Collections : [Oral History Archives at Columbia]

The Columbia Armenian Oral History Archive is an important collection of audio and video recordings of first-person accounts of the early and recent experiences of Armenians, recorded after they had immigrated to the United States. The collection consists of 138 interviews in Armenian, English, and Turkish languages with immigrants conducted by Vazken L. Parsegian during the 1950s and 1960s, focusing largely on the survivors' memories of their personal experiences of the abduction, deportation, imporisonment and massacre of Armenians and the destruction of Armenian communities under the Ottoman Empire in the first decades of the Twentieth century. The testimonies also recount the early formation of Armenian communities in various cities of United States and socio-economic conditions. The collection is comprised of 210 hours of sound recordings in the following formats: magnetic tape reels, compact cassettes, and WAV files and compact disks representing the content of the original tapes.