Shahan Natalie
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Shahan Natalie (Armenian: Շահան Նաթալի) (nom de guerre Nemesis) (1884-1983) was the principal organizer of Operation Nemesis on behalf of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation wherein the Turkish masterminds of the Armenian Genocide were assassinated, and a member of the A.R.F.'s Bureau. He later became a writer on Armenian national philosophy, and notable for his essay, The Turks and Us.
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[edit] Early Life
Shahan Natalie was born Hagop der Hagopian in 1884, in the village of Husenik, in the Kharberd province (modern day Elazığ Province) of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia. He was the only son of a seven-member family, along with four sisters.
He received his primary education in the local Armenian school. At the beginning of the 1895 Hamidian massacres, his father, maternal uncle, and numerous other relatives were killed. Separate from his family during the massacre, Hagop, then 11, was taken in by a neighboring Greek family, who hid him for three days, fearing that he too would be slaughtered. He was later reuinited with the surviving members of his family.
He found his mother over his father's lifeless corpse, which they dragged together and buried under a walnut tree. He would later writer about this event, adding, "The living began to bury the dead." The scene of his mother, prostrate on her husband's body, left a deep and indelible impression on the young boy.
He studied for a year at the Euphrates College in Kharberd. Along with other orphans, he was then sent to the St. James Orphanage in Constantinople. There, a wealthy Armenian rug merchant living in New York adopted him. The following year he was admitted to the Berberian Academy, where he studied until 1900.
[edit] Youth
In 1901, he returned to Kharberd, where for three years he was a teacher at the Armenian school of the St. Varvara Church. In the meantime, he studied the provincial dialect of Kharberd, earning him special honor in Patriarch Izmirlian's literary competition.
In 1904, he joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in Kharberd, and immigrated to the United States, where he worked for three years as a laborer in a shoe factory.
In 1908, after the proclamation of the Ottoman Constitution, he returned to his home in Husenik. His stay was short-lived, however, as the 1909 Adana massacre drove him into exile in America.
[edit] Education and political life
From 1910 to 1912, Shahan attended Boston University, where he studied literature, philosophy, and theater. In 1912, he decided to return home in the Ottoman Empire, but on his way there, he was sent back to the U.S. when Greek authorities would not let him through, considering him a citizen of an enemy nation.
Back in the U.S., Natalie became active within the ranks of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He was on the editorial staff of the party's Hairenik newspaper, and was elected to the party's United States Central Committee. He became a United States citizen on March 23, 1915, assuming "John Mahy" as his official name.
[edit] Operation Nemesis
[edit] Falling out with the A.R.F.
[edit] Later life
Shahan Natalie died on the morning of April 19, 1983, at his home in Watertown, Massachusetts; he was 99. He was laid to rest in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, next to his wife of 57 years, Angéle.
[edit] Published works
[edit] Short stories, verses, and plays
- Օրէնքի եւ Ընկերութեան Զոհերէն ("From the Martyrs of Law and Society"). Boston: Hairenik, 1909. 63 pages. Short stories.
- Ամպեր ("Clouds"). Boston: Hairenik, 1909. Verses
- Քաւութեան երգեր ("Songs of Expiation"). Boston: Hairenik, 1915. 31 pages. Verses
- Սերի եւ ատելութեան երգեր ("Songs of Love and Hate"). Boston: Hairenik, 1915. 165 pages. Verses
- Վրէժի աւետարան ("Gospel of Revenge"). New York: Armenia, 1918. 39 pages. Verses
- Ասլան Բեկ ("Aslan Bek"). Boston: Hairenik, 1918. 62 pages. Tragedy in three acts
- Քեզի ("To You"). Boston: 1920. 116 pages. Verses written beginning in 1904.
[edit] National-political works
- Թուրքիզմը Անգորայէն Բագու եւ Թրքական Օրիէնթասիոն ("Turkism from Angora to Baku and Turkish Orientation"). Athens: Nor Or, 1928. 172 pages.
- Թուրքերը եւ Մենք ("The Turks and Us"). Athens: Nor Or, 1928. 70 pages. Second printing, Boston, 1931. 93 pages.
- Ալեքսանդրապօլի Դաշնագրէն 1930-ի Կովկասեան Ապստամբութիւնները ("From the Treaty of Alexandrapol to the 1920 Caucasian Insurgencies"). Volumes 1 and 2. Marseilles: Arabian Publishing, 1934-35.
- Երեւանի Համաձայնագիրը ("The Yerevan Agreement"). Boston: 1941. 112 pages.
- Գիրք Մատուցման եւ Հատուցման ("Book of Dedication and Compensation"). Beirut: Onipar Publishing, 1949 (first printing). 160 pages. Beirut: Azdarar Publishing, 1954 (second printing). 134 pages. Contents:
- Այսպէս Սպաննեցինք ("How We Killed")
- Յաւելուած (Addendum), illustrated.
- Վերստին Յաւելուած -- Ալեքսանդրապօլի Դաշնագրի «Ինչպէ՞սն ու ինչո՞ւն» ("Re-Addendum -- The How and Why of the Treaty of Alexandrapol"). Boston: Baikar, 1955. 144 pages.
[edit] References
- Natalie, Shahan [1928] (2002). The Turks and Us (in English). Nagorno-Karabakh: Punik Publishing.
