The Odyssey Of An Armenian Revolutionary Couple

A historical biography of the author's father, Minas Dersarkissian, and mother, Aghavni Dersarkissian, who survived the Armenian genocide. Minas fought the enemy on the battlefield and Aghavni waged her war as a community activist to preserve Armenian identity.

The Odyssey of an Armenian Revolutionary Couple: How They Survived the First Genocide of the 20th Century, is a historical biography of my father, Minas and mother, Aghavni Dersarkissian. From their translated autobiographies in Armenian, we follow Minas’ life leaving home at age 12 to become a priest, meanwhile learning of his family’s slaughter by the Turks; serving as a Turkish officer in WW-I, and then fighting against the Turks as guerrilla to save his people, the Armenians; while Minas in exile, Aghavni escapes with her life to become refugee, and how they find each other and face hardships anew.

In his memoirs, Vahak D. Sarkis (a.k.a. Vahak Dersarkissian), born in Egypt of Armenian heritage, traces his life history from time in the Middle East and Europe, during the preWorld War II years, through the Nazi invasion of Egypt, to the turbulent period in the Middle East, which altered the socio-political topography of the region. In the late 1950s, he arrived in New York with a BS degree in chemistry and, upon completion of his graduate studies, taught for the next thirty years at universities in New York and Florida. While teaching in New York in 19731974, he took advantage of an opportunity to experience a paid sabbatical through a visiting professorship to teach chemistry at the Yerevan State University in Soviet Armenia, the land of his ancestors. While in Soviet Armenia, during the Cold War period, he received extraordinary privileges as a trusted person and began receiving a monthly salary equivalent to a Soviet full professors rank, thus the title of the book I Was on the Soviet Payroll. In addition to his opportunity to teach at the State University of Armenia, he was equally determined to learn all about Communism, and during his four-month assignment, he observed the abysmal day-to-day life of the common people, the proletariat, in comparison with the privileged party members. Upon his return to the United States, he invited separately FBI then CIA agents to share his findings with them. Following these experiences, Vahak resumed a quieter but no less interesting way of life, retiring to Florida, studying art, sculpting, and working on two additional books, one about sculpting and another a childrens book. He currently lives in Holiday, Florida, with his wife, Betty, surrounded by his three adult children nearby.

Even though the left has never held power in Iran, its impact on the political, intellectual and cultural development of modern Iran has been profound. This book's authors undertake a fundamental re-examination and re-appraisal of the phenomenon of leftist activism in Iran, interpreted in the broadest sense, throughout the period of its existence up to and including the present.

Avoiding the sterile "was-it-genocide-or-not" debate, this book will open a new chapter in this contentious controversy and may help achieve a long-overdue reconciliation of Armenians and Turks.