In 1993, painter and art critic Hrazdan Tokmajyan received an invitation from the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) to work in Syria.
He was appointed to teach painting at AGBU’s Martiros Saryan Academy in Aleppo. After moving to Syria from Armenia, the artist began pursuing ethnographic research alongside his teaching.
“I had a lot of free time and there was fertile ground for study. Whoever’s house you entered, there was a wonderful handicraft hanging on the wall. Meeting after meeting, the idea grew that they should be published and I involuntarily got involved in that work,” he says.
After living in Syria for twenty-two years, Tokmajyan returned to Armenia with several volumes of books. They summarized the handicrafts of Armenian women who had resettled in Syria from different regions of Cilicia after the Armenian Genocide and the work of coppersmith masters.
The last book, the two-volume Ayntab Needlework, was compiled in Syria and published in Yerevan in 2015. Bilingual in Armenian and English, the books present the works of Armenian women with their photographs, dates of birth and death, handicrafts, and historical and analytical sections.
Mr. Tokmajyan, what have you summarized in these expansive books?
In the book, I presented the embroidery of Armenian women living in Syria, including works by 174 women who brought their traditions from Ayntab to Aleppo. The significance of this collection lies in the fact that every author is known. I personally saw and oversaw each published piece. I collected the handicrafts from homes, took them to a photo studio, and then returned them. Each family had ten to twenty pieces on display. I photographed most of them, but only some were published. For the books, we selected the most refined works by the finest masters.
The first work, the bilingual two-volume Marash Needlework, was published in Syria with support from the Marash Compatriotic Union and the Kermanik Vaspurakan Cultural Union. Armenia’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography welcomed the book enthusiastically and encouraged me to continue collecting materials. Later, under the patronage of Archbishop Shahan Sarkissian, Primate of the Diocese of Peria (Aleppo), the first volume of Urfa Needlework was published, though the second volume has not yet appeared. It was followed by the two-volume Ayntab Needlework, compiled in Aleppo, and sponsored by Aleppo’s Armenian Cultural Society.
Did embroidery, so highly developed in Cilician Armenia, become what we would today call a brand?
When discussing the period before the Armenian Genocide, we are speaking about the Ottoman Empire. In its provinces, embroidery was local in character and significance, while major cities and centers produced work of exceptional quality. Cooperatives and workshops operated there, employing specialists such as stylists and designers. For instance, experts from the Kalfayian cooperative in Constantinople were invited to prepare the dowry of an Egyptian princess. Their work was known beyond the empire’s borders, but it was presented as part of Ottoman culture. Because the empire was multinational—with Greeks, Assyrians, Arabs, and many others—these peoples’ cultures were often grouped under the broader label of Ottoman culture.
Which of the masters of that period impressed you the most? Did you include them in the book?
Siranoush Manoukian
Among the Marash residents, I would mention Siranoush Manoukian, who created original, highly refined, and compelling works. In 1918, after the Allies defeated the Ottoman Empire, the cities of Cilicia—including Aintab and Marash—were liberated, and British, then French, troops were stationed there. Genocide survivors returned to their cities during the French period, but they were able to remain only for a few years. With the rise of the Kemalist movement, these cities were attacked again. When the French withdrew, Armenians were massacred once more. Manoukian narrowly escaped the Kemalists and reached Alexandretta, now Iskenderun. In 1936, she married and lived there before moving to Aleppo and then to Qamishli. Her daughter, who lives in Qamishli, preserved the handicrafts of her mother and aunt; I photographed and published them. Ayntab also produced artisans of exceptional taste, including Dudu Mavian-Adamian, who created remarkably beautiful handicrafts.
What distinguishes the embroidery of these cities, how do they differ from each other, and how do they characterize the place names?
These handicrafts are an expression of our national character. Armenian embroidery has many schools. These cities, Marash, Ayntab, Ourfa, whose handicrafts I studied, differ from each other in their compositions, color structure, ornamentation, and embroidery technique. These are historically formed differences. The explanation is that the Armenians of Cilicia were a collective people. After the destruction of the kingdoms of Ani and Vaspurakan, Armenians from different regions migrated westward, taking traditional handicrafts with them. The etymology of these sewing patterns suggests that they come from pre-Christian times. So, the habit of Armenians to decorate embroidered objects – fabrics, clothes, costumes – comes from ancient times. Over time, these traditions were refined in our provinces, cities, and individual centers, reaching a higher level of craftsmanship.
You mentioned that the origin of these embroidery patterns is much older than their spread in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. In December 2025, at the 20th session of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Ayntab embroidery was recognized as part of the intangible culture of Turkey. By presenting the two-volume book Ayntab Needlework that you presented to UNESCO, could Armenia substantiate the Armenian roots of this type of embroidery?
This issue has caused a great deal of controversy, so I want to say this: we cannot stand against the Turks. We do not treat our own culture with the seriousness it deserves. The Armenian people possess boundless creative energy and have been creating for millennia, yet we often fail to value what we have made. We become active only when questions arise at UNESCO. If UNESCO had not recorded Ayntab embroidery, no one would have recalled it. We must be more committed to our culture and study it regardless of what our neighbors do. These handicrafts were collected and published in Aleppo at the initiative of local compatriotic unions; in other words, they were published in the diaspora, not in Armenia. Fortunately, this was done before the war in Syria because it would not be possible now.
Second, the Ayntab variety is a type of thread embroidery that was practiced by different nationalities, including Turks living in Ayntab. They continue to practice thread embroidery to this day. There were also Armenians who had converted, and after changing their religion they continued to embroider, but they presented themselves as Turks. Now, no matter how much you want to prove that only Armenians were engaged in needlework at that time, it will not work. Ayntab was famous for its textile industry. The business was so successful that there were not enough Armenian girls to spin thread, so they also gave it to the Turks to spin. They learned it that way and passed it on to each other. It is difficult to draw such sharp boundaries; the Greeks and other peoples also did thread embroidery. There are examples of such relationships with Siranoush Manoukian. Qamishli, where she lived, was mainly inhabited by Kurds. The girl said that the neighboring Kurdish women really liked her needlework and asked Siranoush to teach them Marash needlework.
In the introduction to the book Ayntab Needlework, I write about what kind of embroidery is currently being done in Turkey. However, when you put it side by side with Armenian work, the differences are noticeable. This is felt because the Turkish approach, their collective taste, is different from the collective taste and approach of Armenians.
If the differences between Armenia and Turkish handicrafts are noticeable, we will counter the Turks if we want to register the handicrafts of Marash, Ayntab, and Ourfa that you have collected at UNESCO as intangible cultural Armenian heritage.
When Turkey began the process of registering Ayntab embroidery with UNESCO, our representative informed Armenia but offered no assessment. Because the matter concerns intangible cultural heritage and tradition, Turkey argued at UNESCO that it had practiced this craft a century ago and continues to do so today. Armenia should have presented evidence showing that this craft is also a traditional Armenian practice.
Do you share the opinion of experts that registration on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List does not mean that something is the property of any state, but that it was created in that area?
Yes, I do. Ayntab embroidery was not only created in that area, but various people have been doing it for one hundred years, which means it is also theirs. I published a photo of a blanket, displayed in one of the Venetian monasteries, made in the Ayntab telkaş method in in my book. There is no need to be discouraged by this. There is an issue here related to the name of the city when you introduce the embroidery by the name of the city. Ayntab is now an internationally recognized Turkish city called Gaziantep. If we said that Ayntab embroidery, which the Turks present as the telkaştechnique, we also have our telkaş technique. Thus, we could advance that issue.
(Telkaş is a heritage metal-thread needlework technique. It uses flat metallic wire or fine silver/gold strips wrapped or punched through a fine tulle or linen mesh to form glistening, geometric, and floral patterns – ed)
Do Armenians too readily concede their culture and traditions when others claim them as their own? For example, Azerbaijan presents Artsakh carpets to the world as Azerbaijani. Could we one day be portrayed as nomads accused of appropriating their culture? Might such concessions become grounds for demanding that Armenians stop “appropriating” what others call their culture?
There are objective and subjective reasons for all this. Let’s talk about the objective ones. There is a history of statehood and there is a history of culture, which are vastly different. A people may not have a statehood, like the Kurds, but they have their own characteristic cultural phenomena. Today’s world order is such that they are guided by state borders, and the more unfairly those borders are drawn, the more unfair they are in cultural matters. Ten years ago, Artsakh was independent, and those carpets were Artsakh. Now the Azerbaijanis have occupied the country, and in ten years the same carpet has become Azerbaijani. Since we constantly want to prove something to the big-wigs, the influential circle, they become so indifferent because they have their own political interests. Today, Europe is so dependent on Azerbaijan that whatever they say is Azerbaijani, they will agree, because the gas must reach Europe. So, we should not expect objectivity from them.
There is another essential question: I have some reservations about international organizations. Is UNESCO the final arbiter, or just an international public organization? Why doesn’t UNESCO condemn the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh? The leaders of that organization claim they can’t do anything, that they are merely a public organization. In that case, why all this fuss?
Moreover, we do not know Turkish society well. It is far more traditional and organized than we are. Through that traditionalism, Turks can claim handicrafts as their own, and their organization is reinforced by the state’s approach. In this respect, we yield to them. Turks are a state-minded people; we are not. They have shown an ability to sustain great power, whether as an empire in one era or as a republic in another.
When you moved to Syria, Armenians had lived there for about a century. Had the Syrian Armenians preserved the traditions of embroidery, and did they pass on those skills to young women and girls?
Unlike the Armenian environment, Syria was incomparably more interesting from this point of view, as it had preserved the traditional atmosphere. There, until recently, there was a custom of making dowries and showing them off. For example, when the Marash people brought dowries, they would bring slippers with Marash embroidery to the groom. It seems a little funny now, but that was how it was until the 1990s, when one of my friends showed me those slippers.
The Armenians have preserved the tradition of embroidery, but on a smaller scale. The main reason for the large volume of embroidery was poverty. It began after the Hamidian massacres, when men were killed, and women and girls took over the responsibility of feeding their families. During the Ottoman Empire, numerous centers organized by European missionaries played a major role in this matter. The handicrafts created in Ayntab, Marash, and Ourfa were sent to Europe to sell, and people fed their families with that income. This process continued after 1922, when large numbers of Armenians immigrated to Syria.
In Syria, handicrafts were also a means of livelihood. Later, until the 1960s-70s, when the children of the first generation of immigrants had jobs, handicrafts began to decrease. Those who achieved prosperity did not let their mothers engage in handicrafts, because it is hard work. Women passed on their sewing skills to their daughters at home. In addition, those who came from different cities, each of whom had founded their own compatriot unions, had churches, schools, and organized courses everywhere. They held exhibitions several times a year. The most important thing is that they were not formal.
With the move of Syrian-Armenians to Armenia, interest in embroidery seems to have increased considerably in the country. Groups of women of different ages are now operating. They want to preserve the tradition.
Yes, I have noticed that Syrian-Armenians created a new buzz in the field of embroidery in Armenia. The Armenian Relief Cross organizes permanent courses, holds events, etc. We had groups before them, but their arrival really revitalized it. The most popular of my books, I think, is Marash Needlework.
I am very glad it has found practical use. I know that women from Meghri to Tavush in Armenia are learning Marash embroidery, but that is another extreme. Why not study the embroidery traditions Tavush had a century ago and revive them? There should be greater diversity, so regional souvenir shops do not all offer the same items sold at Yerevan’s Vernissage market. Why shouldn’t Tavush or Syunik have crafts that are uniquely their own?
Photos: Hrazdan Tokmajyan archive