97th Annual Commemoration of the 40 Days of Musa Dagh September 1, 2012

The heroic struggle and victory of the Forty Days of Musa
Dagh will be celebrated in Central California on Labor Day Weekend 2012.
The 97th Anniversary Commemoration of the historic battle and rescue will take place September 1 and 2 at the Fresno County Peace Officers Association Training Grounds, 7633 North Weber Avenue, next to Camp Pashayan in Northwest Fresno. The commemorative events are open to the public.
In the early decades of the 20th Century, authorities of the Ottoman Empire attempted to force Armenian villagers in the region of Cilicia to change their ways and religious faith. The villagers refused to give in to these demands and climbed a stately peak called Mousa Ler, meaning “Moses Mountain.” The villagers resisted the armed soldiers of the Ottoman Empire for 40 days and were rescued by the French Allied warship Guichen in the nearby Mediterranean Sea.
The Allied sailors evacuated more than 4,000 villagers to Port Said, Egypt. Two decades later, many of the survivors immigrated to Lebanon and founded the town of Anjar. Austrian author Franz Viktor Werfel immortalized the historical event in his 1933 novel, “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.”
The 2012 Commemoration will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, September 1, with traditional and contemporary Armenian music, dancing, food, and the preparation of Herissa, a lamb and whole wheat stew, first prepared by the defenders of Mousa Ler. The weekend will continued at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 2, with celebration of the Divine Liturgy under the auspices of Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, Western Prelate of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America. Very Reverend Father Vazken Atmajian, Senior Pastor of Saint Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church of Glendale will be Guest Celebrant. Vahram Shemmassian, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Armenian and Director of the Armenian Studies Program at California State University, Northridge, will be the Guest Speaker.
For more than three decades, the Musa Dagh Commemoration Committee has arranged a Labor Day Weekend gathering in Fresno to honor the memory of ancestors who endured the Forty Days of Musa Dagh.
For more information and donations, contact Annette Kerkezian Agulian at (559) 298-6657 or Mardig Chanchanian at (559) 579-8660.