06 05 2009- PETER BALAKIAN TO PRESENT ARMENIAN GOLGOTHA IN TALK aT FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES

Prof. Peter Balakian
Press release on May 19 talk byin Brookline, MA, at Facing History and Ourselves.
Prof. Peter Balakian will present a lecture entitled “Armenian Golgotha: An Eyewitness Account of the Armenian Genocide, on Tuesday, May 19, at 6:30 p.m., at the Facing History and Ourselves headquarters, 16 Hurd Road, Brookline, MA. The event will be co-sponsored by Facing History and Ourselves and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR). Please note that seating is limited. RSVP for the event by contacting Jolene Jones at Jolene_jones@facing.org or 617-735-1623.
Armenian Golgotha, long recognized as one of the most important eyewitness accounts of the Armenian modern genocide, is the work of Grigoris Vartabed Balakian, who was among the initial group of Armenian intellectuals arrested on April 24, 1915. Unlike most of those arrested, Balakian survived and went on to fulfill his pledge to bear witness to all he had seen and experienced during his four-year ordeal. The book has now been translated into English by Prof. Peter Balakian, grand-nephew of the author, and Aris Sevag.
Balakian sees his countrymen sent in carts, on donkeys, or on foot to face certain death in the desert of northern Syria. He brings to life the words and deeds of survivors, foreign witnesses, and Turkish officials involved in the massacre process, and also of those few brave, righteous Turks, who, with some of their German allies working for the Baghdad Railway, resisted orders calling for the death of the Armenians. Balakian’s escape through forest and over mountain, in disguise as a railroad worker and then as a German soldier, is a suspenseful, harrowing odyssey that made possible his singular testimony.
Peter Balakian is an acclaimed poet as well as the author of the memoir The Black Dog of Fate and the study The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Raphael Lemkin Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He holds a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University and is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities at Colgate University.
More information on Balakian’s lecture may be had by calling 617-489-1610, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, writing to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478, or by contacting Facing History and Ourselves at Jolene_jones@facing.org or 617-735-1623.

G.C.