YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 15, ARMENPRESS: “Armenian Kesaria/Kayseri and Cappadocia,” released by Mazda Publishers on January 12, is the twelfth volume in the UCLA series titled “Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces”, edited and contributed to by Professor Richard G. Hovannisian, Past Holder of the AEF Chair in Modern History at UCLA and currently Distinguished Chancellor’s Fellow at Chapman University in Orange County. “Armenian Kesaria/Kayseri and Cappadocia” focuses on the history, religion, economic and social life, and cultural, educational, and political developments among the Armenians in the city of Kesaria (Gesaria) and its many outlying villages, such as Talas, Everek, Fenesse, Tomarza, Chomakhlu, Injesu, Efkere, and Germir. Contributors to the volume, aside from Hovannisian, include scholars James R. Russell, Robert W. Thomson, Gérard Dédéyan, Dickran Kouymjian, Sylvie L. Merian, Bedross Der Matossian, Hervé Georgelin, Jack Der-Sarkissian, Simon Payaslian, Tina Demirjian, and Vartan Matiossian.

This volume derives from one of the eighteen international conferences organized by Professor Hovannisian between 1997 and 2010 relating to important historic Armenian regions, nearly all of which are now devoid of their native Armenian inhabitants.

In 1915 in the times of the Armenian Genocide the Turkish authorities forcibly deported the Armenians of Kesaria and massacred the majority of them. A part of the survived flew to foreign countries. In 1938 about 2000 Genocide-survived Armenians lived in Kesaria.