General view of the language (Van)

General view of the language (Van) 1901

© ️ Author: Walter Bachman
Source: Mkhitaryan Congregation, St. Lazarus, Venice.
Hushamatyan.
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🟣 The language is an ancient Armenian village 3-4 km away from Van. After 1918, it was renamed Kalecik. On the rock was one of the most famous monuments in the region, the chapel-pilgrimage site of the Most Redeemer.
According to tradition, the sick and the dead were brought here and laid in front of idols so that they could heal or revive them by licking. This was also the way Queen Shamiram of Assyria tried to revive Ara the Beautiful with the help of aralezes. This is where the name of the village came from. Later, the mehian demolished the apostle Thaddeus and built the chapel of the Most Redeemer in his place.

In the 1850s, the language had 76 houses with 501 inhabitants, in 1909 - 130 Armenian families, and in 1914 - 130-180 houses with Armenian residents.
The inhabitants of the language were forcibly displaced during the Great Genocide of 1915. Most of them died, and the survivors settled in Eastern Armenia.