Hybrid Warfare, a Pseudo-Scandal and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute

 Stephan Astourian

It has been a month and a half now that an unpleasant controversy has been raging in Armenia around the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI), its director Dr. Harutyun Marutyan, and a member of the museum’s Board of Trustees, Dr. Hranush Kharatyan. Among the accusations, one could enumerate the following: Dr. Marutyan avoids using the word “genocide” on purpose, preferring “Medz Yeghern” (Great Crime); his goal is to dilute, if not annihilate, Armenian legal claims, and to encourage rapprochement with denialist Turkey; he must be an agent of some obscure forces, if not of Turkey itself, and probably of the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which has been accused of “destroying Armenian values and statehood” after coming to power in late spring 2018. Of course, diluting Armenian Genocide claims must have been part of these vicious purported goals, according to the allegations.

How Istanbul’s Kuleli Military High School Became an Armenian Orphanage

Uzay Bulut

 

The consequences of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt have been top news items in the Turkish media for months. And one of the topics widely discussed is what will become of the Kuleli Military High School in Istanbul, which was closed down by decree of the Turkish government on July 31.

The Kuleli Military High School building, originally the Kuleli Cavalry Barracks, was designed by the prominent Armenian architect Garabed Amira Balyan (1800-1866), who built several palaces, factories, barracks, churches, hospitals, and schools in the Ottoman Empire.

Scholar Captures Tragedy, Miracle Of Aurora Mardiganian’s Life Story

Alin K. Gregorian

In the 1920s, the name and face of Aurora Mardiganian were well known in the United States and beyond. Her autobiography, Ravished Armenia; the Story of Aurora Mardiganian, was a bestseller and the movie based on it, “An Auction of Souls,” was a hit too. However, in the ensuing decades, she was forgotten, becoming another one of the anonymous casualties of the Armenian Genocide.
She is now being reclaimed by the Armenians in an effort led by Dr. Hayk Demoyan, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan.
Demoyan presented an illustrated lecture about Mardiganian on March 8 at the Armenian Cultural Foundation, at a program co-sponsored by the foundation, the Armenian International Women’s Association and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research.

When Dictionaries Are Left Unopened: How ‘Medz Yeghern’ Turned into Terminology of Denial

You may want to know that ‘Meds Yeghern’ does not mean genocide;
it means “Great Calamity.” Armenians used that term before the word
‘genocide’ was coined by Raphael Lemkin in the 1940′s.

–Harut Sassounian¹

These explanatory words appeared after President Barack Obama used “Medz Yeghern” in his April 2009 statement: “The Meds Yeghern must live on in our memories, just as it lives on in the hearts of the Armenian people. … Nothing can bring back those who were lost in the Meds Yeghern.”² He repeated Medz Yeghern twice or three times—always without translation—in each of his April 24 statements between 2009 and 2012.

In this article, we will discuss the use of the phrase and some of the reactions it triggered in Armenian and Turkish quarters, and in one of the many realms of public debate: Wikipedia.