#Aurora Mardiganian

[cinematicjourney]

Aurora's Sunrise (2022) | dir. Inna Sahakyan

[moviemosaics]

Aurora's Sunrise

directed by Inna Sahakyan, 2022

[nerdylibertarian928]

The first movie about the Armenian Genocide, a silent movie titled Ravished Armenia or in certain countries Auction of Souls, was released during the genocide. It is based off of the experiences of Aurora Mardiganian who also starred in it. This is all the surviving footage.

[ear-worthy]

Uncovering Roots: Recounting Overlooked Historical Tales Of Pain & Suffering

Independent podcasters often have life interfere with podcasting. Unlike celebrity podcasters who “have people” who run interference for them, Indie podcasters must cope with jobs, finances, family, friends, and the everyday time crunch we average people deal with.

In the first season, the creator, producer, and host is Maxim Saakyan recounted the story of Armenian Genocide survivor Aurora Mardiganian, who was the subject of the strong opening episode, pieced together with interviews from people who knew her. Resilience doesn’t come close to describing the woman who suffered torture and brutality before she eventually escaped to New York.

Saakyan comments on these episodes: “This three-part podcast series is very important to me. As an Armenian, the number of people who don’t know about the genocide really hurts me. Then we look at Aurora’s story, and it’s just so unbelievably shocking. It’s so unbelievable that so many people didn’t actually think she existed. Like she was a fictional character that was made up to represent the pain Armenians went through. But she was real. She not only went through the genocide, but she also went through Hollywood exploitation as well. This story isn’t just about teaching people about the genocide, it’s about honoring her story.”

Uncovering Roots just started its second season on April 21. As an enthusiastic reviewer of the show in season one, I can say succinctly that it was worth the wait. Topics range from Lebanon to Palestine to Armenia. Max adds, “We go into revolutionary flags and Pasolini’s trip to Beirut.”

Uncovering Roots is an independently produced (Indie) podcast that is a moving and powerful new show that gives a voice to lesser-known people whose stories need to be heard.

Saakyan was born in Italy, moved to London when he was young, and studied Math for both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. His education led him quite organically to a data analyst job, but he craved doing creative things.

Max says: “My background is a tad funny when it comes to being in the creative world! I studied mathematics at university, which makes my journalism slightly more analytical at times, which I think is a different look from most storytelling. Childhood wise! I was born to Armenian-Spanish parents, born in Italy, and grew up in London. Someone always seems to ask ‘Where are you from’”.

We asked Maxim Saakyan why he started this podcast. Max began discussing the podcast title. “One of the most difficult things about making a podcast is deciding on a unique name. Uncovering Roots felt perfect. We truly uncover the stories we tell, where it is a deep dive, finding out new things. And with that, we tend to find the root of the story by doing that.”

Max explained: “How did I actually get into it? I realized I was living a relatively similar 9 to 5 life, came home from work, watched TV, went to the gym, and repeated. It became very monogamous. I needed something different, and I met a dear friend in Morocco who was an audio producer, and she really inspired me that you’re able to do both things. Investigate stories while you have a full-time job, but you have to love it.”

“I’m a strong believer that creative outputs are the best ways to teach people about certain topics,” says Maxim. “Whether that’s about history, culture or current affairs, audio is also such an intimate way of talking to people, most of the time, you’re literally in their ears speaking to them.”

Maxim continues: “We seem to be living in a world where one-minute videos are the goal, but despite that, there is a rise in popularity with podcasts, which can be 30 to even 60 minutes long.”

Make no mistake about it. Saakyan’s storytelling and narrative prowess are so good that these episodes rival the emotional punch of Holocaust horror tales. What’s more amazing about the emotional core of this podcast is Saakyan’s admission that, “I virtually had zero storytelling podcast experience, no sound design experience, no mic experience. This was an entire learning curve for me, from fact-checking to interviewing. I think one of the hardest things was the sound design element. I never appreciated how crucial it is.”

In season two, Maxim releases a gem for his first episode. The Baron Hotel once hosted kings, spies, archaeologists, and refugees. It was a grand hotel at the crossroads of empire, war, and survival. In this episode, Maxim traces The Baron’s layered history through the voice of Mary Momdjian, whose family built and ran the hotel for generations.

From stories of Armenian refugees during the genocide to cocktails with Agatha Christie, the Baron’s past is woven into the fabric of Syria’s modern history. Today, it stands abandoned. A fragile, fading symbol of memory and loss.

Despite Saakyan’s protestations of inexperience, Uncovering Roots is an audio masterpiece for several reasons. First, his storytelling is so commanding that it can grab listeners by their ears. His voice radiates the kind of emotional intensity that can blanket listeners with the darkness of the human psyche.

Second, the sound production is sonically eloquent and pervasive in its haunting nature.

“For the first episode, I worked with the talented Olivia Melkonain on music,” Saakyan notes. “We used a music library to try to find Armenian sounds. After learning a lot from her, I implemented a similar sound design in episodes two and three. The Armenian sounds, from Oud’s to Duduk’s, were a vital part of the series.”

Third, Saakyan created this podcast with a sharp eye for the smallest details. For example, his mother designed the podcast’s graphics, and, while it was very much a solo project, he solicited help from Olivia Melkonian and Al Shaibani.”

In Maxim’s words: “It’s a journey into the lesser-known narratives that deserve to be heard. Each episode is crafted to immerse listeners in a creative and personal storytelling experience, fostering a connection between the audience and the featured stories.”

I highly recommend Uncovering Roots. This podcast resonates with the concept of lost, forgotten, or intentionally neglected history.

Max adds: “There’s so much history that gets lost, stories that get lost. And I wanted to try to investigate these stories and bring them back to life. Honor those people who are in the stories, and teach people who aren’t aware of the region.”

[everydayesterday]

currently reading: Ravished Armenia, by Aurora Mardiganian

[massispost]

New Post has been published on https://massispost.com/2024/09/memorial-to-aurora-mardiganian-and-the-martyrs-of-the-armenian-genocide-unveiled-in-yerevan/

Memorial to Aurora Mardiganian and the Martyrs of the Armenian Genocide Unveiled in Yerevan

YEREVAN — The Memorial to Aurora Mardiganian and the Martyrs of the Armenian Genocide was unveiled in Yerevan, on Monday, in the park area near the Komitas Museum-Institute. The monument was envisioned and brought to life by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. Its unveiling was followed by a special screening of Aurora’s Sunrise, an award-winning animated documentary depicting Mardiganian’s remarkable journey. Aurora Mardiganian was a young girl who escaped the horrors of the Armenian Genocide, moving to America, where she became a silent-era Hollywood star and a philanthropist. Her story inspired Noubar Afeyan, Vartan Gregorian, and Ruben Vardanyan, Co-Founders of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative,…

[nerdylibertarian928]

Armenian women were crucified to mock their faith, but it was more brutal than shown in the movie. According to survivor Aurora Mardiganian, who starred in the movie:

"The Turks didn't make their crosses like that. The Turks made little pointed crosses. They took the clothes off the girls. They made them bend down, and after raping them, they made them sit on the pointed wood, through the vagina. That's the way they killed - the Turks. Americans have made it a more civilized way. They can't show such terrible things."

Here are some actual photos of the genocide

You may have seen this image that purports to show Armenian women crucified in Der-Zor. It does portray Armenian women, but it’s a still from a 1919 silent film called Ravished Armenia (youtube)

There are a lot more REAL images out there and using this one as proof for genocide is wrong.

[newstodayjournal]

‘Aurora’s Sunrise’ Review: A Patchwork Record of the Armenian Genocide

The documentary “Aurora’s Sunrise” shares the great and terrible story of Aurora Mardiganian, an Armenian survivor of the genocide that began in 1915. Aurora was 14 years old and living in a small town in the Ottoman Empire when the violence started. Her peaceful life was obliterated when her father and brother were rounded up and murdered by Ottoman Turk soldiers. Aurora was then forced into a…

[metamorphesque]

Aurora (Arshaluys) Mardiganian more about here here

[fata-cu-palarie-neagra]

‘Aurora’s Sunrise’ Animated Doc on Armenian Genocide to Hit North American Theaters

Inna Sahakyan’s harrowing film tells the story of Aurora Mardiganian, who escaped the Armenian Genocide before embarking on an odyssey that took her to the heights of Hollywood stardom. from AWN Headline News https://ift.tt/qz9wY45

[uykulupsikolog]

‘Aurora’s Sunrise’ Animated Doc on Armenian Genocide to Hit North American Theaters

Inna Sahakyan’s harrowing film tells the story of Aurora Mardiganian, who escaped the Armenian Genocide before embarking on an odyssey that took her to the heights of Hollywood stardom. from AWN Headline News https://ift.tt/ljvHK7C

[militant-holy-knight]

An ugly truth of history has just been acknowledged. On October 29, the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (405 to 11) in favor of Resolution 296, which acknowledges the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks during WW1. (Unsurprisingly, Ilhan Omar was among the very few to abstain; her disingenuous logic will be addressed later.)

In order to become official policy, however, the resolution needs to be approved by both houses of Congress, and then signed by the president. The Senate is currently not scheduled to vote on the measure.

It is at any rate a step in the right direction. According to the book Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide,

At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.... Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors, denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.

Indeed, Turkey is currently outraged at this resolution; its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called it "worthless" and the "biggest insult" to the Turkish people.

Such willful denial borders the surreal considering how well documented the Armenian genocide is. As the International Association of Genocide Scholars says, "the Armenian Genocide is not controversial, but rather is denied only by the Turkish government and its apologists."

Nor is this a new issue. The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey from 1913-16, wrote the following in his memoir:

When the Turkish authorities gave the order for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal this fact. . . I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.

In 1920, U.S. Senate Resolution 359 heard testimony on the "mutilation, violation, torture, and death" of countless Armenians, to quote American Lieutenant General James Harbord, who further referred to the genocide as the "most colossal crime of all the ages."

In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem (consistent with Islam's rules of war). Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being defiled, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: "Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross," she wrote, "spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies." Such scenes were portrayed in the 1919 film Auction of Souls, some of which is based on Mardiganian's memoirs.

Whereas the genocide is largely acknowledged in the West—long before this new resolution over 40 American states had acknowledged it—one of its primary if not fundamental causes is habitually overlooked: religion (Muslim Turks vis-à-vis Christian Armenians).

The genocide is unfortunately articulated through a singularly secular paradigm that focuses almost exclusively on nationalism, identity, territorial disputes, etc.—thereby projecting modern, secular Western sensibilities onto vastly different characters and eras.

War, of course, is another factor that clouds the true essence of the genocide. Because these atrocities mostly occurred during World War I, so the argument goes, they are ultimately a reflection of just that—war, in all its chaos and destruction, and nothing more. But as Winston Churchill, who described the massacres as an "administrative holocaust," correctly observed, "The opportunity [WWI] presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race." Even Adolf Hitler had pointed out that "Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention."

Even the most cited factor of the Armenian Genocide, "ethnic identity conflict," while legitimate, must be understood in light of the fact that, historically, religion often accounted more for a person's identity than language or heritage. This is daily demonstrated throughout the Islamic world today, where Muslim governments and Muslim mobs persecute Christian minorities who share the same race, ethnicity, language, and culture; minorities who are indistinguishable from the majority—except, of course, for being non-Muslims, or "infidels."

As one Armenian studies professor asks, "If it [the Armenian Genocide] was a feud between Turks and Armenians, what explains the genocide carried out by Turkey against the Christian Assyrians at the same time?" The same can be said about the Greeks (some 750,000 of whom were liquidated during WWI). From a Turkish perspective, the primary thing Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks had in common was that they were all Christians—"infidels."

And the same can be said of all those Christians and other non-Muslim minorities who were targeted for what the U.S. acknowledges was a genocide by ISIS—another genocide that was also conducted during the chaos of war, and against those whose only crime was to be "infidels."

[ear-worthy]

Uncovering Roots: Recounting Overlooked Historical Tales Of Pain & Suffering

This review is the first in a series of reviews, recommendations, and essays about Indie podcasters -- their craft, their challenges, and the critical role they play in podcasting. These entrepreneurs display skills as disparate as hosting, sound production, graphic design, scriptwriting, interviewing, marketing genius, and financial watchdog. They are the heart and soul of podcasting. 

 Uncovering Roots is an independently produced (Indie) podcast that is a moving and powerful new show that gives a voice to lesser-known people whose stories need to be heard. The creator, producer, and host is Maxim Saakyan. He is Armenian, Spanish, and Russian, a complicated blend, to say the least.  Saakyan was born in Italy, moved to London when he was young and studied Math for both his bachelor's and master's.  His education led him quite organically to a data analyst job, but he craved doing creative things.

Why did Saakyan start a podcast, and why this podcast? 

"I'm a strong believer that creative outputs are the best ways to teach people about certain topics," says Maxim. "Whether that's about history, culture or current affairs, audio is also such an intimate way of talking to people, most of the time, you're literally in their ears speaking to them. Maxim continues: "We seem to be living in a world where one-minute videos are the goal, but despite that, there is a rise in popularity with podcasts which can be 30 to even 60 minutes long"

The first three episodes of Uncovering Roots are about the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and beyond by the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey). In those two years, over 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert. In addition, about 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. 

Due to its strategic geographic significance, Armenia has suffered countless invaders and invasions throughout history. For example, from 1513 to 1737, Armenia was controlled by different conquerors 14 times. Saakyan begins by telling the story of Armenian Genocide survivor Aurora Mardiganian, who is the subject of the strong opening episode, pieced together with interviews from people who knew her. Resilient doesn’t come close to describing the woman who suffered torture and brutality before she eventually escaped to New York.

Saakyan comments on these episodes: "This three-part series of the podcast is very important to me. As an Armenian, the amount of people who don't know about the genocide really hurts me. Then we look at Aurora's story, and it's just so unbelievably shocking. It's so unbelievable that so many people didn't actually think she existed. Like she was a fictional character that was made up to represent the pain Armenians went through. But she was real. She not only went through the genocide, but she went through Hollywood exploitation as well. This story isn't just about teaching people about the genocide, it's about honoring her story."

Make no mistake about it. Saakyan's storytelling and narrative prowess are so good that these episodes rival the emotional punch of Holocaust horror tales. What's more amazing about the emotional core of this podcast is Saakyan's admission that, "I virtually had zero story-telling podcast experience, no sound design experience, no mic experience. This was an entire learning curve for me. From fact checking to interviewing. I think one of the hardest things was the sound design element, I never appreciated how crucial it is."

Despite Saakyan's protestations of inexperience, Uncovering Roots is an audio masterpiece for several reasons. First, his storytelling is so commanding that it can grab listeners by their ears. His voice radiates the kind of emotional intensity that can blanket listeners with the darkness of the human psyche. Second, the sound production is sonically eloquent and pervasive in its haunting nature. "For the first episode, I worked with the talented Olivia Melkonain on music," Saakyan notes. "We used a music library to try and find Armenian sounds. After learning a lot from her, I implemented a similar sound design to episodes two and three. The Armenian sounds, from Oud's to Duduk's, were a really important part of the series."

Third, Saakyan created this podcast with a sharp eye for the smallest detail. For example, his mother designed the podcast's graphics, and, while it was very much a solo-project, he solicited help from Olivia Melkonian and Al Shaibani."

What are the future tales planned for Uncovering Roots? Saakyan answers: "In mid 2024, we're hoping to have the first official season up and running where we tell stories from the SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) region and indigenous people from across the globe."

I highly recommend Uncovering Roots. This podcast resonates with the agony of an entire race, and creator / host Saakyan inserts us into the life and eyes of an Armenian girl, Aurora Mardiganian. 

In effect, Uncovering Roots is the ultimate true-crime podcast, because it's true about the disputed Armenian Genocide, and it's a crime how these people suffered so much during World War 1.

[thisdayinwwi]

Jan 19 1919 "Ravished Armenia" released - directed by Oscar Apfel. The movie is based on the autobiographical book Ravished Armenia by Arshaluys (Aurora) Mardiganian, who also played the lead role in the film