29.05.2008
The presentation of the book “And Those Who Continued Living in Turkey after 1915” by Rubina Peroomian took place today in AGMI. The director of the AGMI Mr. Hayk Demoyan and the author of the book Mrs. Rubina Peroomian made speeches.
“Their historical past forces them not to forget that they are Armenians, in spite of the fact that they live in a foreign country with foreign people and they have to subject to their rules. These people preserve their Armenian origin within themselves. How can we neglect their Armenian origin?”- stated Rubina Peroomian, expert of the Armenian language studies, professor of the California University at the presentation of the book.
In accord with her survey, the new generation grows up in Turkey being unaware of their Armenian origin so far unless others tell them, “You are not a Turk, you are not one of us, and you are a ‘gyavur’. However, during the last few years, as Mrs. Peroomian stated, the Turkish government had to “lessen the ties”. This allowed many Armenians to speak up about defense of their rights in different European states.
“However there still exist several villages in the country where Armenians scare to speak up about their origin. They even use the Turkish or Kurdish language in their families”- noted the author of the book.