On Vartan İhmalyan’s political autobiography, Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story) (1)

Who was Vartan İhmalyan?

Vartan İhmalyan (22 March 1913, Konya - 29 January 1987, Moscow) was a Turkish-Armenian writer, politician, and civil engineer, and a member of the clandestine Communist Party of Turkey (TKP). He was the elder brother of Jak İhmalyan (1922-1978), a painter and fellow TKP member.

He graduated in civil engineering from Robert College Higher School. In addition to practising his profession, he also worked in a variety of quite different fields. In his book, Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story) [*], he recalls having worked as a shop assistant, a shirtmaker, a proofreader, and a draughtsman.

He also wrote fairy tales under the pen name “İhmal Amca” (“Uncle İhmal”). His first collection of fairy tales, Sihirli Çiçek (The Magic Flower), was published in Turkish in Bulgaria in 1967. The first of his books to appear in Turkey was Şeytan Uçurtması (The Devil’s Kite), issued as part of the “Arkadaş Kitaplar” series. His other children’s books include: Güneşe Vurgun Çocuk (The Child Enamoured of the Sun), Eşek Eşekken (When the Donkey was a Donkey), Boyalı Kırlangıç (The Painted Swallow), and Pencereme Konmuştu (It Had Perched on My Windowsill).

The fairy-tale books of “İhmal Amca” (“Uncle İhmal”)

In 1933, at only twenty years of age, İhmalyan joined the TKP through his school friend Rasih Güran (1912-1972).

He was forced to abandon his studies in architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts. Between 1937 and 1939 he fulfilled his compulsory military service as a private. At that time, while high-school graduates were normally conscripted as reserve officers in the Turkish Army, those of Armenian, Greek or Jewish origin were required to serve as privates, regardless of their level of education.

Like many men of Armenian, Greek and Jewish origin in Turkey, Vartan İhmalyan was recalled to active military service during the war years. He served two further terms: from October 1940 to March 1941, and again from July to December 1941.

Despite all these interruptions, he enrolled at the higher section of Robert College and received his engineering degree in 1944.

Later that same year, after his brother Jak was taken into custody and arrested by the political police, Vartan İhmalyan was himself briefly detained for questioning. In 1946, he was detained once more in a police operation against the legally recognised Socialist Labourers’ and Peasants’ Party of Turkey (Türkiye Sosyalist Emekçi ve Köylü Partisi), led by Dr Şefik Hüsnü Deymer (1887-1959). He was interrogated for three months before being released. Jak, however, was sentenced to a year in prison.

Standing: Aram Pehlivanyan, Dr Hayk Açıkgöz, Jak İhmalyan; In the front: an Armenian soldier, Barkev Şamikyan, and an unidentified man. Days of imprisonment in the Harbiye Officers’ Club.

In July 1948, Vartan İhmalyan, together with his wife and two friends, travelled by ship from Istanbul to Marseille, and from there continued by train to Paris. Their intention was to join the convoys leaving France to emigrate to Soviet Armenia. On arrival in Paris, however, they learnt that the resettlement scheme had been suspended and were thus obliged to remain in Paris for eight years.

In 1956, Vartan and his wife were assigned, through the TKP, to the Turkish Service of Budapest Radio. Soon afterwards, the 1956 uprising -which İhmalyan characterised as a “counter-revolution”- broke out in Hungary. They subsequently sought refuge in Czechoslovakia.

In Prague, İhmalyan met Nâzım Hikmet, who enabled him to obtain a position at Warsaw Radio. Hikmet also arranged for Jak İhmalyan and his wife to be posted to Warsaw.

Some time later, when the Turkish Service of Warsaw Radio was shut down, he was reassigned through the TKP to the Turkish Service of Beijing Radio. He worked there from 1959 to 1961.

Following the Sino-Soviet split, the brothers Vartan and Jak İhmalyan returned to Moscow with their wives. There, Vartan began working in the Turkish Service of Moscow Radio.

Jak and Vartan İhmalyan in Moscow (Photograph: Ara Güler)

In 1965, the TKP Moscow Group, with İhmalyan as its secretary, began to oppose the “triumvirate” (Zeki Baştımar, İsmail Bilen and Aram Pehlivanyan) that controlled the party leadership. [**] In these years, tensions mounted among the TKP’s small number of cadres based in various Stalinist countries. Ultimately, a series of purges ensued, and the triumvirate ordered the Moscow Group to disband.

In the following years, Vartan İhmalyan continued to live in Moscow and, in May 1979, completed his political autobiography, Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story), which we shall examine in detail later in this series. The task of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted to the historian Mete Tunçay (1936-2025), who has recently passed away, and the book was first published in Turkey in 1989, two years after İhmalyan’s own death.

[*] Vartan İhmalyan, Bir Yaşam Öyküsü [A Life Story], Cem Yayınevi, 3rd edn, March 2012, Istanbul.

[**] TKP 1965 Tartışmaları - Muhalefet Mektupları [TKP 1965 Debates - Letters of Opposition], ed. Erden Akbulut, Sosyal Tarih Yayınları, January 2011, Istanbul.

To be continued

See also:

The period in which İhmalyan wrote his political autobiography

Vartan İhmalyan’s superficial impressionism

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: Aram Pehlivanyan (1)

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: Aram Pehlivanyan (2)

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: Aram Pehlivanyan (3)

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: İsmail Bilen (1)