Recreating Home in Exile: The Armenian Memory Book (Houshamadean) as Artifact and Road Map

“Every home opened its doors to me save for my ancestral abode,” wrote Armenian poet Mushegh Ishkhan in 1936. His was a generation of genocide survivors forced out of their homeland and scattered around the globe. A yearning to reenact erased histories and recreate inaccessible geographies—tucked behind the borders of Turkey—defined many of their lives and pursuits. The literary genre of the memory book (houshamadean in Armenian) emerged from this cauldron: more than 300 published titles (and many unpublished ones) dedicated to Armenian-populated regions, towns, or villages in the Ottoman Empire were produced in the Armenian Diaspora since the 1920s.

In this illustrated talk, Dr. Khatchig Mouradian will explore the memorial book as a literary genre, art, and artifact. Guided by published and unpublished works and more than 20 research trips and pilgrimages to the very spaces the books celebrate and memorialize, Mouradian reflects on the agency of the houshamadeans and their enduring legacy.

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