The Zoryan Institute and AUA Center for Oral History was launched at AUA AGBU Papazian Library today.
The Zoryan Institute has deposited copies of its renowned Armenian Genocide Oral History Archive to this Center.
The collection consisting of approximately 800 video recordings of interviews with Genocide survivors, now digitized, holds considerable significance for scholars, students, researchers and filmmakers.
“We have to educate the coming generations on what genocide as a phenomenon means. We should not look at this exceptionally through the Armenian prism, because many peoples have passed through the evil,” says Greg Sarkissian, President of the Zoryan Institute.
The project started in 1983, when it became evident that time was running out for the generation of Armenians, who had firsthand account of the genocide.
Eyewitness survivors were asked the same questions, questionnaires were developed so as not only to elicit information about the Genocide, but also provide details and valuable insights into the life of the Armenian people before the Genocide.
The questions were designed to garner as much detail as possible, covering a range of topics from games the Armenians played at home to their personal experiences during the Genocide.
AUA students will now transcribe the recordings in the collection, and those in Armenian will be translated into English to increase the usefulness of these invaluable resources.
“I’m very glad for this opportunity to host this Oral History Center, because it fits very well with the library that is open to the public and works with students, because the students, the next generation are the ones to help this be available in different languages,” says AUA President Dr. Karin Markides.
“These students and other scholars will build on this collection. I’m sure we will get more added to this. This is just the first step to build the Oral History into a library,” Dr. Markides notes.
The collection holds eight hours of interviews with Armenian Genocide survivor Aurora Mardiganian, a refugee turned actress, and the unlikely star of one of the highest grossing films of the day. The Zoryan Institute is currently working with the largest documentary film studio in Yerevan, BARS Media, to produce the animated film, Aurora Sunrise.
This film will bring to life Aurora Mardiganian’s amazing story of survival through animation, using the Institute’s Oral History Project of the 1980s.
Director of the film Inna Sahakyan says archive materials from the Shoah Foundation and the Armenian Film Foundation have also been used in the documentary, which is slated for release in fall 2020.
According to her, the French-German ARTE TV will screen the documentary in 2021.
Aurora Mardiganian wrote the best-selling book, Ravished Armenia, in which she shared her survivor experiences. She later starred in a film adaptation—one of the biggest blockbusters of the silent-era.
She was also a face of a parallel humanitarian campaign for victims of the genocide, which raised over $30 million – then the largest such fundraiser in American history. At the peak of her fame she was admired by diplomats, politicians, industrialists, and other movie stars.
Animating Aurora’s interview will make her story more dynamic and expand its reach to larger audiences. Through this film, Aurora’s 104-year-old story will be accessible to future generations perpetually.
Yorumlar kapatıldı.