Illustrated Lecture in Glendale by Osman Köker on “Images of Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago”

On Thursday, March 18, at 7:00 p.m., Osman Köker will present an illustrated talk (in English) entitled “Images of Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago” at the Glendale Central Library, 22 Harvard Street (2nd floor), Glendale, CA 91205. The event is sponsored by the Glendale Public Library and co-sponsored by the Ararat-Eskijian Museum, the Organization of Istanbul Armenians, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
In 2005, Osman Köker first came to international attention when he organized the unprecedented exhibition “Sireli Yeghpayrs (My Dear Brother)” in Istanbul. Eventually seen by thousands of people, it presented photographs of Armenian life in pre-genocide Ottoman Turkey, drawn from a large collection of postcards owned by the collector Orlando Calumeno. In the five years since then, the exhibition has also been mounted in Paris, Munich, Koln, Frankfurt, and last year in Yerevan.
Köker originally intended to write a book about Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire, but with the discovery of the postcard collection the scope of the project changed. Following the exhibition he published the massive and beautifully-produced volume 100 Yýl Önce Türkiye’de Ermeniler, subsequently published in English as Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago, featuring hundreds of images showing where and how Armenians in the Ottoman Empire lived.
Osman Köker was also involved in the creation in 1996 of the Istanbul Turkish-Armenian daily Agos and Aras Publishing House, the only publishing house which publishes books in Armenian and books translated into Turkish from the Armenian. This will be his first public presentation in the United States. While in Los Angeles, Köker will also be presenting a paper at the UCLA conference “The Armenian Communities of Asia Minor” organized by the AEF Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA. The conference will be held on March 20.
For more information please contact Elizabeth Grigorian: (818) 548-3288 or email Egrigorian@ci.glendale.ca.us; or contact NAASR at 617-489-1610 or hq@naasr.org; Ararat-Eskijian Museum at 818-838-4862 or ararat-eskijian-museum@netzero.net; Ohannes Kulak Avedikian of OIA at 818-800-1976.