The presentation of the book Recovering Armenia, by Istanbul-Armenian intellectual Dr. Lerna Ekmekçioğlu, took place on July 7, 2017, at 7:30 pm, at the Saroyan Hall of San Francisco Khachaturian Armenian Center. The initiators of the event were San Francisco's Hamazkayin N. Aghpalian and ARS Karin Chapters.
Chair of N. Aghpalian Chapter Ruzanna Sarkissian opened the event thoroughly presenting the author’s biography.
Lerna Ekmekçioğlu was born and got her primary education in Constantinople. She first attended Tatian College, then the Central Armenian School, receiving her certificates. Now, Doctor Ekmekçioğlu is a lecturer of History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Doctor Ekmekçioğlu started her historic speech saying, "How the people survived after the Genocide? How the Genocide survivors continued living in a criminal state (New Turkey).″
Then she said that the book consists of two parts and a transitional period that connects those two parts...
″The first period begins with the signing of Armistice of Mudros in October 1918, when the Ottoman government accepted its defeat. It lasted until September 1922 when the Kemal forces sealed their victory against the allies and the territorial claims of Armenians. The transitional period lasted one year, starting from the late 1922 to the late 1923. It concluded with the Lausanne Treaty signed between the Government of Ankara and its allies. This Treaty became the birth certificate of today's Turkey."
Dr. Ekmekçioğlu continued her speech, saying, "Then comes the second period, from 1923 to 1933. It was a decade after the establishment of Turkey as a republic, which coincided with the closure of the Hay Kin Magazine, which serves as an initial guide from me in this era."