ARMENIAN NATIONAL ARCHIVE POSSESSES 12,000 DOCUMENTS ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Alisa Gevorgyan

"Radiolur"
21.04.2009 14:59

12,000 documents on the Armenian Genocide are kept in the National
Archive of Armenia. Director of the Armenian National Archive Amatuni
Virabyan said to reporters today that in reality their number is much
larger, and their registration still continues.

According to Amatuni Virabyan, four types of documents are kept in
the Archive. The first group includes the articles from Tbilisi based
"Mshak" newspaper of 1916.

The next group includes the documents the church possessed. Since
there was no statehood then, but there was the church that had
substituted the state for centuries, the Catholicos f All Armenians
was receiving letters from different sites of the world. The letters
provide information about the massacre of the Armenian population of
the Ottoman Empire, about the number of victims and emigrants.

There are also documents, in which the corresponding services of the
Russian Army report about the occupied territories, the annihilation of
Armenian citizens, destruction of Armenian villages and other details.

At last, the Armenian National Archive possesses the documents of
the two Armenian delegations participating in the Paris Conference
following World War I. They present information about the material
and human losses Turkey inflicted.

"Many documents have been=2 0brought from the archives of European
countries. The existence of such documents in European Archives
can be explained by the fact that on those years their diplomatic
representatives launched activity in Turkey," Amatuni Virabyan
stressed.

Some of the documents kept in the Armenian National Archive have been
copied and provided to the newly established Armenian Genocide Museum
of the US.

There are many documents on display at the Armenian Genocide
Museum-Institute.