Literary places in Musa Dagh

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh

Franz Werfel

Based on a true episode of the Armenian genocide, Werfel's epic follows the Armenians of seven villages who, rather than submit to deportation in 1915, fortify the mountain of Musa Dagh above the Mediterranean and hold out for forty days until French warships take them off. The real coast of the old Vilayet of Aleppo, now Hatay, grounds it: the villages at the mountain's foot, the fortified plateau of the Damlayik, the sea below from which rescue comes, and the plain toward Antioch where the Ottoman power gathers.

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