Armenians of Worcester


Book Description

At the beginning of the twentieth century, millions of immigrants came to the United States in search of a better life and greater opportunities for their families. However, the Armenians who came to Worcester between 1894 and 1930 were escaping a devastating genocide that tore their country apart. What they found and how they became an integral part of Worcester culture and history is the story found in Armenians of Worcester. Worcester was a mecca for many Armenians, who had escaped with little more than their lives. There were mills that provided work, and there was a growing number of Armenians who were struggling to make sense of what had happened in their homeland. The first Armenian Apostolic church and the first Armenian Protestant church in America were both in this city, and both helped to build new foundations for a community that was to enrich the city and slowly resurrect the art, theater, music, and food that celebrates the Armenian culture. The Armenian picnics that were an integrating influence in the early years continue even today as a gathering of clans and all who join in on these days of celebration.




Memory Fragments from the Armenian Genocide


Book Description

Memory Fragments from the Armenian Genocide: A Mosaic of a Shared Heritage brings together thirty profiles of North Americans of Armenian descent. All exemplify the philosophy that “doing well is doing good,” a credo handed down to them by family members who lost everything when they fled from the Turkish massacres. Family stories of how survivors escaped, survived, and made new lives are filtered through the memories of succeeding generations. The profiles reflect how the actions of the survivors shaped the lives of succeeding generations. Armenian immigrants feared their heritage might be lost in North America. Their fears proved to be unfounded. Children and grandchildren retain the culture passed on to them. At the same time, they hold dear the values of the New World that enabled their families to live free of political repression. While details of their daily lives differ, most of those profiled share a reverence for education. In the New World, they flourish as intellectuals, artists, teachers, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, thereby filling leadership roles decimated by Turks early in their campaign to wipe out the Armenians. By making the most of their talents, they do homage to those who sacrificed so much.




Worcester is America


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We Are All Armenian


Book Description

A collection of essays about Armenian identity and belonging in the diaspora. In the century since the Armenian Genocide, Armenian survivors and their descendants have written of a vast range of experiences using storytelling and activism, two important aspects of Armenian culture. Wrestling with questions of home and self, diasporan Armenian writers bear the burden of repeatedly telling their history, as it remains widely erased and obfuscated. Telling this history requires a tangled balance of contextualizing the past and reporting on the present, of respecting a culture even while feeling lost within it. We Are All Armenian brings together established and emerging Armenian authors to reflect on the complications of Armenian ethnic identity today. These personal essays elevate diasporic voices that have been historically silenced inside and outside of their communities, including queer, multiracial, and multiethnic writers. The eighteen contributors to this contemporary anthology explore issues of displacement, assimilation, inheritance, and broader definitions of home. Through engaging creative nonfiction, many of them question what it is to be Armenian enough inside an often unacknowledged community.




The History of Armenia


Book Description

There is a great deal of interest in the history of Armenia since its renewed independence in the 1990s and the ongoing debate about the genocide - an interest that informs the strong desire of a new generation of Armenian Americans to learn more about their heritage and has led to greater solidarity in the community. By integrating themes such as war, geopolitics, and great leaders, with the less familiar cultural themes and personal stories, this book will appeal to general readers and travellers interested in the region.




The Armenians in America


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The Armenians of New England


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Killing Orders


Book Description

The book represents an earthquake in genocide studies, particularly in the field of Armenian Genocide research. A unique feature of the Armenian Genocide has been the long-standing efforts of successive Turkish governments to deny its historicity and to hide the documentary evidencesurrounding it. This book provides a major clarification of the often blurred lines between facts and truth in regard to these events. The authenticity of the killing orders signed by Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha and the memoirs of the Ottoman bureaucrat Naim Efendi have been two of the most contested topics in this regard. The denialist school has long argued that these documents and memoirs were all forgeries, produced by Armenians to further their claims. Taner Akçam provides the evidence to refute the basis of these claims and demonstrates clearly why the documents can be trusted as authentic, revealing the genocidal intent of the Ottoman-Turkish government towards its Armenian population. As such, this work removes a cornerstone from the denialist edifice, and further establishes the historicity of the Armenian Genocide.




The Armenians


Book Description

Originally published in 1981, this book tells the story of the Armenian dispersion and gives a graphic account of the persecution of the Armenians by the Turks from 1895 to 1922 which foreshadowed the Jewish holocaust at the hands of Hitler, who is said to have modelled some of his own ideas on those of the Young Turks. Drawing upon material from little-known sources, this book follows the trail of the Armenians from their native lands around Mount Ararat to such far-flung spots as lhasa, Harbin and Buenos Aires. This lively and readable book is an excellent account of a people who have been partly in exile for some 2,000 years.