Haigazian University hosted its alumnus Dr. Khatchig Mouradian to present his latest book “The Resistance Network: Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915 – 1918”, on Monday the 20th of December, 2021.
Dr. Mouradian who is currently the Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and a lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University, was introduced to the audience by the University’s Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Dr. Arda EkmeKji.
Mouradian discussed his book “The Resistance Network”, which has received the Syrian Studies Association “Honorable Mention 2021”, the history of an underground network of humanitarians, missionaries, and diplomats in Ottoman Syria who helped save the lives of thousands during the Armenian Genocide. He challenged depictions of Armenians as passive victims of violence and subjects of humanitarianism, demonstrating the key role they played in organizing a humanitarian resistance against the destruction of their people.
“I define resistance as actions carried out illegally, or against the sanction and will of the authorities, to save Armenian deportees from annihilation,” Mouradian said. He then proceeded to explain how an unarmed, underground resistance network emerged to push back against the Ottoman Turkish state’s genocidal policies. The network included “several dozen dedicated Armenian religious and secular community leaders, Western missionaries and diplomats, and deportees who had arrived in Syria beginning in the spring of 1915,” Mouradian noted. The speaker mentioned the role played by Catholicos Sahag II Khabayan, Rev. Eskijian, Rev. Aharon Shirajian, Nora Altounyan, and the Mazloumian brothers in Aleppo, and Araxie Jebejian, Levon Shashian, and a courier named Garabed in Der Zor. “They served as the glue connecting a much larger constituency of Armenians, local Muslim, Jewish, and Christian volunteers who helped in any way they could,” Mouradian explained.
Mouradian argued that the resistance network in Ottoman Syria saved thousands of deportees by finding them safe houses and provisions and helping them evade redeportation or escape internment, forced labour and sexual slavery.
The talk which was streamed live on the University’s official Facebook page, ended with an interactive Q & A session and book signing by the author.
Mira Yardemian
Public Relations Director