Two volumes edited by UCLA history professor emeritus Richard Hovannisian, Armenian Van and Armenian Baghesh/Bitlis and Taron/Mush, have been released in Turkish translation by Aras Publishers in Istanbul. Both volumes are from the UCLA international conference series “Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces,” begun by professor Hovannisian in 1997.
The first conference focused on Armenian Van/Vaspurakan (first published in English by Mazda Publishers in 2000), followed in 1998 by the second conference on Armenian Baghesh/Bitlis and Taron/Mush (published in 2001). Aras Publishers plans to translate into Turkish all 14 volumes in the UCLA series, the most recent of which was released in 2016 by Mazda Publishers under the title, Armenian Communities of the Northeastern Mediterranean: Musa Dagh—Dört-Yol—Kessab.
Contributors to the Van and Bitlis-Mush volumes discuss the political geography and dynastic history and culture of the two regions, from antiquity to the 20th century, their art and architecture, classical historians and colophons, interactions with foreign powers, tribulations under Ottoman rule, role in Armenian liberation movements, fate during the 1915 Armenian genocide and self-defense in World War I, and their presence in modern literature.
The two volumes were released to the public in Istanbul on Nov. 9-10, 2016, during an international conference on Van, sponsored by the Hrant Dink Foundation. During his keynote address, professor Hovannisian reflected on growing up in the San Joaquin Valley of California among the immigrants and survivors from Van, Bitlis and Mush. He then assessed the multifaceted information and insights gained from the 70 oral history interviews that he and his students at UCLA conducted with natives of the city and numerous villages of the province of Van.
Aras Publishers is currently translating the third volume in the UCLA series, Armenian Tsopk/Kharpert.
Richard Hovannisian is a past holder of the AEF Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA. He is currently an adjunct professor of history at the University of Southern California, working with the Shoah Foundation to ensure the proper transcription, translation and incorporation of the Armenian genocide survivor interviews of the Armenian Film Foundation into the Shoah archives. He also serves as President’s Fellow at Chapman University in Orange, California.
