TSOBINAR TADEVOSYAN
Teacher
Yerevan, Armenia
Interview by Kent Miles
10 April 1997, Salt Lake City, Utah
©Kent Miles
In 1951, Tsobinar Tadevosyan’s brother published pamphlets protesting the forced relocation of native Armenians out of Georgia. He was shot while being held by the Soviet KGB. Tsobinar and her family were arrested, taken from their homes, and sentenced to five years in a Siberian prison camp. In the Gulag she experienced trials and terrors most people would be unable to imagine.
Of the experience she said, “Though it was hard, those who were sent there were the best people of our country. They were the thinkers, the scholars, the artists and poets, and the most moral of men and women. They were the ones who dared to speak out against injustice. It was a profound and even joyous experience.” She was released after five years and returned to Armenia where she married and raised a family. She was interviewed at the home of her son in Salt Lake City. She passed away in 2007.
“I believe I was kept alive only because of my faith in my Father in Heaven.
I believe he did this so I might hear and understand the Gospel in this life.”
*****
I was born in July 6, 1930 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Both my parents were Armenian. My parents were survivors of the genocide of 1915 in Turkey. My father was an actor and my mother was a teacher. I had four brothers, but three of them died and only one survived. His name was Andronik. He was the oldest, and he was an actor, too, in Tbiblisi.
In the genocide the Turks killed my grandfather. He was a lawyer and they killed him, and almost all of my father's family was killed. They captured my grandmother and sent her to a camp in Turkey. My aunt, with her two children, jumped from the bridge not to be in the hand of Turks. My other aunt just disappeared . . .
In Georgia in 1949 the KGB started arresting Armenian families, just whole families and putting them in trains - cattle cars. The KGB was doing that, but at that time they had a different name. All the intelligent people were disappearing. Then we heard that poets and artists and writers, and many of our teachers, were disappearing, just disappearing. After a while we learned that they had been imprisoned. At that time in 1949, they didn't do anything to our family. Everything was okay.
But it was happening around us. All around us, our neighborhood, my teachers, only Armenians. And every day when we'd see our neighbors or someone that we knew, we'd give each other hugs and start crying. We were happy that we were still there, that we were not in the prison.
In 1949, June 14, the KGB arrested my husband's family. (We didn't know each other yet. ) They were arresting whole families, and were sending them to Siberia, to one town. The families were told "You will live in this town." It was not a prison, but forced relocation of families. Those who resisted were arrested, taken to the KGB building in Tiblisi. There were trials, beatings, killings ... In 1949, on June 14, in just one day they arrested, I don't know how many families, 100, 200, 1,000, I don't know how many families But they were also arresting individuals and putting them into the prison, one by one, not as families.
When the KGB started acting this way, all of my family was worried because we were different, like our those who were disappearing. My brother was really worried. As an Armenian man, he was concerned about what was happening all around him, not only to Armenians. They were catching some Georgians, too.
My brother knew that they would eventually arrest him, too. He said if we don't do anything, we can't change anything. He decided to print brochures warning people to be careful. He denounced what the KGB and government were doing, crying out that it was not right. He warned that if they continued the day would come when they will answer to the people for what they did. In the mornings and late at night he would put these brochures on the walls and around the neighborhood. In the beginning it worked in this way. After that he started going to theaters and to cinemas. In the middle of the show he'd just throw the brochures from the balcony.
I think that he was right in what he was doing. He was the one. There needs to be one to tell the government and the KGB that they were not doing right, and he was the one who did that. He knew that they would catch him. He sacrificed himself for the nation, not only for Armenians. Most of the time he was writing, he wrote not only for Armenians, not only for Georgians, but for all the people of the Soviet Union, all nationalities, not only for Armenian....
At the time [my brother was arrested] I was in living in another area, teaching school, very far from Tiblisi. One day the KGB came into the town. There were no telephones. I didn't know what was happening in Tiblisi, what was happening with my family, with my brother's family and my mother. Two days after my family had been arrested, the KGB came to the village where I taught school, and they arrested me. I was in the middle of my lesson. They just came into my class and they took me away...
I was arrested in November of 1951, and arrived in the Gulag on October 12, 1952. It took three days going from Moscow to Siberia, three days without stopping, to get there. I was very tired and very depressed. All my family was arrested, but I was the only one who got only ten years. Ten years in the prison, and five years probation in the same town, not having any rights. I asked them to please let me say goodbye to my mother. They didn't let me . . .
Until Stalin's death, it was very, very bad. He died in 1953, on March 5th. I was in a camp. It was isolated . . . separated. There were soldiers standing in towers, with dogs, lots of dogs. All the soldiers who were looking after prisoners were told that all these women were enemies to the Soviet Union. They were told all this, and they watched us very, very closely. Most of the time they were laughing at us. At the prison they gave us black wool clothes. They had a prison for men, too, but it was separate.
I was in a building with two floors, and bunk beds. We were like fish. The room was made for 15 people, but more than 50 people lived there. We had one bathroom in the same room. They kept me there for 21 days. Then we were taken to the woods, where we worked cutting trees, draining the swamp. Ten months in the year it was snowing. Ten months. Then one or two months without snow, and daylight for 24 hours. Every day I prayed. I was praying for my mother. I was praying for my brother—I didn't know that he was killed. I was praying for his children . . .
I was blessed as a prisoner there. It was only because of my Heavenly Father that I survived. Only my faith and my prayers saved me. At five o'clock every morning we woke up and were given a small bowl of rice or gruel, then the soldiers took us to the places of work. Every day we walked 10 kilometers there and back—all year, even the winter. All the time I was working, I was praying. All the way there and all the way back, I was praying.
When they sent me to the prison, in one way I was happy, because when I looked around me I saw so many innocent people. They did not do anything. Maybe one of them told a joke or something. But I felt that it was good for me to be there because I did something to be there. Strictly speaking, I was not innocent. I supported my brother. I only helped him once, but I believed in him. And I knew what he was doing.
I didn't have any hate in me, for people, for government. I didn't have hate. I had a deep pain inside, as though my heart was always hurting, but not hate. And I'm just surprised when I see people who have been in Siberia, and when they speak they are full of hate. But I just think I'm happy that I've been there. The only thing I feel very bad about is that my brother is not alive, and he is not here to witness that what he was telling came true. But I lost these years. I didn't have a chance to use those years, and when I think about my youth, I try to imagine what my life would have been like if they had not sent me to prison. I just try to think what might have happened and I have a pain. Only pain, but not hate.
In prison, I always had big, big hope. I always knew that in the end, everything would be okay. I was always telling my friends, "The time will come. It will not be this way always, and our lives will change.” My nickname was The Idealist. All those years in the prison, I was trying to take something from life, to learn something. I practiced my Russian those years. When I saw someone doing something, I would try to learn interesting things. I learned about medicine. I tried to read big books and practice mathematics. I was very active playing chess. When they had a competition between the women in the prison, I won first place.
Though prison was hard, those who were sent there were the best people of our country. They were the thinkers, the scholars, the artists and poets, some of the most moral of men and women. They were the ones who dared to speak out against injustice. It was a profound and even joyous experience.
They were very, very interesting people, the prisoners, very interesting. Out of four thousand women, there was only a handful that were not political prisoners—they were just ordinary criminals. Some of them had shot some guards. So instead of being ordinary criminals, they became political prisoners, political terrorists. We were considered worse than ordinary criminals.
I stayed in the prison four years, eight months. In 1956, a big group from Moscow was assigned to start letting prisoners out of the prison. They were asking us questions and just letting some of us go. At the time of Stalin’s death, I had been interviewed by one of these men. The government was giving amnesty to many, but not to me. They were not going to let me go.
They called me a second time before the whole group, nine people. They started asking me questions, so I told my story, what had happened. They asked me, "What do you think? Was your brother right? Did he do the right thing or not?" I said, "Yes, I think that he did right."
So one of those nine people, he would not agree to let me go. They said they'd let me go only if someone from outside would write a letter that they would be responsible for me. I told them I would not agree to that. I'm not guilty, and I know that. I said, "Who's going to write a letter like that? Maybe he's more guilty than me."
I said, "I'm not guilty. I want to be a normal citizen, and if you think I'm guilty just shoot me, too, because I don't want to live without any rights. I don't want to speak any more with you because nobody will understand me."
There was one person from these nine who had been in prison too. He said, "No, don't think that way. I was in prison, too, and I understand you." This old man said he knew my case, and that I didn't have any relatives to write a letter. My brother had been killed. For months I didn't know where my mother was. So he said, "I'll write letter for you."
I was always praying. In the beginning there had been 4,000 women in the prison and now there were only 40 remaining. One day I came and I kneeled down on the floor and started crying. I couldn't take any more. It was very hard for me. I prayed. If you'll just open one window for me and help me to go out from this prison. And it was the next day, maybe two days later, that they called me back again. It was on my birthday, July 6. They asked me "If we let you to go, what you will do?" I said, "I wish to go to Armenia, to Yerevan. And I'm going to continue my education." So they said, "We have decided to let you go, but we are not going to give you amnesty." They let me go. No amnesty, just an early release.
I think that I needed to go through this experience. I know that everything that happened, it happened by providence, that God's hand was in this. The years that I went through all this, it was like a very big school. And all the people who went through this school, they got cleaner inside. It was a purifying experience.
Now, when I think about all these things that happened . . . I believe it was Heavenly Father's will that we experience everything that happened. One time I asked my mother—after the prison, in Armenia—about these things. I asked, "Why? You and Father were so kind and such honest people. Why does this happen to us? Why is Heavenly Father punishing us so, giving us so much suffering?" My mother said, "Jesus Christ was Heavenly Father's son. Don't you know His father loved him so much, and yet he went through all his sufferings too. Don't think that we are suffering so very much, and don't think it means that Heavenly Father doesn't love us."
And I always remember what she told me: "There is a purpose, and Heavenly Father gives us all these problems. We need to go through all these things. It is not that Heavenly Father doesn't love us, He loves everybody. But it needs to be this way. We need to go through all these things.” After that, I was always remembered that Heavenly Father gave all the trials to his son, all the pain, and that Christ sacrificed himself for the people. This always helps me when I remember my brother. He gave his life for others. And then he went away.
My advice to others is that when they have hard times—and there will always be hard times—to be still. The first thing to always do is pray, always pray, and have faith and hope. When my son came to America it was very, very hard for him, very difficult. I would always write in my letters, "Please be patient and always remember how your mother spent five years in prison and what the conditions were that I endured. Always lay your burdens on Heavenly Father. Always trust Heavenly Father. Always pray and always have faith.
Difficulty is always for people, and people need to always be strong and experience all things, and rise above it all. There are people who have great difficulties, but they choose not to grow from them. They go the wrong way. Everybody always needs to stay very clean, their hearts must stay clean, and to go the right way.
One day when I was in the prison, they took a group of us to the kitchen to peel potatoes. A couple of the women said, "Okay, we have this chance, let's take couple of potatoes and hide them, take to our barracks, and then we'll cook them and we'll eat." I said, "It makes me very mad." I said, "You can't do that, because you are going to steal our friends' food. I'll not take part in what you are going to do, to steal." And they started laughing at me and they said, "You are idiot." They took the potatoes. They brought them to their barracks, they fried them and they ate. And as they were eating they said, "Okay, okay, now come and eat with us." I said, "No, I'm not going to eat. I'm not going to take from the others."
There are many, many small stories, episodes from my life in which I could choose to go the easier way. But Heavenly Father was helping me always, to choose the right way.
And when you are doing something good, something for others, you never need to tell or announce or remind others every time, just do it quietly. When we help someone else, we are helping ourselves.
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