Monday, January 21, 2008

REDISCOVERING ARMENIAN BARDIZAG (BAHCHEJIK) IN WESTERN TURKEY

INVITATION

27 January 2008, 3:00 pm
Armenian House, 25 Cheniston Gardens, London W8
London, England

Nearest tube High Street Kensington

For more information please write to Roland Mnatsakanyan
at info@gomidas.org or telephone 020 7603 7242

Entrance is free. Light refreshments will be provided. RSVP.

This presentation by Ara Melkonian will be the first in our new series, "The Lost Armenian Communities of Ottoman Turkey." Melkonian will use a rich tapestry of sources to visit Bahchejik, the ancestral village of his family, in western Turkey. He will recall the memory of his village for a new generation of Armenians to connect with their ancestral past.

Ara Melkonian is a Fellow at the Gomidas Institute, London, where he specializes in Armenian-English translations and works on other special projects. His recent work includes translations of Vahram Dadrian’s Forsaken Love (Taderon Press, 2006) and Raffi’s Tajkahayk, (Taderon Press, 2007). He just began a database series on Armenian Orphans in the Aftermath of WWI. He is the author of “Memory Faultlines” which appeared in the July 2006 issue of Ancestors, the journal of the British National Archives.

3 comments:

D. Sark said...

Thank you for your work on Bardizag. It was just a town my great grandparents came from. Your work lets me understand their world a little better. They were Terztackian. I am sure the name is misspelled. My grandfather says they had a large statue of four oxen (I believe oxen, but would have to dig up the notes) out in front of the house.

Peggy said...

I have just reurned from Bahchejik.I went to try to see the area my grandmother and father and other family members were at the time of the genocide. I had a map from a book on Bardizag. I was very,very naive. The map was approximately 100 yrs. old.
Your work has enlightened me and brought a very definite picture of Bardizag of the time. I realized there was a terrible earthquake in the 1990s. Whjich obviously changed the landscape of the area . My grandmother was a Pashayan married to a Kousidiguian. the trip was exciting and yet a little disappointing as I was looking for a fountain my ancestors contributed . But I believe the American College is still standing. I believe it was the only structure regognizable . Thank you again for your guide book top my heritage .

Art K. said...

the above comment was sent by me. The peggy is my wife