YEREVAN.- Armenia’s National Archives is the largest depositary of evidence of the Armenian Genocide, archive director said.
Amatuni Virabyan said they are preparing for the April 24 which will mark the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
He noted that the national archives have 12,000 documents, which are divided into several groups: state papers, testimonies of the Genocide survivors which is the most valuable part, as well as copies of the documents brought from different countries having ambassadors in Turkey in 1915.
“Studying of the Genocide issue began only after 1965. Of course, a large number of documents were published, but they were mainly the state and diplomatic papers,” he told reporters.
The feelings of people were left out of the research. Therefore, they are engaged in publishing the documents containing stories of people whose families have not survived or escaped but were eyewitnesses of horrific events, Virabyan said.
He recalled that Armenia’s national archive has published a three-volume collection of Armenian Genocide memories recorded since 1916. This year the 4th and 5th volumes will appear.
“The first volume is devoted to the province of Van, the second – to Bitlis, and the third – to the rest of the territories of Western Armenia. The fourth volume will be devoted to Cilicia, and the fifth – to the rest of the territories of the Ottoman Empire,” Virabian noted. The English and Turkish versions will be released by 2015.
Virabyan informed about an electronic register of names of the Armenian Genocide victims, which will be posted on the web. He explained that publishing the names of 1.5 million people is impossible, and the register already includes about 150-200 thousands of names.
“Another area of the research is specification of material losses. We have about 29,000 papers and we will publish them in turn during the next 10 years,” he added.
The National Archives is engaged in studying the issue of extermination of the Armenians in Azerbaijan. According to him, the two published volumes represented about 600 documents of what actually happened in 1918 in the Armenian provinces of Gandzak, Shaki and Shirvan.
