Combien d’Arméniens dans la Turquie ottomane avant le génocide?

In 1971, Dr. Sarkis Karayan, was asked by his professor, Dr. Stanley Kerr, to calculate how many Armenians were killed in the Genocide of 1915 perpetrated by Ottoman Turkey. Karayan realized that to answer that question, a different question needed to be asked:  “How many Armenians lived in Ottoman Turkey before the Genocide began?” Though he was a medical doctor, Karayan took on Kerr’s request and began what would become a lifelong research project that culminated in his writing a 674-page book,  Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, 1914: A Geographical and Demographic Gazetteer.

This landmark volume, the first of its kind, contains a meticulously researched and footnoted list of more than 4,000 Armenian-inhabited towns and villages in 1914 and a census of how many Armenians lived in Turkey in the early 20th century.

Karayan fell ill and passed away before the book was published. Thanks to his wife, Dr. Silva Karayan, the volume was published last month by the Gomidas Institute in London with support from the George Ignatius Foundation and the Armenian Film Foundation.

Gomidas Institute publisher Ara Sarafian was recently in Los Angeles and Fresno to launch the book at events at the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church, Abril bookstore and Cal State University in Fresno.

At Abril, on October 23, Sarafian told a full house, “This is the first English language book dealing with the demographic profile of Ottoman Armenians on such a massive scale.  It is the result of several decades of probing Armenian, Turkish, German and French books, maps and archival sources.”

Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, 1914  is a reference book for anyone wanting to know more about their roots in Turkey before the Genocide.  In Fresno, Sarafian told the audience at an event on October 25 hosted by Cal State University Professor Barlow Der Mugerditchian, that “successive Turkish governments have continued with Turkification programs,” including renaming hundreds of Armenian villages starting in 1959, which has made it nearly impossible for people to find the birthplaces of their ancestors

source : Massis media.