Hunchak Scrapbook from 1930's New England

This scrapbook of mostly Hunchakian heroes seems to have been put together by a supporter of the SDHP that read the Yeritasard Hayastan newpaper in the 1930's and 1940's. Yeritasad Hayastan was an Armenian-American socio-political and economical periodical published by the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party from 1903 to 2003.

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This scrapbook was acquired from a seller liquidating Levon Papazian's collection. Papazian seems to have collected famous Hunchak works and although we cannot say for sure who the maker of the scrapbook was, most other books bore Papazian's name. We do not know who he was, but it is possible that he may have lived in the Northbridge and Whitinsville, MA area.

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What does the scapbook reveal?

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This scrapbook is an interesting window into the beliefs and convictions of a member of the Armenian Diaspora from Worcester County, Massachusetts in the 1930's and 1940's. The pictures that the scrapbooker decided to include in this 160 page composition book reveal the peculiar ideology of a man. The cutouts reveal sympathy towards the ideals of the Armenian Revolutionary Movement and the Social Democratic Hunchakian Party.

Tourian's Cutout

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The first page of the scrapbook contains a cutout of Archbishop Leon Tourian, a cleric of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Tourian was assassinated in New York City by Armenian Revolutionary Federation members. Earlier that year, in Chicago, Tourian had ordered the removal of a red, blue, and orange tricolor flag from the stage before he would step out on it, as he did not want to irritate Soviet authorities. His assassination divided Armenian communities in America between those that condemned the attack and those that commended it.

 

For Armenians of the Dashnak persuasion, the flag had paramount significance because it was the symbol of the short-lived republic that was created by the Dashnaks in 1918. To order its removal constituted an unforgivable act of treason. For non-Dashnaks, such as Tourian or scrapbooker Papazian, the flag had little meaning and would only provoke the wrath of Armenia’s Soviet government. The church operated from within the borders of Soviet Armenia, and Hunchaks recognized the Soviet's legitimacy over the small Armenian nation.