Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel and Geoffrey (Translator) Werfel, Franz; Dunlop

Book Overview

1915 It is a dark year for the Armenian people. The Great War is raging through Europe, and in the ancient, mountainous lands to the west of the Caspian Sea the Islamic Turks have begun systematically to exterminate their Christian subjects. Based on actual historical events, this stirring, poignant novel unfolds the story of Gabriel Bagradian -- an Armenian-born officer in the Ottoman army -- and the five thousand Armenian villagers that he leads...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0881840157
• ISBN13: 9780881840155
• Release Date: September 1983
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 817 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Superb Account of Armenian Valiance and Resistance

If you are interested in learning more about the atrocities exercised by the turks against the Armenian people, you must read this book. Franz Werfel has taken an event revolving around the armenian genocide and has created a historical account in novel form. It is essentially about a courageous bevy of villagers who defied the turkish campaign of complete extermination of the Armenian people and took arms with meager provisions to fight the turks. It is beautifully written and will nevertheless open your mind...I recommend that anyone seriously or remotely interested in learning about the Armenian genocide to read "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" by Henry Morgenthau. Mr. Morgenthau was the US Ambassador to Ottoman turkey between 1913-1916. [...]

Werfel made himself a voice to the world for the Armenians!

Between 1915 and 1917 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the 20th century's first genocide, and to this day the existing Turkish government still denies any wrong doing! It is Franz Werfel's merit that he made the world listen to the crying of the Armenian people, which would have been almost forgotten otherwise. He tells the story of a handful of men being deported to the Syrian desert who - by courage of despair - manage to escape to the mountain Musa Dagh (which means "mountain of Moses") and resisting the flabberghasted superior Turkish soldiers for forty days, until they were discovered and rescued by french war-ships. When the book was published in 1933 in Germany, Werfel also intended to draw attention to the imminent same fate that the Jews were facing in Germany, but it was in vain. Both, the Nazis and the Turks were outraged, and the book was banned in both countries (in post-war Germany it was published again, of course), but through the English translation it fortunately had become a bestseller already. However: When MGM was planning to make this book a movie, they had to yield to Turkish pressure not doing so! So to this very day there has not been any movie made from this excellent book.

This book should be required reading for every student.

This book should be required reading for every student. Werfel writes an excellent in-depth novel about the genocide of the Armenians in World War I.What is particularly chilling is that Werfel went on a lecture tour about the book in Germany just before Hitler's ascent to power. This did not prevent the German people from participating in the genocide of the Jews. Apparently, people learn nothing from history, even if forewarned.

understanding genocide

I have read this book in my country in Turkey. It is really shamefull what the Ottoman did against to our Armenian friends. I hate again Turkish-Islamic bad synthesis for against to whole other communities. I got great pain as Turkish by reading this book in my life. This is a sign if yesterday which is still contunie in the end of 20th century in Turkey. Sureyya Kara