BookFree with registration
Ohanian, Daniel · Batikian, Gabriella · Garabedian, Salpi, 2023
Sara Corning Centre for Genocide Education, Toronto; 828 pp.; ISBN 978-1738967209 (Ohanian, Batikian and Garabedian are compilers; with contributions by Jack Apramian, Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill, John Farr and Lorne Shirinian)
Ararat Monthly and Արարատ ամսաթերթ were newsletters published by the Georgetown Boys, Armenian Genocide orphans brought to Canada from 1923, and their teacher Aris Alexanian, who used them to practise English and Armenian, share artwork and stories, report on life at their orphanage-farm, and stay connected with Armenians worldwide. At their peak they had 2,000 subscribers in more than thirty countries, releasing 15 English and at least 30 Armenian issues between 1926 and 1929. The volume marks the centennial of the initiative and gathers the dispersed remnants of the newsletters, assembled over a decade from families, libraries and archives in Canada, Armenia, Austria, France and the United States. Recovering 45 issues where only about 30 had been known.
Journal ArticlePaywalled
Ohanian, Daniel, 2017
Genocide Studies International, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 197–215 (University of Toronto Press); DOI 10.3138/gsi.11.2.04
In 1918 some 500,000 Ottoman Armenians were displaced from their homes or living in Muslim households across the Eastern Mediterranean and South Caucasus, and for most life did not return to normal after the war. New wars, political manoeuvring, famine and epidemics produced a long-term refugee crisis. This article examines one response: the humanitarian relocation to Canada of 110 boys and 39 girls and women, all genocide refugees and most of them orphans. It traces how the campaign succeeded despite Canadian immigration authorities' long-standing efforts to exclude Asians, the impoverished and the stateless. Breaking with the celebratory tone of much humanitarian-aid literature, it shows how earlier Canadian fundraising campaigns became a liability, and attends closely to the people and ideas that opposed the project.
