The Three Days of Kessab (21-23 March, 2014) - Paperback

by Yervant Kotchounian (Translator), Hagop Tcholakian (Author)

The book presents the author's eyewitness testimony of the state of total depopulation of the Armenians of Kessab that took place March 21-23, 2014, and its antecedent. Intertwined through the telling of the events and the description of conditions are the personal and public. Informational, historical, ethnographic data are provided with the experience and the reflection.

The author Hagop Tcholakian is well known in specialized circles through a series of historical-ethnographic, lexicological treatises on the Armenians of Kessab and Antioch region.

Author Biography

Tcholakian Hagop (b. October 16, 1947, Karaduran, Kessab region of Latakia province [Syria]), philologist, historian, ethnographer, expert. He received his primary education in his birthplace, his secondary in Ainjar (Lebanon). He graduated from the Philology Faculty of the Yerevan State University (1973). Candidate of Historical Sciences (2002). He started teaching in Ainjar and Beirut schools starting in 1973, from 1976 to 2012 in the Karen Jeppe National Academy in Aleppo, from 1982 to 1988 he lectured in the local Mkhitarian Armenological College courses, from 1996 to 2012 in the Hamazkayin Armenological Institute. In 2014, after the deportation of Kessab Armenians, he settled in Yerevan.

Tcholakian has published the historical-philological and ethnographic works Kessab (vol. I-III, 1995-2004, Aleppo), The Kessab Folk Music (1980, Aleppo), The Kessab Dialect (1986, Aleppo; new edition, 2009, Yerevan), The Armenians of Ruj Valley Near Antioch: A Historical-Ethnographic Study (2006, Antilias), The Dried Up Fount Springs Again (1981, Aleppo), Karen Jeppe Along With the Armenian Golgotha and Renaissance (2001, Aleppo), Interprovincial Anecdotes (1988; new edition, 2005, both Aleppo); the philological work The Artsakh Consciousness Poetry (1990, Aleppo), and the bibliographical work A Brief Survey of the Aleppo Journalistic Press (1978, Aleppo).

Tcholakian is the author of jubilee books devoted to the history of Armenian Diaspora schools, Fiftieth Anniversary of the Karen Jeppe National Academy of Aleppo, 1947-1997 (1997, Aleppo), Eightieth Anniversary of the National Sahagian School in Aleppo, 1927-2007 (2007, Aleppo), Golden Jubilee Book of the Kuwait National School, 1961-2011 (2011, Kuwait). He prepared 6 volume textbooks for Armenian Diaspora primary, middle and secondary schools: My Armenian Textbook (1989-1994, Aleppo) and Antasdan (2008-2014, Aleppo).

Tcholakian's last book is The Three Days of Kessab: 21-23 March, 2014 (2014, Yerevan), which is eye-witness testimony to the total depopulation of Armenians that took place in the Kessab region in those days.

Holder of the Movses Khorentasi medal of the Armenian Republic (2011).