Armenians and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: A Hauntological Exhibit

From 1986 to 1993, I was history curator at the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City, Utah. In the spring and summer of 1993, I was preparing an exhibit on the story of Armenians who joined the LDS Church in what is now Turkey and Syria between 1884 and 1928. This forty-four-year period covers the beginning of the Church's mission to Armenians, the creation of congregations and church programs, and the travails of persecution and emigration. It ends with the death of Joseph W. Booth, the long-serving missionary to Armenian Saints, and the termination of Church efforts to create an “Eastern Zion” with Armenian Saints dedicated to cooperative agricultural and light industry. It was, and remains, an important and moving story of religious faith, persecution, genocide, rescue, emigration, culture, and perseverance. The Armenian Mormons in Utah whom I met and worked with thirty-plus years ago were generous with their stories, historical photographs, documents, artifacts, and samples of their skilled weaving and needlework. They looked forward to seeing the story of their ancestors and culture featured at the museum and in print.It was a grievous disappointment to them (and me) that the exhibit, well into the planning stages, was canceled. I recall being told that shelving the exhibit was due to “politics”—I was told the Church was in secret negotiations with the Turkish government. An exhibit about Armenians at the museum during the late Ottoman era and the early years of modern Turkey was a no-go.Thirty years later, I feel I still owe a debt to the Armenian Mormons who entrusted me with their stories and artifacts. I want to take what remains of that exhibit—the words written thirty years ago and a handful of photographs—and share them with readers of Dialogue. Consider it an example of hauntology: the enduring presence of elements from our social and historical past that abide as in the manner of a ghost. (Coincidentally, in 1993, Jacques Derrida coined the term “hauntology” in his book Specters of Marx.1)A history museum exhibit staff—the curators and designers who build the displays and create educational materials for docents and the public—strives to tell an important story from the past, one either unknown to most of the public or in need of retelling and reinterpretation. They do this through the display of artifacts, maps, photographs, interpretive wall texts, dioramas, documents, exhibit catalogues, and other media.It must be said that there is no such thing as a neutral curatorial position in any museum. This is even more true for those professionals working for the Museum of Church History and Art, now called the Church History Museum, in Salt Lake City. While each member of the staff was dedicated and qualified in their respective professions, our many tasks in the museum were informed by and committed to both professional excellence and faithfulness to the Church and its mission. The outcome? As a museumgoer, you could get the straight story about the Perpetual Emigration Fund and nineteenth-century oceangoing Saints but not a word about polygamy. You could marvel at an exhibition of the skills of the architects and the artisans who built the Salt Lake Temple, but there would be no mention about the exclusion of Black members from the priesthood and, therefore, their exclusion from the work and sancta of Mormon temples until after 1978. And no exhibit about Mormon Armenians in 1993–94 due to “politics.” It could be—it was—a hard line to walk as a professional historian with a mandate to also promote the Church and its mission faithfully as expressed by Church authorities in the 1990s. The cancellation of the Armenian exhibit was a salient reason, though not the only one, that I stopped working for the Museum of Church History and Art in the fall of 1993.Moving an exhibit story idea from conception to completion takes a number of steps or phases. What follows below is a version of the “Phase II Review” text of the projected Mormon Armenian exhibit submitted to the museum administration and the LDS Church Historical Department. What's missing is the rest of the exhibit process and thus the exhibit itself. The collection of artifacts, photos, and documents, the research and writing, the exhibit design and the fabrication of display cases and artifact mounts, the placement of maps, narrative wall texts and artifact labels, docent education, catalogue production and publicity—all of it came to an unfortunate, premature halt. We had hoped to open the exhibit at the end of 1993 or in the early months of 1994. The working title of the exhibit was “The Exodus of the Armenian Saints.”In history museums, everyone, curators and museumgoers alike, must use their sympathetic imagination in order to bring an exhibit alive with meaning and affect. In this case, this hauntologial exhibit, there is the ghost of an exhibit that should have been. Today, there are no artifacts, documents, maps, labels, graphics, and final narrative wall texts to display. It will be up to the reader to imagine, to picture in their mind's eye, what might have been.The Armenian Saints I visited with in 1993, so pleased to share the stories and prized historic artifacts of their families and all that they had gone through for sake of their faith, have all passed away. I'm the older person now, still feeling the loss of an exhibit that never was.July 28, 1993Phase II reviewThe Exodus of the Armenian SaintsA. Development SchedulePhase One: May 12, 1993—An opening statement justified the exhibit, with projected staffing needs and a budget estimate. A working title, interpretive focus, and narrative content, as well as preliminary research, were presented for review and approval.Phase One approved.Phase Two: July 28, 1993—Identified and outlined the overall and section-by-section objectives. This phase also included a narrative outline of the introduction and the major exhibit sections. Most artifacts, maps, photographs, and documents had been collected for display.The exhibit is cancelled.(Phase Three: October 27, 1993—Would have included the final collection of artifacts, photos, and documents. Graphic elements and design features would have been presented. Preliminary texts for titles, wall-mounted panels, and all artifacts, etc., would have been submitted for review and approval or reworking.Phase Four: December 22, 1993—The complete exhibit proposal for texts and design would have been given a final reading. If approved, the exhibit would have moved into production with a tight schedule for completion.)B. Interpretive Framework: Objectives and NarrativeObjectivesThe principal objectives of this exhibit are to tell the story of the conversion and faithfulness of a group of Armenians to the Restored Gospel; their lives in Ottoman Turkey and Syria; the catastrophe that befell all Armenians in Turkey (1915–21), including LDS Armenians; and the Church-assisted exodus of surviving LDS Armenians from Aintab,2 Turkey, to Syria in 1921.Additional objectives support this goal;Objectives of the seven exhibit sections: introduction/setting and context: Museumgoers will be introduced to learn an unknown and important story in LDS history. They will locate Turkey and Syria and Armenians within it, during the period from 1884 to 1928. Wall texts provide a basic orientation to site, history, and culture.LDS mission to the Armenians: The Church's extensive vision of evangelization included the Ottoman Empire. A small, but significant number from the Armenian minority community embraced the gospel. Branches were organized, members were persecuted because of their LDS faith. Missionaries and Church leaders sought for years to establish an agricultural/light industrial “colony” for Armenian members to lift them out of poverty and strengthen their religious faith. Names and faces of missionaries and members will be introduced.the catastrophe: Turkish governments singled out the Armenian people for extermination/deportation between 1915 and 1921. Armenian LDS shared this nightmare with the wider Armenian population.the survivors reassemble: Aintab and Aleppo, 1918–1921: LDS Armenian survivors of the war and genocide regrouped in Aintab, Turkey and Aleppo, Syria; French troops occupied this area but announced their retreat from Aintab. The Saints in Aintab were in grave peril once more due to Turkish efforts to “ethnically cleanse” the region.the rescue from Aintab: The Church worked to rescue members of the Aintab branch in November–December 1921. This is a dramatic story best perceived, as it was by Armenian Church members, as a modern-day “exodus.” Joseph Booth, under the direction of Elder David O. McKay, was the Church official responsible for rescuing members of the Aintab Branch by relocating them in Aleppo, Syria.Mormons in Aleppo: These Saints strove to be economically self-sufficient and to create a fully viable religious community. Thereafter, many surviving Armenian LDS emigrated to the United States.keeping faith: Finally, the exhibit will show that Armenian Latter-day Saints live and worship among us and strive “never to forget” their heritage.Two photographs of the Aintab Branch will be exhibited. The first shows branch members in about 1908. The second repeats the first but with faces of those members killed in the Armenian genocide blacked out. An accompanying text identifies the branch, states that approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed as part of Turkish government policy, that Church members shared the fate of their people, and that in 1921, imminent peril faced the survivors of the LDS Branch in Aintab.With a map of Ottoman Turkey and Syria, along with period engravings of Anatolia, of Turks, Kurds, and Armenians as visual aids, a brief text provides background information and context for the story of the catastrophe facing Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire circa 1885–1915.The Church sent missionaries to Ottoman Turkey as early as 1884 in response to inquiries about the Church and as an expression of the extensive missionary effort in the nineteenth century to gather the Saints to Zion. While some Church leaders entertained hopes of making inroads into the Muslim and European populations, the only group to manifest interest to the restored gospel was a number of Armenians living in central Anatolia and to the south in Cilicia.October 3, 1888. “There came [to Zara, Turkey] a Mormon missionary by the name of F.F. Hintze . . . I went with the others and listened to him and asked many questions concerning the principles of the Gospel and he answered everything to my satisfaction. I also returned the second and third night. We were so interested that we remained until midnight . . . and we could hardly take our leave of him . . . Before I left to come home this very night, I asked him [Hintze] one last question: “So far as I understand, your words are all true, also your church is better than all other churches, for I have been seeking this thing all my life, and am willing to a member of your but do I that you are an and sent by to he said to I to from home and and you will the it be of or I for of from Zara, to . . . LDS Church and and in to missionaries this some Armenians joined the They faced persecution from their Armenians in the of of of Church from their from loss of In Church members making and Armenian in an effort to economically to be Mormon in their lives making and needlework. In they met in church and to was but we them for As members we would to church people would on the of the and and . . . This went on for some History LDS Church had a hard work because they were They were the last and the first It was at this the missionaries the work They sent to Aleppo, Syria to learn the of came to Aintab and a The members of the church the from each most of the Aintab branch and have as with in the and the Saints the each are occupied in by the the under the of both and and the Saints feeling very of the Church of of Latter-day Saints, Turkey, LDS Church It is hoped that the of and this the gospel is to work us Booth, and leaders Joseph Booth, and to the and of Armenian Latter-day Saints, the Saints as an agricultural and In Elder to Ottoman Turkey and to the “colony” idea with Church members and a of on to the Saints in a LDS communities in the Booth, and others to the idea into the These efforts were never “The we to on the of the of and into the as far as the . . . We are all very well pleased with the and the LDS Church was the by and his it was for the Armenian Saints in an “Eastern Zion” on for and light industry. In a to Elder his to that Church had their final due to the Church's in they had had not come to the will not be so LDS Church “colony” in the spring of LDS missionary Elder to the about of Aintab and and an agricultural to the 22, have to that is very to have a of this as early as and that the Armenian members of the Church are in most cases in very to the LDS Church out and the Armenians in the of and the The proposal was missionaries were sent and Armenian Church members were left to their as a catastrophe was to Armenian communities Ottoman Turkey and Turkish A in to a of The of and the for a of Ottoman in a and of as not Ottoman on not of a an with its and of the Armenian presence in that is to the death of million of all the from to the in a of I the the for out their In Turkey with and the Empire and out on with Armenians a within the the the and of the Armenian people in Anatolia and in Armenian communities were and were was and and people were far to the south in the Most of those who the in the LDS Armenians shared their LDS in Zara, and to of the members of the in Aintab and were map of Turkey, with of the of period and of surviving Mormon Armenians will the the Turkish government a of of the Armenian people within Turkish . . . In this all the Aintab their as a many of the members . . . was and for the . . . the people had to the of LDS Church in all . . . The rest of our and all in that our was in is the story of their and Elder Joseph about the fate of the members of the branch in from its the of so many years of my missionary is now in and the Armenians what they went to the last all they for their . . . even it them their and their the direction of a group of LDS Armenians in Aintab who the years of war to as a viable of the Salt Lake City, Church of their their at the of in and their need for and troops occupied the included Aintab, in the of the of Ottoman in was and administration of the they and as well as to the them in the Turkish and the French out of one after in The story of the French from to 1921, in what is now Turkey, is one of the late summer of 1921, French to their to Aintab and to the between what is now Turkey and This the Armenians of Aintab to the Turkish of what we The of the Saints in Aintab were by the from the of Aintab and Aleppo, the LDS Church's called Joseph Booth, who had a of among the Armenians, to members, and build up surviving Church 1921, met Elder David O. and they to and Aintab. the of the Saints in Aintab, told to the of members of the Branch to The rescue of the Saints on to those who and about the of November–December word from for of a to the W. Aintab the Saints are of their lives as are of grave of the French and leave the Armenians in the of the We are for the to open the for them to W. to a with the French and him to to bring the members of our church with their and from Aintab to W. of the French for for all the Mormons for the to come out of Aintab, and also the to me in them to W. late I called at the The below was with of people . . . The and of the was about were out . . . and the come the was by the of on my the a were in the of . . . Mormons were in Aintab W. of the members of the Aintab Branch were for on The from Aintab to History of the Church of of Latter-day Saints in the from The of picture shows the on their to The is the one in I and at night. In a we were all in W. exodus of the Aintab members been looked by the members of the Church in the as the in the history of the Church in the the its was and were written to . . . to the members of the and of in their as the exodus of the of from was as by History of Church in the LDS Church History and Joseph the rest of his in working with the of the and to their to the creation of a “colony” for the The death of in and the final by of a “colony” a in the and to a the were . . . was by and the opening each one with a It was a of W. “The of the met in my this to the of some of the who and some as to whom they should I them to with the most of the is the W. to us to the were and who to We even a and people presented a Armenian of the and by and It was a very An of into the to the W. “The name of the was from to one they would be more for the public and the “The of a and in one and up the in the of and to the of the of the with that of . . . We had about W. be a Mormon in The Saints to strive for through and that be a Latter-day making and and and one and people, many of them members of the making the Armenian in of the Mormons on a of about on . . . through the of Booth, the Mormons moved from Aintab. It was a . . . with into each a The and were Most people a their but for and they would to the of them from the Church until they and could it on their Elder the are living in on and in of making and of and needlework. given work by W. While Armenian Saints to and worship in Syria, they also with faces LDS Armenians had emigrated out of the in Utah and fully members of the Church community. The Saints in and to by the of the most had in the United be to an LDS Armenian also that the exodus of the had in the had only come to an for were and to our . . . people on to the us to and not to a we . . . We a we in the the the had not but it was and the the to the from up with on the the of the we an Armenian in the of the with their their As we we as one of the . . . more but we left them us and we on into the of the of an Armenian LDS Church History during this persecution only for but for all such an that we to to Armenian Saints have and of the United most recall their history, and many that were once so to Mormon group will be in this to the and skills of the and as a of and the with their Armenian In all the use will be of maps, documents, photographs, and artifacts from the accompanying preliminary to tell this In panels, display etc., will be part of the exhibit The use of design elements will be in the exhibit and of the July 28, 1993, II for the exhibit on Mormon Armenians The of the review all of the historical artifacts, photographs, and documents that I had by July 1993 for display in the They came from the of Mormon Armenians in Utah and and from the LDS Church Church History and the Museum of Church History and In history museums, a professional staff to bring stories from the past out of If historical artifacts, photographs, and documents are the best to the past into the for the museum that the of the exhibit that was in the summer of 1993 is most In I was to locate some of those to the written the artifacts, the other photographs and historical They are my they are our and in in museum and in the LDS Church the exhibit had gone forward in museum would have Armenian and and and A and from an early Armenian a missionary historic Church and a in the Armenian and of to and a of historic this and The They could have up our the past to and us into the and and lives of Armenian Saints and missionaries from 1884 to and everything people went (and the the of families because of conversion and emigration, the persecution, and the of and genocide, the hard work and have a museum exhibit their lives due to in 1993 was an I it I feel it now, more than thirty years I have this museum exhibit with phase the research of historic photos, maps, and And the It me from the to from one to and from the religious community in I up to in The story of Armenian Mormons I had once hoped to tell as a museum I have now to bring though I that it is only a of what it could have a exhibit by of people the into the museum on in Salt Lake City. the making of this exhibit me in and it my and with a handful of in Turkey in a In after sent his and on to Utah the joined in Salt Lake City, he entrusted a to Joseph Booth, the Mormon missionary who had returned from Turkey the Armenian mission was due to the of I about this in the summer of 1993 in in his home in Salt Lake and preparing for the Church museum to the I at the was a One a came to our I was to I had never a was my to him for what he had a there at the and the told as best I recall thirty years it was Joseph had his design in work of a who shows to all the his his what he said he would show the to and establish my in the to his Elder as a And he was years my never have