Carving pathways to justice

It began with a simple instinct: document what is at risk of disappearing. When Anoush Baghdassarian and Ani Schug co-founded Rerooted Archive, they were responding to a moment of crisis. In 2017, Syrian Armenians were being uprooted once again. As the war tore through Aleppo and Kamishli, neighborhoods were emptying out, and homes, churches, schools and memories were being left behind. The community, shaped by survival and cultural resilience, was facing the possibility of complete erasure. To prevent this, the Rerooted team began collecting oral histories and testimonies that could carry the memory and strength of the people who had lived through it. In the years since, Rerooted has grown into a globally recognized oral history initiative. It has gathered hundreds of testimonies from Armenian communities across the world, and many researchers, educators, linguists, legal practitioners and artists now rely on its collections. The archive has become a bridge between lived experience and long-term impact, supporting efforts in preservation, language revitalization, community planning and international justice. Along the way, the H. Hovnanian Family Foundation has provided critical support, helping to build the structure and vision behind this work through both its grantmaking and Fellowship Program. As Rerooted expanded its mission, the H. Hovnanian Family Foundation’s Fellowship Program gave Anoush Baghdassarian the opportunity to take its work into new spaces. With a legal background that includes a Juris Doctor from Harvard and professional experience at the International Criminal Court, she used the fellowship to attend the International Investigator Course at the Institute for International Criminal Investigations in The Hague. During that same trip, Rerooted submitted a legal communication to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The submission presented legal evidence and first-person testimonies that addressed the displacement of Armenians from Artsakh. It was developed in partnership with students and faculty from Leiden University and Harvard Law School and guided by the voices of those affected. Rerooted also released a public report titled “No Choice but to Flee,” offering a version of the case accessible to advocates, educators and the broader public. These materials reflect a move from documenting stories for preservation to using those stories to advocate for justice at the highest levels. According to Baghdassarian, this would not have been possible without the foundation’s support. The fellowship allowed her to prepare, travel and engage at a level that brought the testimonies directly to decision-makers. The experience also strengthened Rerooted’s capacity to contribute to legal efforts well beyond a single case. Rerooted began with a focus on the Syrian Armenian experience, but it quickly became clear that others wanted to be part of the project. As the team began conducting interviews, they were approached by Armenians from Jerusalem, Iraq, Turkey, Argentina and elsewhere. Each one had a story to tell, and rather than turning people away, Rerooted chose to grow. Today, the archive includes collections from Armenian communities around the world, and while each has its own history and its own challenges, certain themes continue to surface. Many of the testimonies describe families that have experienced multiple waves of displacement: surviving genocide, civil wars, political instability and economic crisis. Through it all, these families have worked to maintain language, tradition, and identity across generations and borders. In Jerusalem, participants discussed the shrinking of community life and the preservation of liturgical traditions. In Egypt, others highlighted a model where Armenian school tuition is fully subsidized, providing a possible response to challenges raised in other interviews where cost has been a barrier to language and cultural education. These insights show how local decisions and conditions shape outcomes in meaningful ways. For Baghdassarian, the value of the archive lies in its ability to bring these voices together while preserving each voice's distinctiveness. The result is a resource that informs, connects and invites reflection on what Armenian continuity looks like across space and time. “A seemingly universal part of Armenian identity today is resilience and perseverance, and we seem to all understand at a subconscious, instinctive level that sharing our stories is an important means to our survival: a way to preserve memory, ensure continuity and assert collective presence in the face of repeated displacement,” Baghdassarian said. Rerooted’s testimonies are being used in ways that continue to grow. Upon its release on YouTube in 2019, Rerooted became the first known publicly available corpus of Western Armenian speakers. One of the most far-reaching collaborations has been with linguist Hossep Dolatian, who worked with the Rerooted team to apply modern corpus standards to the dataset. The transcripts were time-coded, translated and adapted for use in language preservation and speech-to-text technology, found here. This software work was spearheaded by the DALiH research team in Paris, aimed at creating more Armenian-language resources. This work has already led to software development that improves transcription efficiency and supports future interviews. Meaningfully, the tool has enabled other Western Armenian projects to move forward, such as the Armenian Language in the Bay Area Project. The team is now applying similar methods to the Artsakh collection. “The Western Armenian language initiatives really embody our goals for the archive to use words to create action,” explains Rerooted Archive co-founder Ani Schug. “So many of our speakers talk about their pride in keeping the language that their ancestors spoke alive and fears of how long that will continue into the future. And now their actual spoken words are being used on projects that keep Western Armenian alive and applicable to modern life.” Other uses of the archive include educational initiatives, graduate theses and community partnerships. Educators have built lesson plans around selected testimonies. Artists have composed musical pieces that incorporate original recordings. Researchers have used the materials to explore identity, displacement and intergenerational memory. In each case, the testimonies remain central, and their impact expands as others build on them. Legal advocacy continues to grow as part of Rerooted’s work. In addition to the ICC submission, the organization is exploring litigation strategies in U.S. courts and contributing to international conversations on human rights and displacement. Most notably, the organization wrote and submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that was argued in late April 2026; its argument centers on protecting avenues for accountability in U.S. courts for atrocity crime victims globally and includes reference to the global Armenian community and particularly highlights the plight of the Artsakhtsis. Each of Rerooted’s efforts remains grounded in the testimonies, which guide not just the content of legal arguments but the very decision about which cases to pursue. Some communities want direct advocacy, while others see value in visibility and preservation. Rerooted makes space for both. The team has committed to centering the desires of those who speak with them. Legal action follows their lead. Even when legal filings are not pursued, the archive serves a purpose. It makes personal truths visible. It invites reflection and response. When patterns arise — such as concern about language loss in a particular region — that information becomes available to groups looking to expand language programs or offer targeted support. Baghdassarian explains that this balance is essential. “Justice has to be participatory. You can’t pursue justice for a community unless they help shape what justice means.” This year, Rerooted is preparing two books based on the Syria and Artsakh collections. These books will present excerpts from interviews, along with photos and community context. The team hopes to publish them in both English and Armenian, with possible regional editions that reflect dialect and local usage. At the same time, new interviews are always being conducted (and you can even contribute yours here), with the most recent collections developed in Fresno, Jerusalem and Bulgaria. Rerooted also began gathering testimonies in Turkey last year, an area the team hopes to develop into a more robust collection in the future, alongside new collections to be spearheaded this summer, like Montreal. The legal team continues to hold weekly strategy meetings, and the archive’s website is being updated to make it easier to search, filter and explore materials. “From the beginning, we have been committed to making our archive public and accessible. Our narrators chose to participate knowing this, as that visibility is also important to them,” Schug explains, adding that it hasn’t been easy to make the archive come alive online. “We are trying to teach ourselves how to build certain tools as we try to personalize how we present these important stories. And we could not have made it here without the valuable skills and inputs of volunteers over many years.” By bridging the gap between personal testimony and global impact, Rerooted ensures that the Armenian narrative is a living force. Supported by visionary partners, dedicated volunteers and the very communities it documents, Rerooted Archive continues to carve its necessary path. In doing so, it fulfills its deepest promise to ensure that no matter how many times a people are uprooted, their collective voice will always find a way to replant, resist and flourish.

Carving pathways to justice

How Rerooted Archive preserves Armenian memory and mobilizes it for action

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Rupen Janbazian

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This story is FREE for you...

Rupen Janbazian

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