Khatchig Mouradian | Columbia University (original) (raw)

Articles and Book Chapters by Khatchig Mouradian

Wasafiri, 2024

This collaborative ode to the tradition of the Armenian memory book, or houshamadyan, comprises a... more This collaborative ode to the tradition of the Armenian memory book, or houshamadyan, comprises a unique survey of the genre by historian Khatchig Mouradian, an essay and maps by urbanist Garine Boghossian, poetry by Christopher Kazar Janigian, and art by Masha Keryan.

Documenting the Armenian Genocide: Essays in Honor of Taner Akçam , 2024

Elmasd Santoorian managed to achieve a relatively privileged position during the Armenian Genocid... more Elmasd Santoorian managed to achieve a relatively privileged position during the Armenian Genocide. A nurse by training, she was deported from her home town of Marash, contracted typhus soon after finding shelter in Aleppo, and recovered from it with the help of an Armenian doctor, Khachig Boghossian, a deportee himself. 1 Her newly acquired immunity 1 Khachig Boghosian (1875-1950) was born in Kayseri, studied in Istanbul, and then traveled to Switzerland for his doctoral studies. Upon his return in 1914, he served as a military doctor in Constantinople, and was arrested along with other Armenian intellectuals in 1915. After spending several weeks in prison in Ayaş and Cankırı, he was deported and ended up in Aleppo, where he became active in the underground humanitarian resistance network assisting deportees. After the war, he stayed in Aleppo, where he continued his medical practice, helped found a maternity hospital, and established the newspaper Yeprad.

A Cultural History of Genocide in the Era of Total War, 2021

“Memory: Genocide and ‘The Closed Circle of Our Exile,’” in Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, ed., A Cultu... more “Memory: Genocide and ‘The Closed Circle of Our Exile,’” in Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, ed., A Cultural History of Genocide in the Era of Total War (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 187-206.

In Hans-Lukas Kieser, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Seyhan Bayraktar, and Thomas Schmutz, eds., The ... more In Hans-Lukas Kieser, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Seyhan Bayraktar, and Thomas Schmutz, eds., The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019)

In this article, I provide a reassessment of what is referred to as the second phase of the Armen... more In this article, I provide a reassessment of what is referred to as the second phase of the Armenian genocide, emphasizing the role of an Armenian-led humanitarian network in saving thousands of lives. The scholarship (and the popular discourse) on humanitarian efforts during the Genocide focuses on western missionaries and consuls, who emerge as selfless heroes protecting and saving hundreds of thousands of helpless Armenians. Armenian agency is neglected. Here, I argue that it was the Ottoman Armenians who drove this humanitarian resistance waged in the Ottoman Empire. Western humanitarianism provided tremendous material and moral support, yet it was the Armenians themselves who led the resistance effort and shouldered the larger share of the burden, distributing humanitarian aid and funds to deportees huddled in church and school courtyards and, ultimately, in concentration camps – despite the dangers involved. This Armenian-led humanitarian resistance network comprised of church committees, influential Armenian dignitaries, doctors, and nurses, as well as missionaries and local Muslims and Christians helped anchor and support thousands in Aleppo in 1915-1916, and saved the lives of thousands of others elsewhere in Syria.

Using Meskeneh as a case study, I examine the world of concentration camps during the Armenian Ge... more Using Meskeneh as a case study, I examine the world of concentration camps during the Armenian Genocide, focusing on its organization and administration, everyday life, brutality, corruption, collaboration, escape, and resistance. I argue that despite the violent mechanisms of control, the destruction of the Armenians did not progress unhindered. Deportee agency proved key. Camp inmates caught between the threat of re-deportation and burial ditches sought a way out by collaborating with, appeasing, manipulating, or resisting the system. Even those considered the weakest and needing protection most, the children, exercised agency: they begged, rummaged for food, and relayed messages to other camps clandestinely. This case study highlights the integral role of victim agency in the history of the Armenian Genocide.

Book Reviews by Khatchig Mouradian

Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2024

H-Diplo, 2019

Khatchig Mouradian. Review of Dixon, Jennifer M., Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turke... more Khatchig Mouradian. Review of Dixon, Jennifer M., Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. October, 2019.

First World War Studies, 2024

Book review: “The Genocide of the Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and its Aftermath, ... more Book review: “The Genocide of the Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and its Aftermath, 1908–1923,” First World War Studies, 15:1, 85–86.

The American Historical Review, 2023

Book Review: “The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-19... more Book Review: “The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924,” The American Historical Review, 128: 4 (December 2023).

Interviews by Khatchig Mouradian

Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2023

Michelle Allas Molina interviews Khatchig Mouradian on mass violence and resistance. Brown Journa... more Michelle Allas Molina interviews Khatchig Mouradian on mass violence and resistance. Brown Journal of World Affairs, Fall/Winter 2023 • volume xxx, issue 1.

Books by Khatchig Mouradian

Revista de estudios sobre genocidio, 2022

Durante décadas, la mayoría de los estudios sobre el genocidio presentaron y representaron la "re... more Durante décadas, la mayoría de los estudios sobre el genocidio presentaron y representaron la "resistencia" a los procesos de exterminio a partir de un estereotipo de acción armada. La publicación del libro de Khatchig Mouradian, The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918 es una respuesta contundente a esta concepción que ha descartado directa e indirectamente un capítulo crucial en la historia del Genocidio Armenio.

Choice Reviews, 2023

Mouradian’s is by far the most thorough and original account of resistance by Armenian victims to... more Mouradian’s is by far the most thorough and original account of resistance by Armenian victims to the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during WWI. His data-rich, precisely crafted investigation of the Turkish policy of deportation and slaughter, using hitherto neglected sources, offers a grounded yet highly original analysis of the murder of a million Armenians expelled from their homeland to Syria. He skillfully interweaves discussion of both organized and occasional forms of passive resistance by Armenian clergy and civilian leaders, missionaries, and local Syrian elites. He explores “the conceptual spectrum of actions that constitute resistance” among largely powerless victims with a sensitivity to nuance and thoroughness that will make this an indispensable, go-to analysis for all future analysts of genocide.

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2023

Khatchig Mouradian's impressive first book, The Resistance Network, highlights the rich potential... more Khatchig Mouradian's impressive first book, The Resistance Network, highlights the rich potential that Armenian sources hold not only for Armenian Genocide studies but for scholars of mass violence, more broadly. The result is a stunning piece of scholarship that boldly suggests that the defining story of the Armenians is not so much the Armenian Genocide but their resistance to it. The Armenian of The Resistance Network is no longer the passive victim marching off to her slaughter, but someone who renunciates the dominance of the génocidaire from within the depths of necroviolence. Mouradian models the possibility of simultaneously recognizing these events as the story of a crime and a story of resistance. In so doing he not only challenges the notion that Armenians were passive recipients of state violence; he also confronts the dominant narrative that they were saved solely by Western humanitarianism. These historiographic interventions are interwoven throughout the text and supported by Mouradian's skillful use of Western Armenian language sources alongside better-known English, French, German, and accessible Ottoman sources.

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, 2022

Essays, Op-Eds, and Short Articles by Khatchig Mouradian

The Diaspora at 100, The Armenian Weekly Magazine, 2024

“Armenian Studies in America: Past, Present, and Future” (co-authored with Marc A. Mamigonian), i... more “Armenian Studies in America: Past, Present, and Future” (co-authored with Marc A. Mamigonian), in Hayg Oshagan and Khachig Tololyan, eds., “The Diaspora at 100,” The Armenian Weekly special magazine issue, June 2024.

Cumhur yet Tar h 'nde yen b r aşamaya geçt ğ m ze şüphe yok. Mehter Marş'ları, cülus n yet ne üze... more Cumhur yet Tar h 'nde yen b r aşamaya geçt ğ m ze şüphe yok. Mehter Marş'ları, cülus n yet ne üzer nde sarayın resm n n bulunduğu paraların basılması Cumhurbaşkanlığı yem n tören n pad şahın kılıç kuşanma tören ne çev rd . Bakan seç m de yen düzen n puçlarını ç nde barındırıyor.