Initiatives We Love

Houshamadyan

What was life like in the old country, in the old days? From the 1920s on, to the ’60s-’70s, the “houshamadyan” existed as a genre in Diaspora literature among survivors of the genocide. These “memorial books” consisted of volumes about towns, cities, and regions of the Ottoman Empire, highlighting aspects of Armenian life there – churches and schools, crafts and commerce, local customs, dialects, songs, cuisine, and so on.

Based in Berlin, Germany, the Houshamadyan Association started www.houshamadyan.org in 2010. The website features research, including articles, pictures, music, and animations “to reconstruct Ottoman Armenian town and village life”. So far, Houshamadyan has covered Palu, Harput, Van, Erzurum, Diyarbekir, Aleppo, Ankara, Marash, Dörtyol, Zeytun, Yozgat, and Sis. Do your ancestors come from any of those towns or regions? You can find out more – and support the project – by visiting their website or ‘like’ them on Facebook.

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