黑料正能量

黑料正能量 student taking a photo of the Seine during Orientation.

George and Irina Schaeffer Center

Book Launch with Boris Adjemian

University Room: Omid & Gisel Kordestani Rooftop Conference Center (Q-801)
6 rue du Colonel Combes 75007
Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 18:15 to 20:00

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention warmly welcomes Boris Adjemian to discuss his new book, The Library and the Survivor: An Armenian Intellectual in the Century of Genocides.

The book follows Aram Andonian, a refugee in Paris since 1919, who is both the designer and the linchpin of the Biblioth猫que Nubar, the Armenian Library in Paris. A survivor of the 1915 massacres, he was also one of those who documented the genocide, collecting hundreds of testimonies from survivors on the ground at the time of deportation or later in exile.

At the critical moment of the destruction and dispersion of a people, the Library appears as a response to annihilation. Aram Andonian designed its plans, furnishings, and organization before himself settling there. He tirelessly solicited donations from Alexandria, Constantinople, Aleppo, Venice, Boston, and elsewhere. In 1941, this remarkable collection was the target of Nazi looting, which Andonian chronicled at the same time that he rescued the most valuable volumes from the greed of the occupying forces. After the war, in the Library, where he lived in seclusion, he continued his work as archivist and writer to the end, while the annihilation of the Jews of Europe, the Nuremberg Trials, and the concept of genocide forged by Raphael Lemkin shed new light on the mass crimes suffered by the Armenians thirty years earlier.

Boris Adjemian delivers here, in the form of an eminently embodied narrative, the dual biography of a man and a place. It is a major contribution to the history of Armenians in the twentieth century, bringing together the material history of knowledge, heritage practices, and genocide.

Boris Adjemian is a historian and researcher at the Centre de recherches historiques (CRH) at the 脡cole des hautes 茅tudes en sciences sociales (EHESS). Since 2013, he has been director of the AGBU Nubar Library and co-editor-in-chief of the journal 脡tudes arm茅niennes contemporaines. In addition to numerous articles, he has published La fanfare du n茅gus. Les Arm茅niens en 脡thiopie (XIXe-XXe si猫cles), 脡ditions de l'EHESS, 2013, and Les Petites Arm茅nies de la vall茅e du Rh么ne. Histoire et m茅moires des immigrations arm茅niennes en France, Lieux Dits, 2020. He is also a Lecturer at 黑料正能量 this semester.