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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 is the largest repository of Armenian Genocide testimonies in the world, currently holding over 1,300. It includes over 1,000 mostly audio interviews of the Richard Hovannisian Oral History Collection, recorded between 1963 and 2008, and 333 filmed interviews recorded by filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian and the Armenian Film Foundation (AFF) in 1975-2014.

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 are in 10 different languages: Arabic, Armenian, English, French, German, Greek, Kurdish, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

The following are indexing terms for some of the major topics, each discussed in 300 or more interviews: 

abductions, aid giving, Aleppo (Ḩalab, Syria), Americans, anti-Armenian arrests, anti-Armenian measures, anti-Armenian roundups, Arabs, Armenian (language), Armenian Apostolic Church, Armenian Apostolic clergy, Armenian communities, Armenian culture, Armenian Evangelical Church, Armenian Genocide awareness (1915-1923), Armenian Genocide history, Armenian Genocide testimony-sharing willingness, Armenian history, Armenian identity, Armenian refugees, Armenian schools, Armenians, attitudes toward Armenia and/or Armenians, attitudes toward Turkey and/or Turks, Beirut (Beyrouth, Lebanon), brothers, children's homes, Christian religious observances, clothing, compulsory military enlistment, correspondence, cultural activities, Dashnaktsutyun, deportation conditions, deportation orders, deportation routes, diseases, education, English (language), environmental conditions, ethno-racial relations, extended family members, family histories, family home returns, family homes, family life, fathers, fathers' occupations, flight, food, future message, Hunchakian Party, hunger, inter-Armenian relations, international migration routes, interviewee occupations, Istanbul (Istanbul, Turkey), killings, Kurds, livestock, living conditions, Los Angeles (California, USA), loved ones' deaths, loved ones' fates, loved ones' renewed contacts, loved ones' separations, marriages, migration (domestic), migration decisions, migration from the Ottoman Empire, migration to the United States, mothers, Ottoman armed forces, Ottoman Empire 1900 (January 1) - 1908 (July 31), Ottoman Empire 1908 (August 1) - 1914 (October 27), Ottoman Empire 1914 (October 28) – 1918 (October 29), Ottoman Empire 1918 (October 30) - 1923 (October 28), Ottoman gendarmerie, Ottoman government officials, Ottoman soldiers, political activities, politico-military event awareness, schools, shelter provision, ships, sisters, social relations, socioeconomic status, Turkish (language), Turks, weapons, working life
 

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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