Findicak

Discussion about various cities in the old country

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I REMEMBER
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Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:38 am

Hello to all Armenian soul seekers!

I am new on this forum. Both our parents beeing orphans, my chances in finding some info seem to be narrow.

Could any one tell me anything about FINDICAK.
Was it an extended village in 1914? population? any trace of Armenians living there before the Genocide?

Thank you for your help.
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debbi
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Location: Ransomville NY

Hello,
Let me first welcome you to this awesome board . Where we really do try to help each other .
Ok is FINDICAK a town? Or family name ? I am thinking town but always best to ask :lol:
My Family Tree...
Azadian
Kechebashian
Keish(ish)ian
Altoon(j)ian
Dest(er)ian
Kelikian
Albert..The spelling can change from generation to generation
I REMEMBER
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Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:38 am

Hi,Debbi

Thank you for your word of welcome!

Findicak is a village of northern Turkey, somewhere between Sinop, Samsun and Kastamonu.
I was hoping to find someone either familiar with that region, or having relatives from that village.
My father's name was Kehieyan, we don't know the exact spelling.
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debbi
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Location: Ransomville NY

hello .............
Ok,I thought it was a town name but always best to ask.
Last name is likely spelled KEHIEYAN the way I have the mess ups with names figured out (tring anyways )
Where did the live after 1st coming here ?
What year ?
Familys 1st names ?
Helps all of us get an idea what the time frame was to ask old ones if they remember.
I know my Great uncle was KARNIG KELEDJIAN (Later to become Henry CARGEN go figure ) was from that area I beilive but hes been gone since 1974 I beilive thats the year off top of my head
My Family Tree...
Azadian
Kechebashian
Keish(ish)ian
Altoon(j)ian
Dest(er)ian
Kelikian
Albert..The spelling can change from generation to generation
gaghjayan
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Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2006 7:50 am

Well I had written a long response but because it took so long, I was logged out and my posting deleted (grrrrrr!!!). So now you will get teh abreviated version.

Findicak in Turkish, is Fundujak in Armenian (the Turkish undotted "i" is pronounced like the Armenian "uht" which is pronounced like "a" in about - the "c" is pronounced as "j").

The village was actually in the district (kaza) of Marash, which is part of Cilicia. The subdistrict (nahiyesi) was Yenicekale (Yenijekale). There were approximately 210 Armenian households prior to the Genocide (40 Protestant). During the Genocide teher are accounts of the defense of Fundujak.

My best estimate is that the village was also known as Fenk or Firnizkoy (Furnuzkoy) by the Turks and is now called Yolyani (Yolyanu). It is located at 37 degrees 32 minutes north ltitude 36 degrees 38 minutes east longitude.

There is a nice pre-Genocide picture in Kevorkian/Paboudjian of the school children in Fundujak. The church was S. Asdvadzadzin (Holy Mother of God).

George Aghjayan
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Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:38 am

Thank you so much George for your interest in my search.
I located the village on a modern map of Turkey, and the distance to Marash, didn't seem to make sense with the little info we have.

My father name was Minas KEHIEYAN (spelling??).
He later never spoke about what he had seen. All we know is that they were land owners, had horses. He said he was brought up by his grand father who was "keye" ( spel.??) of that place.

With your help I have been able to find on the Net pages about KEVORKIAN/PABOUDJIAN, where Fundujak is mentionned but unfortun. nothing about the family.

Debbi, on this forum, adviced me to list more names, but my father was an only child, his father too

Thank you George, and best regards to all.
Ned Boyajian
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Hi, I don't have any direct link to Fundijak, but some relatives by marriage and friends of the family do. Many Fundijaktsi heroically resisted during the Genocide. Here is a little write up put together this past spring. I hope it gives you some clues.

Ellen M. Blakely, head of the Marash Girls’ School, who visited the town on February 1903, describes Fundijak’s school:

**
The teacher with a hammer to call the children together struck methodically a piece of iron suspended on the roof of the little building which serves as school and church. It was feast day for the Gregorians, so the children did not come as promptly as usual, but a large number were finally seated around the room as close as they could be crowded. We watched them wash their feet in the stream as they came through. There did not need to be long shelves at the door for shoes as in Marash, for very few had shoes of any kind, and none stockings. Although the clothes were extremely ragged, and most not very clean, their faces looked pretty clean. The fact that there were visitors from Marash may have made a difference, but it is a part of their school training to wash their faces. One little boy had on, in addition to the two undergarments, the remains of a woman’s dress waist. Boys have their heads shaved except for a tuft of hair at the crown which falls down behind from under the fez. Each wears a white cotton cap, and the rich (?) a fez in addition. A big stove occupied quite a portion of the centre of the room, but there could be no fire, for it smoked. There were not books enough to go around of course, but some waited with folded arms while the others read. An arithmetic class of four had two slates, and after two had used them the other two wrote their questions. Mrs. Macallum [the teacher] said her children would like to give a few slates. The children were able to read quite well, and have learned several things. There have been as many as seventy enrolled, but regular attendance is not well understood in the villages. It was disappointing not to find more girls studying, but there were a few and those quite small, for girls are kept at home to work. [Blakely, Ellen M., “The Fundijak School,” Light and Life for Woman, vol. XXXIII, Boston, Woman’s Board of Missions, 1903, pp. 229-430.]
**

The Fundijaktsiner were independent, tough people, cut from the same cloth as the heroic Zeytuntsiner. Zeytun was a mountain village a few miles north of Marash; almost all the residents were Armenians. Against terrible odds, the Zeytuntsiner held off Turkish armies in 1862; 1895; for three months during 1914; and in 1915, finally falling on March 25 of that year. After the 1915 fall of their town, thirty-two Zeytuntsiner fugitives holed up in the hills above Fundijak, a town of 400 homes. Their leaders were Aram Bey and Mesrob Cholakian. All over the vilayet Armenian peasants were deciding whether to submit and be deported or resist. A few of the Fundijaktsiner hoped that shunning the rebels would mean the Turks would leave them alone. But the majority welcomed the Cholakians and their band. Armenians from nearby joined the resistance: 140 households from Deré Keoy and 82 households from Kishifli moved into Fundijak. Fighters from these villages were posted in the mountains around the town while the Fundijaktsi guarded their home and the only road to it. Omar Bay, the gendarme captain, stared up at the hills, swarming with hidden rebels, that rose high above Findicik, and had little stomach for the hard task before him. So he retreated to Marash for more men and secretly arranged for the Turkish civilians from the area and Marash to infiltrate Findicik on the day of his attack. The attack came on July 26. The gendarmes engaged the Zieityuntsiner while the Turks from Findicik and Marash ransacked the market. The gendarmes found themselves trapped between the Zieityuntsiner and Fundijaktsiner fighters – they were wiped out. Meantime, the Turks plundering the market were killed or captured. The next morning, the Armenian resisters shot their prisoners, and burned six neighboring Turkish villages and those village’s fields. All this drew the attention of the district military commander, Ali Bey, who was stationed off in Adana. He sent a detachment of regular troops, perhaps as many as 8,000, along with mountain guns. Still, Ali Bey hoped he could do things the easy way. He contacted Ismail Kemal Bey, the mutasarrif of Marash (a mutasarrif was the administrator of a sanjak) hoping to arrange for negotiations. So Ismail Kemal Bey, who was not a bad sort, summoned leaders from each of the three Armenian religious communities to coerce them into trying to persuade the Fundijaktsi to lay down their arms. The Catholic leaders begged off on the grounds that there were no Catholics in the area. But two Apostolic priests, Der Arsen Der Hovanessian and Der Sahag Der Bedrossian reluctantly agreed to go – as did the Protestant badveli, Abraham Hartunian. The three clergymen met with the village leaders and Cholakian brothers. To no avail, of course. The resistance refused to give in. They were annihilated. Soon after the order came down for the mass deportation of the Marash Armenians. Ismail Kemal Bey tried to save at least part of the population – which led to him being hounded from office. Badveli Hartunian went into hiding. A few Fundijaktsi escaped into the mountains to keep fighting; most were killed outright or forced on death marches, like so many of their countrymen.

The facts in this account about the Zeytun and Fundejak resistance are drawn largely from Kerr, Stanley Elphinstone, The Lions of Marash: Personal Experiences with American Near East Relief 1919-1922, Albany, New York, State University of New York Press, 1973, pp 18-23. See also Hartunian, Abraham, Neither to Laugh Nor to Weep, pp 52-62. See also Wikipedia.
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