Diana Apcar, The Stateless Diplomat

Weekly Armenian, October 9, 2019

When Alex stopped by the Burien Library GenHelp desk last October, he was very excited to share his news.  Just a few days earlier it had been announced that a city park in Yerevan, Armenia, was being named to honor his great grandmother, Diana Agabeg Apcar.

In commemoration of Woman’s History Month in March, here is her powerful story.

Diana Agabeg Apcar, a widow with young children and a business to operate in Yokohama, Japan, was very concerned for the welfare of Armenians, her ancestral people.  She rescued refugees from the Armenian Genocide of 1915, arranging transportation to Yokohama, Japan, housing them and arranging their immigration to the United States.  A child of the Diaspora, she had never set foot in Armenia but she was deeply committed to church and her people.

With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, many small countries gained their independence but there was no regard for the security of Armenians who had lived in Anatolia since before the birth of Christ.  Between 1894 and 1896, nearly 250,000 Armenians were massacred.  European powers had little concern for Armenia.  In 1909 another 30,000 were massacred in Adana, Turkey.

Ultimately, 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated starting in 1915, out of a total Armenian population of 2.5 million in the Ottoman Empire, in what is known as the Armenian Genocide.  With the start of the genocide and lack of response from world leaders, Diana turned to rescuing and securing funds for the destitute.  She became the American Red Cross coordinator in Japan, responsible for the refugees who made it to Vladivostok, Siberia and Harbin, Manchuria.  She solicited funds on their behalf and arranged travel to Yokohama where she housed them, found them jobs and coordinated their travel documents and passage to the United States.  Hundreds of people passed through her care.

When the genocide began, refugees could not escape through Europe because of World War I.  They could not escape north through Saint Petersburg because of the Bolshevik Revolution.  Their only escape route was east through Siberia.  (Watch test animation THE LOST CONSUL https://dianaapcar.org/about/animation/  )

Diana Agabeg was born in Rangoon, Burma, 17 October 1859, the daughter of first generation Indian Armenians.  Her forefathers were among those who had been deported from Armenia to Iran in the early 1600s.  Through a deep devotion to their faith and their church, the Armenians maintained their ethnic identity through centuries of oppression.  Diana’s formal education was a convent school in Calcutta.

In June 1889 Diana married Michael Apcar whose family was of similar heritage.  The couple traveled to Japan on their honeymoon and returned to business and starting a family in Rangoon.  In late 1890 they returned to Japan where Michael set up his import/export business.  Diana settled down to raising the family of five children, two of whom died in childhood.  She was also writing, having published Susan in 1892 and Home Stories of the War in 1905.

In November 1906, at age 51, Michael unexpectedly died.   Diana was forced to take over the Yokohama family business to support her children.  Her son dropped out of school because she couldn’t afford the tuition.  But eventually she created a successful business and gained the respect of the local community.

“Something changed for Diana, after the massacre of approximately 30,000 Armenians in 1909, in Adana, Turkey.  She began to focus her energy outward, calling attention to the plight of the Armenian people.  She studied history and current affairs, and formulated a picture of the political powers of the time and their manipulations.  She could not accept the amoral behavior of world leaders focused on self-interest.  She rejected political indifference to the pain and suffering of humanity.  And so she wrote: she wrote essays, letters, books, pleading for compassion and action to divert an impending crisis.”

In 1920, due largely to Diana’s efforts, Japan was among the first countries to recognize the Republic of Armenia as an independent nation.  Diana was appointed Honorary Consul to Japan, the first woman in the world ever to be named to such a post.  The Republic of Armenia was short lived, absorbed by Soviet Union the following year.  There was no recognition of Diana Apcar in Soviet history books.

Diana continued her efforts throughout the 1920s, helping hundreds of refugees to immigrate to the United States, many of them settling in San Francisco and Seattle.  Even her daughters and their families immigrated at this time.  Diana remained in Yokohama where she died 8 July, 1937.

Source Citation
National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Naturalization Petitions and Records, 1906 - 1991; NAI Number: 1137682; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21

Source Information
Ancestry.com. Michigan, Federal Naturalization Records, 1887-1931 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

Even within her own family, little was known about Diana, until a great granddaughter, Mimi Malayan, found a lost manuscript.  Mimi began researching her great grandmother’s life and works.  That research led her to letters, books, magazine articles and interviews with descendants of refugees.  It has culminated in a documentary, The Stateless Diplomat. 

Our thanks to Mimi Malayan who has given permission for us to use her work to relate the story.  The film uses a unique, powerful format of Japanese animation and descendants’ interviews to tell the story.  Go to The Stateless Diplomat https://dianaapcar.org/  

For an excellent example of research and project completion, download MIMI MALAYAN: MAKING-THE-STATELESS-DIPLOMAT from the About page of the film’s website.

To fully understand the magnitude of Diana’s story, bookmark the website and return often to explore every item, document, letter and interview.  Diana Apcar was truly a Woman in History.

MaryLynn Strickland