*ARPA INSTITUTE*
18106 Miranda St.
Tarzana CA 91356
Phone/Fax: 818-881-0010

24 B, Baghramian, Mech. Inst. Bldg. of ASc, 3rd flr, Yerevan, Armenia.
Tel:(374 2)545538
(39), Fax:151167**

Presents : Lecture/Seminar

By *Dr. David Gaunt** *

"Massacres, Resistance, Protectors of the Armenians

and Assyrians in the 1915 Genocide"

*Friday, May 11, 2007 @ 7:30PM*

*Merdinian Auditorium*

13330 Riverside Dr., Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 **

Directions: On 101 FY Exit Woodman, go North 1 block, turn Right on
Riverside Dr.

*Abstract:** * The lecture will discuss what happened to the Armenian and
Assyrian populations living in the provinces of Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Van and
Iranian Azerbaijan during World War I. This will be based on extensive use
of primary sources in Turkish, Russian, Iranian as well as Western archives.
Also previously unused witness testimonies and oral history will be used.
This is a region where Armenians and Assyrians lived side by side in the
cities and had rural villages close to each other. Often the Armenians would
be seized first and the Assyrian sources explain what happened, then came
the turn for the Assyrians. In some places both groups put up a common
defense, for instance Antranik’s volunteer brigades had Assyrians fighting
side by side with the Armenians. Some Assyrian tribes joined the Russian
army that was on its way to relieve Van and fought with the Turks. The
greater part of the massacres, ethnic cleansings and other atrocities
occurred between May and September of 1915, and the extent of population
loss was close to 90% in the Diyarbakir province. The latter was also used
as killing fields for deportation caravans coming from the north. The
lecture will be based on the recent book *Massacres, Resistance, Protectors:
Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I* (
Piscataway, N. J.: Gorgias Pres 2006).

*David Gaunt* is professor of history at Södertörn University College in
Stockholm, Sweden. This university is in the midst of one of the largest
Assyrian Diaspora communities in the world. He is a social historian and has
previously written primarily on the Scandinavian workers movement, and
family history. A few years ago he began with genocide studies and
edited *Resistance
and Collaboration in the Holocaust: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania*(Bern 2004).

For more Information Please call Dr. Hagop Panossian at (818) 586-9660 **