Armenian Genocide and Translation

Over the course of the last five years my research has led me to conclude that the literary representation of a trauma is not the immediate step after the historical event and that there are other, intervening layers in between. First is the occurrence of the historical event. What then follows is the translation of that event in the minds of the survivors—that is, in their memory and interpretation of the event. Then, memory becomes the subject of oral history. This oral history enters the minds of the writers of memoir and fiction, where it becomes a literary translation. Finally, the filmmaker, if such a story makes it to this step, translates the text in order to render her interpretation of it as film. If we acknowledge that translation involves interpretation, then what exists here are different layers of translation. The aim of the paper is to analyze the different effects that each medium (literature, translation, cinema) may have on the experience of its readers and audience—what that medium is trying to cultivate, the limitations of each, and how all of them in different ways bring greater attention to the historical phenomenon of the Armenian Genocide.