Organization: ARPA INSTITUTE
Address: 18106 Miranda St., Tarzana CA 91356 . PHONE/FAX (818) 881-0010
Subject: Lecture/Seminar
Title: `And Those Who Continued Living in Turkey after 1915′
Lecturer: Dr. Rubina Peroomian
Date/Time: Thursday, January 22, 2009 @ 7:30PM
Merdinian Auditorium,13330 Riverside Dr. Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
Directions: On the 101 FY Exit on Woodman, Go North and Turn Right on
Riverside Dr.
Abstract: The recent political developments in the world has created a
new atmosphere whereby the events of 1915 and the plight of the
Armenian survivors in Turkey, be they Christian, Islamized, or hidden,
have been espoused and fictionalized in the literature of Turkey.
Artistic expressions echo the continuing trauma in the life of these
"rejects of the sword," a Turkish moniker for Armenians, having
"undeservedly" escaped from death. The stories that Turkish writers
unearth and the daring memoirs of Turkish citizens with an Armenian in
their ancestry, as well as obscured references to these same stories
and events in Turkish-Armenian literature, have unveiled the full
picture of survival, with an everlasting memory of the lost ones, but
also of forced conversions, of nurturing the "enemy" in the bosom, and
of the dehumanization and sexual torture of men and women. A
multifaceted image, an identity, of what is broadly generalized as
Turkish-Armenian, thus emerges, a phenomenon that contradicts the
long-researched and explored concept of the Diasporan-Armenian
post-Genocide ethnic identity. Nevertheless, the sociopolitical and
religious impositions and the hegemony of Muslim identity have not
been fully challenged yet. External pressures may influence the
metamorphosis of the Turkish state, but the real change should come
from within the Turkish society. That change may be underway. The
recent book And Those Who Continued Living in Turkey After 1915
addresses the issues of the psychology of the survivors of the
Armenian Genocide who remained in Turkey, their lifestyle after the
tragedy, and the struggle to preserve their identity. Dr. Rubina
Peroomian will focus on: What happened to the women and the children
who were kidnapped during the massacre? What happened to those
Armenians who were forced to adopt Islam? How does the Armenian
community of Istanbul live, and what does it do to preserve its
Armenian identity?
Rubina Peroomian, Ph.D., a lecturer of Armenian language and
literature, is currently a Research Associate at UCLA. She is the
author of several books, textbooks, chapters in books, and research
articles in scholarly journals on Armenian Question and the Armenian
Genocide. Her major publications include Literary Responses to
Catastrophe: A Comparison of the Armenian and the Jewish Experience
(1993), Armenia in the Sphere of Relations between the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation and the Bolsheviks, 1917-1921 (1997) in the
Armenian language (translated and published in Russian), The Armenian
Question, a series of textbooks in Armenian for grades 10-12
(1990-1999), and a comprehensive textbook of the History of the
Armenian Question for high schools in Armenia (2000). And Those Who
Continued Living in Turkey after 1915 (2008) is her most recent
publication. She has lectured widely, participated in international
symposia. She has received Lifetime Achievement Award by the Armenian
Educational Foundation and the Mesrob Mashtots Medal with an
encyclical by His Holiness Aram I Catholicos of Cilicia.