Khatchig Mouradian
Historian Vahé Tachjian earned his Ph.D. in history and civilization at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His research covers the period of the French occupation of Cilicia, Syria, and Lebanon between World War I and World War II; the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire; refugee problems in the Middle East; and Kurdish-Armenian relations. He has carried out extensive research in archives in Paris, Berlin, Nantes, London, Cairo, Beirut, Aleppo, and Yerevan, and is currently the project director and chief editor of www.houshamadyan.org, which was created in 2011 by the Berlin-based Houshamadyan not-for-profit Association, founded in 2010. The website aims is to reconstruct the daily life of the Ottoman-Armenian and his social environment in all its facets. Articles and various materials about the Harput (Kharpert), Palu, and Marash regions have already appeared on the website’s pages. New articles and materials about many other Armenian-populated areas are in preparation.
Tachjian’s publications include La France en Cilicie et en Haute-Mésopotamie. Aux confins de la Turquie, de la Syrie et de l’Irak (Karthala Editions, Paris, 2004, 465 pages); Introduction and Notes to Ohannès Pacha Kouyoumdjian, Le Liban à la veille et au début de la guerre: Mémoires d’un gouverneur, 1913-1915, with co-editors Raymond Kévorkian and Michel Paboudjian (Beirut, 2003); Les Arméniens, 1917-1939. La quête d’un refuge, with co-editors Raymond Kévorkian and Lévon Nordiguian (Presses de l’Université Saint-Joseph, Beirut, 2006, 320 pages); and The Armenian General Benevolent Union: One Hundred Years of History, volume 1 (1906-40) and volume 2 (1941-2006) (AGBU Central Board of Directors, 447 pages, 2006, Paris). His new book, based on the diaries of two Armenian deportees (1915-18) from Ayntab, is currently in preparation for publication.
Armenian Weekly Editor Khatchig Mouradian recently conducted an interview with Tachjian via e-mail, about the Houshamadyan project.