking for history, this is not the right book for you.
March 18, 2015
A wonderful and quite charming book. I read it on a recommendation and although the title didn't really appeal, once I opened the cover I found myself entranced. It is exactly as it says - a journey among the Armenian peoples - whose present is utterly bound up with their troubled and turbulent past. Remarkable!
September 6, 2017
The Armenians are an ancient race, and like the Jews, have resisted assimilating into the cultures around them. As a result, their language and culture have survived mostly intact, though many conquering groups have attempted to wipe them from the face of the planet, most recently in 1915. Armenians are scattered all over the world (I myself noticed a poster hanging on the side of a building in Springfield, Mass, just last week, regarding the 100th anniversary of the 1915 massacre), but their hearts still pine for Mt Ararat and their homeland.
Marsden does an excellent job of describing his travels throughout the nations that have a significant Armenian presence. My issue, however, is that he assumes a greater knowledge of Middle Eastern history than this reader has. Marsden would reference a ruler or some great event without giving a date to place it in history, and I'd rather not have to pick up my phone every few minutes to do the research myself. At times his writing became rather meandering, like his travels, and it was difficult to concentrate on what exactly was happening. Too often it seemed as though he was just laying down words with no thought to how they should come together into a narrative. I also felt that the end was a little too hurried; there was no concluding chapter, just a sentence or two to sum up the previous 242 pages.
That said, I really did enjoy learning a great deal about this people. It's fascinating to me that they have their own script, and that they know the man who developed it. I Googled the script and found various pieces written in Armenian, and it's rather pretty. The language occupies its own branch of the Indo-European tree, which makes it unique. I appreciated that Marsden was able to learn Armenian before he began his travels, and because of this, he was able to make friends and find places to stay wherever he went. Part of the attraction for me regarding this book was the ease in which Marsden moves through these societies, meeting new people and finding places to stay and friends with whom to share a meal.
I would have preferred a bit more detail in places in this book, especially regarding dates, but in general, this is a fascinating travelogue of an ancient people. It's also interesting to read 25 years after its initial publication, as Marsden traveled throughout the former USSR just after its dissolution, giving us a glimpse of what life was like in those early years after the collapse of communism.
Marsden does an excellent job of describing his travels throughout the nations that have a significant Armenian presence. My issue, however, is that he assumes a greater knowledge of Middle Eastern history than this reader has. Marsden would reference a ruler or some great event without giving a date to place it in history, and I'd rather not have to pick up my phone every few minutes to do the research myself. At times his writing became rather meandering, like his travels, and it was difficult to concentrate on what exactly was happening. Too often it seemed as though he was just laying down words with no thought to how they should come together into a narrative. I also felt that the end was a little too hurried; there was no concluding chapter, just a sentence or two to sum up the previous 242 pages.
That said, I really did enjoy learning a great deal about this people. It's fascinating to me that they have their own script, and that they know the man who developed it. I Googled the script and found various pieces written in Armenian, and it's rather pretty. The language occupies its own branch of the Indo-European tree, which makes it unique. I appreciated that Marsden was able to learn Armenian before he began his travels, and because of this, he was able to make friends and find places to stay wherever he went. Part of the attraction for me regarding this book was the ease in which Marsden moves through these societies, meeting new people and finding places to stay and friends with whom to share a meal.
I would have preferred a bit more detail in places in this book, especially regarding dates, but in general, this is a fascinating travelogue of an ancient people. It's also interesting to read 25 years after its initial publication, as Marsden traveled throughout the former USSR just after its dissolution, giving us a glimpse of what life was like in those early years after the collapse of communism.
October 30, 2021
Yeah, ok. Not bad. But not great.
First, this is a political travelogue. Since this is a travelogue, you can't criticize the author - afterall, what he feels is what he writes, who can blame him for the feelings. And for the political part... Meh, too much politically biased. At least for my taste.
There was just too much prejudice against Turkey, or Turks, or Muusliman, whatever you'd call "them" ("us"). And I can understand the reasons behind. But I guess I was something more "politically correct".
There are some factual problems too. Tehlirian case for example; the book has romanticized the event to an extreme case (telling that the assasin's meeting with Talat was a coincide).
I also found what is told about ASALA and JCAG to be disturbing. I guess some people think those organizations actions are fair after what happened in '15 to the Armenians. If it is so, any contemporary bombing in any western country can easily be called "justified".
And Mimar Sinan or Vasil Levski having Armenian origins... Man, where is this going to leave us at? Are we going to discuss the "real" inventors or "pastirma" or "lahmacun"?
On the other hand, I sincerely enjoyed the style of Marsden's writings, I enjoyed his boldness, both in the text and in the adventures. I liked that he didn't try to be "politically correct" as I expected him to be. I liked the post-soviet travelogue, and I decided that I want to read more about that period.
I also liked how Armenia hasn't changed since the past 30 years, and still of the few countries which still lives in the 90's. It's a fascinating country for a traveler, where time had less dramatic effects than any if its neighbor.
And the book is a present of a very dear friend. Deserves four stars.
I would still recommend this book, but consider reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1..., as it has more hard investigation about current affairs and events.
First, this is a political travelogue. Since this is a travelogue, you can't criticize the author - afterall, what he feels is what he writes, who can blame him for the feelings. And for the political part... Meh, too much politically biased. At least for my taste.
There was just too much prejudice against Turkey, or Turks, or Muusliman, whatever you'd call "them" ("us"). And I can understand the reasons behind. But I guess I was something more "politically correct".
There are some factual problems too. Tehlirian case for example; the book has romanticized the event to an extreme case (telling that the assasin's meeting with Talat was a coincide).
I also found what is told about ASALA and JCAG to be disturbing. I guess some people think those organizations actions are fair after what happened in '15 to the Armenians. If it is so, any contemporary bombing in any western country can easily be called "justified".
And Mimar Sinan or Vasil Levski having Armenian origins... Man, where is this going to leave us at? Are we going to discuss the "real" inventors or "pastirma" or "lahmacun"?
On the other hand, I sincerely enjoyed the style of Marsden's writings, I enjoyed his boldness, both in the text and in the adventures. I liked that he didn't try to be "politically correct" as I expected him to be. I liked the post-soviet travelogue, and I decided that I want to read more about that period.
I also liked how Armenia hasn't changed since the past 30 years, and still of the few countries which still lives in the 90's. It's a fascinating country for a traveler, where time had less dramatic effects than any if its neighbor.
And the book is a present of a very dear friend. Deserves four stars.
I would still recommend this book, but consider reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1..., as it has more hard investigation about current affairs and events.
Read
April 30, 2024This descriptive travelogue traces the networks of Armenians in various countries in Europe and the Middle East in the aftermath of exile and diaspora, following the 1915 genocide, and other waves of instability or persecution in host countries.
May 24, 2015
This is a travel/history/cultural/religious book about the Armenian diaspora which is spread across many, many countries particularly in the Middle East, South Central Europe and the South Caucasus, mostly as a result of people fleeing an attempted genocide in 1915 by Turkey - about 1.5 million did not escape.
I found the opening chapters of the book compelling and strangely empty and eerie. The Armenians that Marsden met are like a ghost people spread around the surrounding countries of the region where the survivors settled after the mass killings and the death marches. This was only 100 years ago but the world seems to have largely forgotten what happened and the Turks remain in denial. The more immediate parts worked best - the stories from Syria, from the Lebanon and from the Soviet era rump state of Armenia were most effective.
In the end though the author passed through just too many countries in his quest for the real Armenia and real Armenians and the book felt somewhat lightweight in the middle sections. It was extremely moving in places but it was also too dull in others as the author tried to tie together a lot of random stories and cultural history while crossing multiple borders on his seemingly deliberately difficult journey to finally getting into Soviet era (just) Armenia. He was trying to grasp the notion of what it is to be an Armenian but he didn't quite manage it for me, though I did learn a lot about a country and a people I previously knew little about.
I found the opening chapters of the book compelling and strangely empty and eerie. The Armenians that Marsden met are like a ghost people spread around the surrounding countries of the region where the survivors settled after the mass killings and the death marches. This was only 100 years ago but the world seems to have largely forgotten what happened and the Turks remain in denial. The more immediate parts worked best - the stories from Syria, from the Lebanon and from the Soviet era rump state of Armenia were most effective.
In the end though the author passed through just too many countries in his quest for the real Armenia and real Armenians and the book felt somewhat lightweight in the middle sections. It was extremely moving in places but it was also too dull in others as the author tried to tie together a lot of random stories and cultural history while crossing multiple borders on his seemingly deliberately difficult journey to finally getting into Soviet era (just) Armenia. He was trying to grasp the notion of what it is to be an Armenian but he didn't quite manage it for me, though I did learn a lot about a country and a people I previously knew little about.
March 26, 2011
This is a powerful narrative--about Armenians, about travel, about history and memory. One of my favorite books.
August 2, 2011
sad but interesting, and yet another place I'd like to visit ...
June 21, 2012
lacking proper descriptions and historical depth. more, please.
July 27, 2019
I like the way the story wrapped together. On his cross-national adventure, Philip Marsden spoke of many different Armenian sub-groups, as well as the attitudes towards them and the places they were in. In spite of this jumble of information,, his writing and attention to detail really brought it all in to create a flowing storyline.
I enjoyed hearing about the ideas and spirit central to the Armenians, whether multi-generational or displaced from the homeland. It's the idea of this legacy, having once been the Armenian empire, and losing it all suddenly without ever really gaining it back. The land loss was an incredibly traumatic experience and it may be this legacy which has forever locked it into the people. Coupled with the fact that the genocide still isn't recognized by the Turkish government, of course. Finding the Armenian community in Turkey was a treasure that still surprises me. The people should have left—their identities are hidden, their language stored away. And yet they still persist in the country that first divided the nation.
The people he highlights in his story are either charming or a little ridiculous, but hearing about them and learning their stories through Marsden makes them really pop off the page. I won't forget the party in Zangezour or the woman who longed for Kessab in Syria. Each unique story contains its own character, and altogether they create a small sense of the Armenian people.
I enjoyed hearing about the ideas and spirit central to the Armenians, whether multi-generational or displaced from the homeland. It's the idea of this legacy, having once been the Armenian empire, and losing it all suddenly without ever really gaining it back. The land loss was an incredibly traumatic experience and it may be this legacy which has forever locked it into the people. Coupled with the fact that the genocide still isn't recognized by the Turkish government, of course. Finding the Armenian community in Turkey was a treasure that still surprises me. The people should have left—their identities are hidden, their language stored away. And yet they still persist in the country that first divided the nation.
The people he highlights in his story are either charming or a little ridiculous, but hearing about them and learning their stories through Marsden makes them really pop off the page. I won't forget the party in Zangezour or the woman who longed for Kessab in Syria. Each unique story contains its own character, and altogether they create a small sense of the Armenian people.
Read
July 22, 2015亞美尼亞人的遭遇好淒慘
不過我看這本書反而想到作者的另一本
尋找聖靈戰士
基督教的異端還真是多如繁星
真有趣~
以下是本書我有興趣的專有名詞
還是不少...
我仍舊很好奇作者到底是怎麼知道這些玩意的
美齊塔尼恩派
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekhitar...
阿爾比派
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%8D%...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigens...
塔拉特總督
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_T...
鮑格米勒派
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomil
孟他努派
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%AD%...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montanism
泥濘派
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borborite
阿濟裡人
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeri
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%98%...%
97%8F
阿布哈茲
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhaz_p...
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%98%...%
BA%BA
來茲吉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lezgian_...
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%88%...
阿什肯納茲猶太人
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%98%...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenaz...
不過我看這本書反而想到作者的另一本
尋找聖靈戰士
基督教的異端還真是多如繁星
真有趣~
以下是本書我有興趣的專有名詞
還是不少...
我仍舊很好奇作者到底是怎麼知道這些玩意的
美齊塔尼恩派
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekhitar...
阿爾比派
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%8D%...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigens...
塔拉特總督
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_T...
鮑格米勒派
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomil
孟他努派
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%AD%...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montanism
泥濘派
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borborite
阿濟裡人
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeri
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%98%...%
97%8F
阿布哈茲
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhaz_p...
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%98%...%
BA%BA
來茲吉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lezgian_...
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%88%...
阿什肯納茲猶太人
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%98%...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenaz...
March 17, 2021
Philip Marsden became intrigued by the Armenian genocide while in Turkey. He went to Jerusalem and studies the Armenian language which he then used to travel among Armenians in the diaspora in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, before finally ending up in Armenia. The book explores the spirit of Armenians at about the time the Soviet Union was breaking up and which included Armenia as one of its republics. In his writing, he brings out his travels and connections with people well, but the themes about the this cultural group are brought out more in passing. There is a very low key feel to the book, despite his visits to many dangerous places.
March 19, 2021
Having heard stories of the genocide and the death marches from my Grandmother and Aunt and Father, I was eager to read this. Part history, part exploration, this book expanded my own feelings toward this diaspora of which I belong (well half of me does). I truly believe that the trauma seeps into the DNA of those that come along later. We feel it and are inherently tuned into the suffering of others.
A very well written book that gave me more information on my heritage than any history class I took.
A very well written book that gave me more information on my heritage than any history class I took.
August 9, 2010
This is a readable book and if you know nothing of the Armenian Genocide you'll learn something.
Mostly, though, it is a record of Marsden's travels aimed at encountering Armenians, with the suggestion that he's trying to find out something deep about why they have survived and what the spirit of Armenia is. Much of the book is composed of snippets about individuals he's encountered in wandering through various disaporan communities in Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania.
He finally gets to Armenia itself on page 167 (of 242 pages). I mean Armenia in the sense of the contemporary state. I have to say that because Armenia is sometimes used to encompass part of what is the modern Turkish state--places once home to high concentrations of Armenians and where their culture survived, and places that a thousand years ago were small Armenian states. The Armenian segment segment is largely like the others--descriptions of places he visited and individuals he encounters. The individuals are often quite clearly sketched but not much developed. Along with these, Marsden recounts brief bits of history and occasionally quotes from literary sources. But all this leaves him with impressions, which he presents as answer to his questions. Almost at the end of the book he's visiting a village at the border with Azerbaijan where cross border gun fire and raids can occur at any time. He's embedded himself with some Armenian fighters.
This is sincere and heartfelt, but, with respect, I suggest that it does not tell us anything. If you like reading real history, you might be frustrated at the lack of detail in the historical excursions and the conclusions based on sensibility rather than marshalled evidence. It's just not that kind of book and wasn't intended to be.
But I got some things from it I was very glad to get and one of them was actually a bit of history I had not encountered before. The Armenians are said to have driven out a heretical sect called the Paulicans in the 9th century. The Paulicans then settled in Europe and maybe spread. They were one brand of dualists, with beliefs that seem strange both to modern Catholics and modern protestants. In fact, they had some relation to heretical movements that were slaughtered in Europe as a result of orthodox zeal. Anyway, this small fact was accompanied by some actual references--one to Steven Runciman's The Medieval Manichee (all dualists being called Manicheans at one time or another)and one to a work of a man who seems strange to me, Frances Cornwallis Conybeare (which whom Runciman has some disagreements).
A more modern reference is one I'd like to see. It is a book published in 1989 but selling on the internet for prices of $110 and quite a bit upward. It is The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide (Susan Blair, ed.)-- a book that seems to have more eywitness detail than Morganthau's book, which I reviewed here a while back.
Marsden's book also contains a few black and white photos and some hand-drawn maps. In my paperback edition, the photos are pretty dim and some of them would be more interesting if more particularly identified. The maps, of course, are not detailed.
Mostly, though, it is a record of Marsden's travels aimed at encountering Armenians, with the suggestion that he's trying to find out something deep about why they have survived and what the spirit of Armenia is. Much of the book is composed of snippets about individuals he's encountered in wandering through various disaporan communities in Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania.
He finally gets to Armenia itself on page 167 (of 242 pages). I mean Armenia in the sense of the contemporary state. I have to say that because Armenia is sometimes used to encompass part of what is the modern Turkish state--places once home to high concentrations of Armenians and where their culture survived, and places that a thousand years ago were small Armenian states. The Armenian segment segment is largely like the others--descriptions of places he visited and individuals he encounters. The individuals are often quite clearly sketched but not much developed. Along with these, Marsden recounts brief bits of history and occasionally quotes from literary sources. But all this leaves him with impressions, which he presents as answer to his questions. Almost at the end of the book he's visiting a village at the border with Azerbaijan where cross border gun fire and raids can occur at any time. He's embedded himself with some Armenian fighters.
"I watched the movements, fluent and expressive, and sensed that here, where the threat was greatest, the Armenian spirit was at its strongest. . . . It confirmed what I'd suspected all along--that these villages, with their perpetual patterns of fertility and fighting, were the found of that spirit, where it bubbled like a spring from the high Caucasian rock."
This is sincere and heartfelt, but, with respect, I suggest that it does not tell us anything. If you like reading real history, you might be frustrated at the lack of detail in the historical excursions and the conclusions based on sensibility rather than marshalled evidence. It's just not that kind of book and wasn't intended to be.
But I got some things from it I was very glad to get and one of them was actually a bit of history I had not encountered before. The Armenians are said to have driven out a heretical sect called the Paulicans in the 9th century. The Paulicans then settled in Europe and maybe spread. They were one brand of dualists, with beliefs that seem strange both to modern Catholics and modern protestants. In fact, they had some relation to heretical movements that were slaughtered in Europe as a result of orthodox zeal. Anyway, this small fact was accompanied by some actual references--one to Steven Runciman's The Medieval Manichee (all dualists being called Manicheans at one time or another)and one to a work of a man who seems strange to me, Frances Cornwallis Conybeare (which whom Runciman has some disagreements).
A more modern reference is one I'd like to see. It is a book published in 1989 but selling on the internet for prices of $110 and quite a bit upward. It is The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide (Susan Blair, ed.)-- a book that seems to have more eywitness detail than Morganthau's book, which I reviewed here a while back.
Marsden's book also contains a few black and white photos and some hand-drawn maps. In my paperback edition, the photos are pretty dim and some of them would be more interesting if more particularly identified. The maps, of course, are not detailed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 1, 2018
Getting to the bottom of Armenia
Detectives and divorce lawyers like to probe into their cases, pulling out causes and motivations, faults and crimes. They talk about "getting to the bottom" of it all. Maybe they can do it too. When authors of novels build characters, tell their stories, they can succeed in getting to the bottom of everything---if they want---because, after all, they've created everything from scratch. On the contrary, I know as an anthropologist that you can never, ever get to the bottom of an entire people or culture. You can hardly even get close. Large groups of people are just too diverse. History is too complex, particularly if that history extends over several thousand years. So, what I'm saying is that you can find out what makes a clock tick, you can learn if such and such a people produced pottery or not, but you can't discover what has kept Armenians going through centuries of trouble. Reading Marsden's THE CROSSING PLACE only confirms what I think---he doesn't even get close. On the other hand, maybe that desire was only an excuse to travel around Europe and the Middle East to see what remained of the ancient communities of Armenians that once traded, lived, and built churches from Europe to China. If so, then fair enough, it was a good idea which has produced an interesting, well-written book of travels. Marsden visits not only the scenes of the 1915 genocide, weirdly quiet in Syria and Lebanon just before the first Gulf War in 1990, but also Venice, Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, and several parts of the former USSR. He meets the last remnants of the Armenian population, most of which has left for greener pastures with the fall of Communism or because of the Lebanese civil war. At last Marsden arrives in Armenia itself, just emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Union, fighting for its survival as a nation with Azerbaijan, which was backed by Soviet forces at the time. Marsden travels through the country, eventually reaching the very bottom, by the southern frontier with Iran. He DID get to the bottom of Armenia, but only physically.
The author's approach is extremely haphazard, extremely romantic. He meets a number of important Armenians, but gets little substantive information from them. He visits sites of massacres and seiges, interviews a few ancient survivors, but says nothing new. He meets a number of people he didn't like--and they always speak pidgin English, unlike his own well-modulated tones. Everything American earns his special disdain. Marsden's travails with visas, bad transport, scarce food, or dirty hotels loom large, as does the hospitality of the Armenians everywhere he goes. The Armenians are indeed a hospitable people; they are tough; they are survivors, like the Jews, they have had to use their wits to get by for centuries; despite the genocide they are very much still around. But why them when other peoples have disappeared ? Marsden offers no clue. Armenian readers may warm to the author's attentions, but he doesn't fill in the gaps for others. He ignores works of history, anthropology, or any academic subject whatsoever. Being academic is certainly not required, but you must have SOME facts, some kind of argument, otherwise, you wind up with travel episodes---"I went here, I went there". Why ? Maybe because Philip Marsden likes to travel rough in out of the way places. In short, THE CROSSING PLACE may reveal many facts about Armenians, about Armenia in 1989-90, about the genocide, for readers who aren't aware of them, you may enjoy vivid scenes and some intelligent philosophical musings but don't expect to get to the bottom of anything.
Detectives and divorce lawyers like to probe into their cases, pulling out causes and motivations, faults and crimes. They talk about "getting to the bottom" of it all. Maybe they can do it too. When authors of novels build characters, tell their stories, they can succeed in getting to the bottom of everything---if they want---because, after all, they've created everything from scratch. On the contrary, I know as an anthropologist that you can never, ever get to the bottom of an entire people or culture. You can hardly even get close. Large groups of people are just too diverse. History is too complex, particularly if that history extends over several thousand years. So, what I'm saying is that you can find out what makes a clock tick, you can learn if such and such a people produced pottery or not, but you can't discover what has kept Armenians going through centuries of trouble. Reading Marsden's THE CROSSING PLACE only confirms what I think---he doesn't even get close. On the other hand, maybe that desire was only an excuse to travel around Europe and the Middle East to see what remained of the ancient communities of Armenians that once traded, lived, and built churches from Europe to China. If so, then fair enough, it was a good idea which has produced an interesting, well-written book of travels. Marsden visits not only the scenes of the 1915 genocide, weirdly quiet in Syria and Lebanon just before the first Gulf War in 1990, but also Venice, Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, and several parts of the former USSR. He meets the last remnants of the Armenian population, most of which has left for greener pastures with the fall of Communism or because of the Lebanese civil war. At last Marsden arrives in Armenia itself, just emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Union, fighting for its survival as a nation with Azerbaijan, which was backed by Soviet forces at the time. Marsden travels through the country, eventually reaching the very bottom, by the southern frontier with Iran. He DID get to the bottom of Armenia, but only physically.
The author's approach is extremely haphazard, extremely romantic. He meets a number of important Armenians, but gets little substantive information from them. He visits sites of massacres and seiges, interviews a few ancient survivors, but says nothing new. He meets a number of people he didn't like--and they always speak pidgin English, unlike his own well-modulated tones. Everything American earns his special disdain. Marsden's travails with visas, bad transport, scarce food, or dirty hotels loom large, as does the hospitality of the Armenians everywhere he goes. The Armenians are indeed a hospitable people; they are tough; they are survivors, like the Jews, they have had to use their wits to get by for centuries; despite the genocide they are very much still around. But why them when other peoples have disappeared ? Marsden offers no clue. Armenian readers may warm to the author's attentions, but he doesn't fill in the gaps for others. He ignores works of history, anthropology, or any academic subject whatsoever. Being academic is certainly not required, but you must have SOME facts, some kind of argument, otherwise, you wind up with travel episodes---"I went here, I went there". Why ? Maybe because Philip Marsden likes to travel rough in out of the way places. In short, THE CROSSING PLACE may reveal many facts about Armenians, about Armenia in 1989-90, about the genocide, for readers who aren't aware of them, you may enjoy vivid scenes and some intelligent philosophical musings but don't expect to get to the bottom of anything.
June 28, 2025
3.5*
Read this to get some bearings of Armenia. It is a solid attempt at travel writing, interspersing Marsden’s own adventures with a bit of history and literature, and his personal reflections. However I found Marsden’s writing quite clunky at times, and not really accessible to newcomers with 0 background of Armenia. Some of the anecdotes were random and I think despite just finishing the book, I’ve forgotten 75% of it — the stories didn’t stick. Maybe I’m a bad reader as Marsen is clearly erudite and the book is well researched, but this wasn’t really for me.
Also, as adventurous as Marsden is, I became quite distracted by the cockiness of his youthful travels, his reliance on the kindness of strangers for a roof over one’s head and bread, and ignoring well meaning advice.
Exceprts
Armenians themselves, their half-hidden role in history, their Zelig-like presence in the Byzantine Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Empire. It was what they knew of the world, of the deep lessons of loss and landlessness, of living among strangers, of how to make light of borders and the obstacles of long journeys. It was the nobility of so many of their lives, the fierce conviction that our mortal endeavours should be pursued always with energy and courage, that to be alive is to be awake, never to be complacent, never to rest, that any sense of belonging on this earth is both fleeting and illusory.
Meghri is Armenia in miniature, isolated and exposed: Armenia on the border, between Iranian Shiites, Turkish Sunnis and the rags of Soviet communism, between three worlds and an adherent of none.
I felt a little baffled by my reaction to Ras ul-Ain: the springs were too idyllic, too pretty, to help me understand what happened here. Yet when I found somewhere suitably ugly I was equally unconvinced. […] I asked him the obvious questions but he did not respond. They seemed suddenly trite and irrelevant. I was beginning to see the springs as everyone else did, simply a pleasant place to be when it was hot.
Much of my time in Bucharest was spent in those rooms. I waited there for the distant, unseen wheels to turn and produce my Soviet visa - or refuse it. In frustration I waded through the office's Armenian books and the stacks of back issues and wrote an article for Ararat about Ras ul-Ain and Ani. But talking was what really filled the hours. Everyone talked. Like all good newspaper offices, people came in just to talk. Now I can scarcely even remember what was said. It was simply part of the slow rhythm of Bucharest and its stolen pleasures, the relief and anger of a shared complaint or a sudden coupling of hopes. All contact in Romania seemed to run with that same animal undercurrent, straining for consummation, threatening constantly to boil over into something either violent or erotic.
Perhaps in this uncertain country the only hope of order is in death - or in a regime that erects pink prisons to keep its people at bay. And perhaps for the Armenians, whose history has been no more than a continuous quest for order, a struggle against an unimaginable chaos, these marshalled plots are cherished more than most. 'To own a grave,' wrote Claudio Magris, 'is to own land.’ This cemetery was all that remained for the Transylvanian Armenians.
[Osip Mandelstam] reached Armenia. Here he stood on what he considered 'the world's edge. For him, this isolated republic, the remnants of an ancient civilization, had come to represent the far outpost of the classical regions which he so revered. He marvelled at Armenia's stubborn resistance to Islam and how it had 'turned away from the bearded cities of the East'. Armenia, in her stone ruins, had the noble antiquity for which Mandelstam had been searching. But his Armenian cycle of poems and his Journey to Armenia are filled with something else. Folding away his map of ancient cultures, Mandelstam was swept along by the present. His prose is charged with a sense of the mountains and the unchanging villages. Before he came to Armenia he had written hardly a word for five years; by the time he left, he had begun some of his finest work. In Armenia he 'saw men who loved life', 'women of leonine beauty'. He was overwhelmed by the 'rude tenderness' of the Armenian villagers, by 'their noble inclination for hard work. And their 'splendid intimacy with the world of real things' forced him to conclude to himself: You're awake, don't be afraid of your own time.’
In 1475, the peninsula was taken by the Ottoman Turks. The local Armenians had aided their victory, hoping it would overcome the local hegemony of the Greeks. The new pasha invited the Armenians to a celebratory banquet. They ate a fine meal of pilau and shashlik and sweetmeats. Afterwards the pasha reclined on his divan and the Armenians came to bow and take their leave. Outside stood a janissary who held his sword high in the darkness and, one by one, beheaded them as they left.
“Every living being is subject to decay, and the seeds of life emerge from decay; the world continues to exist as a result of this contradiction.” Gevork Emin
Each day for the refugees pushed Getashen further away; they soon knew they would not be going back. The women's anger was quickest to pass. They were soon spending their mornings bustling around with buckets of water and loaves of bread; they went on expeditions into the forest and came back with pinafores filled with fruit and berries. The men, by contrast, slowed down, became indolent. Without land they were lost. They spent less and less time in angry huddles, more and more time shuffling knee-deep through the orchards, in silence, chewing herbs. I could hardly bear to watch their decline.
After the Seljuk Turks overran Armenia in the eleventh century, there began, paradoxically, a period of intensive monastic activity. Hidden away in remote valleys, on high cliffs, Armenia's monks built and wrote on a scale not seen for four hundred years. Known as the Silver Age, this period coincided with the age of the great monasteries of medieval Europe. It was a feverish, innovative time but finished not, as in Europe, with a renaissance but with the Mongol invasions. So ended a thousand years of Armenian civilization. Never again did they achieve such brilliance in their own land. No better examples of the Silver Age exist than a group of four monasteries here at the top of the Armenian republic: Goshavank, Haghartsin, Haghbat and Sanahin.
Then the toasts started and the songs and they continued long into the evening. I don't even remember how I reached my bed. Getting food on my own seemed impossible. I had two options: starve, or accept the hospitality and the relentless vodka that went with it.
Read this to get some bearings of Armenia. It is a solid attempt at travel writing, interspersing Marsden’s own adventures with a bit of history and literature, and his personal reflections. However I found Marsden’s writing quite clunky at times, and not really accessible to newcomers with 0 background of Armenia. Some of the anecdotes were random and I think despite just finishing the book, I’ve forgotten 75% of it — the stories didn’t stick. Maybe I’m a bad reader as Marsen is clearly erudite and the book is well researched, but this wasn’t really for me.
Also, as adventurous as Marsden is, I became quite distracted by the cockiness of his youthful travels, his reliance on the kindness of strangers for a roof over one’s head and bread, and ignoring well meaning advice.
Exceprts
Armenians themselves, their half-hidden role in history, their Zelig-like presence in the Byzantine Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Empire. It was what they knew of the world, of the deep lessons of loss and landlessness, of living among strangers, of how to make light of borders and the obstacles of long journeys. It was the nobility of so many of their lives, the fierce conviction that our mortal endeavours should be pursued always with energy and courage, that to be alive is to be awake, never to be complacent, never to rest, that any sense of belonging on this earth is both fleeting and illusory.
Meghri is Armenia in miniature, isolated and exposed: Armenia on the border, between Iranian Shiites, Turkish Sunnis and the rags of Soviet communism, between three worlds and an adherent of none.
I felt a little baffled by my reaction to Ras ul-Ain: the springs were too idyllic, too pretty, to help me understand what happened here. Yet when I found somewhere suitably ugly I was equally unconvinced. […] I asked him the obvious questions but he did not respond. They seemed suddenly trite and irrelevant. I was beginning to see the springs as everyone else did, simply a pleasant place to be when it was hot.
Much of my time in Bucharest was spent in those rooms. I waited there for the distant, unseen wheels to turn and produce my Soviet visa - or refuse it. In frustration I waded through the office's Armenian books and the stacks of back issues and wrote an article for Ararat about Ras ul-Ain and Ani. But talking was what really filled the hours. Everyone talked. Like all good newspaper offices, people came in just to talk. Now I can scarcely even remember what was said. It was simply part of the slow rhythm of Bucharest and its stolen pleasures, the relief and anger of a shared complaint or a sudden coupling of hopes. All contact in Romania seemed to run with that same animal undercurrent, straining for consummation, threatening constantly to boil over into something either violent or erotic.
Perhaps in this uncertain country the only hope of order is in death - or in a regime that erects pink prisons to keep its people at bay. And perhaps for the Armenians, whose history has been no more than a continuous quest for order, a struggle against an unimaginable chaos, these marshalled plots are cherished more than most. 'To own a grave,' wrote Claudio Magris, 'is to own land.’ This cemetery was all that remained for the Transylvanian Armenians.
[Osip Mandelstam] reached Armenia. Here he stood on what he considered 'the world's edge. For him, this isolated republic, the remnants of an ancient civilization, had come to represent the far outpost of the classical regions which he so revered. He marvelled at Armenia's stubborn resistance to Islam and how it had 'turned away from the bearded cities of the East'. Armenia, in her stone ruins, had the noble antiquity for which Mandelstam had been searching. But his Armenian cycle of poems and his Journey to Armenia are filled with something else. Folding away his map of ancient cultures, Mandelstam was swept along by the present. His prose is charged with a sense of the mountains and the unchanging villages. Before he came to Armenia he had written hardly a word for five years; by the time he left, he had begun some of his finest work. In Armenia he 'saw men who loved life', 'women of leonine beauty'. He was overwhelmed by the 'rude tenderness' of the Armenian villagers, by 'their noble inclination for hard work. And their 'splendid intimacy with the world of real things' forced him to conclude to himself: You're awake, don't be afraid of your own time.’
In 1475, the peninsula was taken by the Ottoman Turks. The local Armenians had aided their victory, hoping it would overcome the local hegemony of the Greeks. The new pasha invited the Armenians to a celebratory banquet. They ate a fine meal of pilau and shashlik and sweetmeats. Afterwards the pasha reclined on his divan and the Armenians came to bow and take their leave. Outside stood a janissary who held his sword high in the darkness and, one by one, beheaded them as they left.
“Every living being is subject to decay, and the seeds of life emerge from decay; the world continues to exist as a result of this contradiction.” Gevork Emin
Each day for the refugees pushed Getashen further away; they soon knew they would not be going back. The women's anger was quickest to pass. They were soon spending their mornings bustling around with buckets of water and loaves of bread; they went on expeditions into the forest and came back with pinafores filled with fruit and berries. The men, by contrast, slowed down, became indolent. Without land they were lost. They spent less and less time in angry huddles, more and more time shuffling knee-deep through the orchards, in silence, chewing herbs. I could hardly bear to watch their decline.
After the Seljuk Turks overran Armenia in the eleventh century, there began, paradoxically, a period of intensive monastic activity. Hidden away in remote valleys, on high cliffs, Armenia's monks built and wrote on a scale not seen for four hundred years. Known as the Silver Age, this period coincided with the age of the great monasteries of medieval Europe. It was a feverish, innovative time but finished not, as in Europe, with a renaissance but with the Mongol invasions. So ended a thousand years of Armenian civilization. Never again did they achieve such brilliance in their own land. No better examples of the Silver Age exist than a group of four monasteries here at the top of the Armenian republic: Goshavank, Haghartsin, Haghbat and Sanahin.
Then the toasts started and the songs and they continued long into the evening. I don't even remember how I reached my bed. Getting food on my own seemed impossible. I had two options: starve, or accept the hospitality and the relentless vodka that went with it.
April 27, 2013
Philip Marsden's lyrical book describes the lives, trials, defeats and triumphs of these people, who are still scarred from their genocide in 1915, and the loss of the centre of their spirituality and faith - Mt Ararat - to the perpetrators of that slaughter, the Turks. The Armenians, like the Jews, are an ancient race. They have been scattered across the world, and like the Jews, have established for themselves an influence entirely disproportionate to their population in almost every region they inhabit. Marsden has followed their fortunes across twenty countries with a becoming empathy and grace. However, he has let his prejudice colour his descriptions of the few Turks he meet: they appear in his eyes shifty, xenophobic, disdainful. This reminds me of the old story about a traveller arriving at a new town and asking a resident what the townfolk were like. The resident wants to know how the traveller found the people in the previous town. "Oh, they were wonderful", gushes the traveller. "Welcoming and friendly, honest and open." The resident tells him he would find this town pretty much the same. A while later, another traveller appears and asks the same resident what the townspeople are like.
"What were the people like in the last town you were in?" asks the resident.
"Oh, they were a bunch of crooks, inhospitable and cruel", says the traveller.
"Well", says the resident. "You'll find the people in this town are more or less the same."
"What were the people like in the last town you were in?" asks the resident.
"Oh, they were a bunch of crooks, inhospitable and cruel", says the traveller.
"Well", says the resident. "You'll find the people in this town are more or less the same."
February 3, 2013
The author starts his journey with the assumption that he knows the most important thing about Armenians - that they are exiles forever pining for their lost land. This assumption is his overwhelming obsession throughout the whole journey - more so than the Armenians he meets. But, he doesn't seem to really care about finding out anything else about the culture or history of the people.
February 23, 2016
This is a cleverly written book telling the story of the Armenian people for the last hundred years at the same time writing about his travels around the land the Armenians have had to flee to. I have some special Armenian friends and they have shared something of their story with me. The tragedy of the genocide is important to remember.
March 2, 2013
Fast Fun Read.
September 11, 2016
A captivating travel adventure and a sad window into the latent savagery of human nature. A book that will inspire you to explore.
May 25, 2017
4.5. Great travel writing about Armenian history and Armenian diasporas through the ages. Really enjoyed learning the history and absorbing the anecdotes of Armenian survival.
April 7, 2018
Not a history or a serious political analysis, but a wonderful travel book.
July 15, 2018
Takes a while to get going, but a very interesting read.
April 23, 2023
There’s a principle in chemistry called “Isotopic Abundance” which is basically the relative proportions of a stable isotope in each element. These isotopes come from the ground, the land, the water and even the air in a particular location and are different everywhere. So studying the proportions of isotopes in elements of organic matter – like cotton plants or fruit trees or bears – you can understand where they came from.
The fingerprints of the land on the elements that make up organic matter. Including people.
There is something mysterious about the connection between people and land. Why is it we all fight over it so much? Wars rage in Europe even right now over land. People have been fighting over pieces of land forever. And I daresay they will continue; because there is something that resonates within people about the land they come from and their need to protect and defend it. Sometimes people leave, intermarry, creating a new ethnicity in a new land – the ethnogenesis that Gumilev writes about; and the cycle starts again. Because new ethnicities also arise connected to the land upon which they were born.
Enter the Armenians, one of the few groups that still hold their land; although it is a sliver now of what it once was in the glory days maybe 2000 or 2500 years ago. When it stretched from the Caspian to the Mediterranean.
It is this connection that Philip Mardsen explores in “The Crossing Place: A Journey Among the Armenians”. How Armenians, through patient and careful devotion to their culture, their language, their faith, and their land (even those who have never been there) have maintained their civilization during the hardest times, like the wicked 20th century. The century of their attempted extermination. Mardsen starts in Jerusalem, in the Armenian Quarter, and makes his way around Eastern Europe visiting Armenian diaspora communities and trying to get a sense of how they hold their civilization even separated from their land for hundreds of years.
But it is a shadow; a rough imprint etched on their consciousness; a hollow echoing, a resonance that comes even from the isotopes in elements from which they are made and gets stronger and stronger and stronger they closer they come to Mt. Ararat. The only parallel I can think of is Israel and their Holy City of Jerusalem.
The curious thing about this book, coming from somebody who lived in Armenia for two years (me), is that the book itself starts out fairly academic. Cataloging facts about the diaspora; even the accounts of the genocide lack empathy and passion. But when Mardsen finally finds entrance into Armenia (it was right during the fall of the Soviet Empire when travel in the Caucasus was fraught and complicated) the prose starts to resonate. As Mardsen discovers Lake Sevan and the Khachkars and the monasteries he finally seems to “get it”. It is not about wealth or power or opulence. What he discovers is an aboriginal people on their ancient land which forms a sort of unbreakable connection that generates its own harmony. (It is the same thing I discovered).
And it is an extraordinary thing.
The fingerprints of the land on the elements that make up organic matter. Including people.
There is something mysterious about the connection between people and land. Why is it we all fight over it so much? Wars rage in Europe even right now over land. People have been fighting over pieces of land forever. And I daresay they will continue; because there is something that resonates within people about the land they come from and their need to protect and defend it. Sometimes people leave, intermarry, creating a new ethnicity in a new land – the ethnogenesis that Gumilev writes about; and the cycle starts again. Because new ethnicities also arise connected to the land upon which they were born.
Enter the Armenians, one of the few groups that still hold their land; although it is a sliver now of what it once was in the glory days maybe 2000 or 2500 years ago. When it stretched from the Caspian to the Mediterranean.
It is this connection that Philip Mardsen explores in “The Crossing Place: A Journey Among the Armenians”. How Armenians, through patient and careful devotion to their culture, their language, their faith, and their land (even those who have never been there) have maintained their civilization during the hardest times, like the wicked 20th century. The century of their attempted extermination. Mardsen starts in Jerusalem, in the Armenian Quarter, and makes his way around Eastern Europe visiting Armenian diaspora communities and trying to get a sense of how they hold their civilization even separated from their land for hundreds of years.
But it is a shadow; a rough imprint etched on their consciousness; a hollow echoing, a resonance that comes even from the isotopes in elements from which they are made and gets stronger and stronger and stronger they closer they come to Mt. Ararat. The only parallel I can think of is Israel and their Holy City of Jerusalem.
The curious thing about this book, coming from somebody who lived in Armenia for two years (me), is that the book itself starts out fairly academic. Cataloging facts about the diaspora; even the accounts of the genocide lack empathy and passion. But when Mardsen finally finds entrance into Armenia (it was right during the fall of the Soviet Empire when travel in the Caucasus was fraught and complicated) the prose starts to resonate. As Mardsen discovers Lake Sevan and the Khachkars and the monasteries he finally seems to “get it”. It is not about wealth or power or opulence. What he discovers is an aboriginal people on their ancient land which forms a sort of unbreakable connection that generates its own harmony. (It is the same thing I discovered).
And it is an extraordinary thing.
January 29, 2025
Marsden's selection of a promising topic's not to be denied. But the narrative feels listless and lax. Lassitude rather than the fortitude I'd have expected. He's had a career documenting both Ethiopia and his adopted Cornwall. He learned enough Armenian to converse; he travels many lands where the diaspora has scattered. His travels around twenty years ago now tally about exactly what I expected, but never soar higher than it. The prose plods along, rarely lifting beyond the quotidian.
For instance, I knew that the monks on an island in Venice under the aegis of the Catholics had labored long in their scholarship. as Mekharitists. But when Marsden meets a priest from another Uniate sect, he merely mentions that the man sniffed at being mistaken for the rival religious order, and leaves it at that, without setting up the presumably uninformed reader about the background for this distinction. He sticks to the countries of the Levant, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet polity, and then wraps it up in the heartland. Yet neither the depredations of the Turkish massacres nor the Stalinist tyranny sink in very deeply. I thought I'd pick up more about contexts of culture with which I might converse with my near-neighbors from Armenian realms. I will keep looking.
That being said, my attention perked up when Marsden roamed into the misidentified "Gothic" medieval architecture for church building. He's on to insights that I'd have thought would have kept him grounded in similar pursuits of other intellectual speculations. But, for instance as to cursive script of the language itself, or its vocabulary or noteworthy qualities of phrasing or expression, I closed this account without being better informed than when I started. I know from genealogy that many "royal" families had relations, way back at least in legend, with Armenian dynasties. As the descendent of barons, according to his bio online, I reckoned that might have caught his own fancy.
I live between two of the largest overseas Armenian communities, the eastern side of Hollywood, the other in Glendale a few miles to the north east. Why didn't Marsden travel there? He mentions often "Los Angeles" as the generic city where hundreds of thousands have left Armenia behind, but as with, say, London or Paris, where many others have settled, he doesn't go into any detail about these teeming settlements, which tend to remain rather insular amidst polyglot societies, in my observations, into the second generations, as to linguistic, Christian, and marriage continuity, all setting them apart more than the mores of many other nationalities, at least in Southern California.
For instance, I knew that the monks on an island in Venice under the aegis of the Catholics had labored long in their scholarship. as Mekharitists. But when Marsden meets a priest from another Uniate sect, he merely mentions that the man sniffed at being mistaken for the rival religious order, and leaves it at that, without setting up the presumably uninformed reader about the background for this distinction. He sticks to the countries of the Levant, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet polity, and then wraps it up in the heartland. Yet neither the depredations of the Turkish massacres nor the Stalinist tyranny sink in very deeply. I thought I'd pick up more about contexts of culture with which I might converse with my near-neighbors from Armenian realms. I will keep looking.
That being said, my attention perked up when Marsden roamed into the misidentified "Gothic" medieval architecture for church building. He's on to insights that I'd have thought would have kept him grounded in similar pursuits of other intellectual speculations. But, for instance as to cursive script of the language itself, or its vocabulary or noteworthy qualities of phrasing or expression, I closed this account without being better informed than when I started. I know from genealogy that many "royal" families had relations, way back at least in legend, with Armenian dynasties. As the descendent of barons, according to his bio online, I reckoned that might have caught his own fancy.
I live between two of the largest overseas Armenian communities, the eastern side of Hollywood, the other in Glendale a few miles to the north east. Why didn't Marsden travel there? He mentions often "Los Angeles" as the generic city where hundreds of thousands have left Armenia behind, but as with, say, London or Paris, where many others have settled, he doesn't go into any detail about these teeming settlements, which tend to remain rather insular amidst polyglot societies, in my observations, into the second generations, as to linguistic, Christian, and marriage continuity, all setting them apart more than the mores of many other nationalities, at least in Southern California.
January 8, 2026
The author’s journey among Armenians in the early 1990s from Italy to Cyprus through Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia - to finally reach Armenia.
The author doesn’t go into the history lessons of 1915 (the details are in the Prelude), rather he shares his experiences of traveling among Armenians at a particularly fascinating moment in world history: the ongoing first Gulf War, the first Palestinian Intifada, the fracturing Soviet and communist influence in Eastern Europe, and the first Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
I learned a lot about the Armenian people (including the ones who integrated in Bulgaria), their peripatetic lives, how they survived empires and the 1915 genocide, and how their resilient characters live on in the diaspora.
As the book ends in Armenia, it touches upon the fighting over the territory at the border with Azerbaijan. Although written pre-2023, I think history is… ironic in that it repeats.
******
“What kept my curiosity alive was something about the Armenians themselves, their half-hidden role in history, their Zelig-like presence in the Byzantine Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Empire. It was what they knew of the world, of the deep lessons of loss and landlessness, of living among strangers, of how to make light of borders and the obstacles of long journeys. It was the nobility of so many of their lives, the fierce conviction that our mortal endeavors should be pursued always with energy and courage, that to be alive is to be awake, never be complacent, never to rest, that any sense of belonging on this earth is both fleeting and illusory. Sometimes it seems to me as if long ago, far back in a collective past that pre-dates most of the world’s existing ethnic groups, the Armenians discovered a secret, and swore never to disclose it but hand it down from generation to generation, wherever they happened to be. It’s a secret that’s been closely guarded for so many centuries, that what remains is less the secret itself than the habit of keeping it.”
The author doesn’t go into the history lessons of 1915 (the details are in the Prelude), rather he shares his experiences of traveling among Armenians at a particularly fascinating moment in world history: the ongoing first Gulf War, the first Palestinian Intifada, the fracturing Soviet and communist influence in Eastern Europe, and the first Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
I learned a lot about the Armenian people (including the ones who integrated in Bulgaria), their peripatetic lives, how they survived empires and the 1915 genocide, and how their resilient characters live on in the diaspora.
As the book ends in Armenia, it touches upon the fighting over the territory at the border with Azerbaijan. Although written pre-2023, I think history is… ironic in that it repeats.
******
“What kept my curiosity alive was something about the Armenians themselves, their half-hidden role in history, their Zelig-like presence in the Byzantine Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Empire. It was what they knew of the world, of the deep lessons of loss and landlessness, of living among strangers, of how to make light of borders and the obstacles of long journeys. It was the nobility of so many of their lives, the fierce conviction that our mortal endeavors should be pursued always with energy and courage, that to be alive is to be awake, never be complacent, never to rest, that any sense of belonging on this earth is both fleeting and illusory. Sometimes it seems to me as if long ago, far back in a collective past that pre-dates most of the world’s existing ethnic groups, the Armenians discovered a secret, and swore never to disclose it but hand it down from generation to generation, wherever they happened to be. It’s a secret that’s been closely guarded for so many centuries, that what remains is less the secret itself than the habit of keeping it.”
October 22, 2025
I started this book thinking it was going to be a 'history' of the Armenians, quite foolishly, I did not realise it was a travel book. I was a little dissapointed to realise this, I must admit.
However, the book far exceeded my expectations from that point onwards! It was a very interesting book, weaving in history with the authors experiance. It was sad to realise that at times, it seemed the Armenians of Middle East and Eastern Europe were more 'Armenian' than those in Armenia itself, who'm seemed to be living in a constant daze of cheap alcohol and Soviet towns. Even the author seemed to tire a little of the constant hatred of the Russian, Turk and 'Mussulman'.
It would be very interesting to see how this journey would look now, 30 years on. I am sure Armenia itself would hopefully have been able to properly shake off its Soviet side, and embrace its own identity. However I also wonder if the Armenian communities in all these other countries still exist, it truly is amazing to know these people have been spread so far and thin, yet retain their very distrinctive culture.
I have also noticed the author was one of many this year to sign a letter calling for the Genocide in Gaza to be remembered as such. Hero!. As Hitler once said 'who now remembers the Armenians', it appears Israel is also now attempting to follow his logic. 30 years on from writing, very few countries recognise the Armenian genocide, which is shameful. If we do not learn about the past, it will be repeated.
Great book and author is clearly a top guy.
However, the book far exceeded my expectations from that point onwards! It was a very interesting book, weaving in history with the authors experiance. It was sad to realise that at times, it seemed the Armenians of Middle East and Eastern Europe were more 'Armenian' than those in Armenia itself, who'm seemed to be living in a constant daze of cheap alcohol and Soviet towns. Even the author seemed to tire a little of the constant hatred of the Russian, Turk and 'Mussulman'.
It would be very interesting to see how this journey would look now, 30 years on. I am sure Armenia itself would hopefully have been able to properly shake off its Soviet side, and embrace its own identity. However I also wonder if the Armenian communities in all these other countries still exist, it truly is amazing to know these people have been spread so far and thin, yet retain their very distrinctive culture.
I have also noticed the author was one of many this year to sign a letter calling for the Genocide in Gaza to be remembered as such. Hero!. As Hitler once said 'who now remembers the Armenians', it appears Israel is also now attempting to follow his logic. 30 years on from writing, very few countries recognise the Armenian genocide, which is shameful. If we do not learn about the past, it will be repeated.
Great book and author is clearly a top guy.
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