By: Hambersom Aghbashian
Osman Köker is the founder and the editor-in-chief of Birzamanlar Publications. ( Birzamanlar Publications publishes books about Turkey’s multicultural heritage, and how 
it’s vanishing). He was born in Marash, and has worked for many years as a correspondent, editor, and publisher. His work has focused on the publication of historical subjects; between the years of 1997-2001, he was the editor of “Toplumsal Tarih” (Social History), published by Tarih Vakfi (Foundation of History). Throughout Turkey and in various other countries, he has made presentations on the history of the Armenian people in Turkey. His book ” Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago : postcards from the collection of Orlando Carlo” was issued in Turkey in 2005. The book contains century-old Ottoman post-cards depicting different aspects of the peaceful and, in many cases, prosperous life of the Armenian community in the former Ottoman Empire. Through 500 postcards from the period, the album endeavors to show, city by city and with supporting figures, how omnipresent Armenian communities were across the Ottoman territory and their role in society.(1)
In his article “1915 tragedy to be commemorated for second time in Turkey “, Emine Dolmci wrote in Today’s Zaman (Istanbul- 20 April 2011),” Publisher and human right activist Osman Koker said that there’s no Armenian problem in Turkey, but that there’s a Turkish problem in Turkey, which is about killings and denial. I see the solution of this problem right here,” he said. “This problem will be solved within Turkey. Many years ago, people were killed and it still weights heavy on us. Whenever Turkey realizes this pain and makes an apology, whenever it drops its policy of denial, this problem will be solved. Outside of Turkey, there might be parliament resolutions, protests, and so on, and they are free to do that, but if all countries recognized the Armenian Genocide, while Turkey didn’t, this problem would still exist. In that sense, any little event or commemoration done in Turkey is very important to me.”(2)
According to http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/mydearbrother/, The Armenian Institute, London, has organized the exhibition: My Dear Brother: Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago (1st May – 24th July 2010) at the Brunei Gallery . It provides fascinating insights into the life of the Armenians living in the borders of modern 
Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century through a large collection of postcards of daily life and scenery from across the region. The exhibition of both enlarged images and original postcards was conceived and put together by Osman Köker, based on his book by the same name (Istanbul: Birzamanlar, 2005).(3).
According to MASISPOST, In 2005, Osman Köker first came to international attention when he organized the unprecedented exhibition “Sireli Yeghpayrs (My Dear Brother)” in Istanbul. Eventually seen by thousands of people. The exhibition has also been mounted in Paris, Munich, Koln, Frankfurt, Yerevan and scheduled (Glendale – March 11.2011) . Osman Köker was also involved in the creation of the Istanbul Turkish-Armenian daily Agos and Aras Publishing House( 1996), the only publishing house which publishes books in Armenian and books translated into Turkish from Armenian.(4).
Armenians in Diyarbekir Province by Osman Koker and Orlando Carlo Calumeno was published in (2011) , and Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago, Volume II: by Osman Koker and Ahmet Fethi was published in (2013) .(5)
Over the decades, the Armenian past in Anatolia was gradually erased from the collective memory of Turkish society, as the nationalist project achieved success. Taking all these historical developments into account, the memorialization project “Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago” emerged in 2005 as an attempt to break through the discourse of denial and remind Turks of the significant role played by Armenians in economic and cultural life of the Empire for 500 years.(6)
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Orlando Carlo Calumeno comes from a “Levantine” family that immigrated to Turkey from Italy. He has been collecting Ottoman-era postcards for the past 25 years, and has accumulated more than 15,000 of them by now. In fact, many of these cards have Armenian, Ottoman Turkish and French writing on them, a reflection of the multilingualism of the Ottoman Empire in general.
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1- http://www.epfound.am/english/whats-new/announcements/armenians-in-turkey-100-years-ago-book-presentation-in-yerevan.html
2- http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide_Commemorations_in_Turkey
3- http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/mydearbrother/
4- http://massispost.com/2011/01/illustrated-lecture-in-glendale-by-osman-koker-on-“images-of-armenians-in-turkey-100-years-ago
5- http://www.amazon.com
6- http://www.memorializeturkey.com/en/memorial/armenians-in-turkey-100-years-ago/
also published on Nor Or, June 12,2014