Book #7: The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey - Dawn Anahid MacKeen
"An epic tale of one man's courage in the face of genocide and his granddaughter's quest to tell his story.
In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in the government's mass deportation of Armenians into internment camps. Gradually realizing the unthinkable - that they are all being driven to their deaths - he fights, through starvation and thirst, not to lose hope. Just before killing squads slaughter his caravan during a forced desert march, Stepan manages to escape, making a perilous 6-day trek to the Euphrates River carrying nothing more than 2 cups of water and 1 gold coin. In his desperate bid for survival, Stepan dons disguises, outmaneuvers gendarmes, and, when he least expects it, encounters the miraculous kindness of strangers.
The Hundred-Year Walk alternates between Stepan's saga and another journey that takes place a century later, after his family discovers his long-lost journals. Reading this rare firsthand account, his granddaughter Dawn MacKeen finds herself first drawn into the colorful bazaars before the war and then into the horrors Stepan later endured. Inspired to retrace his steps, she sets out alone to Turkey and Syria, shadowing her resourceful, resilient grandfather across a landscape still rife with tension. With his journals guiding her, she grows ever closer to the man she barely knew as a child. Their shared story is a testament to family, to home, and to the power of the human spirit to transcend the barriers of religion, ethnicity, and even time itself."
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As I read this book, I was repeatedly struck by how important it is. Important, because the Armenian genocide is not well-known. It's not taught in American schools, at least not commonly. It's not even officially recognized by the US government. I consider myself to be more informed than the average American. I'm certainly more educated. And yet, I am ashamed to say that I didn't even know Armenia was a country until I moved to Los Angeles and met an Armenian named Suzie. I remember very clearly the day she took me over to an atlas and showed me Armenia on a map (right after I'd asked her what country Armenia was in). I was 26 years old, and I don't think I'd ever felt quite so ignorant. There I was, an adult with two graduate degrees, looking at a map as if for the first time. I certainly wasn't aware there was such a thing as an "Armenian genocide."
In Los Angeles, there's a large and vibrant Armenian community. They hold a huge march down Hollywood Boulevard every year on April 24th, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. It's difficult to miss if you live there, but very easy to miss if you don't. Which brings me back to the importance of this book. If we believe that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it (and I do), then it is essential that the stories of those who survived are told. And that we hear them. Particularly since the Turkish government still actively insists that the genocide never happened. Their version of the truth must be met with the truths told by the Armenians who were there - who witnessed it, who experienced it, who suffered, who saw what happened, and who lived to tell about it.
This book is hard. Genocide is not a pleasant topic. But it's also a story of hope and family and triumph over pure evil. And, most importantly, it's a true story about the Armenian genocide.
2 comments:
I've been intrigued by your book challenge and have been following your posts. I knew this was on your list :) So glad you read it and took the time to blog. I remember the day I showed you Armenia on a map! I did the same with Dawn and countless others. Genocide is a heavy topic and definitely not an easy read, but an important one. The only reason I find myself in Los Angeles today is a direct result of the Armenian genocide. My ancestors were uprooted from lands they lived on for millennia. Most did not survive the death marches. The survivors became refugees and eventually settled in various corners of the world. A sliver of the remaining country became part of the Soviet Union until gaining Independence in 1991. One day I hope to see my ancestral lands again... Thanks for this post!
I'm glad you saw this! The other night, Linda asked me how the book was, and I proceeded to tell her about it - and she said, "How can you read that? Isn't it depressing?" Especially since, at the time, I was reading it right before going to bed. And...yes. I mean, of course it was. What happened to the Armenians is terrible. But at the same time, Stepan's hope and the connections with his friends and family were always there as a counterpoint to the horror. For me, explained the closeness of the Armenian community in LA, which I always thought was cool, but never really understood. Now I get it. Of course you all are like one big extended family...because, really, you ARE. When everyone shares a history like that and then the common experience of being uprooted and ending up in the same city, the closeness seems an obvious consequence. Anyway, long way to say that I'm extremely glad I read the book. This literary journey is doing exactly what I hoped it would! (And thank you for the geography lesson!)
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