5

WELCOME NOTE 

Dear reader,

After the fi rst issue of the International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies (IJAGS) was 
printed we understood the whole seriousness of this undertaking. High quality academic 
articles and strict timetable of release of each new volume was the main tasks we expected 
to face with. The current issue comes to confi rm the statement that we are on the right way.

When the Armenians worldwide launched their preparations for 2015 none could even 
imagine that in the very year of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide the attention of 
the whole world would be focused exactly on the same areas, were hundreds of thousands 
of Armenians were perished between 1915 and 1916.

Deir el-Zor, Rakka, Hama... Those were the names creating pain and sorrow for every 
Armenian. Exactly hundred years later the very same names come back to symbolize new 
genocidal crimes of ISIS and countries supporting this terrorist network. Although many 
prefer to say that Turkey unmask herself openly as one of the sponsors of ISIS, in fact it 
will be correct to say that from the very beginning there were no masks to cover intentions 
and far reaching realpolitik calculations. Again many thousands of Christian and Muslim 
victims and causalities, hundreds of thousands of displaced from their native lands creating 
disastrous humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.

Remembrance and dealing with the consequences of the Armenian Genocide is not and 
must not be a pure Armenian-Turkish issue. This is a problem of global justice and security. 
Unfortunately past and modern political calculations and interests live no place for human-
itarian approaches and honest discussions of the topic. 

The centennial of the Armenian Genocide is not the end of the chapter. On the contrary, 
it is a new beginning and starting point for everyone caring about the history, memory and 
justice. The task of academicians is twofold: to continue fi ght against state-sponsored denial 
and further the research and analysis of the Armenian Genocide in order to understand the 
subsequent crimes of the XX century as well as crimes in our days.

From this standpoint IJAGS has an important mission to complete having many of our 
colleagues involved in Genocide studies as brothers in arm in these crucial battles.

HAYK DEMOYAN
Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute 

Secretary of the Committee for Coordinating Events Dedicated to the Centennial of 
the Armenian Genocide