Religion and Spirituality in the Memoirs of Child Survivors of the Armenian Genocide

Abstract

Survivor memoirs of the Armenian Genocide remain an understudied genre, despite their unique value in offering a grassroots perspective on the events and illuminating the processes of remembering the past and coping with the individual and collective trauma. This paper brings together two overlooked aspects in Armenian Genocide studies: first, the fact that many of these memoirs are written by child survivors and frequently focus on childhood experiences, and second, the significant presence of religious elements—references to God, faith, and prayer—in these texts. The content and function of these spiritual reflections range from expressions of astonishing faith to deeply bitter remarks.
The primary aim is to examine the role of spirituality for children as depicted in the survivor memoirs. However, this cannot be done without careful consideration of the fact that most of these texts were written decades after the events they describe. Consequently, the analysis is grounded in a theoretical understanding of narrative subjectivity and the complexities of retrospective narration. The findings reveal the paradoxical nature of survivors’ spiritual experience. After the genocide, religious convictions and beliefs do not coalesce into a coherent system; rather, traditional formulations remain detached units that seem true from one perspective, but hollow from another.