The Last Assyrians' (french: Les Derniers Assyriens) is a 2004 French
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
by Robert Alaux.
Synopsis
This
film begins in the
Chaldo-Assyrian community of
Sarcelles
Sarcelles () is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Sarcelles is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department and the seat of the arrondissement of Sarcelles.
In the south of the commune ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
(
Paris metropolitan area
The Paris metropolitan area (french: aire d'attraction de Paris) is a statistical area that describes the reach of commuter movement to and from Paris, France and its surrounding suburbs.
Overview
In 2020 France's national INSEE statistica ...
) and tells of the rebuilding of the identity of the
Eastern Aramaic
The Eastern Aramaic languages have developed from the varieties of Aramaic that developed in and around Mesopotamia (Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and northwest and southwest Iran), as opposed to western varieties of the Levant (modern ...
-speaking
Assyrians. They are one of the first people to convert to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and they still speak and write
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
, a
north Mesopotamian dialect of Aramaic which originated in
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
during the 5th century BC. Originally all members of the
Church of the East, they are today members of the
Assyrian Church of the East,
Chaldean Catholic Church Ancient Church of the East
The Ancient Church of the East is an Eastern Christian denomination. It branched from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964, under the leadership of Mar Thoma Darmo (d. 1969). It is one of three Assyrian Churches that claim continuity with t ...
,
Assyrian Pentecostal Church and
Assyrian Evangelical Church
The Assyrian Evangelical Church is a Presbyterian church in the Middle East that attained a status of ecclesiastical independence from the Presbyterian mission in Iran in 1870.
Members
Its members are predominantly ethnic Assyrians, an Eastern ...
.
Central Aramaic speakers are members of the
Syriac Orthodox Church and the
Syriac Catholic Church. They originate from northern
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, south east
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
, north east
Syria and north west
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
(in essence the area that was known as
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
from the 25th century BC to the 7th century AD) and are the descendants of the
Semitic peoples
Semites, Semitic peoples or Semitic cultures is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group.[Upper Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been ...]
.
Labelled by the European Catholic Church as
heretics
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
in the 5th century, they founded
Church of the East and Syriac Church in the 1st century AD (erroneously renamed ''Nestorian'' and ''Jacobite'' by Western Christians). They have kept alive one of the oldest Christian
liturgies
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
; they translated ancient Greek texts first into Syriac and vice versa, and then into
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
, and evangelised
China,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
during the Golden Age of the Arabic Empire.
In 1915, together with the
Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, '' hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diasp ...
and
Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
, they were the victims of ethnically and religiously motivated
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
perpetrated by the
Turkish Ottoman Empire and many fled to Europe, the Russian Empire and the United States. Again, they were slaughtered in Iraq in 1933 in the
Simele massacre
The Simele massacre, also known as the Assyrian affair, was committed by the Kingdom of Iraq, led by Bakr Sidqi, during a campaign systematically targeting the Assyrians in and around Simele in August 1933. An estimated 600 to 6,000 Assyrians ...
. Even if various names are used to describe them - Assurayu, Assyrians, and later derivatives such as Chaldo-Assyrians, Syriacs, Atoraye, Assouri, Assuristani, Suraye, Suryoyo, East Syrians, - they share the same culture, religion and language, originate from the same region, have the same distinct genetic profile, and they belong to one people.
Very few
Assyrians remain in
Tur Abdin
Tur Abdin ( syr, ܛܽܘܪ ܥܰܒ݂ܕܺܝܢ or ܛܘܼܪ ܥܲܒ݂ܕܝܼܢ, Ṭūr ʿAḇdīn) is a hilly region situated in southeast Turkey, including the eastern half of the Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the borde ...
(Turkey), where monks protect some of the oldest monasteries of Christianity. There were around 1.5 million
Assyrians in Iraq
Iraqi Assyrians ( syr, ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ, ar, آشوريو العراق) are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, Indigenous peoples, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. Assyrians in Iraq are those Assyrian people, Assyrians still residing in the ...
before 1990; now, many are fleeing their ancient homelands in the face of ethnic and religious persecution, and several political movements, like the
Assyrian Democratic Movement
The Assyrian Democratic Movement ( syr, ܙܘܥܐ ܕܝܡܘܩܪܛܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ, Zawʻá Demoqraṭáyá ʼÁṯuráyá, ar, الحركة الديمقراطية الآشورية, ADM), popularly known as Zowaa (), is an Assyrian political party ...
and the
Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council
The Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council (CSAPC, syr, ܡܘܬܒܐ ܥܡܡܝܐ ܟܠܕܝܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ ', ar, المجلس الشعبي الكلداني السرياني الآشوري '), popularly known as Motwa, is a political ...
are working to help to maintain their culture.
Now a big part of these communities lives in western countries where the memory of their genocide becomes a central point of their identity.
Production and distribution
This film is the result of a seven years work in Turkey (Tur Abdin,
Qotchanes,
Hakkâri), Iraq (before and after the arrival of American troops),
Syria, the United States, and Europe. It contains interviews of Pr.
Sebastian Brock
Sebastian Paul Brock, FBA (born 1938, London) is a British scholar, university professor, and expert in the field of academic studies of Classical Syriac language and Classical Syriac literature. His research also encompasses various aspects of ...
(Oxford, UK), and Pr. Joseph Yacoub (Lyon, France), and received support from the Aramaic speaking Churches.
The documentary was made by Lieurac Productions(Paris, France) and financed by the
Centre National de la Cinématographie
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricit ...
.
It was broadcast on TV channels of
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
,
North Africa and Middle East
MENA, an acronym in the English language, refers to a grouping of countries situated in and around the Middle East and North Africa. It is also known as WANA, SWANA, or NAWA, which alternatively refers to the Middle East as Western Asia (or a ...
, and selected in several international festivals.
Several screenings took place in France, Lebanon, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherland, Belgium, Sweden, Syria, Costa-Rica, Thailand
[CHIANG MAI December 2012] and the United States.
This documentary film was one of the first to tell this history and to speak of the
Assyrian genocide
The Sayfo or the Seyfo (; see below), also known as the Assyrian genocide, was the mass slaughter and deportation of Assyrian / Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish ...
. ''The last Assyrians'' supports the fight for its recognition, and various institutions show the film in order to keep alive the culture of this indigenous people of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
.
See also
*
Assyrian continuity
*
Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac diaspora
*
List of Assyrians
*
Dawronoye
Dawronoye ( syr, ܕܲܘܪܵܢܵܝܹܐ) is a secular, leftist, national liberation movement among the Assyrian people. Ideologically characterized by progressive ideas and including socialist elements, its founding roots can be traced to the late ...
*
Names of Syriac Christians
*
Assyrian war of independence
*
Chaldean Christians
Chaldean Catholics () ( syr, ܟܲܠܕܵܝܹ̈ܐ ܩܲܬܘܿܠܝܼܩܵܝܹ̈ܐ), also known as Chaldeans (, ''Kaldāyē''), Chaldo-Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans, are modern Assyrian adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, which originates fr ...
*
Christianity in Iraq
The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christians, Christian communities in the world. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are indigenous Eastern Aramaic languages, Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrian peo ...
*
Christianity in Turkey
*
Christianity in Iran
*
History of Eastern Christianity
*
Minorities in Iraq
*
Chaldea
*
Babylonia
*
Adiabene
Adiabene was an ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, corresponding to the northwestern part of ancient Assyria. The size of the kingdom varied over time; initially encompassing an area between the Zab Rivers, it eventually gained control of N ...
References
External links
*
Press*
Le Parisien*
*
France Culture*
Production*
Arameens
*
Syriaque Orthodoxe
*
arte distribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Assyrians, The
2004 documentary films
Documentary films about Christianity
Documentary films about indigenous rights
History of Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity in Turkey
Assyrian genocide
Christianity in Kurdistan
Religion in Iraq
Aramaic languages
Films about Assyrians