New Book Examines the Armenian Genocide Through Biographical Approaches

Part III: Afterlives of Violence and Genocide

This section examines the enduring impact of genocide across generations. Yael Navaro introduces the challenges of reconsidering biography under genocidal conditions. Alice von Bieberstein studies the “double” identity of Islamized Armenians, which complicates historical and epistemological understandings. Adnan Çelik analyzes memoirs of Kurdish intellectuals, while Duygu Taşalp investigates the genocidal literary style of Young Turk memoirs. Annika Törne recounts escape routes through Dersim, demonstrating how survival narratives traverse life and death. Eren Yıldırım Yetkin reflects on racialization, gendered narratives, and intergenerational memory in a family from Van. Michael Rothberg’s epilogue situates these life stories within frameworks of trauma, multidirectionality, and moral responsibility, highlighting the enduring afterlives of genocide.

Through this structure, the book demonstrates that the Armenian Genocide is not only a historical event but also a deeply human story, experienced through fragmentation, resilience and lived memory. The volume emphasizes the importance of considering individual agency in biographical analysis. By engaging with personal trajectories, decisions, and actions, it problematizes approaches that ignore personal agency, offering critical insights into both the history of the Armenian Genocide and its denial in public discourse.

The editors commented, saying: “Personal stories are intertwined with histories of violence and contain watermarks of the social conditions, changes, and processes that go hand in hand with persecution. In genocide studies and interpretative social research focusing on the trauma and memory of mass violence, life-historical documents and biographical methods have been used as important components in the multi-perspective reconstruction of social and political processes Methodological designs may vary in terms of the type of data, its collection, and analysis, but working with biographies and life story narratives contributes to the analytical examination of violent events.”

According to them, the volume considers these aspects as its main focus and explores biographies and related biographical materials on the Armenian genocide. The book uses life stories and biographical sources to reflect this perspective and shows how biographical reconstructions can offer valuable insights into the violent past and its memory across various collective, individual, and intergenerational levels. They argue that an essential point is to view biographies in terms of actors’ agency and their ability to decide and act, rather than viewing them as passive. In this context, biographical approaches challenge interpretations of social and political dynamics that, by nature, do not account for personal agency as a genuine component of these processes. To critically examine the history and significance of Armenian genocide denial in public debates that overlook individual paths, decisions and trajectories, engaging with life stories, biographical sources and methods is of utmost importance.

Eren Yıldırım Yetkin is a social scientist at the Catholic University of Applied Sciences Berlin, with a PhD in sociology from Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on collective and individual memory, political violence, and narrativity. He authored Violence and Genocide in Kurdish Memory (2022) and coauthored Jugendliche Erinnerungspraktiken (2025). He serves on the advisory board of ISA Research Committee 38, “Biography and Society.”