On April 10, 2019, the Boston Chapter of Hamazkayin celebrated the publication of Dr. Meline Anumyan’s volume, Acknowledgement and Condemnation: The Trials of the Young Turks in 1919-1921 and 1926. The event was held at the Papken Siuni Club in Watertown, Mass.
Arevig Caprielian, chairperson of the Hamazkayin Eastern U.S.A. Regional Executive Board, and Nanor Barsoumian, a member of the same board, were in attendance, along with members of the Boston chapter and the reading public. Khajag Mgrdichian, chairperson of the Boston Chapter Executive Board, opened the event. Vice chairperson Verginie Touloumian introduced the author, a specialist in Ottoman history.
Dr. Anumyan discussed the content of the book. Her talk featured slides. The book discusses the Ottoman military tribunal convened in 1919–21 that held the authors of the Armenian deportations accountable for their actions; it further discusses the 1926 trial of the Young Turks held in republican Turkey. Discussing the records of the trials, Dr. Anumyan emphasized that the phrase, “numerous local and mass killings,” was used repeatedly. She asserted that this description matches Rafael Lemkin’s 1946 definition of genocide.