THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ADANA MASSACRES TO BE MARKED IN BELMONT

PanARMENIAN.Net
07.05.2009 01:16 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The 100th anniversary of the Adana Massacres
will be marked with a special mini-symposium entitled "The Adana
Massacres of 1909: Legacy and Perspectives," on Thursday, May 7, at
the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
Center, in Belmont, Belmont Citizen-Herald reports.

The Adana Massacres of April 1909 took the lives of more than 20,000
Armenians in the province of Adana and elsewhere in Armenian-inhabited
areas of the Ottoman Empire. In addition to the appalling loss of life
and property, the massacres were a bitter blow to the Armenians who had
expressed such optimism at the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Many see
in these massacres an indication of what was to come in the Armenian
Genocide of 1915.

The NAASR symposium will bring together four scholars who will
present their research on various aspects of the terrible events of
a century ago.

Aram Arkun, former co-director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab
Information Center in New York City and editor of Ararat Quarterly
will speak on "Armenian Self-Defense During the 1909 Massacres
(Chorkmarzban)"; Dr. Bedross Der Matossian of the Department
of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present
"Revisiting the Adana Massacres of 1909: Revolution, Power, and
Violence"; Dr. Dikran Kaligian, author of the recently-published
Armenian Organization and Ideology Under Ottoman Rule 1908-1914,
will discuss "Impact of the Adana Massacre on ARF-CUP Relations";
and Dr. Lou Ann Matossian, program director of the Cafesjian Family
Foundation, Minneapolis, and eastern U.S. community news editor of
the Armenian Reporter, will speak about "Missionary Witness: The
Christie Family Papers on the Cilician Massacres of 1909."