UCLA AEF Chair Sponsors 95th Anniversary Events

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LOS ANGELES — The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History has organized three events between April 13 and 18 commemorating the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-2010. The first two events will be held on the UCLA campus and the third in the Glendale Public Library Auditorium. The programs will feature scholars who have undertaken new archival research and analyses relating to the Armenian Genocide

On Tuesday and Thursday, April 13 and 15, archival historian Matthias Bjornlund from Copenhagen and Research historian Ugur Ümit Üngör from Turkey and currently from the Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin, will speak and participate in discussions in the UCLA History Conference Room, 6275 Bunche Hall, 2-4 p.m.

In the first talk, Bjornlund will consider “Smyrna/Izmir, 1914-1916: ‘A Special Case’ during the Armenian Genocide.” He says: “Scholarship on the Armenian Genocide is in constant development, but detailed regional studies of the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians are still few. From the 1914 persecution of Greeks to the largely successful resistance to the Armenian Genocide in Smyrna during World War I, this talk focuses on what made Smyrna a ‘special case.’”

Üngör’s topic on Thursday, April 15, is “Confiscation and Colonization: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property.” This is the subject of his detailed study that will be released as a book later in 2010 by Continuum Publishers (London and New York). Both UCLA lectures are open to the public at no charge. Parking is by pay-by-space on campus or daylong parking in structures No. 3 and No. 5, with permits issued at kiosks at Sunset and Westwood Boulevards.

Glendale Public Library Seminar

An important community outreach program will be held in a Sunday afternoon seminar on April 18, 3-6 p.m. in the auditorium of the Glendale Public Library. The seminar is cosponsored by the UCLA AEF Chair and the Glendale Public Library, Armenian Outreach, with Elizabeth Grigorian serving as coordinator. The seminar will feature four speakers: Richard Hovannisian, AEF Chair, UCLA, “Looking Backward, Moving Forward;” Matthias Bjornlund, “The Armenian Genocide: Prelude, Eyewitnesses, Aftermath;” Wolf Gruner, Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies, USC, “What Could Germans in the Third Reich Know about the Armenian Genocide?” and Ugur Ümit Üngör, “Reign of Terror: Young Turk Mass Violence in Context, 1913-1938.”

The seminar is open to the public at no charge. Seating is limited. For further information on the UCLA programs contact Hovannisian at hovannis@history.ucla.edu, and on the Glendale Library seminar: Grigorian at Egrigorian@ci.glendale.ca.us.

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The AEF Chair programs are supported by the UCLA Souren and Verkin Papazian Fund, Center for Near Eastern Studies, and Center for European and Eurasian Studies.

In addition to these programs, Hovannisian participated in panels in a conference on the Armenian Genocide, sponsored by the Kaloosdian-Mugar Chair and Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Clark University, April 7-10, and will participate in a forum sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Orange County on April 20. He will then depart for a symposium on Armenian art in the once-important Armenian mercantile center of Zamosc, Poland.

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