Tadem Press announces first publication, Memoirs of a Soldier about the Days of Tragedy

A new imprint, Tadem Press, has launched its inaugural publication: Bedros Haroian’s Memoirs of a Soldier about the Days of Tragedy. Tadem Press is dedicated to addressing the shortage of primary sources, especially in English, on the Armenian Genocide.

Memoirs of a Soldier about the Days of Tragedy offers a first-hand account of momentous events in the 20th century: the Armenian Genocide and decisive World War I battles. Sergeant Major Bedros Haroian was born in 1894 in Tadem, a remote village in the Ottoman Empire. Within one year of Haroian’s birth, the Sultan Abdul Hamid would order the Great Massacres that devastate Haroian’s family, village and community. Haroian is impassioned to realize justice and reprisal for his Armenian community. When conscripted in WWI, he eagerly joins to gain the military skills to defend his people. Haroian fights on the front lines, including the brutal Battle of Sarikamish. He then finds himself consigned to a labor battalion along with other Armenian conscripts. He soon discovers his duties include burying―at gunpoint―the piles of corpses from the Armenian Genocide. Haroian escapes to the underground railroad of the Dersim Kurds. He gains the trust of the Kurds and joins their 1916 Dersim Rebellion. Armenian commanders in the Imperial Russian Army are seeking fighters for their battalions. Haroian travels to Tbilisi and joins the Armenian volunteer forces under General Andranik who succeed, against staggering odds, in founding the First Republic of Armenia on May 28, 1918. Haroian ultimately joins the Armenian Legionnaires in the French Foreign Legion to protect the remnant Armenian community in southern Turkey.

The Memoirs of a Soldier about the Days of Tragedy includes a compelling Afterword by genocide scholar Fatma Müge Göcek, author of Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789–2009. Gil Harootunian, Fulbright Scholar (Armenia), writes an insightful Editor’s Forward.