This lecture will introduce the content and context of letters sent from Istanbul in the fall of 1922 by Sourpik (Surpouhi) Tekian to her daughter Tacouhi in the United States. Originally from Angora, the Catholic Armenian Tekian family had been exiled to Istanbul as a result of the Armenian Genocide. Sourpik Tekian’s letters were written at a pivotal moment, the fall of 1922, which marked the end of the Ottoman Empire and held deep repercussions for the remaining Armenians in Istanbul. Her letters are a rare source detailing everyday life in that period, making visible new temporal layers and routines of the day, enabling us to write a history from the perspective of a female survivor of the Armenian Genocide. In Sourpik’s letters, the dilemma of having been left behind in a purgatory, stuck between a former annihilated life and a new unknown one of perpetual exile, is clearly present.

Talin Suciyan is Kazan Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at Fresno State. She was born and raised in Istanbul. After graduating from the University of Istanbul, she continued her studies in Germany, where she obtained her Ph.D. Based in Munich, she has been teaching and researching at the Institute for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Munich over 15 years. She is the author of Outcasting Armenians: Tanzimat of the Provinces (Syracuse University Press, 2023) and The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, History and Politics (I. B. Tauris, 2016). Her research focuses on Armenians in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Her areas of interests are colonialism, histories of the autochthonous populations, medicine, peasantry and temporality.