Armenian Cause Foundation

(tert.am) The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute has published the new monograph of Armen Kirakossian “The Armenian Genocide in Contemporary American Encyclopedias”. The edition was presented in English.

In this publication Dr. Arman Kirakossian studied and analyzed nearly forty specialized and thematic encyclopedias (Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide, Encyclopedia of Genocide, etc.), dictionaries (Dictionary of Genocide, etc.), handbooks (The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, etc.) and other directories published in the USA during the last fifteen years.

Based on the material gathered the author divided the book into chapters which are representing conceptual and factual aspects of the Armenian Genocide beginning from the origins of the Armenian Question.

The book consists of 16 chapters, list of encyclopedias, a bibliography of a literature related to the Armenian Genocide from different encyclopedias.

Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Hayk Demoyan said that the institute plans a release of two important volumes for the end of this year – Encyclopedia of the Armenian Genocide in Armenian and English.

Robert Tatoyan presented the monograph entitled “The question of Western Armenian population in 1878-1914.” According to him, this is one of the most controversial issues because Turkey’s modern historiography and authorities are denying the Armenian Genocide on the basis of the Ottoman Empire statistics, which claims 1,300,000 Armenians there.

“I tried to analyze the data by the two major bodies available – the Ottoman Empire and the Constantinople-based Armenian Patriarchate, which has a right to registration,” he said.

Before the Armenian Question was raised, the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire totaled 2.4m.

Mr Demoyan presented an English-language book entitled “The Armenian Genocide in Literature. Perceptions of Those Who Lived Through the Years of Calamity” by Rubina Peroomian, a research fellow at the University of California.

“The author addresses the second generation’s response to the Armenian Genocide in literature, which reflects people’s psychological approaches.”

(horizonweekly.ca) Eddie Yeghiayan’s recently published collection of works dealing with the Armenian Genocide surpasses all previous bibliographies on the subject in both scope and ambition. Encompassing various forms of media in a multitude of languages and stretching at over a thousand pages, it is massive, yet meticulously catalogued and comprehensive volume. The bibliography will aid experts working across many academic fields and disciplines in their study of the Armenian Genocide and will undoubtedly serve as the standard reference work in the years to come.

The Tome. A Project that Hits Close to Home:

Eddie Yeghiayan is the brother of Vartkes Yeghiayan, the Los Angeles-based attorney who in recent years has filed several lawsuits for Armenian Genocide restitution, and the son of Boghos Kevorkian-Yeghiayan (1905-1962) from Sparta, near Konia, and Aroussiag Terzian (1915-2003), both survivors of the Armenian Genocide who settled in Ethiopia. It was in this African Armenian diasporic community that Eddie and his brother Vartkes were born.

Eddie Yeghiayan was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on September 23, 1940. He began his secondary education at the American Academy in Larnaca, Cyprus, but was obliged to leave in 1956 in the middle of civil war while the island was still under British occupation. He relocated to California, where he received his high school diploma from Berkeley High school in 1959 and later received a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963. He then continued his education at the San Francisco State University, where he received an MA Degree in 1967and completed a second Master’s Degree at UC Berkeley in Library Science (MLS) in 1977. By then he had already completed his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1974 from the University of California, Irvine.

After a two year stint as an instructor of philosophy and religion at San Mateo College from 1972 to 1974, he returned to UC Irvine to assume a position as a Librarian. He worked in that capacity from 1974 to 2004, when he retired. During his tenure at Irvine Yeghiayan put together the bibliographies of a number of leading contemporary intellectual luminaries and philosophers, including Edward Said, Wolfgang Iser, Judith Butler, Willard Van Orman Quine, and Jean-François Lyotard, to name just a few.

(One can learn more about the bibliographies he has put together by clicking on the following link: http://www.uv.es/~fores/programa/yeghiayan.html).

The Tome. Contents:

Given his background, it perhaps should come as no surprise that Yeghiayan would have chosen to tackle on the subject as large in scope as the Armenian Genocide. The tome is divided into eight chapters, which are categorized thusly.

Chapter One is devoted to the bibliographic citation of books and articles published in periodicals and academic and specialized journals. It covers some 560 pages and contains 4312 entries.

Chapter Two is devoted to newspapers. It covers the period from 1833 to 2011. It consists of some 230 pages and covers all aspects of the Armenian question as part of the Eastern Question of the Ottoman Empire. The interesting thing about this chapter is that the entries are assorted chronologically. If we take the average number of entries as 18 per page, then this section contains 4,140 entries more or less, which makes it a huge repository on the subject matter.

Chapter Three includes items regarding the Armenian Genocide in journals and magazines. It covers the period from 1823 to 2011 and spans some 210 pages. Here again if we take the average number of entries per page we end up with approximately 1,890 entries.

Chapter Four is devoted to works of fiction, poetry, drama, and subject matter.

The fifth chapter consists not only of doctoral dissertations and masters’ theses, but also undergraduate senior theses relating to the massacres. There are approximately 145 such entries.

Chapter Six contains some 25 pages on audio-visual material. These include documentaries, movies, voice recordings, etc.

Chapter Seven is solely dedicated to archival sources. It is a complete list including collections that have microfilms or microfiches, as well as repositories where the physical presence is required to conduct research.

Finally, in Chapter Eight, Yeghiayan familiarizes us with electronic and internet resources available on the Armenian Genocide.

Some Remarks:

With this publication, Yeghiayan has presented to us the most complete reference work on the subject of the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian Question. It is an important tool that universities and libraries should be quick to stock up on.

It is significant to note that this bibliography was published by the Vatican and was, in fact, formally presented to Pope Francis I and to delegates attending the centenary commemoration of the Armenian Genocide in Vatican City during the middle part of April. The bibliography is up to date to 2012, although there is talk of publishing a compendium volume that includes references to all works that have appeared until the middle part of this year. There is also word that a searchable PDF format of the book is being prepared on compact disc. This reviewer has been informed that attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan’s office has taken upon itself to update the compilation electronically on an annual basis and aided in the effort by Armen Manuk-Khaloyan, the law office historian. Continuing Eddie Yeghiayan’s work and bringing it in line with the digital age is a very important endeavor and his work is a welcome and timely contribution to the literature of the Armenian Genocide. Mr. Yeghiayan should be commended for his efforts…

Purchases of the book can be made from the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vaticana) website. For a direct link, visit: http://www.libreriaeditricevaticana.va/content/libreriaeditricevaticana/it/novita-editoriali/the-armenian-genocide.html

(asbarez.com) FRESNO—The Armenian Museum of Fresno is proud to release The Cry of the Tormented, a book comprised of more than 300 letters written by Armenians during 1915-1918 who were facing atrocities, starvation, deportation, murder, and annihilation. These letters were written to relatives and friends across the world, including those who settled in Fresno and across the United States. First published in Armenian in 1922, it is now available on-line in English and Russian. The project is ongoing and German, Turkish, and French editions are forthcoming with even more translations to follow.

On Thursday, May 21 at 7 PM, the book was officially presented at a special event held at the University of California Center in Fresno. Armenians and non-Armenians alike—were in attendance for the release and the panel discussion that followed. Bill McEwen Editorial Pages Editor of the Fresno Bee served as the Master of Ceremonies. Opening remarks were made by Varoujan Der Simonian, President of the Board of Directors of the Armenian Museum of Fresno; the panelists were Garo Khachigian, MD, Mary Ellen Hewsen, and Margit Hazarabedian, Ph.D.

The Cry of the Tormented is a large volume collected by Bedros Donabedian, a humanitarian worker for Armenian refugees. Although a century has passed since that dark period of Armenian—and, indeed, human—history, many voices of the victims of the Genocide remain unheard. Hundreds of those voices are contained in this book. Thus, the Armenian Museum of Fresno –upon the encouragement of Abraham Terian, Ph.D., who presented the Museum with a copy of the book—undertook a project to translate The Cry of the Tormented into as many languages as possible, to amplify these voices of truth against the suffocating silence of death and denial. In Dr. Terian’s words, “This is yet another centennial memorial by the Fresno Armenians for the martyrs of the Armenian Genocide.”

The letters that make up The Cry of the Tormented are preserved verbatim and edited only for formatting and accessibility to English readers. The rough, peasant vernacular of the original text is present with all of its linguistic and grammatical idiosyncrasies present to the best of the translators’ abilities. As with the original publication, the new translations of The Cry of the Tormented maintain all the experiential and emotional power of its contents by retaining its unedited, extemporaneous form.

The Cry of the Tormented brings the unimaginable horrors of the Armenian Genocide to life in a way that, in the words of the book’s German translator, Margit Hazarabedian, Ph.D., “became personal, became visceral. I was reading, but I saw with my own eyes.” That is the power of these letters. Their contents are so real that they take the discourse on and understanding of the Genocide from the lofty perch of analysis and intellect to an emotionally comprehensible level. Indeed, it is a necessary and important thing to be able to comprehend the incomprehensible in such a way that no one can shut it out, and, moreover, makes it accessible to as many of the world’s people as possible. As English editor, Mary Ellen Hewsen, remarked, “I always understood something of the Armenian Genocide intellectually, analytically, I studied it in school, but it took these letters to teach me emotionally what I missed intellectually.”

The veracity of the letters that make up this book is confirmed and enhanced by the book’s preface. It is “Neither Violets Nor Petals of a Rose”, the last column written for The Fresno Bee by the late Roger Tatarian, Former Vice President and Editor-In-Chief of United Press International and Professor of Journalism at CSU Fresno. Written three days before his passing, the piece reflects upon the letters sent to his father from Bitlis –in what is now Eastern Turkey—by his uncle Simon between 1912 and 1914, and how the contents of the letters described events in the region that foreshadowed the coming massacres and deportation of the Armenian people. Interspersed in those accounts are many messages of hope, wisdom, and faith for the Armenians of Bitlis and Van and for Roger Tatarian’s family struggling to survive in their new home in Fresno. The firsthand presentation of history and hope-against-hope is akin to those in The Cry of the Tormented and further validates them.

What The Cry of the Tormented shows is that the Armenian Genocide is more than just a tragedy; it is a crime against humanity. Through reading this collection of letters, one can see great inhumanity and not divorce oneself from it, and, instead, be engaged in demanding justice for all human beings and making this a world where atrocities against entire nations can no longer take place.

The Armenian Museum of Fresno would like to thank everyone who contributed to this extraordinary project. The first thanks goes to Dr. Abraham Terian who provided the Armenian Museum with original 1922 text and initiated the translation project. “Without him, this book would not have happened,” said Varoujan Der Simonian, Director of the Armenian Museum of Fresno. Next, the Museum acknowledges the time and dedication of the team of scholars who have and continue to put months of emotionally and intellectually taxing work into this project. These incredible volunteers from three generations include Dr. Garo Khachigian, Mary Ellen Hewsen –English edition; Alex McKinsey and Professor Irina Merzakhanian –Russian edition—and Margit Hazarabedian, Ph.D. into German.

In his opening remarks, Der Simonian extended special thanks to Dr. Khachigian and Mary Ellen Hewsen, who are, respectively, the translator and editor of the English edition of The Cry of the Tormented. “Dr. Khachigian is familiar with the complex dialects of Armenian that these letters are written in as it is akin to the language of his grandfather, thus he had the monumental challenge of literally translating the Armenian text that was often mixed with Turkish, Kurdish, and Arabic. Besides being a difficult task, it was also emotionally very demanding,” said Der Simonian. The Cry of the Tormented is more than just a memorial for the martyrs of the Armenian Genocide, “our goal is that after 100 years we want their voices to be heard by as many people as possible – it is a call to our collective responsibility to make this world a better place for all human beings to live and let live,” Der Simonian said.

Dr. Terian emphasized the significance of these letters by saying that they are written during the genocide – while the atrocities were actually taking place. He further commented that these letters are not recollections of memories that someone may argue of their validity, but they are the voices of the eyewitnesses, themselves, who are no longer with us.

Dr. Khachigian describes his integral role in this project in his own words, “I am not a translator, but my heart and brain worked as one to the task, with passion. I realized the importance of this task that Varoujan Der Simonian had initiated, and took the challenge to translate into English” Mary Ellen Hewsen, a scholar of political science, especially as it pertains to the study of the Middle East observed in the editing process that “Trying to remain clinical while working was the hardest part,” because of the great trauma depicted in the letters. However, in reflection on her role in the project, she says that “I am humbled, as an odar, to be among so many Armenians.”

The Armenian Museum extends additional thanks to The Fresno Bee. In particular, Executive Editor, Jim Boren and Editorial Pages Editor, Bill McEwen. They were responsible for providing and permitting the use of Roger Tatarian’s “Neither Violets Nor Petals from a Rose” collection of letters that Mr. Tatarian’s father had received from his uncle prior to WWI that were published two weeks before his death in his last column in the Fresno Bee. Mr. McEwen read some of these letters to the audience.

All profits from the sale of The Cry of the Tormented will go to a fund to have hard copies of the translation printed and distributed to schools, libraries, churches, and cultural centers around the United States, with Fresno County as the priority.