The Armenian Genocide

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE HISTORICAL MEMORY

The Note of the Editor

The present study comprises the oral testimonies and songs directly recorded from the generation that survived the Armenian Genocide; they have been recorded with great patience and devotion over the course of nearly 50 years by Verjiné Svazlian, Doctor of Philological Sciences.

This work is of great historical and even political value and significance. It includes numerous memoirs depicting the harrowing scenes of the Armenian Genocide and the popular Armenian- and Turkish-language songs expressing the sufferings of the victims in the desert of Deir-el-Zor in Mesopotamia. These tragic reminiscences are most impressive.

An enormously laborios and gratifying work has been undertaken to save and perpetuate the unique memoirs and songs depicting the tragic and heroic history of the Western segment of the Armenian nation, of those who survived the Armenian Genocide (who are no longer alive) from the danger of fading memory and eternal oblivion.

These materials are actually the most important historical documents for reproducing, in a live popular language, the shocking scenes of the greatest tragedy of the Armenians.

In this study, the author has skillfully conjoined her rich and diverse materials with actual historical evidence, and these materials have become popular, original documents certifying, substantiating and detailing the historical truths. It should be noted that the author is the first to put into scientific circulation the aforementioned materials woven about the Armenian Genocide, particularly the popular memoirs and the Turkish-language songs.

The work is enhanced with the photographs of the survivors and, most importantly, the Turkish-language songs are accompanied by their English translations, which greatly facilitate their comprehension.

The above-cited memoirs of the eyewitnesses and, especially, the Turkish-language songs are equivalent in value to historical documents, for they not only allow the reader to correctly understand and grasp the tragic history of the Armenian nation of that period, but they also support, to a great extent, the defense of the Armenian Case and, in particular, they refute the distorted and revisionist accounts of that history, as written by Turkish and pro-Turkish historians.

SARKIS HARUTYUNIAN
Associate-member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia

back summary typological peculiarities the course of the genocide about the author bibliography