By Skylar Yoder
The London-based Armenian Institute hosted “The Lost Voice: Aurora Mardiganian” last week to tell the story of an Armenian genocide survivor who later became a film star. The event was led by Maxim Saakyan, who recently started a podcast series called Uncovering Roots that tells underreported stories from the South West Asia and North Africa region. He presented clips of the first three episodes of the podcast, which tells the story of Aurora Mardiganian. Born Arshaluys Mardiganian, she survived the Armenian genocide and made her way to the United States, where she starred in a silent film based on the story of her life. The film has since been lost.
At the event, Saakyan explained the depth of research that went into understanding Aurora’s life, including 40 hours of interviews with more than 20 people, as well as going through court papers, recorded testimonies, photos, and newspaper clippings. He said he was motivated to take on this project because of the lack of knowledge about and formal recognition of the Armenian genocide in the United Kingdom. His goal was to make this dark and complex history more relatable by focusing on the details of one person’s life, instead of the statistics.
Aurora went through the Armenian genocide at the age of 14, when she was forced to leave her home and march across the desert. She managed to escape her captors on numerous occasions and eventually made it to Tbilisi, Georgia, and from there to the United States. After that, her mission was to find her brother and tell the world about the persecution of Armenians. Upon her arrival, she was taken in by an Armenian couple and ads with her story were posted in an effort to find her brother. The newspaper clipping caught the attention of writer Henry Leyford Gates, who had Aurora recount her story in Armenian, which was then transcribed and translated into English and published as a book, titled “Ravished Armenia,” in 1918.
The book was then turned into a film that Aurora was tricked into starring in for little pay. The film was successful and viewed in many countries, but no full copies of the film have been found to date. Aurora originally traveled with the film and spoke at screenings until she fell ill during an event. This marked her departure from public life.
In her last years, those who knew her remembered her as kind but paranoid. Her fears were likely a result of unaddressed trauma from the genocide and exploitation she faced throughout her life. In 1994, Aurora Mardiganian passed away alone and was ultimately buried in a mass grave.
Saakyan noted that this experience has reinforced to him the importance of archives to fill gaps in history and combat biases. He sees parallels between archives of the past and the work journalists are doing in conflict zones around the world today to document what is transpiring for public awareness, capturing history as it is happening.
Saakyan is working on several stories for future podcast episodes, including on the backstory of Armenian flags prior to 1919.
You can access existing episodes of Uncovering Roots here.
