The David Atamian Journals: An Unparalleled Record of the Armenian Genocide

David Atamian (1892, Behesni–1978, Arlington, Virginia) survived the Armenian Genocide and produced an unparalleled multi-volume journal of the early twentieth century. The manuscript spans more than 10,000 pages in thirteen volumes, covering his youth, the genocide, and the postwar period. He recorded arrests, deportation procedures, police corruption, disease, hunger, and daily survival strategies, often in real time. His postwar entries trace conditions and survivor networks across Aintab, Antioch, Birecik, Dörtyol, Iskenderun, Kilis, Marash, Nizip, Musa Dagh, Suruç, Urfa, and Zeytun. The journals are multilingual (Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, with several dozen later pages in English) and include a wealth of photographs, reports, and verse. Atamian repeatedly reflects on loneliness, uncertainty, and the urgency of writing “while I still live” through events, presenting diary-keeping as an act of resistance and testimony. Donated to the Library of Congress in 1946, the manuscript was described as “perhaps the most significant, certainly the most unusual” acquisition of the year. In this illustrated talk, Dr. Mouradian offers the first scholarly reading of the manuscript, showing how the journals deepen our understanding of the late Ottoman era and shed light on the daily emotional world of deportees.