Between 1915 and 1923, a million Armenians, each a living being, had their lives cut short by an empire bent on their annihilation. However, a small number of them lived to tell about the atrocities committed against them. Within Adam Bagdasarian’s novel, Forgotten Fire, one such survivor, Vahan, states, “I knew that I was free, and that I would never be free.” His words embody the truth that, although he no longer physically lived in the horrors of the Armenian genocide, he would forever be captive to his identity, questions, and memories. First of all, from the time of his escape, Vahan would live with the question of whether he should have remained with his family. In pondering the night of his escape from the death march, Vahan reflects, …show more content…
Before Seta died and Krikor was sent away, Vahan dared to envision the following: “I saw Seta at my side, her hand in mine. And now our own children, a home of our own, and Krikor grown and handsome and healthy. But only for a night.” He had loved Seta, and that love gave him joy and freedom from his circumstances. For one night, Vahan was not afraid to be Armenian; rather, he dreamed of marrying an Armenian, raising a family with her, and building a life as more than a victim. Yet, he was not to experience that freedom either, and he would grieve that lost future. For Vahan, to be Armenian was to carry the burden of a dead people, a dead culture, and a dead future. In conclusion, over the course of three years, Vahan Kenderian grew from a child into an adult, and, despite finding freedom in Constantinople, he would never forget those whom he had lost nor stop questioning whether they might have lived if he had stayed with them. The Ottoman Empire brutally murdered his entire people, and as he states in closing, “I knew that there would never again be another Bitlis or Erzerum or Van, and that the world I had known would survive only in the seed I carried within me.” The world forgot about the Armenian Genocide, but they never should