During my visits to Istanbul, special thanks to Arzu Turkomen (Bogazici University), Agah Okay Alkan, and Robert Koptas (Agos) for extending the most generous hospitality and opening doors for me that would have otherwise remained closed.

Thanks to Rolf Hosfeld and his staff at Lepsiushaus for their generous contributions of time and material.

Thanks to the New York Public Library and Kay Westcott and Jill Clements at the Watertown Public Library.

I must thank Mark Stahlman, Grayson Fertig, and Radenko Miskovic, who kept me in fighting shape and heard every word of this book before it was written.

Finally, there is a mixture of friendship and concrete help that’s impossible to quantify. Thanks to Philip Rinaldi, Vahak Janbazian, Sarah Leah Whitson, Karren Karagulian, Debbie Ohanian, Lily Gulian-Bogosian, Michael Morris, Jesse Drucker, Onick Papazian, Atom Egoyan, Arsinee Khanjian, Kimberly Ryan, and Fred Zollo.

Thanks to Warren Leight. He knows I couldn’t have afforded to write this book without his inspired sense of casting.

Finally, thank you Jo, my love, who is always there for me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ERIC BOGOSIAN is an actor, playwright, and novelist of Armenian descent. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his play Talk Radio and is the recipient of the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear award, as well as three Obie Awards and the Drama Desk. In addition to his celebrated work in the theater and onscreen, he has authored three novels. He lives in New York City with the director Jo Bonney.

Also by Eric Bogosian

NOVELS

Mall

Wasted Beauty

Perforated Heart

SOLOS

Men Inside

funHouse

Drinking in America

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll

Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

100 (monologues)

PLAYS

Talk Radio

subUrbia

Red Angel

1+1

NOVELLA

Notes from Underground

A SHORT GLOSSARY OF NAMES AND TERMS

Armenia—A homeland to the Christian Armenians straddling the borders of Turkey, Iran, and Russia. Two thousand years ago, Armenia was a kingdom and a power to be reckoned with. After World War I, the landlocked Republic of Armenia, comprising a fraction of its original territory, was founded in the Caucasus. This republic was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1922, and since 1991 it has existed as an independent nation.

The Ottoman Empire—The Islamic empire established by the Turkish Osmanli dynasty. It endured for over six centuries. At its peak, the empire stretched from the Balkans to Persia, as well as Egypt and North Africa. The Ottoman Empire formally ceased to exist at the end of World War I.

The Republic of Turkey—The Turkish nation established by Kemal Ataturk and other Young Turks after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. It is roughly congruent to the region called Asia Minor, which stretches from the Mediterranean to the Caucasus and northern Iran and is bordered on the north by the Black Sea.

Many names have changed over the centuries. The most significant is that Constantinople officially became Istanbul in the 1920s. Smyrna became Izmir, Salonika became Thessalonika, and so on. Sometimes the new name sounds nothing like the old: today’s Elazig was Kharpert. In this book I use the names that were prevalent in the respective periods.

The Hai Heghapokhakan Tashnagtsutiun refers to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, or ARF, founded in 1890. Members of this organization are referred to as Tashnags.

The Osmanli Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti refers to the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Members are often known as Ittihadists, Unionists, and sometimes Young Turks. The term “Young Turks” originally referred to a variety of Turkish political activists, not only the CUP.

Central Committee—The ruling junta of the CUP from 1908 to 1918. Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha, and Djemal Pasha were members of the Central Committee.

Hnchags—Members of a socialist Armenian revolutionary group (the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, or SDHP), founded in the late nineteenth century, a few years before the ARF.

Hamidiye—Kurdish paramilitary fighters responsible for massacres of Armenians in rural eastern Anatolia, particularly in the 1890s. These units were named in honor of Sultan Abdul Hamid.

Sultan Abdul Hamid II (Abdulhamid; Abd al-Hamid) was the last sultan with any real power. He presided over the Ottoman Empire for the thirty years prior to World War I.

Talat Pasha (Mehmet Talat) was interior minister of the Ottoman Empire during the CUP years, including World War I. By the end of the war he had assumed the position of Grand Vizier (1917–18). He fled Constantinople at the end of the war and was subsequently convicted in absentia of war crimes.

General Mustafa Kemal/Ataturk—The key Ottoman military leader during World War I. Later he would command the nationalist insurgency that fought the Greeks and the Armenians. He would found the Turkish Republic in 1923. As Ataturk, Kemal led his nation until his death in 1938. Depending on the period, I use the name he was known by during that time.

Anatolia (Asia Minor)—A general term used in this book for loosely describing the peninsula of land that roughly corresponds to today’s Turkey. Also known as Asia Minor. “Anatolia” is a political term used by the Turkish government to describe all of its lands. Originally, Anatolia’s eastern border was the Euphrates, and the farthest eastern reaches of what is now called Anatolia were originally known as the Armenian plateau.

Smyrna/Izmir—Major city along the Turkish Aegean coast, destroyed by Kemalist troops as they entered the city in September 1922.

The Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa)—A secret paramilitary organization formed by the Committee of Union and Progress to perform extralegal operations, particularly conducting guerrilla warfare and overseeing the Armenian Genocide.

Mahomet, Mehmet, Mohammed, Muhammad are equivalent names in Turkish and Arabic.

Patriarch refers to a leader of a Christian church. The Catholicos is the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The Franks are the French and are equivalent in the Ottoman mind to the Catholic Crusaders who arrived in the Middle East from Europe in the late Middle Ages.

Softas—Muslim students.

Caliph—Leader of the Islamic world.

Imam—In Islam, religious leader, specifically prayer leader.

Vilayet—Province.

Vali—Governor of a vilayet.

Sultan—Padishah. Supreme leader of the Ottoman Empire.

Pasha, Bey—Terms of respect equivalent to “Mr.” or “sir.” Pasha denotes a member of the highest level of an elite.