This book is a product of the oral history study that has been conducted within the scope of the Hrant Dink Foundation’s History Program since 2011. In the book, which constitutes the seventh volume of the Sounds of Silence series, 12 of the interviews with 19 Armenians from Kınalıada were brought together within the scope of this study.

In the book, in addition to the interview texts that were transferred to the written language without being removed from the spoken language and restructured to form a chronological integrity, there is an introduction letter by Narod Avcı on the history of Kınalıada and a general review article by Rudi Sayat Pulatyan on this study and interviews.

In the interview texts, the Armenian words used by the interviewees during the speech are written in italics; brief information was given with footnotes about, both these words and some words specific to the local dialect and some referenced names, places, events, etc.
Kınalıada has been one of the most preferred summer resorts by the Armenian community in Turkey for more than a century. The settlement of Armenians on the island dates back to the first quarter of the 19th century, and the history of the first educational and worship institutions on the island dates back to the middle of the same century. On the island, where the majority of the population was formed by Armenians and Greeks for many years, a serious demographic change was experienced with the expulsion of Greek citizens from the country in 1964, and population growth accelerated after the construction of new buildings on the abandoned properties of the Greek inhabitants of the island in the 70s.

This book, like the other books of the Sounds of Silence series, has been prepared with the aim of making the stories of Armenians who have their roots in various regions of Turkey and live in Turkey or elsewhere heard and visible. The oral history interviews conducted within the scope of this study shed light on the various manifestations of this culture in the past and present, the importance of the island for the Armenian community and especially the transformation it has undergone in the last fifty years in Kınalıada, one of the rare settlements where Western Armenian culture and language are reproduced in the public sphere.

Please click here to read a section from the book.