12:30 p.m. 
Stephens Hall 270  UC Berkeley

Lecture Abstract

The name of Aram Andonian, a former journalist and author deported in 1915, is often cited in the historiography for the documents he published in 1920 with the aim of proving the intent of the Ottoman rulers to annihilate the Armenians during World War I. In the meantime, Andonian is considered a writer by literary critics for the publication of Ayn sev oreroun… (“In those dark days…”) in 1919, a collection of short stories based on his own experience as a deportee in Meskene camp (Syria) and written on the spot. However, historians of the Armenian genocide have shown little or no interest in Andonian’s literary work. This indifference towards Ayn sev oreroun… reflects an arbitrary division according to which the analysis of literary texts should be delegated to specialists in the literature of the Catastrophe, while the study of the genocide as a historical event proper would be the reserved domain of the historians. It also echoes a long-standing embarrassment on the part of historians when faced with testimony, in its most diverse forms, particularly in the context of the historiographies of genocides and mass violence of the twentieth century. In this lecture, I propose to attempt to overcome this division between literature and history through a comparative reading of literary and documentary texts written by Aram Andonian about the camp of Meskene, and to answer the following question: is a historical reading of Ayn sev oreroun… possible? And if so, what contribution would it make to our knowledge and to the historiography of the genocide?

Speaker’s Bio

Boris Adjemian is the Director of the AGBU (Armenian General Benevolent Union) Nubar Library, Paris. He holds a PhD in history from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, France) and Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” (Italy). He is the co-editor of the academic journal Études arméniennes contemporaines. He is also an affiliated researcher to the Centre de recherches historiques (CNRS, EHESS) and a fellow of the French Collaborative Institute on Migration.

https://events.berkeley.edu/armenian/event/285773-writer-and-witness-aram-andonian-and-early