Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for Justice

by Michael Bobelian

The first book to chronicle the aftermath of the twentieth century’s first genocide, this groundbreaking work recounts the Armenians’ struggle for justice in the face of fifty years of silence and denial. • First comprehensive From 1915 to 1923, the Ottoman Turks drove two million Armenians from their ancestral homeland, slaughtering 1.5 million of them in the process. After an immediate groundswell of support for the “starving Armenians” led by President Woodrow Wilson, the atrocities were wiped from public consciousness. Why has Turkey never been held accountable? This, the first account of the post-Genocide era, explains how and why the event disappeared from the world’s memory and reveals for the first time the full story of the events that conspired to conceal the truth. • Powerful Children of Armenia blends characterdriven narrative with historical analysis, tracking three central figures—a terrorist seeking revenge, a lawyer seeking reparations, and a lobbyist seeking recognition—to deliver a powerful true story in the tradition of Iris Chang, Peter Balakian, Samantha Power, and Philip Gourevitch. • From rwanda to Darfur to Bosnia, there has been much discussion of twentieth-century genocides, the proper u.S. response, and the tragic aftermaths. Bobelian’s pioneering account of the post-Genocide generation’s struggle for justice demonstrates just how critical the establishment of truth is for peaceful reconciliation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War I, Historical, Middle East, War

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Michael Bobelian is an award-winning author, lawyer, and journalist whose work has covered issues ranging from legal affairs to corporate wrongdoing to human rights.

Upon graduating from the University of Michigan’s Business and Law Schools, Michael worked at a Wall Street law firm before earning a Master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

As a contributing writer at Forbes.com, Michael currently covers the Supreme Court, Wall Street reform, white collar crime, regulatory agencies, and high-profile trials. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times, Washington Monthly, California Lawyer Magazine, Reuters, Legal Affairs Magazine, and the New York Law Journal, where he worked as a staff reporter.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not quite as well-written as, perhaps, The Rape of Nanking, but just as important in its way. I was very happy to see this book on my library new-book shelf recently, as just a few weeks ago, I read a comment in another book that "The Turkish-Armenian problem was not a massacre or genocide, but an episode of warfare between armed combatants" and I was astonished and shocked that there were people who still believed this. This book was well-researched; it was less ABOUT the actual genocide, although that is covered, and more about the effects upon the descendents over the last nearly 100 years, the long and frustrating struggle for any justice, and even for simple acknowledgement. There were particularly interesting sections detailing legislative efforts in the US to recognize what happened to the Armenians, and the resultant ferocious efforts by the Turks to quash any mention of genocide. An important book for those interested in human rights.

[Doreen Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! A period of world history that must never be forgotten!

[J J · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Disclaimer: The author is the wonderful professor of the first course taken in my pursuit of an M.S. degree from Columbia Journalism School.]

This book is very important, documenting a whole genocide perpetrated by Ottomans (now Turkey) that most readers will probably not have heard of before. Moreover, the book explains with indisputable facts and anecdotes the way in which such an event got erased from the consciousness of America and the rest of the world because of Cold War preoccupations.

Not only does Chidren of Armenia provide a definitive account of lost history in one accessible volume, it also provokes deep thought on what we the people care about at any given time and why.

The Armenian genocide and what became of its memory stand as evidence that the engines of sociopolitical dynamics can render even indisputable mass human suffering into something that will be either marketed to or forgotten by humanity, depending on a host of ulterior motives.

The information held within this book deserves to be echoed in history books and the classrooms of our country.

Having grown up in Massachusetts, I was aware as a kid that an Armenian community existed but did not know anything about Armenian culture or history. Learning something about it has prompted me to reach out to Armenian friends/classmates of my past to tell them, hey, so I read this book....

[Lady ♥ Belleza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Around the time of the first World War, the Armenians were expelled from their homeland, whole families and villages were massacred. It was the Ottoman Empire’s attempt to erase the Armenian people. They were only partially successful, while there is no longer an Armenian homeland, a place they can call their own, there are groups of Armenian people still living in the world.

April 24 has been designated as the day Armenians commemorate the genocide. I don’t remember the exact term for the celebration, I am using the word celebration with the meaning “the public performance of a sacrament or solemn ceremony with all appropriate ritual”. In this account Mr. Bobelian starts with this celebration then goes on to tell how he knows about it (he’s Armenian) and how the world forgot that the Turks tried to exterminate the Armenians and the reasons for it. The Turkish people deny it ever happened, many countries, including my own, refuse to call what happened a genocide. That hasn't stopped the Armenian people from looking for recognition. And this article by Stephen Zunes explains why it is important to remember and acknowledge the event by its proper name. In a nutshell he says, “Those who forget history are doomed to forget it.” The proof of that is in what happened to the Jews in WWII, the Chinese at Nanking and the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.

This book doesn’t tell of the genocide in great detail, but does explain what happened after, explaining the injustice committed against the Armenian people and the efforts being made to right this great wrong. There was a lot of political discussion in this book, and while I feel it was necessary it was a little boring to me. If I could skim I would probably have given the book a better rating. That being said I do recommend this book

[Rhonda Hankins]

This book explains the genocide of Armenians, but focuses on the political process that failed to result in a meaningful acknowledgement of the genocide. The meticulous accounting of the votes of politicians and the maneuvering can get too detailed to follow but the gist of the story is powerful and the reader understands how politics can trump justice and historical fact.

[Wgrissom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book if, like me, you knew little to nothing about the history of the Armenian Genocide, and its place in 20th century history.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatness of this book is in the authors way of telling a very complicated and sensitive reality in an interesting way, full of facts and testimonies... A must read book.

[Signe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another important work.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not The Genocide Book I tend to expect when picking up books about Armenian history. I expected the book to chronicle the Armenian Genocide and possibly end with a call-to-action. The introduction included visceral, vivid, disturbing descriptions of the genocide and painfully detailed descriptions of another murder. I thought I was going to get in too-deep with a genocide book.

But Children Of Armenia is not about the Armenian Genocide. This book is about the history of Armenia as a republic and as an ancient kingdom. Because the genocide has been the largest focus of Armenian identity of the last hundred years, much of the book is about the effects of the genocide on the hundred intervening years, but Children Of Armenia is not interested in convincing readers of the genocide or asking for sympathy.

Instead, somehow, Bobelian manages to build suspense in historical scenes (meticulously researched and conversationally told) and tell a several-hundred year history like a novel: I often knew what was coming but I still hoped for the best results. The narrator is conversational and unemotional and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning Armenian or American history.

[Tricia Hartanto · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’ ~Milan Kundera

The assassinations of two Turkish consular officials in 1973 by a survivor of Armenian massacre started the journey back in time to a period between 1870 – 1915 where the condemned massacre of 1.5 million Armenian, eviction, oppression and violence of around 500,000 others happened. Michael Bobelian, a journalist and the writer of Children of Armenia ventured into the forgotten past of his ancestors, in the land of mythical Armenia.

As someone who grew up listening to horrific family history where his great grandfather and uncle were brutally killed, leaving only women and children in his family to be driven out of their homes and land, every life lost and every suffering was a big question mark for him. Why the massacre should happened? Why a man like Gougen Yanikian plotted a cold-blooded killing spree more than fifty years after the genocide? Why were Armenians still struggling for justice nearly a century after the genocide?

His contemplation thus led him to a bigger question: what were the consequences of this almost unprecedented delay in justice? The very same question vexed me since my country, Indonesia, also have a denied crimes of the past to the human rights, perpetrated by the government, and they are yet unsolved until the second I wrote this entry.

To the question, the New Republic editorial on 1919 stated, ‘If we fail at this juncture to vindicate Armenia’s right to freedom, we shall never again persuade the world that our moral sentiments are anything but rhetoric playing over a gulf of selfishness and sloth.’ (pg. 45) Likewise, if Indonesia failed to right the wrongs; the historically-omitted massacre, oppression and exile of the left wing partisans in 1965 – 1966, killings and forced disappearances during the New Order regime which peaked in 1998, and many more, we should never again persuade ourselves as citizens to believe that moral sentiments of Indonesia were anything but rhetoric playing, and it would open a chance of recurrence. As President T. Roosevelt stated, ‘Failure to deal radically with the horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.’

However, it is a winding and difficult journey to manifest peace and justice, given to the benefits of alliances especially among nations that were appointed to resolve the human rights violation of Armenians. Sadly, it is apparently a shared fact that we, as Indonesians, also have difficulties in manifesting the peace and justice to human rights crimes happened in the past. Nonetheless, we should not lose hope. We should continue to strive for the justice of human rights, although it means to stand in front of our state palace every Wednesday.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another of the examples of political expediency outweighing justice and truth. This book chronicles the genocide of the Armenians at the hand of the Turks at the end of the Ottoman Empire, just prior to WWI. The Armenians have never been able to secure any kind of apology from Turkey for the genocide who deny it ever happened (1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered) and the U.S. has hesitated to push for this acknowledgement because of the strategic position of Turkey to our military. Difficult to swallow, once again.

[Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-Long Struggle for Justice is a heavily researched account of a tragedy largely overlooked by global media. Bobelian’s research is meticulous, providing a thorough examination of the historical events. However, his attempts at artful or engaging prose fall short, diminishing the narrative’s overall impact.

While this book may not be for everyone, the tragedy it details is something everyone should be made aware of.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look at how world events kept a horrendous tragedy out of the public consciousness

[Edmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very strong and great subject and very informative. I didn't realize the lawsuit with insurance. I just really thought this was a very good book.