Assassins, Spies, and Survivors: Interview w/Prof. Marian M. MacCurdy | Hollywood & History Ep. 12

This week we talk with Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy, professor of writing and literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, about her grandfather's role in Operation Nemesis, the top-secret campaign to take out key leaders of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress government in the aftermath of World War I for their role in orchestrating the Armenian Genocide. Professor MacCurdy tells us about her grandfather Aaron Sachaklian's role in helping to finance and train individual Armenians to scour all over Europe and hunt down those responsible for carrying out the massacres and deportations of the Armenians. She explains how this small yet tight-knit group, against all odds, was able to plan the logistics of such an ambitious program.

She also tells us what it was like growing up as an Armenian in upstate New York and how her professional career evolved to lead her down the path of exploring the many sides of trauma, of how we can cope with it through meditative journaling and writing, and how these lessons can be applied to those who have undergone on it a personal or collective level. These, sadly, have even greater relevance today in light of the recent developments in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Professor MacCurdy received her MA in British Literature and her Ph.D. in Humanities from Syracuse University. Her field of study is composition theory, and she taught at Ithaca College for 23 years, nine of that, as chair of the Department of Writing before moving to Hampshire College
She has published many scholarly articles, personal essays, and poetry, and her most recent work was published by Transaction Publishers in February 2015. Titled "Sacred Justice: The Voices and Legacy of the Armenian Operation Nemesis," a cross-genre book that includes both original documentation and memoir to tell the story of the operation to assassinate the Ottoman Turkish leaders who were the architects of the Armenian Genocide. The book is available for purchase here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1412855039/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

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#Armenia #Armenians #trauma #psychology #literature #OperationNemesis #NagornoKarabakh #SoghomonTehlirian #SacredJustice