DR. DIKRAN KALIGIAN TO DISCUSS ARF AND OTTOMAN RELATIONS IN GLENDALE ON MAY 25

Asbarez
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
GLENDALE

Historian Dr. Dikran Kaligian will deliver a lecture entitled
"The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Under Ottoman Rule,
1908-14," on Tuesday, May 25, 2010, at 7:30 p.m., at the Krikor &
Mariam Karamanoukian Glendale Youth Center, 211 West Chestnut St.,
Glendale, CA, 91204. The lecture will be co-sponsored by the National
Association for Armenian Studies and Research, the Karamanoukian
Glendale Youth Center, Hamazkayin Regional Executive of Western USA,
the Ararat-Eskijian Museum, the Organization of Istanbul Armenians
Cultural Committee, and the Kessab Educational Association Cultural
Committee.

Dr. Kaligian, in his 2009 book Armenian Organization and Ideology
Under Ottoman Rule, 1908-1914 (Transaction), has provided a
comprehensive picture of Armeno-Turkish relations for the brief
period of Ottoman Constitutional rule between 1908 and 1914. Drawing
on internal documents of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF)
and existing research on the last years of the empire, as well as the
archives of the British, American, and German diplomatic corps, he
sets out to resolve many of the conflicting conclusions in the current
historiography-including the most central issue, Armenian Revolutionary
Federation relations with the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress.

Kaligian analyzes an ARF torn between maintaining relations with
a CUP that had failed to implement promised reforms and was doing
little to prevent increasing attacks on the Armenian population, or
breaking off relations and thus ending any realistic chance for the
constitutional system to succeed. The decisive issue was the failure
of land restitution and reform.

Kaligian’s study, the first of its kind, seeks to set the record
straight in terms of understanding Armeno-Turkish relations during
this short but pivotal period. He shows that the party’s internal
deliberations support the conclusion that it did remain loyal until
the failure of reform and contradicts the view that the party’s only
aim was to incite a rebellion against Ottoman rule.

Armenian Organization and Ideology Under Ottoman Rule, 1908-1914 will
be on sale and available for signing by the author.

Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The Armenian
Center is located next to Saint Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church.

More information about Dr. Kaligian’s talk may be had by
contacting the Ararat-Eskijian Museum at 818-838-4862 or e-mailing
ararat-eskijian-museum@netzero.net or NAASR at 617-489-1610 or
hq@naasr.org.