YEREVAN. – A new documentary “A century-long Genocide. Black January of Baku” was presented in Yerevan on Tuesday.
The new documentary “A century-long Genocide. Black January of Baku” is produced within the frameworks of “Ordinary Genocide” project, and is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Armenian pogroms in Baku. The film is based on interviews with refugees from Baku, recorded by a project crew in the United States. Yet only a small part of those witness accounts is used in the documentary, leaving full body of evidence to be published in a separate volume in summer 2015.
The leading conceptual idea of the film is the tangible connection between those events in the early XX century in Ottoman Empire with what has been perpetrated against Armenians in Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh. The memoirs of those refugees about their ancestors affected in Western Armenia account for the continuity of Turkish policies at the hands of Azerbaijan, as well as for the continuity of the genocide of Armenians for over a century. The stories told by refugees unveil a lot more previously untold details of pogroms of Armenians in Baku. These accounts leave no doubts that violence and killings of Armenians began in Baku right after Sumgait, and January 1990 was just the culmination of genocide and expulsion of 250,000-strong Armenian population of Baku.
For the first time in Armenia a project is hereby being implemented on the state level aiming at preserving the eyewitness accounts for the history, accounts of those who have survived through the hell of genocide in Baku and who have found the strength to start new life in a foreign country.
Nowadays around 55,000 Armenians from Baku reside in the United States. Many of them discovered Armenianness in themselves after the pogroms, felt the deep roots and became active members of Armenian community in the country of residence.
The documentary is translated into Russian and English. Translation into other languages is planned as well. Events with with film screening, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Armenian pogroms in Baku, will take place in various cities across the United States.
“A century-long Genocide. Black January of Baku” is the sixth documentary produced within the frameworks of the “Ordinary Genocide” project, implemented by the Information and Public Relations Center of the Administration of the President of Armenia. Since November 2009 a series of documentaries about events in Sumgayit, Baku, Maragha, Operation Ring have been produced in five languages, KarabakhRecords.info website has been developed, as well as many books have been published, re-published and translated. Brochures in three languages (Armenian, English, Russian) telling in detail about the events covered by the “Ordinary Genocide” project have also been published.
The nation-wide release of the documentary will be on “Armenia TV” on January 20.
