Feb 9, 2021

The Resistance Network

The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918

Khatchig Mouradian

Hosted by Steven Seegel

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Summary

The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918 (Michigan State University Press, 2020) is the history of an underground network of humanitarians, missionaries, and diplomats in Ottoman Syria who helped save the lives of thousands during the Armenian Genocide. Khatchig Mouradian challenges depictions of Armenians as passive victims of violence and subjects of humanitarianism, demonstrating the key role they played in organizing a humanitarian resistance against the destruction of their people. Piecing together hundreds of accounts, official documents, and missionary records, Mouradian presents a social history of genocide and resistance in wartime Aleppo and a network of transit and concentration camps stretching from Bab to Ras ul-Ain and Der Zor. He ultimately argues that, despite the violent and systematic mechanisms of control and destruction in the cities, concentration camps, and massacre sites in this region, the genocide of the Armenians did not progress unhindered—unarmed resistance proved an important factor in saving countless lives.

Khatchig Mouradian is a lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) at Columbia University. Mouradian has published articles on concentration camps, unarmed resistance, the aftermath of mass violence, midwifery in the Middle East, and approaches to teaching history. He is the co-editor of a forthcoming book on late-Ottoman history, and the editor of the peer-reviewed journal The Armenian Review. Mouradian has taught courses on imperialism, mass violence, urban space and conflict in the Middle East, the aftermaths of war and mass violence, and human rights at Worcester State University and Clark University in Massachusetts, Rutgers University and Stockton University in New Jersey, and California State University – Fresno in California.

In January 2021, Mouradian was appointed Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division (Near East Section) at the Library of Congress.