For Immediate Release
USC INSTITUTE OF ARMENIAN STUDIES
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California, USA
Contact: Syuzanna Petrosyan, Associate Director
[email protected] | 213.821.3943
Institute Projects Presented at Oral History Association Conference
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - Syuzanna Petrosyan, Associate Director of the USC
Institute of Armenian Studies, and Gegham Mughnetsyan, Chitjian Researcher
Archivist, presented Institute’s ongoing oral history projects at the annual
Oral History Association conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 17,
2019.
Established in 1966, the Oral History Association is the flagship organization
for oral history practitioners and scholars, serving a broad and diverse
audience including historians, archivists, librarians, and documentarians.
Ms. Petrosyan and Mr. Mughnetsyan were speakers in a session titled “The
Challenges of Remembering: Complexity in Documenting Trauma, Displacement, and
Political Change.” Chaired by Dr. Annette Henry from University of British
Columbia, the panel revolved around the processes and challenges of collecting
and documenting oral histories.
Ms. Petrosyan manages the Institute’s UNDERSTANDING INDEPENDENCE project,
which, through long-form video interviews in Armenia, documents and secures for
history the memories and accounts of prominent figures of Armenia’s
independence movement from the Soviet Union.
In the presentation titled, “Understanding Independence: Armenia 1988-1996 - A
Preliminary Look at the First Year of Documentation and Oral Interview
Collection Process”, she discussed the value of and complexities related to
this important project.
“These oral histories challenge mainstream historical reviews of processes and
attitudes that existed at the time, including attitudes towards independence
and sovereignty,” Ms. Petrosyan said.
Ms. Petrosyan showed brief excerpts from the interviews in Russian, Armenian
and English to illustrate the diversity of the interviews and the extensive
post-interview process of transcribing, translating and subtitling the
interviews to provide wide access for future researchers.
In his presentation titled “The Armenian Displaced Persons of WWII: Challenges
of Oral History in a Close-Knit Community”, Gegham Mughnetsyan spoke about the
particularities of collecting stories in a community where everyone knows each
other and the past is communally shared.
Mr. Mughnetsyan has conducted thirty interviews as part of the DISPLACED
PERSONS DOCUMENTATION project, which tells the story of the Soviet-Armenian
refugees and their odious journey from German camps to America. This is a pilot
project within the Institute’s larger DIGITAL DIASPORA initiative to gather,
digitize and make accessible materials that comprise the Armenian Diaspora
experience. “Above all,” Mughnetsyan said at the end of his presentation, “the
connecting glue among the people was the collective story, kept, celebrated and
retold at every gathering and reunion, a story of displacement, of survival,
and of a journey that turned people into a community.”
Another challenge highlighted by Mr. Mughnetsyan was the fact that a lot of the
interviewees switch between three languages while being interviewed, which
exponentially complicates the transcription process. Mr. Mughnetsyan showcased
fragments of interviews coupled with archival photographs collected from the
interviewees during the documentation process.
The presentations were followed by a dozen questions regarding the various
challenges of working with communities that have been through trauma,
displacement and political upheaval. Oral historians working with similar
community projects expressed the interest to maintain connections for future
dialogues, exchange of best practices and cooperation.
During the four-day-long conference, Institute’s representatives got to make
connections with peers in the field and observed creative examples of showcased
oral histories and community stories that will in turn be useful guides as
Institute’s growing oral history collections and projects become research
materials, audio documentaries, mixed-media exhibits and podcasts.
About the Institute
Established in 2005, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies supports
multidisciplinary scholarship to re-define, explore and study the complex
issues that make up the contemporary Armenian experience—from post-genocide to
the developing Republic of Armenia to the evolving diaspora. The institute
encourages research, publications and public service, and promotes links among
the global academic and Armenian communities.
For inquiries, write to [email protected] or call 213.821.3943.