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USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive: Armenian Genocide

Established in 1994 to preserve the audio-visual histories of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust, the USC Shoah Foundation maintains one of the largest video digital libraries in the world: the Visual History Archive (VHA).

Armenian Genocide

The mass killing and deportation of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire organized by the Young Turk regime during World War I, especially in the years 1915 and 1916 but continuing thereafter. The genocide led to the death of 1-1.5 million Armenians, the forced conversion of many others and the expulsion of the majority of Armenians from their ancestral lands. Preceded by earlier mass violence in 1894-1896 and 1909, the Armenian Genocide was also part of a broader campaign of violence by Ottoman authorities against non-Muslim minorities that included the Assyrians, Greeks, and Yezidis.

The VHA currently contains over 600 interviews relating to the Armenian Genocide. These include 333 filmed interviews recorded by filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian and the Armenian Film Foundation (AFF) in 1975-2014. A further 267 audio interviews belong to the Richard Hovannisian Oral History Collection, recorded between 1970 and 1999.

These interviews comprise the following different interviewee experience groups:

  • Armenian Survivor
  • Descendant
  • Foreign Witness
  • Miscellaneous
  • Rescuer and Aid Provider
  • Scholar
  • Yezidi Survivor

While the Hovannisian Collection was almost entirely recorded in the United States, the AFF collection has interviews recorded in multiple different countries: Armenia, Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, United States, and United Kingdom.        

Armenian Genocide testimonies comprise various languages: Arabic, Armenian, English, French, German, Greek, Kurdish, Spanish, and Turkish.

 

Selected Indexing Terms

Adana Massacres (April 14-17 and April 25-27, 1909)

Aharonian, Avetis

anti-Armenian arrests

anti-Armenian roundups

Arabs

Armenian Apostolic Church

Armenian Apostolic clergy

Armenian armed forces

Armenian Catholic Church

Armenian diaspora

Armenian Earthquake (December 7, 1988)

Armenian Evangelical Church

Armenian Genocide awareness (1915-1923)

Armenian Genocide denial

Armenian Genocide faith issues

Armenian Genocide history

Armenian Genocide indifference/ignorance

Armenian Genocide testimony sharing reluctance

Armenian Genocide testimony-sharing willingness

Armenian Genocide-related psychological reactions

Armenian history

Armenian identity

Armenian persecution awareness (pre-1915)

Armenian prisoners

Armenian refugees

Armenian resistance fighters

Armenian resistance groups

Armenian soldiers

Armenians

Assyrians

Atatürk, Kemal

Azeris

Battle of Gallipoli (February 19, 1915 - January 9, 1916)

Battle of Sardarabad (May 21-29, 1918)

Battle of Sarıkamış (December 22, 1914 - January 17, 1915)

Boghos Nubar Pasha

Cemal Pasa

Cevdet Bey

Chechens

chetes

Circassians

Committee of Union and Progress

Coolidge, John Calvin

Dashnaktsutyun

Defense of Van (April 7 - May 6, 1915)

Enver Pasa

Great Fire of Smyrna (September 13-22, 1922)

Hagopian, J. Michael

Hairenik (newspaper)

Hamidian Massacres (1894-1896)

historic Armenia

Hunchakian Party

Kanaian, Drastamat

Keri

King–Crane Commission (1919)

Kurds

Lloyd George, David

Manukian, Aram

Morgenthau, Henry Sr.

Musa Dagh Resistance (1915)

Near East Relief

Ottoman armed forces

Ottoman Empire history

Ottoman gendarmerie

Ottoman government officials

Ottoman police

Ottoman soldiers

Ozanian, Andranik

pan

Pastermadjian, Karekin

post-Armenian Genocide awareness (1923-)

post-Armenian Genocide documents and artifacts (stills)

post-Armenian Genocide family photographs (stills)

post-Armenian Genocide photographs (stills)

post-Armenian Genocide reflections

pre-Armenian Genocide documents and artifacts (stills)

pre-Armenian Genocide family photographs (stills)

pre-Armenian Genocide photographs (stills)

reverse zoom

Sebastatsi Murad

Sultan Abdul Hamid II

Syrian history

Talat Pasa

tilt

Turkification

Turkish government officials

Turkish history

Turks

United States government officials

Wilhelm II

Wilson, Thomas Woodrow

Wilsonian Armenia

Yezidis

Yezidism

Young Turk Revolution (July 1908)

Zohrab, Krikor

zoom

 

Selected Bibliography

Akçam, Taner and Ümit Kurt. The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide. New York: Berghahn Books, 2015. Print.

Akçam, Taner. A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006. Print.

Akçam, Taner. From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide. London: Zed Books, 2004. Print.

Dadrian, Vahakn N. and Taner Akçam. Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011. Print.

Dadrian, Vahakn N.. The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995. Print.

Dadrian, Vahakn N.. Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of Turko-Armenian Conflict. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 1999. Print.

Göçek, Fatma M.. Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789-2009. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015. Print.

Hovannisian, Richard G.. Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Confronting the Armenian Genocide. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2003. Print.

Hovannisian, Richard G.. The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2007. Print.

Kevorkian, Raymond. The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Print.

Kevorkian, Raymond. “The Extermination of Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk Regime (1915-1916).” Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence. 3 Jun. 2008. Web.

Suny, Ronald G., Fatma M. Göçek, and Norman M. Naimark. A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Suny, Ronald G.. "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Print.

Üngör, Uğur U. and Mehmet Polatel. Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property. London ; New York : Continuum, 2011. Print.

Visual History Archive Curator

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Crispin Brooks
Contact:
crispinb@usc.edu
213-740-6001
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