VAHÉ TACHJIAN TO PRESENT A MICROHISTORY ‎ OF TWO FAMILIES DURING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Historian Vahé Tachjian will give a lecture in commemoration of the 98th anniversary ‎of the Armenian Genocide entitled “Genocide Diaries: A Microhistory of Two Armenian ‎Families, 1915-1918,” on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, at 7:30 p.m. at the National Association ‎for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), 395 Concord Avenue, Belmont, MA. This will ‎be Tachjian’s first time lecturing in the Boston area.‎
In 1915, two Armenian families (the Bogharians and the Tavukjians) were deported ‎from Aintab (in the Ottoman Empire), together with many other Armenian inhabitants of the ‎town. They were forcibly resettled, first, in Hama, and then in the nearby town of Salamiyya ‎‎(today in Syria). Two diaries written by members of these families have come down to us: ‎one by Father Nerses Tavukjian, the other by Krikor Bogharian. In this lecture, based on his ‎forthcoming book, historian Vahé Tachjian will attempt to recreate the quotidian world of ‎deportees, ordinary lives caught in an extraordinary historical moment.‎
Vahé Tachjian was born in Lebanon and earned a Ph.D. in History and Civilization at ‎the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His research covers the ‎period of the French occupation of Cilicia, Syria, and Lebanon between the two World Wars, ‎the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and refugee problems in the Middle East.‎
Among his publications is La France en Cilicie et en Haute-Mésopotamie: Aux Confins de ‎la Turquie, de la Syrie et de l'Irak, 1919-1933. He is the co-editor, with Raymond Kévorkian ‎and Michel Paboudjian, of Ohannès Pacha Kouyoumdjian: Le Liban à la Veille et au Début de la ‎Guerre: Mémoires d’un Gouverneur, 1913-1915; with Raymond Kévorkian and Lévon ‎Nordiguian, Les Arméniens, 1917-1939: La Quête d’un Refuge; and with Raymond Kévorkian, ‎Lévon Nordiguian, Mihran Minassian, Michel Paboudjian, Les Arméniens de Cilicie: Terroir, ‎Mémoire et Identité. Currently he is the chief editor and the project director of the ‎Houshamadyan.org website.‎
More information about Tachjian’s lecture may be had by calling 617-489-1610, faxing ‎‎617-484-1759, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, or writing to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, ‎MA 02478.‎

Belmont, MA
March 29, 2013‎

V.V