FRESNO — “An Untold Story of Survival: the Armenian Community in Istanbul during the Armistice Years (1918-1923)” will be the topic of Dr. Ari Şekeryan’s presentation at 7:30PM on Friday, February 7, 2020, in the University Business Center, Alice Peters Auditorium, Room 191 on the Fresno State campus. The presentation is part of the Spring Lecture Series of the Armenian Studies Program.
A welcoming hors d’oeuvres reception will be held from 6:30-7:30PM immediately preceding the lecture in the University Business Center Gallery.
Dr. Şekeryan was appointed the 16th Henry S. Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies for the Spring 2020 semester. This lecture series will explore how the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire reorganized and protected its existence during the Armistice period (1918-1923). Based on an untouched collection of Armenian and Ottoman Turkish press, lectures provide fresh research on a neglected period in the history of the late Ottoman Empire and Ottoman Armenians.
The Armistice of Mudros signed in October 1918 opened a new chapter in the history of Ottoman Armenians. It was a time of hope and rebirth for the Armenian community. The beginning of this new chapter was celebrated on the very first day on the streets of Istanbul by the Armenians, Greeks, and Jews. Yet, the story of Armistice period has been mostly absent in the existing academic literature. The lecture presents an overview of the political and social developments that happened in the Ottoman Empire during the Armistice period and it explores how the Armenian community organized itself while facing political turmoil.
Dr. Şekeryan will give two additional public lectures during the Spring semester, on March 5 and April 2.
Dr. Şekeryan graduated from the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, defending his dissertation entitled, “The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire after the First World War (1918-1923).” In the 2018-2019 academic year, Dr. Şekeryan was an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Institute for Research in the Humanities. Şekeryan was a Visiting Lecturer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Yerevan State University (summer of 2018) and a Research Assistant in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford in 2016.
The lecture and reception are free and open to the public. Free parking is available in Fresno State Lots P6 and P5, near the University Business Center, Fresno State. Parking permits are not required for Friday lectures.
For more information about the lecture please contact the Armenian Studies Program at 278-2669, visit our website at www.fresnostate.edu/armenianstudies, or visit our Facebook page at @ArmenianStudiesFresnoState.
