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Book Details
Abstract
Elie Wiesel called the genocide of the Armenians during the First World War ‘the Holocaust before the Holocaust’. Around one and a half million Armenians - men, women and children – were slaughtered at the time of the First World War. This book outlines some of the historical facts and consequences of the massacres but sees it as its main objective to present the Armenians to the foreign reader, their history but also their lives and achievements in the present that finds most Armenians dispersed throughout the world. 3000 years after their appearance in history, 1700 years after adopting Christianity and almost 90 years after the greatest catastrophe in their history, these 50 ‘biographical sketches of intellectuals, artists, journalists, and others…produce a complicated kaleidoscope of a divided but lively people that is trying once again, to rediscover its ethnic coherence. Armenian civilization does not consist solely of stories about a far-off past, but also of traditions and a national conscience suggestive of a future that will transcend the present.’ [from the Preface]
Huberta v. Voss worked for many years as a political correspondent for various German dailies, before becoming spokesperson of the Speaker of the Bundestag. During the diplomatic assignment of her husband to Beirut and Nicosia, she edited and translated amongst others the Lebanese poet Nadia Tuéni from French into German. She has earned a M.A. in Political Science, Modern History and French Philology. She has three children and now lives as a freelance journalist and author in Berlin.
“…certainly a well-put together and edited compendium of Armenian socio-political and cultural essays ...And it has a great deal to offer both the educated and altruistic reader alike about the passionate and fatalistic woven threads that compose Armenian life and identity today.” · Armenian Weekly
“…highly informative and important for the understanding not only of an ignored past…One reads with astonishment how much creative potential the oldest Christian people still has.” · Die Welt
“In this book Armenia…is not so much a nation rather than a landscape of remembrance, broken up and held together by violence and expulsion and through an eternal ‘traveling’ culture. Huberta von Voss allows us to experience this culture through the portraits of members of this culture who are dispersed throughout the world.” · :die tageszeitung
Table of Contents
Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
---|---|---|---|
Title Page | iii | ||
Copyright Page | iv | ||
Dedication | v | ||
Illustrations | vi | ||
Table of Contents | vii | ||
Preface | xiii | ||
Prologue | xvii | ||
Acknowledgments | xxv | ||
Part I. Introduction | 1 | ||
Chapter 1. Between Ararat and the Caucasus | 3 | ||
Chapter 2. The Armenian Genocide | 19 | ||
Chapter 3. The Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide in its European Context | 36 | ||
Chapter 4. The Silent Partner | 45 | ||
Part II. Portraits from Around the World | 59 | ||
History | 60 | ||
Chapter 5. The Investigator | 61 | ||
Chapter 6. A Foundation of Facts and Fiction | 67 | ||
Chapter 7. The Memory of Cilicia | 72 | ||
Chapter 8. Lord of the Books | 77 | ||
Words | 81 | ||
Chapter 9. Shadows and Phantoms | 83 | ||
Chapter 10. The Ashes of Smyrna | 88 | ||
Chapter 11. The Tracker | 93 | ||
Chapter 12. Difficult Truths | 99 | ||
Chapter 13. A Seedbed of Words | 104 | ||
Chapter 14. La Femme Revoltee | 109 | ||
Chapter 15. Vocation Azgayin Gortsich | 113 | ||
Faith | 119 | ||
Chapter 16. The Catholicos of All Armenians | 121 | ||
Chapter 17. The Modernizer with the Miter | 126 | ||
Chapter 18. Referee on a Slippery Pitch | 130 | ||
Chapter 19. With Cellphone and Habit on Lord Byron's Island | 134 | ||
Arts and Architecture | 141 | ||
Chapter 20. Son of an Amazon | 143 | ||
Chapter 21. Seismograph of Different Worlds | 146 | ||
Chapter 22. Fitzcarraldo in the Olive Grove | 149 | ||
Chapter 23. Ibis Eyes | 153 | ||
Film and Photography | 157 | ||
Chapter 24. Screening Histories | 159 | ||
Chapter 25. Hollywood in Downtown Cairo | 164 | ||
Chapter 26. Beyond All Limits | 168 | ||
Music | 173 | ||
Chapter 27. The Voice of France | 175 | ||
Chapter 28. Under the Stars | 180 | ||
Commitment | 185 | ||
Chapter 29. Ways to Identity | 187 | ||
Chapter 30. Daily Bread of Resolutions | 193 | ||
Politics and Diplomacy | 199 | ||
Chapter 31. From Diamonds to Diplomacy | 201 | ||
Chapter 32. Armenia's Attorney on the Banks of the Seine | 205 | ||
Chapter 33. In the Mission Quicksands | 209 | ||
Chapter 34. The Man with the Mirror | 214 | ||
Life Images | 219 | ||
Chapter 35. Courier of the Czar | 221 | ||
Chapter 36. End of a Long Journey | 227 | ||
Chapter 37. The Skeptic of the Jaffa Gate | 232 | ||
Chapter 38. \"Excuse Me, How Do I Get To the Front?\" The Brothers Monte and Markar Melkonian | 237 | ||
Chapter 39. The Everyday Life of a Hero | 243 | ||
Chapter 40 The Magic of the Opal | 247 | ||
Chapter 41. Hablas Armenio? Rosita Youssefian, Teacher of Armenian | 252 | ||
Chapter 42. Portrait of Survival | 256 | ||
Chapter 43. Grande Dame of the Myths | 262 | ||
Chapter 44. A Perfectly Normal Story | 265 | ||
Part III. Symbolic Places | 269 | ||
Chapter 45. Swan Song in the Holy Land | 271 | ||
Chapter 46. Last Stop | 275 | ||
Chapter 47. Gangway to Life | 282 | ||
Chapter 48. Struggle for Survival | 287 | ||
Chapter 49. An Eye for an Eye | 292 | ||
Chapter 50. Inch Piti Asem? What Should I Say? | 298 | ||
Epilogue. The Dichotomy of Truth and Denial and the Remembrance of a Courageous Turk | 305 | ||
Key Dates in Armenian History | 313 | ||
Glossary | 325 | ||
Additional Reading Material | 327 | ||
Notes on Contributors | 333 |