French-Armenian Historian Anahide Ter Minassian Dies at 85

1933-2019

Anahide Ter Minassian (1933-2019)

Renowned scholar and author Anahide Ter Minassian died at her home in Fresnes on February 11. She was 85. Ter Minassian was a historian and a lecturer at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Paris I University. The contemporary history of pre- and post-Soviet Armenia was the main focus of her prolific scholarship.

Ter Minassian, née Kevonian, was born in 1933 in Paris in the district of Belleville. Her parents, Levon Kevonian and Armenouhie Der-Garabédian, were stateless Armenians with Nansen passports; they were refugees in Belleville in the 1920s. Anahide’s parents taught her the Armenian language at the age of seven. Later, she married Leon Ter Minassian, the son of defense and interior minister in the First Republic of Armenia, Roupen Ter Minassian, whose most famous writing is “Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary” condensed into the English language book, “Armenian Freedom Fighters” by James G. Mandalian.

Anahide Ter Minassian is the author of many books, including La Question arménienne (Marseille, 1983); Nationalism and Socialism in the Armenian Revolutionary Movement (1887-1912) (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); 1918-1920-La République d’Arménie (Bruxelles, 1989, 2006); Histoires croisées: diaspora, Arménie, Transcaucasie (Marseille, 1997); Smyrne, la ville oubliée?: mémoires d’un grand port ottoman, 1830-1930 (editions Autrement, 2006); Nos terres d’enfance, l’Arménie des souvenirs, avec Houri Varjabédian (Marseille, 2010).

She is survived by her four children, Roupen, Aram, Vahé and Taline and brother Kegham Kevonian. Her daughter, Taline, is also a notable Armenian historian.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*