Kirakossian’s ‘Armenian Genocide in Contemporary American Encyclopedias’ Covers a Lot of Ground

Published by the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan in September 2015, Dr. Arman Kirakossian’s The Armenian Genocide in Contemporary American Encyclopedias is the study and analysis of nearly 40 specialized and thematic encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and other directories published in the United States over the last 15 years.

In the introduction, Kirakossian argues that entries on the Armenian Genocide in a multitude of thematic encyclopaedias “shows that the Armenian Genocide constitutes an important case study” and “reflects academic consensus amongst scholars on the qualification of the massacres and deportations of the Armenians as genocide.”

The book is divided into 16 chapters, and covers a lot of ground, from the concept of genocide and its associations with the Armenian case, the Armenian Question and the policies of the Great Powers, the massacres of the 1890’s and 1909 that served as harbingers for the genocide, to the Armenian Genocide itself. Kirakossian then allocates chapters to the documentation of genocide, genocide denial and recognition, and the Armenian Genocide in literature and the arts. These chapters stand testament to the wealth of material in thematic encyclopaedias on not just the Armenian Genocide, but the long shadow the genocide has cast over the past century in politics, the arts, and on the Armenian psyche.

The book concludes with sections providing lists of encyclopaedias and encyclopedia entries and a bibliography of literature pertaining to the genocide covered in the encyclopaedias under study.

Kirakossian is an historian and diplomat, who serves as the ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to Austria, and the ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as well as to numerous international organizations in Vienna, including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

He is the author of several books and more than 120 publications. Four of his books have been published in English: British Diplomacy and the Armenian Question (Gomidas Institute, Princeton and London, 2003), The Armenian Massacres 1894-1896: U.S. Media Testimony (Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2004), Armenia-USA: Current Realities and Vision for Future (Yerevan State University Press, 2007), and The Armenian Massacres 1894-1896: British Media Testimony (University of Michigan, Dearborn, 2008).