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The Ever-Useful Daughter and Spouse of a Minister
The story of our Swiss “Sister of Each Land” begins in Amiens (Somme, France) within the mid-Nineteenth century. Lucy Thoumaian, née Rossier de Visme, was the daughter of Anna de Visme, a Belgian-born author (“femme de lettres”), and Louis Rossier, who labored in Amiens between 1846 and 1861. There’s a sure ambiguity about Lucy’s actual delivery date, however sources citing both 28 October within the 12 months of 1856 or 1858 appear to be constant when it comes to the relatively few issues recognized in regards to the upbringing of Lucy and her siblings within the peace of the Swiss mountain panorama.[1]
Lucy was, in her personal phrases, not solely the daughter of a minister, but in addition the spouse of 1.[2] Her sister Aline Hoffmann-Rossier, who like their mom labored as a author, married a minister, too. Lucy met the younger Armenian pupil Garabed (Karapet) Thoumaian throughout his research in Lausanne (Switzerland).[3] After Garabed had accomplished his diploma, he returned to his hometown Marsovan (Asia Minor) within the Ottoman Empire to work as a professor on the American Theological (Anatolia) School and as a preacher.[4] Lucy and Garabed married and settled in Marsovan over the subsequent two to a few years.[5] Lucy supported her esteemed husband’s charitable work among the many Armenian neighborhood, as she had discovered from an early age onward when aiding her father in Switzerland.[6] But, the dwelling circumstances of the poor in Armenia whom Lucy and Garabed tried to assist differed significantly from these she had assisted in her Swiss homeland.[7] Within the area of Marsovan, inhabited by about half 1,000,000 folks, there was no hospital and hardly a licensed physician.[8] As a minority, the troubled Armenian neighborhood more and more suffered from discrimination and persecution within the Ottoman Empire.[9] Within the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in opposition to Russia within the 1877-1878 conflict, enchancment of circumstances and reform calls had been negotiated with interference from the European powers (known as the ‘Armenian query’).[10] Nonetheless, the struggling wouldn’t cease, and finally, the scenario would deteriorate – additionally for Lucy and Garabed.
The Voice of the Armenian Individuals
With the goal of elevating funds for a mission hospital, Lucy went to Europe, collectively along with her first-born daughter, (La) France, named after the nation of her household’s erstwhile residence.[11] Her path to the UK led by way of Switzerland, the place Lucy gave delivery to her second daughter, Armenia, christened in tribute to her husband and her ‘adopted nation’.[12] Armenia would die far too younger on the age of just one, one other daughter known as Arméniette could be born round 1894.
Upon her arrival within the UK, Lucy was unsure whether or not her mission could be of any success.[13] Nonetheless, she approached charitable non secular communities, and little by little, pals supportive of the trigger assembled.[14] Inside two years, Lucy Thoumaian succeeded in elevating 3.000 of the 6.000 Kilos required to construct the mission hospital.[15]
On the Common Peace Congress in Berne (Switzerland) in 1892, Lucy delivered a speech entitled “Our Nation is the World”, by which she spoke on behalf of the Armenian neighborhood. An excerpt of this speech offers insights into her mission and virtues:
I’m the voice of a folks little recognized, forgotten, the voice of the Christian Armenians, alone, remoted in Asia, and so they have despatched me to let you know that they’re your brethren [brothers]. As for his or her grievances – grievances well-known – they’re ready, they, a minimum of, must have the option, Armenians although they’re, to settle them by arbitration, by compromise.
Our responsibility is to not destroy however to construct up, to construct up for Peace monuments worthy of it, monuments of goodwill towards mankind.
Thus the missionary hospital for the poor sick Armenians, a hospital open to all, for which I’m working, is itself the results of the precept of peace and of affection: it must be so! We ought to reach exemplifying the precept.[16]
The Feminine ‘Knight Errant’ of the Story
In January 1893,[17] whereas in the course of a gathering within the UK, Lucy discovered in regards to the imprisonment and torture of her husband.[18] Garabed, together with a colleague from Anatolia School and lots of different Armenians, was arrested by the authorities for allegedly issuing posters denouncing the regime.[19] He was detained with bail refused and visits denied.[20] Lucy acted instantly. She approached members of Parliament within the foyer of the Home of Commons, in embassies and the UK International Workplace.[21] Nonetheless, Garabed, his colleague, and 16 extra folks, had been tried and sentenced to loss of life. The decision was confirmed on attraction.[22] Lucy continued to battle relentlessly for her husband’s launch. With the assistance of pals and the International Secretary, Lord Rosebery, she lastly obtained the discharge of Garabed and his colleague offered that they would depart the Empire.[23]
The difficulty of the Girl’s Herald from 10 August 1893 devoted a biographical sketch to Lucy with the title “A Heroine from Armenia”.
The story of their rescue, their arrival in England after banishment from Turkey, shouldn’t be and not using a contact of romance. Mediaeval romance it definitely shouldn’t be, for the knight errant on this case is a girl who, true to the spirit which appears to actuate so most of the finest ladies on the shut of the nineteenth century, has braved all difficulties, disregarded time-serving conventionalities, and, making her approach to the centre of authority, has succeeded not solely in effecting the rescue of him she loves finest, however of rousing public opinion on the query at giant.[24]
Within the following years,[25] the couple settled down in Chigwell (UK), the place they continued to advocate for the Armenian neighborhood. In June 1895, the Girl’s Sign printed a letter written by Lucy by which she expressed her dismay at the truth that some folks within the UK refused to acknowledge the studies in regards to the scenario in Armenia.[26] However a minimum of one individual listened to them: The story of Lucy and Garabed is claimed to be the inspiration of the 1896 novel The Autobiography of a Reality by Ada Ellen Bayly, a Victorian author and member of the Ladies’s Liberal Affiliation, printed beneath her pen identify Edna Lyall. Aside from, e.g., her books We Two or Donovan, The Autobiography of a Reality won’t be thought-about one in every of Bayly’s main works, however it has been described as a “provocative novella”. The novel is written from the first-person perspective of the “Spirit of Reality” that tells the story of a younger American woman named Religion and her fiancé, a younger Armenian professor, named Kaspar. In the middle of occasions, Kaspar is taken prisoner in his hometown for (alleged) seditious conspiracy and condemned to loss of life. In the long run, he’s pardoned however should go away the nation indefinitely. With this novel, Ada Ellen Bayly seemingly supposed to attract consideration to the scenario of the Armenian neighborhood within the Ottoman Empire. She even added a listing of authorities within the creator’s notice to help the accuracy of the story, and devoted the earnings of the novel to the Duke of Westminster for the Armenian Aid Fund.[27]
The “Each Girl” Motion and Ladies at The Hague
Returning to Lucy and Garabed’s real-life story: The couple opened a shelter for Armenian kids of their UK residence in 1906. In 1911, they took half within the first Common Races Congress in London the place they – though exiled – formally embraced a delegate for the Ottoman Empire. Much more, Garabed proactively shook palms to emphasise the necessity for solidarity and cooperation.[28]
The next 12 months, Lucy initiated the “Each Girl” Worldwide Motion, underscoring the accountability of ladies to attain peace. In 1914, she printed “A Manifesto to Ladies of Each Land” shortly after the outbreak of World Battle I.[29] Within the manifesto, she addressed her “[d]ear Sisters of Each Land” and wrote:
While our respective troopers go bravely to the entrance, and while we at residence do what we will for the wounded and the distressed, there’s something else nonetheless extra necessary to do, of which nobody appears to assume and which may be very specifically suited additionally to the soothing and loving affect of lady. It’s the stopping our beloved troopers to grow to be wounded! It’s to work, and this internationally, within the curiosity of the longer term peace of Europe. It’s while the human thoughts is proving the evils of conflict that it’s best disposed to contemplate the advisability of peace for the current time and all the time.[30]
She urged that “ladies in all places” ought to maintain “weekly ladies’s conferences” to “contemplate issues week by week, name out collectively, ‘every to our God’ and every to our Governments” till peace was secured.[31] Based on the Manifesto, “resort to arbitration” was “the one potential means” to attain peace and stop additional wars.[32] The Manifesto concludes resolutely:
We ladies can not afford to permit this insanity of conflict to go on, neither now nor at any future time; now we have had sufficient of it![33]
In that spirit, Lucy Thoumaian attended the Worldwide Congress of Ladies in The Hague in April 1915. On this very month, the Armenian neighborhood within the Ottoman Empire noticed massacres unfold as soon as once more, escalating to new dimensions. On the Congress, Lucy, representing Armenia, wore a standard Armenian gown. She subsequently urged to hint deported Armenians, together with family of hers from Marsovan.
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Ladies – people or members of organizations – met at The Hague with the goal of stopping the conflict and discussing means for the peaceable and long-lasting settlement of worldwide disputes.[34] From the Congress emerged the Worldwide Committee of Ladies for Everlasting Peace, later known as Ladies’s Worldwide League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), with Lucy as an preliminary member[35].
Within the time that adopted, she gave lecture’s on “ladies’s accountability for affect towards peace” inter alia in New York, Washington and Baltimore (US).[36] Ultimately, she settled within the US whereas her husband and kids stayed in Chigwell. Sadly, not a lot is thought about her post-war actions. With the help and strain of the WILPF, Lucy was appointed for the Everlasting Mandates Fee of the League of Nations. She continued her battle for justice and peace till her loss of life in 1940.
Additional Readings
Lucy Thoumaian, ‘A Manifesto to Ladies of Each Land’ (1914) 8 Jus Suffragii 170, additionally reprinted in Maureen Moynagh and Nancy Forestell (eds), Documenting First Wave Feminisms (vol 1, College of Toronto Press 2011) 367-368.
N.N., ‘A Heroine from Armenia: The Life Story of Madame Thoumaian’ (1893) 8 The Girl’s Herald 388.
N.N., ‘1. Lucy Thoumaian’ (WILPF, June 2015).
N.N., ‘The Battle from a Girl’s Perspective: On the “Ladies for Peace” Marketing campaign’ (Socioscope, 23 November 2022).
‘Information Referring to the Thoumaian Household’ (Essex Document Workplace, n.d.) ref D/DU 1777.
[1] A small perception into Lucy’s life as much as 1893 offers the next biographical sketch from the identical 12 months, N.N., ‘A Heroine from Armenia: The Life Story of Madame Thoumaian’ (1893) 8 The Girl’s Herald 388.
[2] See Lucy Thoumaian, ‘Our Nation Is the World’ (1892) 54 American Advocate of Peace 206.
[3] Antranig Azhderian, The Turk and the Land of Haig; Or Turkey and Armenia: Descriptive, Historic, and Picturesque (The Mershon Firm Publishers 1898) 361 states that Garabed was a Luzern College alumnus.
[4] Cf. ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[5] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[6] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[7] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[8] Cf. ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[9] See, e.g., Peter Balakian, ‘Armenians within the Ottoman Empire’ in David P. Forsythe (ed), Encyclopedia of Human Rights (vol 1, OUP 2009) 92 et seqq.
[10] See, e.g., Peter Balakian, ‘Armenians within the Ottoman Empire’ (n 9) 92-93.
[11] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[12] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[13] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[14] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[15] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[16] Lucy Thoumaian, ‘Our Nation Is the World’ (n 2) 206.
[17] Antranig Azhderian (n 3) 360 states that this occurred in January 1894.
[18] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[19] Antranig Azhderian (n 3) 360.
[20] Antranig Azhderian (n 3) 360.
[21] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[22] Antranig Azhderian (n 3) 361.
[23] Cf. ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388 and Antranig Azhderian (n 3) 361.
[24] ‘A Heroine from Armenia’ (n 1) 388.
[25] In step with one other supply studying that Lucy and Garabed emigrated to the UK in the course of the Armenian massacres, the brief painting to this weblog put up additionally states that the couple moved there following the massacres. Whereas the Armenian massacres are dated ca. 1894 to 1896/1897 and Garabed’s arrest, trial and exile to England occurred both in 1893 or 1894, it could be assumed that they moved to the UK within the precursor to the massacres. Sources and corresponding knowledge appear not solely constant.
[26] See Lucy Thoumaian, ‘Correspondence: The Armenian Query’ (1895) 3 Girl’s Sign 365.
[27] Edna Lyall, The Autobiography of a Reality (2nd edn, Longmans, Inexperienced and Co) 113-114.
[28] ‘Document of the Proceedings of the First Common Races Congress, held on the College of London’ (July 26-29, 1911) 70 <https://hdl.deal with.web/2027/uiug.30112069959390> accessed 13 January 2025; see additionally Elise Ok. Burton, Genetic Crossroads: The Center East and the Science of Human Heredity (SUP 2021) 31.
[29] Lucy Thoumaian, ‘A Manifesto to Ladies of Each Land’ (1914) 8 Jus Suffragii 170.
[30] Lucy Thoumaian, ‘A Manifesto to Ladies of Each Land’ (n 29) 170.
[31] Lucy Thoumaian, ‘A Manifesto to Ladies of Each Land’ (n 29) 170 [with omissions].
[32] Lucy Thoumaian, ‘A Manifesto to Ladies of Each Land’ (n 29) 170 [with omissions].
[33] Lucy Thoumaian, ‘A Manifesto to Ladies of Each Land’ (n 29) 170.
[34] See additional ‘Report of the Worldwide Congress of Ladies, The Hague – The Netherlands, April twenty eighth to Could 1st, 1915’ (ca. 1915).
[35] Lucy’s identify doesn’t seem within the listing of member of the Worldwide Committee of Ladies for Everlasting Peace, nonetheless, which is included in a later report on the congress.
[36] N.N., ‘Transient Peace Notes’ (1916) 78 The Advocate of Peace 83.
