| "I do not pretend to understand George | | | | Poti and then went overland to Tiflis, where they |
| Ivanovitch," said Mme Ouspensky. "For me he is | | | | arrived in January 1920. That Easter, Dimitri |
| X." It was January 1924 and her husband had just | | | | arrived in Tiflis to say that their mother and |
| left Gurdjieff. His leaving - with the added | | | | sisters and families had survived a harsh winter |
| admonition to his students forbidding them to see | | | | with famine and typhoid rampant. In June, with |
| or speak about Mr. Gurdjieff - put into high relief | | | | the Red Army having conquered the areas north |
| the by-then perennial question: who was | | | | of the Caucasus and threatening to take Georgia, |
| Gurdjieff? A great many people have attempted | | | | northern Armenia and Azerbaijan, Gurdjieff left |
| to answer that question, but in many ways he | | | | for Constantinople, arriving there in early July. |
| remains, and will continue to remain, X. The | | | | Meanwhile, with his mother and family staying on |
| reason has to do with scale. Attempts to see him | | | | in Essentuki, Anna and her family returned to |
| invariably bring him down to the level of the | | | | Armenia. In November 1920, when the Turks |
| inquiry as well as the inquirer. Factually more is | | | | once again invaded Armenia, Anna and everyone |
| known about Gurdjieff than any of the other | | | | in her family was killed except a son, Valentin, one |
| seminal spiritual figures, but beyond a certain point | | | | of only 30 people who escaped out of 400 |
| one is still left in question. Mme Ouspensky said, | | | | villagers. |
| "It is useless for us to try to know him," and | | | | No Haven in Turkey |
| while in the essential sense that is true, still it is | | | | In Constantinople, Greeks were only marginally |
| helpful to keep returning to what we do know | | | | accepted, Armenians not at all. Only five years |
| about Gurdjieff's life, for his life was a living | | | | earlier most Armenians in the city had been sent |
| demonstration of one who both embodied and | | | | to concentration camps to die or were taken into |
| lived the teaching. In doing so - focusing on the | | | | the wilderness where they were bludgeoned to |
| facts and applying our reason to the point where | | | | death. With what Gurdjieff called the "wiseacring" |
| intuition speaks - here and there edifying glimpses | | | | of the "Young Turks" - Kemal Attaturk and other |
| emerge. | | | | young military officers and reformers bent on |
| The usual focus is on what an individual does, not | | | | making Turkey a secular state - becoming more |
| what he doesn't do. This is normally passed over, | | | | virulent, he says that since the situation began "to |
| not as the consequence of a conscious decision, | | | | have a particular smell, I decided - without waiting |
| but because the focus itself is not considered | | | | for the various delights which were bound to |
| deeply enough. To know what is left out we must | | | | develop in connection with these wiseacrings - to |
| first know what is put in; but we become so | | | | get away with my people as quickly as possible, |
| focused and entangled with that that the question | | | | with our skins whole." Leaving for Europe in |
| of what has been left out, what has been denied, | | | | August 1921, the following year he was able to |
| never appears. | | | | establish the Institute in France and bring his |
| Greek & Armenian Forebears | | | | mother and the remainder of his family to safety. |
| A noteworthy example is Gurdjieff's heritage. | | | | Years later, when living in France, Gurdjieff said |
| That his father was Greek, his mother Armenian | | | | the Armenians were "a wonderful people of great |
| is well known. We know that his family suffered | | | | antiquity. They had not let their country be |
| at the hands of the Turks and Kurds, yet in none | | | | overrun by Western civilization. They had kept up |
| of his writings does he ever excoriate them. Nor | | | | their old customs, particularly the roots of their |
| does he express a personal grief at the murder | | | | language, which was full of old sayings, old |
| of his father. Nor does he speak of the genocide | | | | customs of the past, and this kept their people |
| of the Armenians, his mother's people. Only when | | | | clean and unspoiled by the slime of the West." |
| Gurdjieff tells us about the "skeletons" arriving at | | | | Family was important to Gurdjieff, and he |
| his door in Essentuki in July 1918, does he give us | | | | understood the objective meaning of war and |
| an idea of what he felt. In February of 1918 he | | | | destruction. No more than alluding to the immense |
| had sent for his family in Alexandropol to come to | | | | suffering endured by the Armenian people, and |
| him in Essentuki to escape the impending Turkish | | | | the personal suffering he and his family endured, |
| invasion. His mother, brother Dimitri and his wife, | | | | never did Gurdjieff vilify the Turks. In the true |
| younger sister Sophie Ivanovna and her fiance | | | | Christian meaning, he turned the other cheek. Of |
| Georgilibovitch Kapanadze came, but Gurdjieff's | | | | this, he said in In Search of the Miraculous: |
| eldest sister, Anna Ivanovna Anastasieff, had | | | | Let us suppose that a man decides according to |
| stayed behind in Alexandropol with their father | | | | the Gospels to turn the left cheek if somebody |
| who refused to flee. | | | | strikes him on the right cheek. But one 'I' decides |
| That May, with the Turks advancing, she and her | | | | this either in the mind or in the emotional center. |
| husband Feodor and six little children fled, along | | | | One 'I' knows of it, one 'I' remembers it - the |
| with twenty-two other relatives, losing their home | | | | others do not. Let us imagine that it actually |
| and homeland, and, cold and hungry, walked on | | | | happens, that somebody strikes this man. Do you |
| bare feet over tortuous mountains. In mid-July, | | | | think he will turn the left cheek? Never. He will not |
| looking like skeletons, they arrived in Essentuki, | | | | even have time to think about it. He will either |
| bringing the news of the murder of Gurdieff's | | | | strike the face of the man who struck him, or he |
| father by the Turks. Said Gurdjieff, "The enemy, | | | | will begin to call a policeman, or he will simply take |
| stronger and better armed than their own troops, | | | | to flight. His moving center will react in its |
| will inevitably mercilessly and indiscriminately | | | | customary way, or as it has been taught to |
| massacre not only the men, but the women, the | | | | react, before the man realizes what he is doing. |
| aged and the children, as was the order of things | | | | Prolonged instruction, prolonged training, is |
| there." | | | | necessary to be able to turn the cheek, and if |
| The only reference Gurdjieff makes to this | | | | this training is mechanical - it is again worth nothing |
| persecution is in the "Armenian" chapter of | | | | because in this case it means that a man will turn |
| Meetings with Remarkable Men. "The Aisors | | | | his cheek because he cannot do anything else. |
| suffered very much in the last war, having been | | | | Gurdjieff turned the other cheek often in life. As |
| a pawn in the hands of Russia and England, with | | | | he said many times, "Exterior play a role, interior |
| the result that half of them perished from the | | | | never." |
| vengeance of the Kurds and the Persians...." In this | | | | This can be seen at the time of Gurdjieff's death. |
| chapter he also speaks of the destruction by | | | | When Attaturk and the Young Turks came to |
| invasion and earthquake of Ani, the ancient | | | | power in 1923 they had immediately banned men |
| Armenian city of churches, and then makes a | | | | from wearing the traditional fez, women the veil. |
| curious statement, that this is the only time he | | | | Though outwardly he wore western clothes |
| has, or will, "take from information officially | | | | Gurdjieff remained traditional. In 1949, dying of |
| recognized on earth." | | | | cancer, Gurdjieff was taken on a stretcher from |
| If we do look at ordinary information, one fact | | | | his apartment to the American Hospital. He was |
| leaps out: after centuries of enduring killings and | | | | sitting up, smoking a cigarette, and on his head he |
| persecutions by the Turks, Armenians suffered | | | | wore a red fez. |
| two horrific genocides, the first in 1895 and again | | | | Notes |
| in 1915-16, under an official Turkish government | | | | 1. I do not pretend. J. G. Bennett, Witness, p. 158. |
| policy of annihilation. On April 24, 1915, during | | | | 2. Skeletons. G. I. Gurdjieff, Meetings with |
| World War I, the Armenian Holocaust began. By | | | | Remarkable Men, p. 278. |
| the time it was over 1.5 million Armenians, | | | | 3. The enemy. Ibid., p. 278. |
| 750,000 Assyrians, and 400,000 Greeks had lost | | | | 4. After centuries. Robert D. Kaplan, Eastward to |
| their lives. | | | | Tartary (New York: Random House, 2000); |
| We know that shortly after the 1915-16 genocide, | | | | Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a |
| from March to July 1917, Gurdjieff stayed with his | | | | Nation. rev 2nd ed (New York: St. Martin's Press, |
| family in Alexandropol and then went to Essentuki. | | | | 1990). |
| Events of the Russian Revolution worsening, in | | | | 5. Take from. Meetings, p. 88. |
| August 1919 Gurdjieff left his family in Essentuki | | | | 6. To have a particular smell. Ibid., p. 283. |
| and undertook the hazardous journey of guiding | | | | 7. A wonderful people. Cecil Lewis, All My |
| his students between the Red and White armies | | | | Yesteryears: An Autobiography (Rockport, Maine: |
| and then over the bandit-infested Caucasus | | | | Element, 1993), pp. 174-76. |
| mountains. Arriving in Sochi, they took a boat to | | | | |