Armenian Golgotha
by Grigoris Balakian
List Price:
Our Price: $7.66
You Save: $27.34 (78%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Grigoris BalakianTranslator: Peter Balakian
Translator: Aris Sevag
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2009-03-31
ISBN: 030726288X
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Armenian Golgotha
Book Review: Genocide
Summary: 5 Stars
This may perhaps be the saddest book that I have ever read. Most folks are unaware of the calculated plan to exterminate the Armenian people initiated by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. While the rest of the world was concentrating on the fighting, the government of Turkey was busily killing off all of the Armenians possible.
The author is not some historian looking back on a period of history. He is, rather, an eye witness to this tragedy and barely escaped death himself several times. He tells his story with sorrow, but also with hope for the future of the Armenian nation.
Luckily the Ottoman officials were so venal that a well placed bribe could often save a person or an entire family from the ghastly fate awaiting all Armenians. Our author travelled many, many miles as a captive of the Ottomans, yet managed to survive. he felt thst his survival was meant to be so that he could put down in writing what he saw and what he was told about this horrid period of history. At times the book becomes repetitious, but that is because he wrote with emotion and had to retell some things so that they could be impressed into the minds of his readers.
The 20th century is, unfortunately, know for its genocides, the Holocaust being the most well known. There are also others; Cambodia, Darfur, Uganda, etc.. The difference is that in the Armenian situation, not only government officials, but many of the ordinary Turkish citizens actively cooperated in the mass killings. It's unfortunate that even today the government of Turkey denies that these events took place. If you have any doubts on that point, read this interesting but tearful book and you will be convinced!
Summary of Armenian Golgotha
Never before in English, Armenian Golgotha is the most dramatic and comprehensive eyewitness account of the first modern genocide.On April 24, 1915, the priest Grigoris Balakian was arrested along with some 250 other intellectuals and leaders of Constantinople?s Armenian community. It was the beginning of the Ottoman Turkish government?s systematic attempt to eliminate the Armenian people from Turkey; it was a campaign that continued through World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, by which time more than a million Armenians had been annihilated and expunged from their historic homeland. For Grigoris Balakian, himself condemned, it was also the beginning of a four-year ordeal during which he would bear witness to a seemingly endless caravan of blood.
Balakian sees his countrymen sent in carts, on donkeys, or on foot to face certain death in the desert of northern Syria. Many would not even survive the journey, suffering starvation, disease, mutilation, and rape, among other tortures, before being slaughtered en route. In these pages, he brings to life the words and deeds of survivors, foreign witnesses, and Turkish officials involved in the massacre process, and also of those few brave, righteous Turks, who, with some of their German allies working for the Baghdad Railway, resisted orders calling for the death of the Armenians. Miraculously, Balakian manages to escape, and his flight?through forest and over mountain, in disguise as a railroad worker and then as a German soldier?is a suspenseful, harrowing odyssey that makes possible his singular testimony.
Full of shrewd insights into the political, historical, and cultural context of the Armenian genocide?the template for the subsequent mass killings that have cast a shadow across the twentieth century and beyond?this memoir is destined to become a classic of survivor literature. Armenian Golgotha is sure to deepen our understanding of a catastrophic crime that the Turkish government, the Ottomans? successor, denies to this day.
Historical Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Historical Books
Alexander Hamiltonby Ron Chernow
Penguin Audio; Published: 2004-04-26; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $171.76
America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (Penguin Classics)by John Steinbeck
Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Sailing Alone around the World (Penguin Classics)by Joshua Slocum
Penguin Classics; Published: 1999-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.94
Price in other shops:
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sistersby Charlotte Mosley
Harper; Published: 2007-11-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.85
Price in other shops:
Profiles in Courage (slipcased edition): Decisive Moments in the Lives of Celebrated Americansby John F. Kennedy
Harper; Published: 2006-10-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Lost Years: A Memoir 1945 - 1951by Christopher Isherwood
HarperCollins; Published: 2000-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.14
Price in other shops:
Thomas Jefferson: A Lifeby Willard Sterne Randall
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-06-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.19
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madmanby Simon Winchester
Harper; Published: 1998-08-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops:
Patton: A Genius for Warby Carlo D'Este, este, Carlo D'
Harpercollins; Published: 1995-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.94
Stonewall Jacksonby James Robertson
Macmillan Pub.; Published: 1997-02-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $47.66
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Road From Home: A True Story of Courage, Survival and Hopeby David Kherdian
Greenwillow Books; Published: 1995-08-24; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
My Grandmother: A Memoirby Fethiye Cetin
Verso; Published: 2008-04-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.66
Price in other shops:
The Knock at the Door: A Journey through the Darkness of the Armenian Genocideby Margaret Ahnert
Beaufort Books; Published: 2007-04-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.93
Price in other shops:
A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibilityby Taner Akcam
Metropolitan Books; Published: 2006-11-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibilityby Taner Akcam
Picador; Published: 2007-08-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.06
Price in other shops:
Black Dog Of Fate: A Memoirby Peter Balakian
Basic Books; Published: 1997-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.24
Price in other shops:
Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for Justiceby Michael Bobelian
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2009-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
The History of Armenia (Palgrave Essential Histories)by Simon Payaslian
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2007-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops:
Black Dog of Fate: A Memoirby Peter Balakian
Basic Books; Published: 2009-02-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops:
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Responseby Peter Balakian
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-10-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.44
Price in other shops: