Search

The article discusses the memoir of Hovhannes Der-Pilibbossian, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, detailing his experiences from his birth in Arabkir to his life in France and Soviet Armenia. The memoir provides insights into the genocide period, deportation of Armenians, and the survival strategies employed by survivors. It also sheds light on the conscription, forced conversions, and hardships faced by Armenians during the genocide, as well as the cultural practices and community organizations in Arabkir. The memoir serves as a valuable historical source for understanding the impact of the Armenian Genocide on individuals and communities. [Extracted from the article]

The article reviews Levon Ashpahyan's memoir, "About My Life," which details his experiences as a survivor of the Armenian Genocide in Sebastia. Ashpahyan's account sheds light on the atrocities, deportations, and massacres endured by Armenians in Sebastia during the genocide. The memoir provides a personal and emotional perspective on the events, offering valuable insights for researchers studying the Armenian Genocide, particularly from psychological, literary, and sociological perspectives. Ashpahyan's story is situated within the broader historical context of the Armenian Genocide, contributing to the preservation and transmission of survivor narratives. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the intergenerational transmission of memories among descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors, focusing on perspectives from both males and females. Using an oral history methodology in three provinces– Erznka (modern-day Erzincan), Malatya, and Dersim – the study investigates how narratives of the genocide have been passed down and changed within families. The research emphasizes the gender-specific tactics of the genocide, where Armenian men were often targeted for extermination, while women and children endured forced marches, sexual violence, abductions and forced marriages. By connecting with descendants who carry the post-memory of these events, the study reveals the deep and lasting impact of these atrocities on the Armenian community. Their stories unveil the intricate layers of trauma and resilience that define the Armenian experience and contribute to a broader understanding of genocide and its enduring effects on future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second decade of the 20th century saw two pivotal events from the Middle East and South Asia: the Armenian Genocide and the Khilafat movement. Both events were influential in setting into motion a cascade of events whose repercussions are still felt acutely to this day. Simultaneous interest in these two pivotal moments has generated considerable scholarship over the last few decades. However, the prospect that these two events could be interlinked in underlying ways is a proposition that has not yet found any traction. Using a range of sources, this article attempts an initial foray into a critically understudied area: the denial and justification of the Armenian Genocide that was integral to the Khilafat movement in South Asia. Arguably one of the most potent examples of denial perpetuated by a non-perpetrator, the South Asian version of this narrative was cobbled together through a convergence of interests between the Muslim and Hindu elite in the region. Unraveling this vast network of denialism and justification warrants attention to underlying motivations and power configurations across a kaleidoscope of identities and geography – which this article seeks to uncover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In one of his lectures at Northwestern University, Eli Wiesel (1977) stressed that "if the Greeks invented tragedy, the Romans the epistle, and the Renaissance the sonnet, our generation invented a new literature, that of testimony." However, Wiesel suggested the generation of the Holocaust and most likely have forgotten the eyewitness survivors of the Armenian Genocide. In this article, I focus on a specific kind of testimony that emerged amongst the survivors of the Armenian Genocide: the song-testimony. Thinking about music and sound is important as the experience of genocide stretches far beyond the visual-oriented notions of such tragedy. It is in this spirit that I write this essay to investigate "Der Zor Çölünde," a series of song-testimonies that musically charts the experience of Armenians during the Genocide of 1915-1923. I primarily argue that Armenian deportees appropriated the musical and lyrical template of "Der Zor Çölünde" by creating new verses. In doing so, Armenians illustrated and immortalized what they saw, felt, and experienced during the deportations and forced marches. Considering the multifaceted nature of "Der Zor Çölünde," this essay reimagines the Armenian Genocide experience through the voice(s) of its protagonists. Furthermore, I emphasize the importance and implication of listening to the performances of "Der Zor Çölünde" against the official narratives of genocide denial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns one of the first displays of ethnic violence in the recent history of the USSR that took place in the city of Sumgait in the Azerbaijan SSR in February 1988 and was the start of violence of an anti-Armenian nature. It is a study of contemporary perceptions, definitions and terminology. Arising from this object, this paper examines the following questions: • What were Armenian perceptions and characteristics of the Sumgait massacres and the factors that governed their conditions • What definitions and perceptions were merited as a result of the Sumgait massacres by the Azerbaijan side • How were the Sumgait massacres evaluated by the international public and the USSR leadership • What were the definitions of the terms given to the Sumgait massacres and their characteristics. Research has been carried out on the basis of specialist literature, archival materials, witness statements, contemporary periodical press etc. Descriptions, analyses, narrative analyses and comparative methods were also utilized in this study. As a result of the research carried out, the conclusion was reached that the February 1988 massacres of the Armenian population of the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait by the participants, various political circles and structures, conditioned by several factors, merited different appraisals. On the Armenian side, they were immediately linked, in the collective Armenian consciousness, to the Armenian Genocide realized in the 20th century within the Ottoman Empire. The central authorities, arising out of Soviet national policy principles, interpreted the event as “mass unrest”. In its euphemistic definitions, the Azerbaijani side attempted to “neutralize” the ethnically based violence used against a part of the population. The “Armenian intrigue and treachery” theory, as a “legal” explanation of the violence, aims to justify the crimes committed and evade any responsibility for them. The international public saw the Sumgait massacres in an ethnic context, stressing the laudable, necessary measures taken by the central authorities to prevent and stop them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study overviews some of the issues surrounding the use, abuse, and misuse of Medz Yeghern, the most common proper name for the genocide of the Armenian, tracing the genealogy of the term yeghern and the evolution of its primary meaning from “evil” to “(heinous) crime,” “massacre,” and “genocide” over the past century and half. An erudite conflation of the Classical Armenian homophone words yeghern (եղեռն, “evil, crime”) and yegher (եղեր, “lamentation”) in the nineteenth century resulted in the secondary meaning “tragedy, calamity, catastrophe.” It also marked the conflation of cause and consequence in a single word, despite the use of yeghern accompanied by active verbs only, which indicates cause. The use of Medz Yeghern, therefore, point out to the central role of the perpetrator; the word yeghern has been used to translate “cultural genocide” and “genocide recognition” as synonym to tseghasbanutiun (ցեղասպանութիւն). This ambiguity was exploited during the first two decades of the current century, especially in Turkey and the United States. Interpretive denial adopted the name Medz Yeghern to avoid the use of “genocide,” choosing the meanings “Great Catastrophe” and “Great Calamity” and turning the cause into consequence. The article offers a reconsideration of the semantic and political issues behind the use of Medz Yeghern and suggests, on the basis of linguistic evidence, that the literal translation of the proper name, according to context and time of use, should be “Great (Heinous) Crime” or “Great Genocide.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of the transformation and political change in Armenia pays noticeable attention to the dominant role of discourses of the Armenian Genocide and the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for nation and state-building processes. At the same time, the two issues usually are investigated separately. Attempts are rarely made to interpret the interrelation and connection between the two narratives. Nevertheless, the trauma-based discourse of memory is linking the two narratives as technology of power through discursive structures/mechanisms of analogy and continuity. Methods of discourse analysis combined with expert interviews, internet questionnaires and ethnographic field research aim to analyse the crucial discursive patterns and mechanisms. Hypothetically, instrumentalized and ideological usage of combined narratives are impacting the political changes, in Post-Soviet Armenia. The article touches upon only one aspect of the discursive interrelation between the Armenian Genocide and the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Thus, the subject under the question is the impact of the usage of historical analogy and the idea of continuity understand as technologies on contemporary Armenian politics of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memorials are one of the most common forms of memorialization and may be understood as symbolic reparations for the victims and survivors of mass violence. They acknowledge the suffering and grief of the victims and pay tribute to the dead. At the same time, the memorials epitomises not only history but also teaches contemporary lessons of local and global character. The Armenian Genocide Memorial as a symbol of grief and revival of the Armenian nation serves all these aims. This article aims to address some points of history of the construction of the Armenian Genocide Memorial, its local and global implications, the issue of absence of names in the Memorial, as well as the feelings of patriotism and statehood embedded in the Armenian Genocide Memorial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historiography has analyzed the recognition of the Armenian genocide using cultural and geopolitical coordinates belonging to both Western and Non-Western societies. However, the North-South dimension of this event and its effect on the diaspora has been neglected by most of the approaches taken by Armenian studies. In this article, I will analyze how the Armenian diaspora in Argentina advocated for recognition of the Armenian genocide from 1965 to 2015. This community is not only significant in terms of population - it is the largest in the Global South - but also because its contribution to the struggle for remembrance and recognition of the Armenian genocide is unique. Argentina is one of the few countries in which the genocide has been recognized by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. In this article, I will analyze the specific dynamics of the Armenian-Argentine community's local activism and its contribution to the global recognition of the genocide.1 The commemoration on April 24 in the official Argentine calendar, the recognition of the extermination of Armenians as genocide by Francis I, Roman Catholicism's first Argentinean Pope, demonstrate the importance of the interaction between the local and global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the article is to discuss whether food procurement methods during the Armenian Genocide could be considered as unarmed resistance. For this purpose, the first part of the article touched upon some scientific questions and the formation of the concept of unarmed resistance in the context of the Holocaust. Such scientific interest was inspired by the fact that though there had been instances of armed resistance during the Armenian Genocide, fights in self-defense, including those with victorious outcomes, as in Van, nonetheless there existed an opinion that the Armenians were to be blamed, to some extent, to have been "slaughtered like sheep," i.e. without resistance. For that very reason, the purpose of this article was to offer a scholarly assessment of the concept of "resistance" by suggesting its subcategories as subjects for separate research. Indeed, it is impossible to cover all the viewpoints on the problem and all the forms of resistance within one article; however, this article was an attempt to formulate new queries. In the second section of the article, an attempt is made to group food procurement methods during the Armenian Genocide and consider them in the context of the concept of unarmed resistance. Special attention is paid to the experiences of children, trying also to identify the types of activities that the social groups were involved in and the extent of involvement. Food acquisition methods that were part of the daily life during the Armenian Genocide are discussed as expressions of conscious and unconscious struggle against the genocidal policy of condemning people to starvation. The article is based on published memoires and oral histories of the Armenian Genocide survivors.1 Although food procurement methods were diverse, the article offers the most common forms: feeding on wild grass, collecting fruits, berries, and nuts, begging, often referred to by the survivors as life and death struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a well-known fact that the Islamisation of Christian children in the Ottoman Empire has a long history. In the great majority of cases Islamisation was carried out forcibly, accompanied by the erasure of a child's ethnic-religious identity for those who remembered it and totally hiding their ethnic roots and religious affi liation from those who didn't. The whole process of cultivating a new identity and character was a matter of time and of contested methods. This article identifi es a problem area, raising questions and analyzing the role of Turkish intellectual Halidé Edip in the state policy of Turkifi cation of Armenian children at the Antoura orphanage during the Armenian Genocide. It draws comparisons between the three memoirs of Armenian orphans from that orphanage that are known to date, those of Garnik Banean (Karnig Panian as written in his English language memoir), Harutyun Alboyajyan, and Melgon Petrosean and that written by Halidé Edip. As a result, certain essential differences, ploys, as well as facts disguised by Edip have been collected and presented in this article. Therefore, the research carried out identifi es the problems areas relating to various aspects of the Antoura orphanage by raising new questions, offering explanations and new approaches as well as highlighting issues that need to be researched further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies Diana Agabeg Apcar's (1859-1937) perspective regarding the proposed American mandate over genocide-ravaged Armenia. It touches on aspects of historical empathy that are important in assessing the true nature of historical events. Through examining Diana Apcar's correspondence with different individuals such as David Starr Jordan, Thomas J. Edmonds, Charles Albert Gobat as well as her articles related to this topic, this article aims to reveal the attitudes, opinions and mindset of this Armenian historical fi gure regarding the mandate issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

References to the issues of the number of Western Armenians and the ratio of Armenians to other ethnic groups in Western Armenia on the eve of the Armenian Genocide occupy a special place in the context of processes related to drafting a peace agreement with the Ottoman Empire and Armenia's delineation after WWI. These issues were tackled by diverse Armenian offi cial and non-offi cial organizations struggling for the formation of an integral Armenian state, as well as Turkish authorities manipulating, inter alia, also demographic arguments against the Armenian claim for Western Armenia1 and the Entente Powers (particularly the United States of America and Great Britain) needing statistical data for deciding the fate of the Ottoman Empire. In the post-war processes the long-distance controversy of the Armenian and Turkish sides over the issues in question can be fi guratively characterized as one of the stages -"battles" of the "statistical war" that emerged after 1878, i.e. following the entry of the Armenian Question into the international diplomatic agenda. This article aims to present and analyse the statistics on the number of Western Armenians and the ratio of Armenians in Western Armenia to other ethnic groups on the eve of the Armenian Genocide presented by Armenian and Turkish delegations at Paris Peace Conference, as well as data circulated by the US and British diplomacy. It will try to explain the connection between the delineation of Armenia and the number of Western Armenians, the demographic composition of Western Armenia on the eve of the Armenian Genocide. The calculations of the number of Western Armenians have had a certain effect on deliberations around demarcation of the border between the Republic of Armenia and the Ottoman Empire in the context of post-war world regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines retroactive jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for the possibility to litigate compensations for the Armenian properties confiscated during and after the Armenian Genocide. The study considers ECtHR platform for the Armenian Genocide reparations, as ECtHR is the most effective human rights regional Court to compel Turkey to protect human rights and remedy for violations. The paper considers only European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) Article 1 Protocol 1 to avoid as much as possible politicizing this study. Considering the fact that long time has passed since the confiscations, this study considers ratione temporis jurisdiction of the ECtHR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present and analyze data provided by censuses of the Ottoman Armenians from Van, Erzeroum and Bitlis provinces, who, fleeing the threat of massacre during WWI, found refuge in the territory of the Russian Empire, particularly in the Russian Transcaucasia. By comparing data on the Armenian refugees with information provided by other statistical sources, particularly the Armenian patriarchate and the Ottoman government, it is possible to enrich our knowledge of the numbers of Armenian population in Western Armenia and the Ottoman Empire in general on the eve of WWI and the Armenian Genocide. It is shown that the number of refugees is about 70% higher than the number of the Armenian population for the same areas before WWI mentioned in the official Ottoman statistics and corresponds approximately to the figures of the Armenian patriarchate. If account is taken that some people were already dead by the time the refugee censuses were carried out and also that the populations of some settlements within the administrative units in question were not evacuated at all but massacred, then the actual number of the Armenian population in these areas was even higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history of the 200 children rescued from massacres that took place during the Armenian Genocide, who found shelter in Greater Romania (1918-1940), in the Strunga orphanage, which was open for three years, from 1923 to 1926. The Strunga orphanage history approach reflects the dimensions of humanitarian assistance in the Kingdom of Romania on the issue of Armenian refugees, particularly on the fate of children after the genocide. The reconstruction of this orphanage history is based on historical sources, such the Album of Orphans (1923), archive documents and articles from the contemporary press published by the Armenian minority in interwar Romania. In general, the humanitarian dimensions of Armenian community support in Romania offered the orphans the possibility of rehabilitation after the genocide and adaptation to the new social environment that Romania represented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1922, the Czechoslovak traveller Karel Hansa visited the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, where he became acquainted with the lamentable living conditions and pitiful experiences of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide. He was deeply impressed by the work of Western humanitarian organizations, especially the American Near East Relief. This experience led Hansa to decide to write, lecture and try to organise humanitarian aid for Armenian orphans in Czechoslovakia, although his humanitarian efforts had only limited success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During and after the genocide, Armenian women resisted: silently, discreetly, but sometimes also loudly and overtly; and often in spiritual or cultural ways. A common thread through women's testimonies is a spirit of defiance - a sense of dignity, resilience and a refusal to allow their identity to be destroyed - that they have passed on to future generations. This article presents the concept of transmitted defiance, a gendered process that occurs transgenerationally. A hundred years after the genocide, women who are descended from survivors often view their relatives' actions as inspiration for their own lives. Further, many have inherited rebelliousness and an indelible sense of Armenian identity from their mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, which manifests in their own contemporary acts of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at conceptualizing the physical environment of genocidal violence. Perpetrator organizations are understood to use artificial and natural settings to facilitate the task of mass killing. It is argued that mountains may be relatively distinct from other features of terrain because they offer advantages that strategically favor the defender. If targeted groups use these advantages to meet the goals of first arrival, maintaining biological needs, keeping the enemy at bay and alerting the outside world, they increase their chances of surviving destruction. Three case studies are examined: Musa Dagh (1915), Bisesero (1994) and Sinjar (2014). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on extensive studies of archival material and little-known contemporary published sources, this article will explore how and why Danes -- famous in certain circles like Maria Jacobsen, virtually unknown like Hansine Marcher and Jenny Jensen, but all women -- ended up in remote corners of the Ottoman Empire before and during the Armenian Genocide. They were sent out as field workers for one of the world's first proper NGOs, the Danish branch of the Evangelical organization Women Missionary Workers. What did these women from the European periphery experience, and how were they perceived at home and abroad during peace, war, massacre, and genocide? Why did the Armenians among all the suffering peoples of the world become their destiny, even after the genocide? And how did they try to make sense of it all, from everyday life and work before 1915 to the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians and the immediate aftermath? The article will put the missionary and experiences into an ideological, institutional, local, regional, and international context, and consider to what extent the Danish women could be considered feminist and humanitarian pioneers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Genocide denial under the constitutional law, mainly the conflict between constitutionally protected rights of freedom of speech and dignity/equality. The comparison reflects the attitudes of three European States - Germany, Spain and France. The Article discusses the history and background of anti-Holocaust laws in the concerned countries and possible criminalization of the Armenian Genocide denial. If further concentrated on the Constitutional Court decisions, which are marked with differences connected with factors such as history, morals, values of the particular society and, of course, politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the evolution of photographic constructions of Armenian identity and the place of Armenians within Ottoman society through a comparison of images made in the aftermath of the revolution of 1908 with those produced during the 1915-16 period. In the earlier period, recurring motifs of return and reconciliation can be discerned, with there being pictured a new, inclusive Ottoman society. While Armenians were depicted as a vital element within post-revolutionary society, the photographic medium simultaneously identified those that that were thought not to belong and was complicit in their social exclusion. During the Armenian Genocide, photography was employed in a similar visual strategy, with Armenians finding themselves in a changed position, being targeted by the lens and marked as lying outside of a reconceptualised Ottoman society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the motivations of the people participating in genocide is necessary to fully understand the dynamics of genocide and its genesis, as these are the people who actually implement genocidal policies and provide its material manifestation. This paper looks into the motivations of mid-level perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide through the verdicts of the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal which was established in 1919. It is found that opportunistic motivations dominated for perpetrators' participation, particularly the opportunity for material gain, rape, forced marriage, free labour and career progression. However, the ambiguous nature of authority, coercive structures and ideological tenets also provided a framework within which perpetrators could become motivated to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the ongoing conflicts surrounding the safety and security of Artsakh, which has been an issue for over a century. Topics include the war of aggression initiated by the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2020, attempts at ethnic cleansing; the distortion and appropriation of Armenian cultural heritage by official Azerbaijani propaganda; and creation of a research group to address the various aspects of the Artsakh issue and render it accessible in a variety of foreign languages.

This article sets the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, and the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex, into the global context of genocide memorial museums. It discusses architectural and design features as well as the museum's fi rst permanent exhibition (1995-2013, with updates and additions), and argues that while the museum and memorial complex conform to global trends in many ways, the museum exhibition itself showed some differences. Specifically, it seems that the experience of longstanding genocide denial and the continued international non-recognition of the genocide in the early 1990s means that the exhibition had to take on the 'burden of proof' and, unlike in other museums, was almost wholly devoted to constructing a 'case for genocide'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Armenian Genocide and Jewish Holocaust memories, Its perception in the 20th century, their different characteristics and historiographical competitiveness. It discusses the comparison of the memories and identity politics of the Armenian Genocide and Jewish Holocaust and value for Armenian sociopolitical and scientific thought about Genocide studies. It also discusses the opinions of different scholars about its semantic boundaries.

In April 1924, a group of Armenian women genocide survivors in the care of a Danish missionary organization in Thessaloniki staged a play; Sorrow is Turned to Joy, based on the 1909 Adana massacres. The article briefly explores the framework and context of the missionary organization, the actors, and the theatrical performance, followed by a translation of the entire play from Danish into English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]