19 10 2009 - LECTURE AT NAASR ON ARMENIANS OF MARSOVAN AND ANATOLIA COLLEGE

The Boston offices of Anatolia College, Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives, Inc., and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will present an illustrated lecture by Prof. Armen T. Marsoobian entitled “At the Crossroads of Family and Institutional Memory: Marsovan (Merzifon) and Anatolia College, 1890-1922.” The event will take place at the NAASR headquarters at 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA, on Thursday, November 3, at 8:00 p.m.
Marsoobian is Professor and Chairperson of Philosophy at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Connecticut. This past spring semester he was a Michael S. Dukakis Fellow at the American College of Thessaloniki (ACT), a division of Anatolia.
Prof. Marsoobian will be drawing upon family memoirs, letters, and missionary accounts to trace his family’s history from its early days in Sivas to their relocation in Marsovan, where his grandfather Tsolag and his great uncle Aram Dildilian opened a photography studio. His grandfather became the official photographer for both the college and the governor of the province. Marsoobian will chronicle his grandfather and great uncle’s time with Anatolia by showcasing photographs from the family archive.
The photographs extend over a period of time that illustrates the growth and prosperity of the college and its tragic end, in the summer months of 1915, when Armenian staff and students of the college, along with most of the Armenian population of the city, were sent on the death marches of the Genocide.
The lecture ends with the Dildilian family parting with Anatolia. While they escaped to the lands of Greece, France, and the United States, Anatolia College was reborn in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1922.
The photographs have helped Anatolia garner new insight into its institutional history and its strong ties to the Armenian community, and have also aided in preserving the image of a college that has maintained its resolve in spite of the hardships of war and genocide. Marsoobian has also shared his family’s photographs with Project SAVE.


About NAASR
NAASR has grown from the vision of a group of sixty Armenian Americans and professors who wished to advance Armenian Studies in the United States into a nonprofit, nonpolitical, nonsectarian organization that has achieved far-reaching success in fostering Armenian studies, research, and publication on a permanent, scholarly, and objective basis. Its pioneering successes since its establishment in 1955 have benefited scholars interested in Armenian Studies and related fields throughout the academic world. For further information, please visit, www.naasr.org.
About Project Save
Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives, Inc., is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization whose mission is to collect, document, preserve, and present the historic and modern photographic record of Armenians and Armenian heritage. For additional information about Project Save, visit www.projectsave.org
About Anatolia
Anatolia’s United States headquarters is located next to the State House on Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts. Anatolia College is a K-12 American Private School and a four year Liberal Arts College, The American College of Thessaloniki, located in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, overlooking the Thermaic Gulf and Mount Olympus. The Boston office supports all U.S. outreach, national events, marketing, study abroad, and fundraising efforts as a 501(c)3 organization. For more about Anatolia, visit www.anatolia.edu.gr or call 617-742-7992.
Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 8:00 p.m.
More information about the lecture is available by calling 617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, or writing to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.
# # # # #
October 19, 2009
Belmont, MA

Mamigonin