Mélinée Manouchian: A Life of Resistance and Remembrance

Genocide orphan Mélinée Sukiémian arrived in France in the 1920’s. A brilliant, rebellious student, she engaged at an early age as an activist in Paris, committed to support Soviet Armenia and guided by the universal values of liberty and equality. In this WebTalk, historian Astrig Atamian recounts Mélinée’s life journey marked by her profound aspiration for justice, her struggle as a woman in the Resistance against the Nazis in occupied France, and her life-long effort to preserve the memory of her husband, the poet and hero Missak Manouchian.

Originally published March 2024.

About the speaker

Astrig Atamian

Astrig Atamian is a historian and associate researcher at the Center for Russian, Caucasian, East European and Central Asian Studies at EHESS, Paris. She wrote her doctoral thesis on Armenian communists in France from the 1920s to 1990, soon to be published by Presses universitaires de Rennes. With Claire Mouradian and Denis Peschanski, she co-wrote Manouchian. Missak et Mélinée, deux orphelins du génocide des Arméniens engagés dans la Résistance française, published in November 2023 by Textuel.

Astrig Atamian