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Diana  Agabeg  Apcar
	Born 1859 in Rangoon; she died in 1937 in Yokohama, Japan, where this portrait was taken c. 1922-23.	Armenia's Consul to Japan - 1920 Appointed by the first Armenian Republic (1918-1920), she was most probably the first woman to hold such a position anywhere. Known for her patriotic humanitarianism, she helped thousands of Armenian refugees of the Turkish massacres to pass via Japan into the United States.

Diana was born into a family of successful dairy-business owners. The Agabegs had originally migrated from New Julfa (Persia, now Iran) to India. She attended a convent school in Culcutta, where she was exposed to an English education. Marriage to Michael Apcar, whose family had emigrated from New Julfa, made her part of the large Apcar clan of prominent shippers in India. Honeymooning in Japan convinced her and her husband to settle in Yokohama where they started an import/export business. After his accidental death in 1906, she took over the family business and raised their three surviving children. Diana Agabeg Apcar, besides English and Armenian, spoke Hindustani. She was reputed to be intelligent, politically aware, and articulate. Besides correspondence with numerous political, religious, and education world leaders, she lectured and wrote extensively with the sole purpose of bringing attention to the plight of the Armenians. Aware of British imperialism in India, she accurately predicted the lack of European support for the Armenians living under Turkish rule. Her wishes for the United States to create a mandate for Armenia, failed. As her worst fears became a reality, and up to one and a half Armenians perished during and after 1915, she did her utmost to help those thousands who found themselves crossing Russia into Manchuria and Japan. She found temporary logings, arranged for visas, and helped these survivors to take passage to America. A number of the refugees described her as a deeply religious woman, devoted to the Armenian church and its liturgy. Her position as consul and family connections helped to facilitate her efforts. An action-oriented person, she was generally loved and respected for her great humanitarianism.

Books	Dates
From the Book of 1000 Tales (historic fiction)	2004
On the Cross of Europe's Imperialism: Armenia Crucified	Yokohama. 1918
The Great Evil	Yokohama. 1914
Peace and No Peace	Yokohama: "Japan Gazette" Press. 1912
The Peace Problem	Yokohama: "Japan Gazette" Press. 1912
Betrayed Armenia	1910
Pamphlets	Dates
Armenia's Needs	1920
The Armenian Republic	1920
The American Mandate for Armenia	1920
The Murder of Armenia	1916
The Anguish of the Near East	1912
The Armenian Massacres	Yokohama: "Japan Gazette" Press. 1910

Diana Agabeg Apcar's writing shows astute political awareness, and is of great historic value. It is forceful and strong, stating the failure of Christian nations to advocate justice instead of greed. While her focus is the position of the Armenians, caught as Christian subjects in the disintegrating Turkish state, and between the empire expansion needs and mutual distrust of western Christian nations to each other and Russia, her basis is social injustice. writing excerpt from Peace and No Peace: "The nations have not yet learned the eighth and tenth commandments, which the law giver of Israel compounded for his people, although they pretend to have adopted them. Let the Peace Societies begin by teaching these two commandments with improved wordings (required by the exigencies of the age) in the schools.     "Thou shalt not steal. Thous shalt not steal another man's country."     "Thous shalt not covet... Society would condemn the man who stole another man's cheque-book or coveted another man's wife. Let Society condemn the man who covets another man's country or steals another man's country, if the world would have Peace. ... that curious unequal balancing of the scales which we call Fate, We have seen it illustrated in individuals. The man who steals a coat or a purse gets clapped into prison, whilst the man who commits some gigantic fraud which ruins thousands of innocent persons goes scot free, and we know that his position in society gets the thief of the coat or purse into prison, and his position in society helps the bigger criminal to go scot free." excerpt from historical fiction writing, based on the tragic experiences of Armenians and their history, From the Book of 1000 Tales, from The One Act Drama... The Judge Shouting - "Justice is not dispensed here! You have no rights, because Only the mighty have rights. Turn Him out.!"... "Here goes the map of the New Armenia as delimited by the President of the United States of America! The map of the New Armenia interferes with the Chester Concession! Ha! Ha! So New Armenia remains Turkey Ha! Ha! Ha!"... And so ended the performance of the One Act Drama as it was performed in the Court Room of the supreme Court of Impositions at Lausanne in Switzerland in the Year of our Lord 1923.

Sources: Most of the information is from the University of California, Fresno, Armenian Studies web site Click to enter; and from Ara Ghazarians of the Armenian Cultural Foundation (ACF), Arlington, MA. Many of her writings can be found at the Harvard College Library, and at ACF. This information was compiled by Gina Ann Hablanian.