My Patriarchal Memoirs

Translated by Ared Misirliyan and copyedited by Vatche Ghazarian, this book is the English-language edition of the Memoirs of Zaven Der Yeghiayan, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople during and in the aftermath of the First World War. His memoirs first appeared in the Armenian language in June 1947, published in Cairo, Egypt. The "Foreword" of the book mentions the following: "The Memoirs cover the momentous years of his Patriarchal period, from his election in 1913 to his withdrawal in 1923-a traumatic period for the Armenian nation, a period marked by the disastrous rule of the Young Turks (Ittihadists) and their criminal legacy of annihilation of the Armenian population in Ottoman Turkey. It was a decade that saw the end of the Armenian people's presence in their ancestral lands-an end through dispossession, destruction, and obliteration of the memory of an ancient people in Turkey.