Misak Manouchian. A hero of the French Resistance, the militant rebel against the Nazis, the symbol of rebellion against the fate of the people of France, as well as Armenians. It’s as if Manouchian embodies everything we are and aspire to be: He’s a victim of genocide, a survivor, a worker, an artist, a poet, a resistor, an individual who tries to change the world to a better place. Therefore, the news of the reburial of his and his wife Meline’s remains to the Pantheon in Paris, where they will rest alongside the greatest names of France, must have been a source of pride who know their story. When I heard French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement in June, it felt that way to me. But then, some questions, or perhaps anxieties, followed. Today, on February 21, 2024, precisely as the bodies of the Manouchians are being reburied to the Pantheon with a well-thought-out ceremony, asking some questions should also be a way to honor them. Don’t we always say how important it is to remember the past properly?
Macron’s statement was made on the anniversary of the day, June 18, 1940, when General Charles de Gaulle delivered his famous speech calling on the French people to resist, marking the commemoration of the Resistance against the Nazis, and it was beautifully written. Referring to Manouchian as part of “French greatness”, praising his “patriotic” fervor, his “calm” heroism, and citing his humanism where he expressed no hatred toward the German people, Macron spoke of him as an inspiration to the Republic. According to Macron, resistance fighters like him were the embodiment of France, founded on the principles of liberty, equality, fraternity.
As academic Claire Mouradian beautifully summarized in the video describing his life, Misak Manouchian was an orphan of Armenian genocide. He and his brother Garabed were the only survivors from their family expelled from Adiyaman; they lost their entire family. Similarly, Misak’s wife Meline was born in Istanbul, and grew up as an orphan in Adapazari. As two representatives of the orphaned generation their paths converged in France. Misak worked in factories and became one of the migrant workers who fueled the industrialization efforts of post-World War I France. Meline received secretarial training and began working. Misak was interested in art, painting, and poetry. He was going to publish two magazines called Chank (Effort) and Mshagouyt (Culture) in Armenian in Paris. A cultural figure emerging from the people, yet also a migrant worker, he became a member of the French Communist Party and combined a patriotism devoid of nationalism with internationalism, serving as an active executive member of the Hay Oknoutian Gomide (HOG – Committee for Armenian Relief), which aimed to aid to the people of Soviet Armenia.
Misak Manouchian held on to life after the genocide and defended the France he lived in, but his relationship with the French state was not without issues. He applied for citizenship twice but was rejected. As a migrant and communist, he faced discrimination. Nevertheless, when World War II broke out, he was conscripted and fought against the Nazis. When France surrendered, like tens of thousands of migrants living in France, he did not surrender and voluntarily joined the resistance. He became a member of the Fighters and Partisans – Immigrant Worker Group (FTP-MOI), organizing anti-fascist armed resistance in the Paris region, and became one of the leaders of this group. They carried out acts of terror and attacks against the Nazi and collaborationist French government, making it difficult for the Nazis to operate in cities while the war continued on the European fronts. None of them were French; they were Polish, Italian, Hungarian, Jewish, Armenian – and even the French Communist Party, to which they were connected, had abandoned them. Unfortunately, they were caught while victory was close, and on February 21, 1944, they were killed by a Nazi firing squad on the hill of Mont Valérien. Eighty years later, today, in order to remember them and other resistors, a non-French person is being honored in the Pantheon for the first time.
Ironically, it was the Nazis themselves who immortalized the image of Manouchian in history. The famous Affiche Rouge they prepared to propagate the decision to execute him and twenty-three partisans has been etched in the minds of anyone interested in the history of World War II. The poster lists the names, origins, and the total number of attacks against the Nazis by ten migrant partisans, including Manouchian. Presented with their photographs, Misak Manouchian is introduced as the leader of the partisans: “Manouchian, Armenian, chief of the gang, 56 attacks, 150 dead, 600 wounded” – the numbers were intended as accusation, but became evidence of courage.
After the victory, the names of Manouchian and other partisans gradually began to emerge. In 1950, a street in Paris was named after the “Manouchian Group.” The poet Paul Éluard, whom Manouchian greatly admired, wrote the poem “Légion” dedicated to him and his friends after freedom, where he commemorated them with the lines, “If I have the right today to say in French / My sorrow and my hope, my anger and my joy […] / It’s because foreigners as we still call them / Believed in justice on earth and concrete.” Then, in 1955, Louis Aragon wrote “Strophes for Remembering” for the Manouchian and his friends, and this poem was sung by Léo Ferré in 1961 as a song titled “Affiche Rouge.”
As researcher Özgür Sevgi Göral said, Macron’s way of commemorating Manouchian, though initially pleasing to the ear, actually represents a specific political approach and places Manouchian within the “national” narrative. However, in the letters Manouchian and his group wrote and the notes they left before being killed, terms like France or the French Republic do not feature prominently; most of them describe themselves with terms like internationalist, communist, none of them were French citizens, and they express themselves with concepts such as peace, freedom, liberation. In Manouchian’s case, this can be explained by his belief in humanity’s collective struggle against all totalitarian aggressions, as a survivor of the genocide, without making distinctions based on religion, language or ethnicity.
It is necessary to consider the fact that Meline Manouchian, Misak’s wife, who continued to remain in the ranks of the Resistance under the pseudonym Jacqueline Albertini even after Misak’s death, could not become a French citizen until almost the end of her life and lived as a stateless migrant until the age of seventy-four. In his last letter to his wife, Misak wrote, “I am sure that the French people and all freedom fighters will pay their respects to our memory as it should be.” Macron’s attempt to place them in the Pantheon seems to signify that this respect is being paid. But is it really so? I still have doubts.
If the Manouchians were alive, would they agree to this move by a French government that defends the interests of a certain group, that tries to crush workers, farmers, migrants, students in France, pursues imperial aims abroad, and, except for a few token words, remains silent about injustices around the world, ethnic cleansing in Karabakh, genocide in Gaza? In an environment where the far right has risen and central politics have tacitly supported this rise for years, an atmosphere where individuals like Manouchian, who defended the idea of unity of peoples as a humanist ideal, were betrayed almost disrespectfully by European governments, would moving them to the Pantheon truly be an “honouring” for them?
I cannot help but ask. As come to Armenians, much has been said about the relationship between Armenians and the West. At the very least, it can be said that this relationship has been a history of disappointments for Armenians. This is a disappointment whose symbol is the religious figure Khrimian Hayrig, the Catholicos who found himself desperate in the corridors of Western diplomacy when seeking to defend the rights of the Armenian people within the Ottoman state. Today, what France is doing for the Manouchians undoubtedly says something symbolically in France and abroad, but isn’t it also like putting a balm on the lips of the Armenian people at a time when it is the whole body that is being torn?
With the entry of the Manouchians into the Pantheon, some historical truths about them as two internationalist militants and unjustly persecuted migrants defending the rights of humble classes and advocating for the fate of the Armenian people are being glossed over. Because official histories always distort truths by instrumentalizing them. If they were alive, they would stand against a Manouchian-washing. I might be wrong, of course, but Misak Manouchian’s poetry expressed his deep connection to the people, as in his lines, “I am rushing out to offer my crowded soul to the crowd for eternity.” It feels to me that his eternal place would be among the crowds rather than amidst the cold marbles of the Pantheon.
Rober Koptaş is a writer and publisher, lives in Istanbul. He served as the editor-in-chief of Agos newspaper from 2010 to 2015 and the general director of Aras Publishing from 2015 to 2023.
Also read:
Letter from Istanbul: The Irony of the Armenian Photographer
Letter from Istanbul: Turkish Republic of Impunity
Letter from Istanbul: Towards the Future with Hrant Dink
