armenian genocide Archives

National Cinema Center of Armenia to shoot six films dedicated to Armenian Genocide

May 28, 2014 By administrator

Six films, including cartoons, are among the project of The National Cinema Center of Armenia (NCCA).

They are dedicated to the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, NCCA Director Gevorg Gevorgyan told Tert.am.

“Fiction films, documentaries and cartoons. Serge Avetikyan will shoot one of them. Another film is a joint project with the Czech side.”

The Zhoghovurd newspaper reported earlier that the state commission to coordinate the events marking the centennial of the Armenian Genocide has never allocated funds for shooting a film in Hollywood. Gevorgyan said the idea was discussed several years ago.

“In Hollywood it is a matter of billions. Of course, the idea was suggested, but there were no plans.”

SCREAMERS FILM DIRECTOR CARLA GARAPEDIAN, Widened the Public Debate on Armenian Genocide (Video)

May 27, 2014 By administrator

May 27, 2014

Thursday, May 22, 2014, at UCI School of Humanities, The Vahe & Armine Meghrouni Lecture Series in Armenian Studies, presents: ” How ‘Screamers’ and System of a Down Widened the Parameters of Public Debate About the Armenian Genocide ” with CARLA GARAPEDIAN, Ph. D., Documentary Film Director.

Carla Garapedian is a documentary filmmaker. She directed “Children of the Secret State” about North Korea and was an anchor for BBC World News

Carla Garapedian has received numerous awards for her piercing documentaries. In 2006 “Screamers,” cocreated and produced by Peter McAlevey shared the American Film Institute Audience Award for Best Picture. On February 27, 2009, AGBU honored Garapedian with GenNext’s “Community Hero award.” Garapedian accepted the award for her film Screamers, a critically acclaimed documentary about System of a Down’s efforts to raise Armenian Genocide awareness in the minds of mainstream audiences. During her acceptance speech.

See the full Version of SCREAMERS

Forget-me-not symbol of centennial of Armenian Genocide

May 27, 2014 By administrator

The forget-me-not will be the symbol of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Empire.

The slogan of the centennial is “I remember and demand,” Vigen Sargsyan, Chief of the Armenian Presidential Staff, told reporters following the 4^th meeting of the state commission for the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The state commission held a contest, and the symbol offered by the Sharm holding won.

“The forget-me-not has the same meaning in many languages. This is the reason why it has been chosen. The 12 pillars of the Memorial to Armenian Genocide victims (Tsisternakaberd) will be vividly depicted on the symbol, which will actively be used in the events marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.”

The black is a symbol of genocide, the violet is the symbol of the present and future, and the five petals mean the five continents where Armenian Genocide survivors settled down and founded Armenian communities.

As regards the slogan “I remember and demand,” Mr Sargsyan said that its aim is that each person remembers his or her family’s history and the people’s tragedy.

“We must present this demand to the entire world,” he said.

Armenian Genocide monument unveiled in Massachusetts

May 27, 2014 By administrator

May 27, 2014 – 09:31 AMT

A monument to Armenian Genocide victims was unveiled earlier this month at Lowell City Hall, Massachusetts.

While other monument unveilings went through some tenuous moments in other parts of the world, this one was dedicated and blessed with fanfare as various churches and organizations staged a united stand behind a group called the Merrimack Valley Armenian Monument Committee, according to the Armenian Weekly.

The stone exceeds six feet in length and takes its place in Monument Park where other ethnic groups are represented. Anyone entering or leaving the building is bound to take notice.

The mother’s hands jets out over a khatchkar (cross-stone) wrapped around an elaborate border with an emotional message below. At the base, an inscription reads, “In Memory” in Armenian.

“There are approximately 230 monuments dedicated to the Armenian Genocide in 42 countries around the world,” said artistic designer Daniel Varoujan Hejinian. “Most of these monuments are located in land belonging to Armenian churches and organizations. What’s so special about this is the fact it is a first in the diaspora—an Armenian Genocide memorial in front of a government building.”

Combined with bronze and granite, the stone shows a mother’s weaving hands sculptured in clay, then refined through an elaborate process to exude a 3-dimensional effect.

As a model, the artist used his sister Lena’s hands. Buried into the foundation of the stone was an actual piece of crochet done by Hejinian’s mother as a symbolic gesture of his family history and the qualities that enhanced the concept.

“In spite of the pain and horror of our genocide, the Armenian people everywhere cast their hopes and dreams, knot by knot, as they bloom and prosper,” added Hejinian, who has personally put up more than 50 genocide billboards around Greater Boston over the past 18 years.

“Our mothers were dream weavers,” he said. “They worked the mills in Lowell, holding down nearly two-thirds of all textile jobs in this city. They came here to weave the fabric of our culture and we owe them all a debt of gratitude.”

In attendance was also 102-year-old Nellie Nazarian, the lone genocide survivor in Merrimack Valley, joined by her family.

The Armenian Weekly. Lowell Genocide Memorial Gets Rave Notice

450 new archival documents provided to the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan

May 25, 2014 By administrator

Nearly 450 photographs were offered to the Genocide Museum by Khaniguian family living in Greece. Family archives going back to genocide transmitted for several generations and which have been entrusted to Yerevan. The collection represents many photographs from the early 20th century, taken in the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Egypt, and Syria in orphanages.

They are orphans Armenian genocide survivors, gathered in institutions or orphanages. These archives contain numerous annotations, names and places that are important elements in the case of genocide. “On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, this collection is not symbolic, it is also exceptional on the reality of genocide. These photographs have their rightful place in the new part of the Genocide Museum will open its doors in April 2015. Among these photographs that the arrest Young Turk leader, Ismail Hakki Bey by military English is exceptional, “said Hayk Demoyan director Genocide Museum in Yerevan.

Krikor Amirzayan

Armenian Genocide Museum Gifted Hundreds of Original Photographs

May 24, 2014 By administrator

YEREVAN—The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute has acquired a unique and rich collection of photos related to the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath. Highlighting the importance of the preservations of memory and its transmission to future generations, the heirs of the Khanikian family from Greece donated around 450 original photos to the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan.

The collection contains original photos documenting the lives of the countless orphans of the Genocide, the orphanages in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Greece and Syria, the orphan care activities of America’s Near East Relief organization, as well as photographs related to episodes of the history of the Armenian Genocide. The majority of the photographs have extremely important original captions on their back sides.

The director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Hayk Demoyan, noted that “on the eve of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the acquisition of this collection is not only symbolic, but also an exceptional event for our museum, and these photographs will find their special place in the exhibition of the new museum to be opened in 2015. Among the photos, the photo of Young Turk leader Ismail Hakki Bey arrested by British soldiers is of unique importance, indeed”

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute thanked the Armenian Ambassador to Greece Gagik Ghalachyan for his help in the acquisition of this unique collection.

In early September 1915, American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau appealed to the U.S. State Department via telegraph, in which he considered it very necessary to set up a special committee in order to organize fundraising and finding resources to support those who survived the massacres.

From October, 1915, the fundraising organizations were carried out by the Armenian Relief Committee. Two similar committees in the Middle East operating before that were then united with the Armenian Relief Committee and formed “American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief”, which on August 6, 1919 was renamed as “Near East Relief” by the decision of the U.S. Congress.

Initially established as a temporary Committee, “Near East Relief” turned into a large organization. Originally it aimed at raising about $100,000, but during fifteen years of its activity the organization had more than 110 million dollars of investment in saving refugees and orphans. This humanitarian mission was carried out by American citizens and missionaries in the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Balkans. It was the first ever large-scale humanitarian effort of its kind.

Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide Ayşe Hür

May 23, 2014 By administrator

By: Hambersom Aghbashian

Ayse Hur (b. 1956, Artvin ), is a Turkish researcher, author , historian and columnist. Her parents ( father of Pomak*- Bulgarian speaking Muslim- origin and her mother of Turkish origin) were both teachers (1) .She lived with her parents in Urfa and Edirne, then moved to Istanbul. Having completed her double major in 1992 from the departments of history and international relations at Bogazici University, she joined the History Foundation of Turkey and worked on such projects as the Istanbul Encyclopedia. In 2004, she completed her master’s thesis on “The European Union’s Policies of Reconciling with History and the Armenian Question” at the Ataturk Institute of Bogazici University, then pursued her doctorate degree at the same institution. She is a member of the editorial board of Social History, and writes historical and political articles in various newspapers and journals, including Taraf, Radikal, Birikim, and Agos.(2)

According to Turkish literatureblog.wordpress.com (Dec.8, 2013), ” Being a historian, Ayşe Hür is particularly known for her articles in the widely read Turkish newspaper Radikal. Her texts often deal with current political issues and provide related historical insights at the same time. In her articles entitled “I apologize for not apologizing” published in the Armenian Weekly in 2009, she wrote about the Armenian genocide and the very sensitive topic of collective amnesia as opposed to cosmopolitan memory. She attempts to make peace with the past.(2)

In a speech which was delivered at a conference on the Legacy of the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, held in Stockholm, Sweden on the 23 March 2009, Ayse Hur recalled the reply of Kiazim Karabekir to Georgi Chicherin in the early 20’s: “In Turkey there has been neither an Armenia nor territory inhabited by Armenians” . Since then indeed, Turkey’s policies didn’t really changed up to the eve of the 21st century. Basically, it followed the classical patterns of inconsistent denial, i.e. gross minimization, condoning, rationalization and trivialization. These patterns which are not specific to the denial of the Armenian Genocide but which are common to any Genocide denial: they have been extensively described by many prominent scholars. The old-style Kemalist denial aimed at reaching the provisional acquittal of Turkey. The new-style denial aims at the permanent deferment of the verdict.She concluded her speech by an optimistic observation” How malicious is this new denial strategy, it could eventually turn against its promoters.”(3)

Ayşe Hür was one of the Turkish intellectuals who signed a letter asking the Royal Library in Copenhagen” not to Stand Before Turkey’s Democratization and Confrontation with its History”. The Turkish embassy’s initiative to open an alternative exhibition at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, where the exhibition “The Armenian Genocide and the Scandinavian Response” opened on November 6 ,2012 was the motive to the letter where they mentioned that ” Over one million Ottoman Armenian citizens were forced out of their homes and annihilated in furtherance of an intentional state policy. What exists today is nothing other than the blatant denial of this reality by the Turkish government.(4)

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*Pomaks (Bulgarian – Turkish: Pomaklar) is a term used for Bulgarian-speaking Muslims who are indigenous to southern Bulgaria, Northern Greece, Turkey, Albania, Republic of Macedonia and Kosovo.

1- http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ay%C5%9Fe_H%C3%BCr

2- http://www.armenianweekly.com/author/ayse-hur/

3-http://turkishliteratureblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/ayse-hur-a-free-spirit/

4- http://eurotopie.leylekian.eu/2009/06/turkeys-policies-and-holes-with-regard.html

5- http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/The_Armenian_Genocide_and_the_Scandinavian_Response

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France: The Armenian genocide from 1915 to 2015. Speeches and performances (conference)

May 21, 2014 By administrator

The Armenian Genocide 1915-2015

Speeches and performances

International symposium will be held at the University Paul Valery,

5 and 6 February 2015.

Event co-organized by the RIRRA 21 and EA CRISES

Montpellier

To mark the centennial commemoration of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated in 1915 under the government of the Young Turks, the RIRRA 21 and CRISES laboratory organized a symposium entitled “The Armenian Genocide 1915-2015. Discourse and representations. “

The aim of this conference is to consider the Armenian Genocide in its relation to the texts and images he produced and have perpetuated their news and memory, resistance to the will of annihilation of the executioner.

One of the peculiarities of the Armenian genocide is a hundred years after the fact, it is still not recognized by Turkey, heir to the Ottoman Empire. Become in history a political issue, the genocide in the Armenian case, not only history but also a politicized object object, which influences the forms of its representations and historiographical discourse.

If in a famous passage of his Poetics, Aristotle distinguished poet historian, the latter faithfully related the past when the poet, he was at a higher level of generality, so philosophy, since the twentieth century, which opened the era of genocide, this distinction is made to be rethought. Indeed, the boundaries between work and historiographical literary creation tend increasingly to blur: novelists and artists to trigger this controversy too when fictionalizes history. We think and controversies raised by Life is Beautiful Roberto Benigni and The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Little. Document, testimony, archive and often serve underbody creative writing while at the same time, the historiography offer more and more like writing.

As part of this conference, it will identify the relationship between the historical event and the text and images that are as such.

In line with work on sites of memory, it will explore places of memory of the Armenian Genocide. How museums do they put on stage the event? What about memorials or, conversely, their absence?

On the other hand, it will establish the subjectivity or ideology in the historical discourse on the Armenian genocide. The discourse of historians may indeed be dictated by the official of a State or influenced by more personal sensitivities within the religious or political persuasion speech. Similarly, the representation (or lack of performance) of the Armenian Genocide in textbooks of different states can be questioned: do we teach the Armenian genocide in the same way in France, the United States , Russia, Turkey and Armenia, and why?

Finally, the conference will explore literary and artistic representations of the event. He will bring to question the status of the document and on the part of fictionalization, emotional and traumatic load works. A confrontation between literary and artistic works Armenian and Turkey also seems to win. How the event is perceived on one side and the other of the border? How the Armenian diasporas they perpetuate the memory in Armenian literature and art? What gaps remain in terms of writing and creating?

This meeting is mainly based on the intersection and dialogue between different disciplinary fields. It will result in a publication: the participants’ contributions will be made to the Scientific Committee in the weeks following the conference.

Proposals for papers should be sent to the Scientific Committee organizing the event 15 September 2014 at the latest.

Contact: montpelliercolloque2015@yahoo.fr

Organization: Patrick Louvier, Annick Asso, Helena Dermichian.

Scientific Committee: Gérard Dedeyan, Frédéric Rousseau, Vincent Duclert Patrick Louvier, Corinne Saminadayar, Annick Asso, Marie-Eve Thérenty, Marie-Christine Rochmann, Helena Dermichian.

Responsible: Annick Asso Helena Dermichian Patrick Louvier

reference url

http://rirra21.upv.univ-montp3.fr/ adresseMontpellier

Forbes names Armenian Genocide Museum must-see place

May 21, 2014 By administrator

May 21, 2014 – 15:48 AMT

Forbes magazine has included the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) in the list of 9 must-see memorial museums of the world.

The AGMI opened in 1995, concurrently commemorating the eightieth anniversary of this crime against humanity perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire.

The two-storey construction is built directly into the side of a hill so as not to detract from the imposing presence of the Genocide Monument nearby. The first floor of the Museum is subterranean and houses the administrative, engineering and technical maintenance offices as well as Komitas Hall, which seats 170 people. It also hosts the storage rooms for museum artifacts and scientific objects, as well as a library and a reading hall. The Museum exhibit is located on the second floor in a space just over 1000 square meters.

As AGMI director Hayk Demoyan said earlier this year, the opening of the new premises will take place in April 2015. “We will expand the territory and introduce new designer solutions and technologies applied in the best museums of the world,” he said.

The Forbes list also includes the Holocaust History Museum (Yad Vashem) in Jerusalem, Museum of Maritime Disasters in Crimea, Ukrainian National Chornobyl Museum in Kyiv, Gulag History Museum in Moscow, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Titanic Belfast Museum, Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, as well as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York.

ABC News Kim Kardashian Talks About ‘Getting People to Acknowledge’ Armenian Genocide

May 20, 2014 By administrator

While attending a gala Wednesday celebrating the 20th anniversary of a project started by “Schindler’s List” director that gets video testimonials from Holocaust survivors, the reality star, 33, spoke out about another horrible event.

Read: Kim Kardashian Reveals Fears Her Daughter With Kanye West Will Face Racism

In recent years, the testimonials have come from other tragedies, including including the Rwandan and something close to home for Kardashian — the Armenian genocide.

“I am here because I have been really passionate about getting people to acknowledge the Armenian genocide,” she said “The foundation here has acknowledged 400 Armenian genocide survivors and gotten their testimony, and I’m really proud of that. So, I’m here to represent the Armenians.”

She continued: “I met an amazing woman tonight who is a 100-year-old survivor and she lived at the same home where my grandparents lived … it was an honor to meet her.”

The Armenian Genocide also known as the Armenian Holocaust happened in 1915 and included more than a million deaths. The tragedy took place after World War I.

Check out the USC Shoah Foundation for these testimonials and more.

Be a reporter: Write and send your article to www.gagrule.net