Dr. Khatchig Mouradian will speak on his new book, “The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918.” The presentation, which will be held on Saturday, March 27 at 10 a.m., is part of the Spring 2021 Lecture Series of the Armenian Studies Program and is supported by the Leon S. Peters Foundation.
“The Resistance Network” 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. Dr. 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, Dr. 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.
Dr. Khatchig Mouradian is a lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.
In Fall 2016, Dr. Mouradian served as the Henry S. Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor at California State University, Fresno. He is the author of articles on genocide, mass violence, and unarmed resistance, the co-editor of a forthcoming book in late Ottoman history, and the editor of the peer-reviewed journal “The Armenian Review.”
In 2021, Dr. Mouradian was appointed the Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division (Near East Section) at the Library of Congress.
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