Giacomo
Gorrini
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Giacomo
Gorrini |
Giacomo Gorrini was born in 1859 in Molino de' Torti, a small village
in Northern Italy. A diplomat, he was the founder and first director
in 1886 of the Italian Foreign Ministry Archives.
From 1911 to 1915 Gorrini served as Italian Consul in Trabzon,
including the provinces of Erzrum, Van, Bitlis, Svas and Trabzon,
and was eyewitness to the massacres and deportation of the Armenians.
In August 1915, when Italy declared war on Turkey, Gorrini was forced
to leave Trabzon.
During the First World War, he used press articles and numerous
interviews to denounce the Turkish rulers' criminal acts against
the Armenians, describing all the horrors of the genocide directed
against them. “If everybody had known what I know and had seen
what I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears”,
said Gorrini, “while still maintaining their neutrality, all
Christians would have risen up against Turkey, cursed its inhuman
government, its ferocious 'Union and Progress' committee and their
allies and would have held them accountable. With their connivance
and support, news of these foul crimes, unprecedented in both the
past and recent history of mankind, is being suppressed”.
After his return to Italy in May 1915 he gave an interview to the
Italian newspaper Il Messaggero (August 1915) about the Armenian
massacres reported in Bryce's Blue Book, as well as
by Johannes Lepsius and Osip Mandelstam.
During his journey back to Italy, together with American Ambassador
Morgenthau and the Vatican's Monsignor Dolci he saved 50,000 Armenians
from deportation.
From 1918 to 1920 he was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of Italy to the Independent Republic of Armenia, the only ambassador
of all the Western Powers in that short-lived Republic of Ararat.
At that time Giacomo Gorrini tried to organize the intervention
of two Italian warships in aid of the Armenians, but the operation
was halted at the last minute by the newly appointed Italian Foreign
Minister.
In 1920 Gorrini wrote a Memorandum for the Treaty of Sevres
in which he proposed that the Italian government should unreservedly
support the independence of Armenia, including Kilikia. In his concluding
remark, Gorrini stated: "If we don't solve the problem of Armenia,
even partially, peace will be periodically disturbed throughout
the world".
From 1920 to 1940 he helped many Armenians to migrate from Turkey
to Italy. He also rescued a young Armenian girl from Bayburt who
stayed with him till his death.
In 1940 Giacomo Gorrini wrote a short book in which he affirmed
that it was high time the Armenians regained the lands they had
lost (Kars, Ardahan,Van etc.).
Giacomo Gorrini died in Rome in 1950..
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