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Haroutiun Barootian,
Reminiscences from Tomarza's Past,
(London and Reading:
Taderon Press, 2007), 184 pp, ISBN 978-1-903656-60-0,
paperback, GB£12.00/US$20.00
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Originally written and published in Armenian (Beirut, 1960),
Reminiscences from Tomarza’s Past is a reflection on the
Armenian village of Tomarza near Kayseri, in central Turkey, before
the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Written by a native son of this
village, Reminiscences from Tomarza’s
Past is a collage covering local folklore, communal
developments, social and political issues, as well as inter-communal
strife and genocide.
Reminiscences from Tomarza’s Past
is part of a specific genre of Armenian books, written in the wake
of the Armenian Genocide, when survivors of that catastrophe
made concerted efforts to preserve the memory of their lost
communities for their descendants and future generations of
Armenians. Like all sources, this book, read carefully, yields
fascinating insights into the social, economic and political life of
the late Ottoman Empire.
Haroutiun Barootian was born in Tomarza in 1882 and settled in
Racine, Wisconsin after World War I.
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