In a small room on the third floor of the Crow Center for International and Public Affairs, a group of 25 people gathered to listen to Manuk Avedikyan’s lecture, “From the Armenian Question to the Armenian Genocide,” as a part of USC’s celebration of Armenian History Month. The event was hosted by the Armenian Students’ Association, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, the USC Shoah Foundation and the USC Center for Advanced Genocide Research.

Avedikyan, project manager at the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, spoke for an hour on the history of the Armenian Genocide, providing context on the region from the late 1800s to 1918. Avedikyan’s hope was that people would walk away from the lecture with an understanding of the genocide and the nuances of the time period, he said in an interview with the Daily Trojan.

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

“There’s changing political dynamics and social relations throughout this time,” Avedikyan said, “just having a better general knowledge of the period through new research, and especially Armenian voices that are relevant that are now only entering academia, especially in Ottoman studies. It’s a relatively new phenomenon of centering minority voices within the larger historiography.”

During the presentation, Avedikyan provided a somber video of a survivor of the Armenian Genocide who sings a song describing the experience which Armenians who were deported went through. The video left the room speechless as the survivor’s voice and tears weighed on the attendees’ minds. Avedikyan specifically talked about a line of the song that references selling children for food while fleeing their homeland on foot.

“I’ve heard stories where for one boiled egg to feed the other child, they would sell another child to be a servant in another household, because that’s how much deprivation there is when you have no shelter, when you’re walking for weeks and weeks under the sun,” Avedikyan said. 

Mane Berikyan — the vice president of ASA, an organizer of the event and a junior majoring in international relations as well as Russian — said she was inspired to create the event because she’s never had academic experience with the Armenian Genocide, and it would give students and the community at large a chance to learn. 

“At least three-quarters of my family were descendants of survivors of the genocide,” Berikyan said. “It’s something that’s never been discussed in my family, because obviously survivors, a lot of times, there’s a deeply ingrained tradition of silence where it’s not really accepted to speak about what they endured and what they experienced because there’s no honor associated with that.”

For other Armenian students — like Peter Palanjian, a senior majoring in computer science and business administration — events like these are important because they help grow a deeper understanding of the events his ancestors went through. 

“I used to live with an Armenian Genocide survivor, my great-grandmother, but I never knew exactly the sort of the backstory and historical context, so it was great to get that today,” Palanjian said. “I attend a lot of events, especially at the institute level, I find them enriching for myself. This event has nothing to do with my major, but I feel like it helps me grow as a person.”

Berikyan said it is important to provide a space where people can study Armenian topics in broader contexts. By looking at Armenian issues, it shows that everyone is connected and shows the value of the Armenian community.

“Visibility is an extremely important thing,” Berikyan said. “I think sometimes we overlook the importance of visibility until we’re a part of a community that has historically been invisible. It was really important to highlight the huge Armenian presence on campus at USC … We can host a huge cultural showcase at the main ballroom on campus, whilst also cosponsoring the talk.”