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

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, ThailandCHIANG 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 ...

Synopsis

Production and distribution

See also

References

External links