Katia Peltekian

Katia Peltekian
Birth name	Katia M. Peltekian
Languages	English, Arabic, Armenian
Ethnicities	Armenian
Dialects	Western Armenian

Frequent contributor to Armenian News Network-Groong since 1999, independent researcher, news archivist

Born to Jordanian-Armenian parents and raised in Lebanon, Katia Peltekian received her BA and MA degrees in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. She later received her second MA in Education from Canada. Between 1988 and 2004, she was a full-time faculty member at AUB, teaching English at all levels. In the past 25 years, she has presented papers in English instruction at international conferences in Greece, Spain and England and conducted teacher-training workshops in Lebanon & Jordan. She is fluent in English, Arabic and Armenian, and has basic knowledge of French and Turkish.

For the past 16 years and on a daily basis, she has diligently compiled on voluntary basis current news items for the Armenian News Network Groong (www.groong.org), which is a free internet service that compiles all news articles and reports from around the world pertaining to Armenia and Armenians. In many instances, she also translates from Arabic articles that appear in Arabic language newspapers in Lebanon and the region.

While studying in Halifax, Canada, she became interested in reading old Canadian newspapers to see how they had reported the ongoing atrocities committed by the Turks against the Armenians during World War One. With the encouragement of the Armenian Cultural Association of the Atlantic Provinces based in Halifax, she compiled the articles pertaining to the Armenian Genocide between 1915 and 1922. Although she admits she had never been interested in history classes at school, she began educating herself about the condition of the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. This led her to a much richer repertoire of news articles about the massacres committed by the Turks during Sultan Abdul Hamid’s reign in the 1890s & those committed in 1909.

And what she was able to collect from only one newspaper published in Halifax (Nova Scotia), where only a handful of Armenians reside, was quite significant. As she copied these articles from microfilms, she decided to have the compilation published in a book believing that many would learn about Armenian history as she had learned from these news articles. However, when she received no response from a couple of Armenian institutions/organizations she had approached for publishing it, she decided to publish the 350 page book at her own expense.

The book Heralding of the Armenian Genocide was published in 2000 and distributed for free mainly to the provincial government members in Nova Scotia and selectively in the other Canadian provinces. It was also distributed to a few Turkish diplomats, as well as to public and university libraries in Halifax. The rest were sent to libraries in Armenia and Armenian research centers in the USA.

The response Katia received from Armenian and non-Armenian scholars and interested individuals after the printing of the book was so positive that she embarked on a second project: compiling articles from a British newspaper. She chose The Times (of London) since she had easier access to it both at AUB library and at Toronto Reference Library where she spends three months in summer. To date, she says she has collected more than 3,000 articles, reports, letters-to-editor, and speeches printed in The Times alone between 1878 and 1923. To make sure she has the complete collection, she has traveled to distant cities in Britain to work at the different branches of the British Library.

She published her two-volume book "The Times of the Armenian Genocide: Reports in the British Press, 1914-1923" in 2013. The remaining pre-Genocide period will be published soon.

Books:

Heralding of the Armenian Genocide: Reports in the Halifax Herald 1894-1922 (2000) ACAAP, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Times of the Armenian Genocide: Reports in the British Press 1914-1923 (2013): two volumes. Four Roads, Beirut, Lebanon

Articles

ON THE TRAIL OF RELIGIOUS ARTIFACTS AND A GRAND OLD MAN (Gladstone) http://www.aztagdaily.com/EnglishSupplement/20060424_EngSupl.htm or http://www.caia.org.uk/v1/news/newsitem034.htm

Article by Katia Peltekian: Even on the Titanic: They Escaped Turkish Persecution Only to Die with the Sinking of the Titanic http://groong.usc.edu/orig/kp-20070205.html

Article by Katia Peltekian: Daily Newspaper Reporting of the Armenian Genocide: Could they all be wrong? http://www.groong.org/orig/kp-20080424.html

Article by Katia Peltekian: Time to move forward http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/com12090602p.htm or http://www.horizonweekly.ca/eandf.php?c=10&id=3613&n=1431

Lecture by Katia Peltekian on April 24, 2008: The Armenian Genocide http://www.armeniandiaspora.com/archive/136563.html

Lecture by Katia Peltekian on April 12, 2007: PM Gladstone & the Armenian Massacres http://www.haigazian.edu.lb/News.jsp?id=192

Translation from Arabic to English of article "Armenian political presence in Lebanon" by Lebanese As-Safir Newspaper http://groups.yahoo.com/group/azad-hye/message/1319

Translation from Arabic to English of interview with President Kocharian on Al-Jazeera TV http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/09/1053-al-jazeera-interview-with.html

Interview with Katia Peltekian by Azad-Hye, UAE http://www.azad-hye.net:80/news/viewnews.asp?newsId=621lfh41

Translation from Arabic to English of article "Armenians of Iraq" by Prof. Sayyar Al-Jamil http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chaterfamilytree/armenians_of_iraq.htm

Lecture & Presentation of the Film "Ravished Armenia" (aka Auction of Souls) http://www.chanitz.org/2011/06/screening-of-ravished-armenia-in.html

Translation of article: Supporting Armenians and Kurds in Turkey http://neweasternpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/supporting-armenians-and-kurds-in-turkey-by-kareem-abdel-al-salam-translated-by-katia-peltekian/

Interview 1: http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/26922

Interview 2: http://www.keghart.com/Interview-Peltekian

Book Launch in London: http://www.tekeyan.org.uk/2014/05/30/katia-peltekian-book-launch-in-london/

Book-signing in Beirut: http://lebanon.mfa.am/en/news/item/2014/01/31/lyusitutunjian31012014/

Book signing: http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/30708

Book release: http://www.accc.org.uk/the-times-of-the-armenian-genocide-reports-in-the-british-press-1914-1923-book-is-published/

Lecture at Haigazian University on British Response: http://www.haigazian.edu.lb/NewsEvents/Pages/default.aspx?NewsID=1070

Lecture at Haigazian University on British Press Reports: http://www.otv.com.lb/beta/v/episode/Armenian-News-Friday-April-25-2014-8848

Book Review (in Armenian): http://www.keghart.com/Kojayan-Peltekian-TheTimes

Radio Interview 1: http://www.radiosevan.com/programs/2/episodes/2900

Radio Interview 2: http://www.voiceofvan.net/content/hartsazerouts-05022014-mrs-katia-peltekian