Although my family name officially is Davidian, it is an artificial surname the likes of which are frequently met among the descendents of the Armenian Genocide survivors.

My father's paternal grandfather (or my paternal grandfather's father) has lived in the city of Tigranakert (this corresponds to Sghert, today's Siirt, which could have been mistaken for Diyarbekir) of the region of Aghdznik in Western Armenia. He has been the eldest of many brothers ¹). In the local dialect he was called Davit bek Bahoudé and the local Kurds called him Dawoud bek Bahhout (the "h" spelt hard as the hard "h" in Arabic). He has been what today we would call a feudal landlord and according to the stories told by compatriots from Tigranakert who had survived the Genocide, he had owned the lands of eight villages although his family lived in the city ²).

In the days of the bloodthirsty sultan Abdul Hamid, probably by the end of the 1890ies, organising a group of two hundred armed horsemen ³) from among the population of his villages, Davit had taken to the mountains and fought against robbers and the Ottoman tax collectors. As it is known, the latter often collected the same tax over and over several times a year and under the guise of tax collection often organised true robberies, even killed people.

According to these stories, for some time Davit was successful in suppressing the Turks' injustices and enjoyed great respect among the local Armenians as well as the Kurds. This is supported by the fact that the local authorities were not able to know who the leader of the fighters was and Davit bek's family continued to live in the city. However, naturally, such information could not have been held as a secret for long and when it was revealed that the leader was Davit the Turks had decided to capture my grandfather, Davit bek's only son Thomas, a five-year-old boy at the time, as ransom in return for his surrender. But being a renowned and influential person and having contacts among governmental circles and the Ottoman army, a Turkish colonel informs Davit about this plot beforehand. The family decides to send Thomas away and they hurriedly hand him over to the owner of a caravan to be taken to the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem. According to the tellers, although there have been family ties with both patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople, the decision falls on Jerusalem since it was more distant, nevertheless within the boundaries of the Ottoman empire.

Davit later was killed in battle. About his wife, it was told that she had disappeared during a winter and was found only when the snows started to melt in the spring: frozen together with several mules loaded with food and munitions. Apparently she was secretly supplying her husband's guerrillas personally and had fallen under an avalanche.

In Jerusalem, the Patriarch father hands Thomas to the care of one of the monks and advises him that if he is asked about his family name, instead of Bahudé he should say that he is Davitian, after the name of his father. Otherwise, since Bahudé was a known and rare family name, even in Jerusalem he could have been arrested and sent back to Tigranakert. Later, when the British enter Palestine and start distributing passports, Thomas is registered as Davidian, which continues to be our family name to date.

Still a young man, Thomas learns from the refugees that some of his uncles ⁴), escaping from repressions, have emigrated and established in Alexandria-Egypt before the Genocide. According to this information, they had managed to take with them a considerable part of the family wealth (probably they had not managed to sell the immovable property or had sold for miserable prices) and already owned two hotels in Alexandria. Thomas immediately goes to Alexandria to find his relatives. However, his uncles decline to give him a share from the family wealth. After having no news from him for many years they could have thought him to be dead and they could have disbelieved him, accepting him as a cheat ⁵). This is an assumption. Anyhow, for those years, when according to the accepted traditions the largest part of the family wealth was inherited by the eldest son and hence rightfully belonged to his son Thomas, such behaviour was accepted as extremely insulting and Thomas had cut all relations with the families of his uncles.

I have reason to believe that probably a large part of the Bahoudians have been saved from the Genocide, being compelled to emigrate a lot earlier. Because of the fidayeen activities of their elder brother (may be some of the brothers were also involved) probably they had suffered repressions and their life in Tigranakert had become intolerable and were compelled to flee.

Through the years, I have always looked for Bahoudians and finally in the late 1990ies I came across a Bahoudian family in Yerevan quite accidentally. Alas, nobody from the old generation was surviving. However, it was interesting that this family too was from Tigranakert (from the villages of Sghert) and had immigrated to Alexandria from where they had been repatriated to Armenia later. The daughter remembered that once in Alexandria, when she had been for a walk with her mother, her mother had shown her some villas of rich people and told her that they too were Bahoudians and were relatives of the family. Unfortunately, due to the scarcity and vagueness of information it was not possible to establish the family branch and clarify the type of the relationship. In any case, we are relatives for sure. Probably the "rich" Bahoudians that she described are the uncles of my grandfather or their descendents.

I urge the reader of these lines, in case you know of any Bahoudians (or a family name with similar pronunciation) please do inform me at the aasa@artsakh.am or aasa@freenet.am addresses. I am not interested in any inheritance or some century-old family quarrel. I simply wish to find my relatives and restore family ties, so that together, with our tears we can wash away the past tragedy of our family and nation.

Arshak Zaven Davidian (Bahoudian)

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                ¹) I do not know how many brothers they have been; the only thing that is sure is that they were "many", probably at least five or six.

                ²) Or had owned lands in eight villages. This information and all the remaining details were told to my grandfather by people from Tigranakert who had survived the forced displacements during the Genocide. Naturally, he himself could not have known all this as he was only a child at the time.

                ³) Probably this number is exaggerated. Anyhow, it was told that he had two hundred armed people.

                ⁴) I do not know how many of his uncles had moved to Alexandria, but I believe that it should have been at least two of them.

                ⁵) The changed family name could also be a reason for suspicion.