Diana Apcar
Writer, Merchant, Advocate for Armenian rights, First Armenian Woman Diplomat and Humanitarian.
Four Remarkable things about Diana Apcar
A woman of extraordinary resilience and determination
Never set foot on Armenian soil
Created an extensive journalistic network
Humanitarian and Diplomat
Diana Aghabegian was born in Rangoon, British Burma in 1859 the seventh child of Armenian parents from Persia. She was raised in Calcutta, India where she was educated in a convent school and became fluent in English, Armenian and Hindustani. She married Apcar Michael Apcar in 1889 at St. John the Baptist Armenian Church in Rangoon, Burma. Her husband’s family had built a global business over generations involved in shipping, import/export and rice farming throughout South Asia and the Far East.
In 1891 the newlyweds moved to Japan where Michael established an import/export business. As an aspiring writer Diana publishes her first book “Susan” the following year. They settled in Yokohama where Diana learned Japanese, her fourth language.
Diana and her husband had five children but only three survived childhood. In 1906 Michael died suddenly leaving Diana with young children and a failing business. Through sheer determination she was able to revive the business and handover the reins to her oldest son when he came of age. After that Diana was able to attend to her true loves – writing and diplomacy.
Diana Apcar with her husband during tea ceremony in Japan 1889.
Her works were published locally as well as internationally in all four languages. The Adana Massacres in 1909 drew her into becoming an activist – she had found her calling. She wrote a book a year and appealed to peace societies and sent her articles to major European and American newspapers. Her cause was the Armenians’ “right for security of life and property on the soil of their own country”.
As Diana read more about the events occurring in the dwindling Ottoman Empire she realized that without outside intervention a larger catastrophe was waiting to fall upon the Armenians in the eastern provinces or historic Armenia. In 1915 the Armenian Genocide began under the direction of the Young Turks who had deposed the Sultan. They proved to be even more ruthless and thorough than the Red Sultan. They were determined to rid the land of Armenians.
In 1917 many survivors of the Genocide began to flee to Russia for asylum but found themselves in the Bolshevik revolution. They couldn’t go west to Europe as WWI was still waging so they went east through Siberia to the port city of Vladivostok to board a boat to the United States. The journey from the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire to Vladivostok was over 6000 miles and when the survivors arrived in the city they found the boats only went as far as Japan.
At that time Japan did not have a policy to deal with the refugees. Diana Apcar’s name and reputation gave them the authority to come to Japan where they could eventually get on a boat to the United States. The Japanese government provided temporary asylum to the refugees. Diana rented places to house them, enrolled their children in school and found work for them. She also helped with documents and visas and negotiated with the steamship companies for passage to the United States. She used her own money to accomplish all this including passage on the boats. It is estimated that Diana saved approximately 2,500 survivors of the Armenian Genocide over a period of 15 years.
In 1920 Diana was appointed Honorary Consul of Armenia in Japan in recognition of her hard work in the interests of the new Armenian Republic and alleviating the suffering of so many survivors of the Genocide.
Diana’s great-granddaughter, Mimi Malayan, grew up knowing that her great-grandmother was special but did not pursue research to learn more about her. That changed when Dr. Meline Mesrobyan came to San Francisco – apparently to get in touch with Diana’s descendants as she had spent many years as a Masters and PhD student researching the life and work of Diana Apcar in Japan. Mimi also found many papers kept by her uncle Lionel Galstaun after his death. By 2012 Mimi thought the best way to bring attention to her great-grandmother was through a documentary. She and her team decided on a docudrama in black and white animation since so many of Diana’s papers were destroyed in an earthquake in Japan while she was alive and very few photos existed.
Among the papers in Lionel’s home was an unpublished manuscript titled “1000 Tales”, a collection of stories she heard from the hundreds of survivors she helped after the Genocide. The manuscript was published in 2014 and is available through the NAASR bookstore.
Mimi Malayan’s docudrama “The Stateless Diplomat” was first shown in Toronto, Canada in 2018 at the Pomegranate Film Festival where it won two awards. In 2019 the Yerevan Municipal Council passed a decision to name a park after Diana, 160 years after her birth.
Diana Apcar accomplished so much for the Armenians from a far distant location. Even though her family had been diaspora Armenians for generations she felt a love and desire to help her homeland.