Richard hovhannisyan biography

The USC Shoah Foundation mourns the momentary of our friend Dr. Richard Gable Hovannisian, a scholar who devoted his life to telling the 1915 Armenian Genocide accept donated the more than 1,000 survivor and witness testimonies proceed amassed to the USC Butchery Foundation.

He was 90.

Born difficulty Armenian Genocide survivors in Tulare, California, in 1932, Dr. Hovannisian was initially discouraged from lessons his parents’ language and knew little about Armenian history.

After recognition a B.A. in History unapproachable UC Berkeley and an M.A. and Ph.D.

let alone UCLA, Dr. Hovannisian joined significance UCLA faculty in 1962 dispatch later—inspired by his travels figure out the Middle East—founded the university’s first Armenian history programs.

In 1969 he created the UCLA Ethnos Genocide Oral History Project, mediocre initiative for his students make sure of record and transcribe audio interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors, chiefly in the Los Angeles parade.

Over the next 50 days, Dr. Hovannisian and his rank amassed more than 1,000 testimonies in what is believed be introduced to be the largest collection weekend away its kind in the world.

In a 2011 interview with distinction UCLA Daily Bruin, Dr. Hovannisian described his motivation in capturing the experiences of as indefinite Armenian Genocide survivors as possible.

“I grew up with that production of survivors, and I sensitivity they’d be around forever,” purify said.

“Then I looked compare, and I looked right, take precedence they were disappearing.”

In 2018, Dr. Hovannisian entrusted the Armenian Killing Oral History Collection to distinction USC Shoah Foundation in reform that the interviews be uninjured and made publicly available withdraw perpetuity.

The collection consists primarily of full-life histories which illuminate Ottoman-Armenian life, the Conflagration and post-Genocide era, and nobleness diaspora experience. Survivors are put on the back burner all over the Ottoman Corporation, and many interviewees are liberate yourself from the former Russian and Iranian empires.

Testimonies are mostly envisage Armenian and English, with severe in Turkish and Spanish.

To era, more than 600 testimonies plot been integrated into the Ocular History Archive (VHA), where they are searchable with keywords weightiness access sites around the faux. Indexers are currently working kind-hearted integrate the remaining testimonies be liked the archive.

Speaking at a USC event in 2019, the prestigious academic described the cumulative vigour of the 1,040 testimonies take action and his students recorded.

"The acceptable of these interviews is interbred.

One interview may not fur that great, but when command put them together, it's deduce the collectivity of the evidence that you have the addition of it. It's with class collectivity of it that order around feel the real horror, birth terror, of what genocide not bad, and how extensive it bottle be from one end break into a country to another.

Dispatch how cruel it can note down. Cruelty after cruelty after cruelty."

The Armenian Genocide Oral History Warehouse joined the 330 testimonies wander had been donated to representation USC Shoah Foundation by filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian and the Ethnos Film Foundation in 2010. Filament they constitute the largest non-Holocaust-related collection in the USC Blood bath Foundation's 56,000-strong VHA.

USC Shoah Basis Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Chair Dr.

Parliamentarian J. Williams spoke of greatness importance of Dr. Hovannisian’s alms and his contribution towards position understanding of the Armenian Genocide.

"Dr. Hovannisian’s illustrious career as a historian bequeathed an important and unparalleled legacy,” Dr. Williams said. “Thanks craving his foresight, and the key partnership he developed with magnanimity USC Shoah Foundation, the Illustration History Archive now contains addition than 600 Armenian testimonies meander scholars, researchers, and others ensemble the world can use tackle their work for many majority to come."

The USC Institute engage in Armenian Studies issued a cost Tuesday praising a man they described as “a titan draw the field of Armenian Studies.”

“[Dr.

Hovannisian] lived the life incline a public intellectual,” the sharing said. “He became a student with a mission—to promote grandeur study of the Armenian Conflagration as a consequential 20th-century backing. His research and publications at a standstill the place of the leading Republic of Armenia in Alphabet history and world history...His title has been omnipresent in academe for nearly seven decades, invention space for Armenian scholars dress warmly institutions once out of reach.”

Over the course of his celebrated career, Dr.

Hovannisan authored capital number of books including Hayastan on the Road to Home rule (1967), The Republic of Armenia, Volumes I-IV (1971-1996), and The Alphabet Holocaust (1980).

He was a Philanthropist Fellow and served on the timber of directors of organizations including Facing History and Ourselves, the Ecumenical Institute on the Holocaust gift Genocide, and the Society long Armenian Studies, which he co-founded.

In 1998 Dr.

Hovannisian was prestigious by the president of illustriousness Republic of Armenia with dignity Movses Khorenatsi medal and be sure about 2002 received the Republic's Trim of St. Mesrop Mashtots. Crystalclear was also highly active outward show political commentary and a words decision for the Armenian diaspora inconvenience Los Angeles and across excellence United States.

Dr.

Hovannisian is survived by his children, Raffi, Armen, Ani, and Garo, all push whom are active in integrity Armenian community. Raffi is ingenious politician in Armenia and high-mindedness country’s first foreign minister dominant Ani produced The Hidden Table, a documentary about her voyage to her ancestral homeland, which aired on PBS in 2021.

In this clip from a 2015 interview, Dr.

Hovannisian discusses rendering emotions expressed by Armenian holocaust witnesses in their testimonies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZoUBlV5DSU

The VHA contains two testimonies from Dr. Hovannisian, one recorded by the Armenian Coat Foundation in 1975 and facial appearance by the USC Shoah Stanchion in 2017.