Esra Olcay conducted an oral history interview with Dikran Bey while she was an undergraduate student at the School of Management at Sabancı University. Based on his inquiries, Dikran Bey could trace back his family to four generations. Esra’s work shows the ongoing importance of this history.
Esra: “I conducted my oral history interview with my father’s friend from university, Dikran Bey, who was born in 1953. The roots of his family are based in Kayseri. I had the chance to interview him twice. During both interviews, I listened to his amazing family stories. Owing to oral history, for the first time I felt myself so close to history, or even as a part of the events. Dikran Bey was very aware of his past. Having traced what happened to his family, he shared his knowledge with me without any hesitation. Although his stories are of a quality that would freeze one’s blood, I did not detect any hatred towards his country while speaking with him. On the contrary, he believes that telling these stories does nothing but produce hatred and pain. Telling the stories gave pain to Dikran Bey; during the interview, I realized that what his family had been through was not easy, and that they had had a very difficult life. While Dikran Bey was telling the story of his family, what impressed me most was how much those events affected his whole life and his view of life, even though he did not personally experience the deportation. After these two interviews, I had the opportunity to learn what I would not otherwise have learnt and to have a different perspective on this subject.”
From Esra’s interview with Dikran Bey:
Dikran Bey: “When I talk to my Turkish friends, many of my friends, for instance, have apricots coming from Malatya, or watermelon coming from Diyarbakır. I do not have anything coming from anywhere, because I have nothing. I have no roots, no history. We did not grow out of the soil, so we should have come from somewhere. But we have no such place. Our past is too short; so when I tell you, I tell you about my grandfather. Where my grandfather was born, there is nothing further than that. I cannot tell that. Because they do not exist, those people do not exist. I am not able to tell you anything about them. I have nothing in my father’s hometown. Nothing, since they took me away from the soil of my father’s hometown.”
You can listen to Dikran Bey:
