Fifty-five years ago, April 24, 1965, can truly be seen as, in the words of author (and NAASR Board member) Michael Bobelian, “the birth of the modern campaign of justice” for the Armenian Genocide. 1965 may also be seen as the year of the re-birth of efforts to document the Armenian Genocide, which would lead to the creation, in more recent years, of a growing body of scholarship on the Genocide.
The most significant publication of that watershed year was Hushamatean Mets Egheṛni 1915-1965
(Յուշամատեան Մեծ Եղեռնի 1915-1965 / Memorial Book of the Great Crime, 1915-1965, Pēyrut‘: Tparan Atlas, 1965), under the editorship of Kersam Aharonian with Nazaret Topalian.
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Hushamatean Mets Egheṛni was a ground-breaking publication, presenting a wealth of material across its 1,100+ pages containing some 400 images and several maps. Encyclopedic in its scope, it includes historical material on the Genocide in numerous regions, memoirs, literary material, accounts of resistance, information on territorial claims, and more. Although not the work of scholars—there were not yet scholars of the Armenian Genocide, or of genocide in general—it was semi-scholarly in its approach to the subject and was probably the most significant (to say nothing of the most substantial) book on the Genocide up to that point.
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What is sometimes lost sight of is that in the fifty years between 1915 and 1965, in fact much important work was done, mostly in the Armenian language and mostly by non-academics, to document the Armenian Genocide. In addition to many important survivor memoirs, memorial volumes (that is, յուշամատեաններ / hushmateanner), and literary works, there were efforts to collect data and documents and publish them with some form of analysis.
Among the many valuable books that might be mentioned are:
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T‘eodik (T‘eodoros Labchinchean), Hushardzan April Tasněmēki (Յուշարձան Ապրիլ Տասնըմէկի / Memorial to April Eleventh [i.e., April 24], K. Polis: Tpagrut‘iwn Ō. Arzuman, 1919)
T‘eodik (more generally known in Western Armenian as T’eotig) was the well-known editor of the Amenun Taretsoytsě (Ամենուն Տարեցոյցը / Everybody’s Almanac) published between 1907 and 1929. Hushardzan April Tasněmēki provided information and biographies of those arrested on April 24, 1915 (April 11 according to the old calendar), and other Armenian intellectuals and community leaders who were victims of the Genocide. (T‘eodik himself was a survivor.) The book has been translated into English by Ara Stepan Melkonian.
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Sepuh Akuni, Milion mě Hayeru Jardi Patmut‘iwně (Միլիոն մը Հայերու Ջարդի Պատմութիւնը 1914-1918 / The History of the Massacre of a Million Armenians 1914-1918, K. Polis: Tpagr. H. Asaturean Ordik‘, 1920)
Akuni (Aguni) was the editor of Zhamanak newspaper in Constantinople and a survivor of the Genocide. Milion mě Hayeru Jardi Patmut‘iwně was the first effort to write an overall account of the Genocide, using available data and documents such as the Bryce/Toynbee Blue Book, the work of Lepsius, and more. A translation of portions of the book was carried out by Ishkhan Jinbashian.
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Petros Tonapetean, Dzayn Taṛapelotsʻ (Ձայն Տառապելոց / Voice of the Tormented, Paris: Tparan Hakob B. T‘iwrapean, 1922)
This remarkable book compiled by Tonapetean (Donabedian), who served with the British High Commission in post-war Constantinople, is a collection of more than 300 letters to family or friends by Armenians who survived long enough to reach Der Zor or Eastern Armenia or numerous other areas scattered around the world. There is an e-book English translation sponsored by the Armenian Museum of Fresno.
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