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Storytelling: Armenian Family Albums in the Diaspora

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/08949460801986228

1545-5920

Nefissa Naguib,

Archaeological Research and Protection

Armenians were scattered across the world after experiencing the collective pain of massacres and deportation from Turkey in 1915. They are an example of a people who have lived through loss and the brutalities of history. In this article, I trace one response to enduring loss: the role of photograph albums in capturing such historical ruptures. For scholars concerned with life stories, family photos and records serve both as goads to recollection and as aids to their certification. “Seeing” other pasts obviates somehow our requirement for complete recollection from our interviewees. Yet our sense of other people's pasts involves more than this. At times photos portray only frozen, static moments cut off from their lived experiences. At other times these albums are a verification of presence in history. All the sorrows of life can be borne if only we can make them into stories. Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)