Յօշոտուած Հայաստան շարժանկարի հետքերուն ու անոր վերապրող հատուածին մասին

Abstract

On the basis of Armenian and non-Armenian press articles, as well as other sources, the article gathers some of the most significant worldwide information (United States, Australia, Argentina, France) about Ravaged Armenia or The Auction of Souls, the now lost 1919 silent film on the Armenian Genocide where survivor Aurora Mardiganian played herself. It delves into the case of Thomas Ince’s film The Despoilers, which was later premiered in France as Le Chatiment. The original (a drama happening in the Balkans during World War I) changed its location and subject in France, becoming a film on the Armenian Genocide. A change along these lines also happened with Ravaged Armenia, which was shown in France in the 1920s and 1930s as Le martyre d’un people, with Mardiganian’s name also changed. The film had its last screenings in 1938, when French-Armenian film operator and documentarist Yervant Setian bought it. The film was retitled Der-Zor and shown in 1946-1947, before its owner emigrated to Soviet Armenia. Reportedly, only two reels of the film reached Yerevan and are currently in the archives. Thanks to the efforts of Argentinean-Armenian researcher Eduardo Kozanlian, those two surviving reels were identified in the 1990s as part of Auction of Souls. The author also makes the case that, contrary to common belief, the loss of the film could be ascribed to causes that also affected hundreds of movies from the silent era, some of which have reappeared in the past decade in various corners of the world.