Two exhibitions at SU focus on Central New York’s connection to struggle for Armenian independence

Friday, December 7, 2007, By News Staff

Two exhibitions at SU focus on Central New York’s connection to struggle for Armenian independenceDecember 07, 2007Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

“The Syracuse Connection to the Armenian Independence Movement,” two exhibitions of historic photos and other archival material, are now on display at Syracuse University through Jan. 16, 2008. The exhibitions are co-sponsored by the 2007 Syracuse Symposium, presented by Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and the SU Library.

Mounted in the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC), located on the sixth floor of E.S. Bird Library, and in the Panasci Lounge in the Hildegarde and J. Myer Schine Student Center, the exhibitions were developed from the collections of noted historian, Syracuse native and SU alumnus Robert G. Koolakian.

Koolakian, a 1966 graduate of SU’s College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of the forthcoming book “Struggle for Justice: A Story of the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia, 1915-1920,” a unique account of the beginning of the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia, as told through the surviving papers of Koolakian’s grandfather, George Koolakian, and two of his friends, all accomplished Armenian Americans from Syracuse.

These men served as liaisons between local and national organizations concerned with providing humanitarian aid to the victims of the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire. When in 1915 the massacres escalated into genocide, these organizations, with the support of President Woodrow Wilson, began to focus on Armenian independence. The City of Syracuse, including Syracuse University, was hospitable to Armenian refugees, and many local citizens who had connections with nationally known reformers offered their support to this cause.

Koolakian delivered a lecture on this quest on Nov. 27 at SU.

Gallery hours at the SCRC are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays (excluding holidays). Gallery hours in the Panasci Lounge are 8 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Monday-Friday and 11 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (excluding holidays). Parking is available in the Booth Garage during regular business hours. After-hours parking is available on a space-available basis in the Harrison and Lehman lots.

For more information, contact Kathryn Tunkel in The College of Arts and Sciences at 443-7192.

The Syracuse Symposium, presented by The College of Arts and Sciences, is a semester-long intellectual and artistic festival that celebrates interdisciplinary thinking, imagination and creation. This year’s theme is “Justice.” For more information on symposium events, visit http://symposium.syr.edu.