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Nadia Wright
Dr. Nadia Wright, who is of Armenian heritage, is a retired teacher and active historian living in Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on the Armenians in Southeast Asia as well as the founding of Singapore. She is the author of Respected Citizens: The History of the Armenians in Singapore and Malaysia; William Farquhar and Singapore: Stepping out from Raffles’ Shadow and The Armenians of Penang. She co-authored Vanda Miss Joaquim: Singapore’s National Flower & the Legacy of Agnes & Ridley and has published a variety of scholarly articles.

9 Comments

  1. These were my great aunts and uncles, and the playmate cousins of my father and his brother and sisters. I have written about their trek, as much as I could find out, on my blog about the family history, chasingchinthes.com

    • A Captain Minus is mentioned on p. 98 in ‘White Butterflies’ in which Colin McPhedran
      poignantly described his family’s attempt to trek out of Burma, and the aftermath.

  2. Wonderful article, thank you Nadia for your research and clarity of expression.

    As an Armenian born in Tehran and residing in Sydney since 1964, I grew up in Sydney among decedents from the people you mention, or at least they had the same surnames as many originated from Calcutta.

    The Armenian story of Julfa is part of international history weaving tales across more than half a millennia, most continents, the formation or reformation of numerous nation-states and many elements of their cultural history.

    You provide remarkable layers of evidence from the last half a century to that story.

    Your focus is rightly on nation-states now known as Singapore, Indonesia, Burma and Malaysia. As you know, the background of the people you profile links back to Julfa, a town in historic Armenia, in the region of Nakhichevan. Nakhichevan bears the same name in Armenian Նախճաւան meaning “the place of descent”, a Biblical reference to the descent of Noah’s Ark on the adjacent Mount Ararat.

    As you may know, the story of Julfa and its merchants is brilliantly recorded in Sebouh David Aslanian’s “From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa”. The Amazon link for that is: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=julfa%20armenian&index=blended&link_code=qs&sourceid=Mozilla-search&tag=mozilla-20

    This Friday in Sydney an Australian scholar, Dr Judith Crispin, will be giving a lecture on her team’s trip to Armenia this year to document and create a virtual museum for the cultural heritage that existed until 2005 in the millenia-old Julfa cemetary.

    Thank you again Nadia!!

  3. Thank you Noric for your additional information. The descendants of the Armenians deported from Julfa to Isfahan by Shah Abbas in the early 1600s made a great impact on the trading world of Southeast Asia. In Singapore, for example they founded the ‘Straits Times’ newspaper and created the iconic Raffles Hotel. Ashkhen Hovakimian hybridised the orchid that would become Singapore’s national flower, while the Church of St Gregory the Illuminator is Singapore’s oldest existing church.

    • {“In Singapore, for example they founded the ‘Straits Times’ newspaper and created the iconic Raffles Hotel.”}
      {“Ashkhen Hovakimian hybridised the orchid that would become Singapore’s national flower”}

      Quite amazing: I learn something new and amazing about our amazing people every day (amazing cubed).
      Great ‘find’ by ArmenianWeekly publicizing this important piece of our history, and thank you Ms. Wright for your invaluable work.

      ‘The Straits Times’ is still the highest selling newspaper in Singapore, and the “newspaper of record” (sort of like the New York Times).
      And the Raffles Hotel is still one of the best known icons of Singapore.

      btw: both your books are available on Amazon; a little expensive, but will save to buy both just the same.

  4. Ara Sarkies and Albert Sarkies were my uncles.
    My father Wilfred Sarkies and I( Rally Sarkies ) were in the same camp as Ara.
    My uncle Ara died from berri berri, and uncle Albert was killed by a bamboo spear in Sourabaia.

    Rally Sarkies

  5. Good work Nadia, one thing I noticed from lists on below link some Armenians are listed as British and some Armenian, I am directly related to internees at Changi and Sime Road camps and part of my family are shown as British yet others as Armenian http://www.cofepow.org.uk/index.html my own great grandmother Mary Anna Martin died in camp. One suggestion to look up is the Changi quilts on Google, I have a interesting story around this. God bless one and all

  6. my grandfather, Albert Sarkies Apcar, who ever in Japanese internment in cimahi camps, still alive and was die in 1979 in Tulungagung, east java, Indonesia.

  7. Born in Indonesia 1n 1948, I have found memories of the Armenian community in Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya.
    My father, John David Marcar, survived the Cimahi camp and passed away
    in Jakarta on 20.11.1980. My mother Arsjalouise Marcar-Johannes survived the Bandung camp with her sister Astchiek as orphants. Both my grandparents M.B. Johannes and M. Johannes-John passed away in the same camp and are burried on the Dutch War Cemetary in Bandung.

    Thank you Nadia for your research and insight, it gives me a better understanding of the history of Armenians in Asia.

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