What’s the reason for the now unreachable levels of interest towards Armenia in the early 20th century? In today’s media world, it is difficult to imagine that some magazine could objectively represent Armenia.
Not to mention leading media. When you look through the world media where Armenia is the rarest guest, you may think that the planet has just begun to discover Armenia. However, now, the world has no much interest in this discovery.
The attitude towards Armenia was completely different a hundred years ago. One of the leading French magazines thoroughly introduced its readers to Armenia in 1919. Back then, only a few years have passed since the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Turkey.
But there hasn’t been an Armenian diaspora just yet, only a handful of people who had managed to escape from a terrifying fate and who could have been repatriated to then prospective First Republic of Armenia.
Today, Armenia isn’t featured in today’s journals. No mention of people like Andranik, Dro, Nzhdeh, Shahan Natali, Soghomon Tehlirian, and many other individuals who could have been proudly presented to the world.
Instead, the representatives of present-day criminal circles of Armenia that have been firmly positioning themselves in the government over the years are more known than the true heroes of the nation. Those criminals even dare to call themselves the elite of the country.
Such Armenia isn’t interesting to anyone. The only thing Armenians could now do is to leaf through the old accounts that have been only preserved thanks to the western archives.
The 1919 issue of the French L’Image contained articles about the history, culture, inhabitants of Armenia, the country’s military and public figures, artists, and writers. On the cover of the issue is Andranik Ozanyan, one of the leaders of the Armenian national liberation movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a hero of the Armenian nation.
If you can’t read in French, maybe the illustrations in the journal will be of interest to you.
Journals in PDF format can be downloaded from the links: Part I, Part II
