Peter Balakian will discuss the book of poems Bloody News from My Friend by Siamanto (1878-1915). Dr. Diran Balakian, Peter Balakian’s grandfather, at the time of the 1909 Adana massacres was working as a physician tending to the wounded and was also an eyewitness to the atrocities.
This presentation will focus on several efforts since 2019 to continue and expand the long-running project of Armenian Genocide denial and will also discuss how it dovetails with the efforts of Azerbaijan to rewrite history as a means to dictate Armenia’s future but also its past.
Professor Ron Suny, emeritus of the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan -- and author of a major study of the massacres and deportations committed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, "They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide (Princeton University Press, 2015) -- uses the insights of Moses' work to take a fresh look at the Armenian tragedy and how it provides another lens to look at the concept of genocide.
This audio-visual presentation, featuring rare archival material, photographs and video clips, sheds light on the massive life-saving impact of the Near East Relief and more specifically, the Kerr family, on a generation of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Responding to horrific eyewitness accounts and urgent pleas for help, the U.S. mobilized an unprecedented campaign of humanitarian assistance led by the Near East Relief (NER) and given legs by a small army of relief workers who risked their lives to help the destitute survivors in distant, dangerous lands. Among the volunteers was Stanley Kerr, a young biochemist in the U.S. Army who, learning of the opportunity to join the relief effort, in 1919 boarded a ship to the crumbling Ottoman Empire.