This event is held in partnership with the Armenian Institute. We are immensely grateful to the Embassy of Georgia and Embassy of Armenia for their support.

Please click on the link for Nouritza Matossian’s interview at Asia House.

https://asiahousearts.org/author-nouritza-matossian-provides-us-insight-sergei-parajanovs-colour-pomegranates/

The Armenian Diaspora Survey Pilot Project is affiliated with the Armenian Institute and funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Over 18 months, the team has developed quantitative and qualitative methods to learn about communities in the diaspora. Teams were sent to Cairo, Boston, Marseilles and Pasadena where questionnaires, interviews and photographs were gathered. For more information, please go to www.armenianinstitute.org.uk and in upper menu, click on Armenian Diaspora Survey.

Professor Khachig Tölölyan will be in conversation with Dr Susan Pattie, leader of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Armenian Diaspora Survey (ADS), Dr Hratch Tchilingirian of the Advisory Committee, and other members of the team, reflecting on the findings of the recently completed Pilot Project of the ADS. Prof. Tölölyan will also share his thoughts about the evolution of concepts and lived realities of diaspora since he founded the journal Diaspora in 1991.

Admission: £5 to include refreshments.

Khachig Tölölyan is Professor of the Humanities in the College of Letters at Wesleyan University, where he teaches literature, history and philosophy. In 1991 he founded, and now co-edits, Diaspora: a Journal of Transnational Studies, the leading publication in the field of diaspora studies. Tölölyan is the author of over 100 articles in Armenian, some collected in Spyurki Mech (Haratch Press, Paris, 1980), is the co-editor of Diaspora, Identity and Religion (Routledge, 2004), and of scholarly articles on topics ranging from American literature and literary theory to Armenian terrorism and the Armenian diaspora.

The Armenian Institute invites you to the book presentation ofArmenian Bankers in the Ottoman Empire, a historical perspective by M H Bouldoukian, the former Deputy Governor of Banque du Liban. 

The book tracks and reports on Armenian bankers during the Ottoman Empire from the 15thcentury onwards, providing an overview of the large role Armenians played in the Empire’s economy and their eventual fate after its collapse.

Bouldoukian has extensively researched the history of many of the leading bankers in the Armenian community at the time including those of Greek and Jewish descent.

The evening will open with a short talk on the role Armenians play in the Turkish and wider global economy today. It will close with a networking reception.

M H Bouldoukian is the author of a number of books, award winning academic papers on international banking, correspondent banking and banking systems of Lebanon and Armenia. He has worked in banking for over 58 years for some of the largest international banking institutions in the world.

Following the devastation resulting from the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1915, the survivors of the massacres were dispersed across the Middle East, Europe and North and South America. Not content with watching World War I silently from the sidelines, a large number of Armenian volunteers joined the Legion d'Orient. They were trained in Cyprus and fought courageously in Palestine and Cilicia alongside Allied commander General Allenby, eventually playing a crucial role in defeating German and Ottoman forces in Palestine at the Battle of Arara in September 1918.

The Armenian Legionnaires signed up on the understanding that they would be fighting in Syria and Turkey, and, should the Allies be successful, they would be part of an occupying army in their old homelands, laying the foundation for a self-governing Armenian state.

Susan Paul Pattie is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College London and former Director of the Armenian Institute. In recent years she has served as Director of the Armenian Museum of America and was Program Manager of the National Armenian Genocide Centennial Commemoration in Washington , DC. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and is the author of an ethnography, Faith in History: Armenians Rebuilding Community (1997).

The Armenian Institute is grateful to the Wiener Library for generously making the venue available for this event. 

OUR COURSES

We offer a wide choice of East and West Armenian language courses and levels, both in group classes and through bespoke one-to-one sessions. Classes meet at our Kensington space either on weekday evening or on Saturdays.

Our teachers are all highly experienced native Armenian speakers. We offer a friendly and stimulating environment to help you gain confidence. The emphasis is mainly on oral communication with active student participation. 

1895, Ourfa, a cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. Khatoun meets her husband, Iskender, twice her age, a poet and a dreamer who adores her but cannot express it in words. Around them, the Ottoman Empire is crumbling, the world heading towards war and the Armenian minority subjected to increasing repression, culminating in the genocide of 1915. As Iskender retreats into his books and alcohol, losing land, money and business, Khatoun holds their family together by sewing for the wives of the men who persecute them; her creations inciting lust, love and fertility. The family evades the death marches to the Syrian Desert only to lose everything when exiled by Mustafa Kemal and the birth of the Turkish Republic. What follows is a tale of love, loss and redemption in the diaspora told by four generations of women, each becoming the guardian angel of the next. 

Book launch followed by book-signing and refreshments. Wines generously supplied by Makkas Winery, Cyprus.

Admission: £5

Victoria Harwood Butler-Sloss is Armenian English from Cyprus. She moved to London at eighteen, began as a dancer at the Raymond Revuebar and followed that by playing a slew of exotic foreigners on British television. She trained at RADA and spent twenty years as an actress in London and Europe. She married, moved to LA, started a family, continued to work in voiceovers, and wrote her first book, Seamstress of Ourfa.

Directions:

22 Bus from Sloane Sq/Oxford Circus tube station
C3 Bus from Clapham Junction train station or Earls Court tube station

Victoria Harwood Butler-Sloss is Armenian English from Cyprus. She moved to London at eighteen, began as a dancer at the Raymond Revuebar and followed that by playing a slew of exotic foreigners on British television. She trained at RADA and spent twenty years as an actress in London and Europe. She married, moved to LA, started a family, continued to work in voiceovers, and wrote her first book, Seamstress of Ourfa.

Directions:

22 Bus from Sloane Sq/Oxford Circus tube station
C3 Bus from Clapham Junction train station or Earls Court tube station

Tube | Fulham Boradway

Overground | Imperial Wharf

This poetry evening is dedicated to the work of Gevorg Emin (1919-1998), a hydraulic engineer turned poet. He was one of the most popular Soviet Armenian poets of the 20th century whose work was translated into many languages. Perhaps as a result of his training in science Emin wrote in a simple, straight forward language. He was considered to be one of the few who freed Armenian poetry from the restrictions of the Stalin era and reinvigorated it after a long period of stagnation during which experimentalism was discouraged.

Sossi Yerissian leads a presentation of Emin’s life and work to be followed by readings of his poetry, in Armenian and English. Assadour Guzelian will conclude the evening with his reminiscences of spending time with Gevorg Emin in Armenia and London.

The poet and writer Assadour Guzelian was born in Cilicia and moved to Aleppo when the Sanjak of Alexandretta was ceded to Turkey in 1939. He graduated from the Seminary of the Armenian Catholicate of Cilicia in Lebanon and taught Armenian literature and history in Calcutta before settling in London in 1964. His published work include the epic poem Hamo and Fadileh and a compendium of articles published in the Armenian press over several decades.

Admission £5 to include a wine & nibbles reception.

The Darker Shadow by R. P. Sevadjian is the sequel to In the Shadow of the Sultan published in 2014. The Darker Shadow tells of a long journey during the first months of the Armenian Genocide; twins Bedros and Dzovinar are compelled to leave their home town together with their uncle and his American friends. They travel over difficult terrain and through remote and devastated villages, and form an understanding of the treatment of Armenians throughout the Ottoman Empire.

Book launch followed by book signing and refreshments

R P Sevadjian was raised and educated in Ethiopia before she left for the UK for her further education. She remained in the UK after the Derg Revolution of 1974. Rubina is the author of In the Shadow of the Sultan, the first part of her Armenian Genocide trilogy. As well as writing the final part of her trilogy, she is researching the work of her father, Bedros A Sevadjian who was jeweller By Appointment to Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.

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Antonia Arslan and Siobhan Nash Marshall, in conversation with each other, will present and discuss new perspectives on the denial of the Armenian Genocide, a devastating example of what we now call “a post-truth” phenomenon.  Their focus will be on the relevance of this poignant example to today’s seeming tidal wave of “historical engineering.”

Professor Antonia Arslan (Università di Padova) is the acclaimed author of international best-seller Skylark Farm (La masseria delle allodole) which was made into a stunning film, The Lark Farm, directed by the Taviani brothers.  Professor Siobhan Nash Marshall (Mary T Clark Chair of Christian Philosophy at Manhattanville College, New York City), is the author of The Sins of the Fathers: Turkish Denialism and the Armenian Genocide. 

The joint lecture will be followed by a reception with light refreshments.  Books by both authors will be available for purchase.

The Armenian Institute is grateful to our generous sponsors, Alice and Raffi Tanielian, for making this event possible. 

Join us to hear and honour Dr S Chien Wong, foremost international ophthalmologist surgeon who has revolutionised eye care in Armenia saving the sight of 1 million or more premature infants and children in the region with his innovative expert surgery.

Dr S Chien Wong, is one of the world's leading consultant ophthalmologists at Moorfields Eye, Royal Free and Great Ormond Street (GOSH) Hospitals. A super-specialist in complex paediatric vitreoretinal surgery and retinovascular diseases, he is one of only two surgeons in the world in endoscopic vitrectomy for premature infants and young children with complex paediatric vitreoretinal diseases. Dr Wong’s department at GOSH is now the national surgical centre in UK. In 2014 he joined the Armenian Eye Project and flies every three months to the Armenian Centre of Excellence for the Prevention of Childhood Blindness to perform surgery on new-born babies and adults. He trains new doctors and introduces novel methods of gene therapy and surgery.

Dr. Chien Wong's Story - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_GwuT3pr0)

Admission £5

Organised by the Armenian Institute in collaboration with the Armenian Medical Association. 

Taner Akçam was one of the first Turkish scholars to go public with original work on the Armenian Genocide.  Since then, now two decades ago, he has persisted in uncovering new and important material about the period.  

The Armenian Institute invites you to join in celebrating the work of Taner Akcam and take the opportunity to meet and speak with him.  A presentation of his latest book, Killing Orders: Talat Pasha's Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide will begin the evening, followed by a wine reception.

Join us in honouring Taner Akcam at the N Gulbenkian Hall on March 24 at 7:00.

Donations of £5 welcomed at the door.

Copies of Killing Orders will be available for purchase.

We are grateful to our generous supporters for making these events possible:  Diana & Panos Katsouris, Raffy Manoukian, Richard Anooshian, Violet & Razmik Tatevossian, Gagik & Nairi Stepan-Sarkissian, Arda Eghiayan, Hrant & Vera Margossian.

Supported by University College London Armenian Society.

Taner Akcam’s groundbreaking new book, Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide, destroys the Turkish government’s denial strategy. Akçam includes a recently discovered document — a "smoking gun" — that points to the Ottoman government’s central role in planning the elimination of its Armenian population. He successfully demonstrates that the killing orders signed by Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha, which the Turkish government has long discredited, are authentic. Akçam calls the discovery, which he found in a private archive, ‘an earthquake in the field of genocide studies.’  

This evening's event is introduced by Dr Hratch Tchilingirian of University of Oxford.

Taner Akçam holds the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University. An internationally recognized human rights activist, Akçam was one of the first Turkish intellectuals to acknowledge and openly discuss the Armenian Genocide. He has lectured widely and published numerous articles and books, translated into many languages. His 2012 book, The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire was co-winner of the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Book Award and one of ForeignAffairs.com’s “Best Books on the Middle East.”  His many awards include the Outstanding Upstander Award from the World Without Genocide Organization which he will receive in May, 2018.

Professor Akçam will also speak on Saturday, 24 March 2018. 

We are grateful to our generous supporters for making these events possible:  Diana & Panos Katsouris, Raffy Manoukian, Richard Anooshian, Violet & Razmik Tatevossian, Gagik & Nairi Stepan-Sarkissian, Arda Eghiayan, Hrant & Vera Margossian.

Supported by University College London Armenian Society

The Transcaucasian Trail (TCT) will be a world-class, long-distance hiking trail more than 3,000km in length, following the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Mountains and connecting roughly two dozen national parks and protected areas in the region. It is currently being built by a small team of hiking enthusiasts with the support of international volunteers and the local people in Armenia and Georgia. 

Come to this event organised by the Armenian Institute to meet some of the TCT team members, learn more how the project started, what has been achieved so far and what is planned for 2018 and 2019. Find out more how you can get involved in building the TCT this summer, or supporting the project in other ways. As a bonus, the first guy who through-hiked the whole southern part of the TCT (from the south of Armenia to the Black Sea in Georgia) in 2017 will also share his experience from his epic, eight-week-long hike. 

Admission | £5 to include refreshments

Keynote speaker: Professor Maureen Freely

 Guest singer: Suna Alan

 Free admission. Please book ahead to secure a seat as space is limited. Registration opens at 6.30. Reception to follow event until 9 pm.

 Event organised by the Armenian Institute in association with Article 19 and English PEN.

The Armenian Institute is proud to commemorate the exceptional life and achievements of Hrant Dink murdered on 19 January 2007 in Istanbul and to affirm his stance against discrimination. Editor of the Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos, Dink was the outspoken champion of human and civil rights in Turkey. His lingua franca in free expression opened the floodgates for repressed people seeking out and declaring their true ethnic history and identity. The term "Armenian Genocide", officially taboo, became current usage. He was punished by death.

Maureen Freely is a novelist, journalist and translator. Well known as a translator of the Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, Fetiye Çetin and Tuba Çandar's book on Dink, she has also written about literature, social justice and human rights.  As chair of the Translators Association and as President of English PEN, she has campaigned for writers and freedom of expression internationally.  She teaches at the University of Warwick where she is currently the Head of the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies.

Mark Grigorian, Executive Director of Public Radio of Armenia, will discuss difficulties facing the institution, exploring opposing approaches.  Is it a real public service or a mouthpiece of the government?  

Born in Yerevan, Grigorian graduated from Yerevan State University and later earned a PhD in Philology. He has worked as a journalist since 1993 in a variety of media, including as editor of Svoboda (Freedom) Russian language newspaper, AIM (Armenian International Magazine), and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London where he went following an assassination attempt in Yerevan.  He then worked with the BBC World Service before returning to Armenia in 2014, hosting programmes on Armenia TV and ATV.  The author of many books, Grigorian is also a cofounder of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan.

Admission: £5 to include a wine reception.