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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. During the death march Dovey was on, what did the Armenians eat when they were near the Roman ruins at Ourfa?

2. What senator pushed for a 75th anniversary commemoration bill in 1989?

3. In what year was the construction of the Der Zor memorial completed?

4. In what city did Balakian's co-worker Jimmy grow up?

5. Where did Nafina and Dovey bump into each other in New York, several years after the genocide?

Short Essay Questions

1. According to Aunt Gladys, why did the Armenians in America never talk about the genocide?

2. Why did Balakian question his failure to ask questions as a child when he saw the names of the dead listed on his grandmother's compensation documents?

3. How did Balakian feel about claims that the Turkish denials fall under free speech?

4. What were the Young Turks like in terms of personality and education?

5. How has Turkey's denial of the genocide affected its development as a modern nation?

6. How did the Turks use the geography of the land to make it easier to kill Armenians?

7. Why did Aunt Anna likely embrace surrealism rather than realism in literature?

8. Why did Balakian eventually come to see his family's silence about the genocide as a gift?

9. Why did the Armenians form reform movements under Ottoman rule during the 1890s?

10. Why were the orders for deportation of all Armenians into the Syrian desert the equivalent of a death sentence?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Balakian's grandmother initially sought compensation from the Turkish government for her family's sufferings. How important is compensation to the victims of state-sponsored terror? Can any compensation be sufficient or does the compensation have a deeper, more symbolic meaning? Did the grandmother's filing of the documents help her process the events? Can there ever be sufficient compensation for the Armenian people, especially almost a century after the genocide?

Essay Topic 2

To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the deaths of Armenians as genocide. Why would the government continue to deny atrocities committed long before current Turks were even alive? How does the denial of past crimes affect the development of a nation? Can Turkey ever be considered a part of the community of modern, humane nations as long as it continues to deny the genocide? What would a confession mean to the Turkish people today? How important is critical self-evaluation to the development of a nation?

Essay Topic 3

When Peter Balakian was a child, Armenia existed only as a small Soviet-controlled republic. Did the lack of a truly independent Armenia affect the ability of the Armenian people to maintain their culture? Did the permanent loss of most of the traditional Armenian homeland destroy the culture? How does a nation maintain its identity if they are denied a place among the family of nations? Does the existence of the modern, independent nation of Armenia make it easier to maintain an identity?

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