Ancestral Journeys: Reflections on Land and Belonging
Talk: My Return to Arapgir and the Lives That Led Me There

November 27, 2025, Thursday
16:00-18:00 

Moderator: Aylin Vartanyan

Venue: Hrant Dink Foundation Anarad Hığutyun Building
Papa Roncalli St. No: 128 Harbiye, Şişli/İstanbul
*The talk will be in English and there will be no simultaneous translation.

To register for the event, please fill out the form.

Some journeys are about discovery, while others are about reunion. For many, certain routes lead us to our roots, even generations later. As Hrant Dink profoundly stated, "Every Armenian is a document," and he always addressed the significance of understanding history through the lived experiences of survivors. Through their descendants, the memories of survivors are revitalized and shared with new generations.
Join us for a unique conversation series that explores themes of discovery, reunion, and ancestral journeys.

Paul Vartan Sookiasian will share his lifelong family-history research and his efforts to reconstruct the lost world of his ancestors from pre-1915 Arapgir. What began with an old family tree and his grandmother’s stories slowly expanded as the internet opened the door to new sources including archival records, rare transcriptions, and discovering distant relatives.With this collected knowledge, he traveled back to Arapgir, the first in his family in a century, to finally see the place he had heard about all his life, and followed clues from an old book in search of a church that had been founded by his priestly ancestor.

We Welcome Your Stories
This conversation series is part of a broader dialogue about ancestral journeys and the profound connections between past and present. If you are an Armenian living abroad who has undertaken or is planning an ancestral journey, we would be honored to hear your reflections and experiences. Your stories of discovery, reunion, and belonging contribute to the collective memory that Hrant Dink spoke of - each narrative adding depth to our shared understanding of heritage and home.We invite you to share your own journey with us. Please reach out through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to connect and explore how your story might enrich this ongoing conversation.

Paul Vartan Sookiasian

Paul Vartan Sookiasian is a writer and editor originally from Philadelphia, USA, now based in Yerevan, where he works as the English editor and host of CivilNet news agency. He is editor of the book Outcasting Armenians: Tanzimat of the Provinces (2023) by Dr. Talin Suciyan and is co-author with her of the article “Remembering the Survivors by Name: From Angora to Philadelphia, the Perpetual Exile of Sourpik Tekian (1868–1957)” which will appear in the forthcoming volume "New Directions in Turkish Studies" book series from Berghahn Books. As a historian, Paul particularly focuses on reconstructing biographies as well as the long and rich history of Philadelphia's Armenian community.

Aylin Vartanyan Dilaver

After studying political economy and literature at Barnard College and Columbia University, Aylin Vartanyan Dilaver continued her career teaching critical reading and writing at Boğaziçi University School of Foreign Languages. Since the establishment of the B.Ü. Peace Education Application and Research Center in 2006, she has worked as a trainer, organized seminars and conferences, and participated in curriculum development efforts that blend critical pedagogy with an arts-based perspective. In 2005, she encountered Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed approach. The trainings she received, supported her belief in the crucial role art plays in the context of social transformation. In 2010, she started her doctoral studies in Expressive Arts and Social Change at the European Graduate School in Switzerland and received her CAGS degree. In 2021, she became a member of the Institute of Expressive Arts Istanbul in Istanbul, where she works as an instructor and facilitates workshops. She continues her work as one of the founding members of Parrhesia Collective, a group of Armenian women academics and artists.