Johannes Lepsius ( him Johannes Lepsius , 1858 , Potsdam , Germany - 1926 , Merano , Italy ) - German Protestant missionary and public figure, the founder of "Orient Mission", an organization to help Christians in the East. Through my activities I tried to draw the attention of the world community to the genocide of the population of Western Armenia .
Content
Biography
Johannes Lepsius was born in the family of the eminent Prussian archeologist Carl Richard Lepsius , the founder of German Egyptology , and Elizabeth Klein, the daughter of the composer Bernhard Klein . Johannes is the brother of the artist Reinhold Lepsius .
In 1880, Lepsius first visited the Middle East. He founded the "Orient Mission" - an organization to help Eastern Christians [1] . In 1884-1885 Lepsius again visited the Middle East, visited Jerusalem . The public activity of Lepsius in defense of the Armenian people began during the pogroms of Armenians in Turkey, committed by special forces of the Sultan, the so-called Hamidia, in 1894–96. In the spring of 1896, he, together with J. Greenfield, made a long trip to Asia Minor to collect eyewitness accounts of events and provide possible assistance to the Armenians on the spot. In the city of Urfa, Lepsius built in several houses of mercy for the residents who survived the pogroms [2] . Since August 1896, Lepsius began publishing a series of articles in the German press under the general title “The Truth about Armenia”. These articles (18 in all) formed the basis of Lepsius' capital work “Armenia and Europe. The charge against the great powers and the call for Christian Germany (1896). This work, which has sustained 7 publications over two years, was translated into English and French and played a significant role in shaping European public opinion in favor of the Armenian people. Lepsius actively participated in the organization of protest rallies against the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, in his speeches directly pointed out that this crime was the work of the Turkish government headed by Sultan Abdul Hamid.
In 1914, Lepsius created the German-Armenian partnership and the German-Armenian journal Mesrop. During the First World War, Lepsius prepared and secretly published [3] two books denouncing and condemning the Armenian Genocide organized by the Young Turks:
- “ Bericht über die Lage des Armenischen Volkes in der Türkei ” (“Report on the situation of the Armenian people in Turkey ”) and
- “ Der Todesgang des armenischen Volkes ” [4] (“The road of death of the Armenian people”).
The total circulation of both books was 20,000 copies.
In 1919, Lepsius published a voluminous collection of documentary facts “Germany and Armenia 1914-1918”, which collected reports from German ambassadors, consuls and other diplomatic workers, reports, addresses and letters from German citizens and many other documents that irrefutably indicate the presence in advance the Young Turks program of extermination of the Western Armenian population, as well as indirectly disclosing the connivance of the ruling circles of Germany. Through the Armenian poet Avetik Isaakian (a member of the board of the German-Armenian society), this collection of documents was sent by Lepsius to the Armenian delegation that participated in the Versailles Peace Conference.
In 1921, in the Berlin court, Lepsius testified for the defense of the Armenian avenger Soghomon Tehlirian .
In the 1920s. Lepsius continued to provide material assistance to Armenian orphans, refugees, and sent medical supplies from German-Armenian society to Soviet Armenia.
In Franz Werfel's novel Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh (40 Days of Musa Dagh ), Lepsius was called the “guardian angel of the Armenians.”
In Germany, the "Lepsius Archive" is open.
Literature
- Baumann, Andreas, The Missiology of Johannes Lepsius (PhD diss.), University of South Africa, 2006, AAT 0818831.
- Troeger, Brigitte, Brennende Augen , Brunnen-Verlag, (2008), ISBN 3-7655190-4-9
- Hermann Goltz (Hrsg.): Deutschland, Armenien die die Türkei 1895-1925. Dokumente und Zeitschriften aus dem Dr. Johannes-Lepsius-Archiv an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Katalog, Mikrofiche-Edition und Thematisches Lexikon , ISBN 3-598-34406-6
Notes
- ↑ Holy Martyr Archimandrite Gregory (Peradze) (Inaccessible link) . The appeal date is October 24, 2008. Archived November 9, 2004.
- ↑ Since 1903, these houses have been headed by the Danish missionary Karen Jeppe, who became the savior of many Armenian children from the genocide during the First World War.
- ↑ The German military censorship did not miss the materials on the crimes of the allies of the Second Reich.
- ↑ This book contained Enver-pasha's cynically-frank interview.