{"id":20139032,"date":"2026-10-06T17:58:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dabangasudan.org\/?p=20139032"},"modified":"2026-10-06T17:59:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:59:58","slug":"sudanese-armenian-archivists-fight-erasure-and-keep-their-history-alive-for-generations-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dabangasudan.org\/en\/all-news\/article\/sudanese-armenian-archivists-fight-erasure-and-keep-their-history-alive-for-generations-to-come","title":{"rendered":"Sudanese-Armenian archivists fight erasure and keep their history alive for generations to come"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Feature by Sara Bass<\/a> for Radio Dabanga<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sudanahye is a Sudanese-Armenian archival project launched just after the war\u2019s outset in April 2023 and is building a growing network across diasporas. Each collaboration addresses a different aspect of archival preservation, making it relevant to the past and present and providing direction for the future. It is a means of honouring historical events, lending legitimacy to a people, tracking evolution, and holding war criminals accountable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its early stages, the war progressed block-by-block. Families were driven from homes that had amassed memories over generations, and in their absence, the RSF ransacked and pillaged those properties, even defecating on children\u2019s beds. This destruction occurred on the micro-scale. Much of it was collateral. But with the RSF\u2019s total takeover of Khartoum, cultural destruction became more deliberate and grander in proportion.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Boghosian in conversation with Vaun, presenting at Project Save in Boston (Photo: @sudanahye via Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From June 2023 until March 2025, the RSF was using the National Museum as an ad hoc military base and mine, providing exceptional protection and a steady financial stream by way of the black market. Housing over 100,000<\/a> artefacts from the many eras of Sudan\u2019s history, including the Stone Ages, Nubian and Christian times, and the Islamic period, the National Museum acted as a national living room in essence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The targeting of such prominent cultural heritage sites has been a means of demoralising the Sudanese people collectively by erasing heritage and symbols of the country\u2019s pride. As of mid-September 2025, over 60 per cent of the museum\u2019s goods had been looted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Los Angeles Times<\/em> reported<\/a> earlier last month that at least 76 heritage sites and 20 museums throughout Sudan have been ransacked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Armenian Church was another heritage site that fell victim to RSF-occupied Khartoum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c …growing up in the 2000s in London, my perceptions of Sudan were driven by the news cycle\u2026\u201d<\/strong>
\u2014 Vahe Boghosian<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Around the time of the war\u2019s outset, Vahe Boghosian, a diasporan Armenian and historian from London, launched the first multimedia heritage project on Sudanese-Armenian history. It\u2019s called Sudanahye. In addition to to preventing<\/a> his ancestry\u2019s erasure in the throes of war, the project provided an outlet for squaring a violent media portrayal of the country with the more convivial, fond anecdotes his relatives imparted throughout Boghosian\u2019s upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, growing up in the 2000s in London, my perceptions of Sudan were driven by the news cycle, by films \u2026 and then you go and look at the Armenian photos, and it looks very different,\u201d Boghosian said. \u201cAnd then you hear the stories and you\u2019re like \u2018oh, it\u2019s even more different.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sudanahye dates the first<\/a> known Armenian to settle in Sudan to the 1840s. Further <\/a>Armenians came to Egypt and Sudan after the Hamidian Massacres in the late 1890s. After the British conquest in 1899 established the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, another wave of Armenians immigrated in hopes of gaining wealth and for remittances.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Armenians from Sudan\u2019s community in Khartoum (Photo: @sudanahye via Instagram)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The same thing happened after the genocide in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. By the 1930s, a network of Armenian families was spread across Sudan, with Khartoum at its centre. At its peak, the population reached about 1,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOne of the reasons why the Sudanese-Armenian community history must be preserved is because it is like a constituent part of the experience of exile that Armenians experienced,\u201d said University of Washington\u2019s Director of African Studies Christopher Tounsel.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Sudanahye consists of historical documents sourced from archives in Cairo, Arabkir, and Durham; a mounting collection of oral histories; and a photo archive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach source represents something a bit different. In the documents, you\u2019re not really going to see children\u2019s views, even women\u2019s views. You\u2019re seeing mostly business documents, some political documents. Whereas in the photographs, you see this broader picture of Armenian community life and how they interacted with different members of different communities.\u201d The oral histories imbue the emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A primary intention of the project is to distinguish between memories shared and the atrocities persisting in Sudan today, Boghosian explained. That\u2019s where Sudanahye\u2019s social media<\/a> component factors in, acting as one important means of honouring legacy that places particular attention on personal narratives apart from broader trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCultural artifacts allow communities to claim a particular contribution and place in the world,\u201d said Tounsel. \u201cI also think [maintaining Sudanese-Armenian history] preserves the centrality of Sudan, and by extension the Nile, as a place that is a focal part of the history of the world, that the world has a vested interest in this region, that Sudan has never existed in a virtual black hole insulated or isolated from major world events.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boghosian thoughtfully uplifts the Sudanese struggle through his project in addition to the Armenian. He encourages his predominantly Armenian audience to acknowledge the strife the Sudanese people endure now so it is not similarly forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Sudanese people to whom he\u2019s spoken while archiving Sudanahye have told Boghosian they revere the tolerance of diversity their country once had that allowed an Armenian to call themself Sudanese. Many hope for the same to be true again some day soon, and Boghosian aspires for this sentiment to extend to other lands that could embrace Sudanese refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Sudanahye\u2019s Instagram page, Boghosian\u2019s tours have played a central role in community outreach, engendering awareness about Sudanese-Armenian heritage and making the past relevant to the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together with the Garod Collective<\/a>, for example, a New York-based community group that hosts Armenian cultural events, they brainstormed different approaches to building diaspora if they were to undertake the endeavour from scratch today.<\/p>\n\n\n

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An advertisement for a Garod Collective event (Photo: @garod_collective via Instagram)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Collective\u2019s founders, Cynthia Nahhas and Nanor Vosgueritchian, explained that diasporas usually foster community through church, school and a social club. These institutions are the \u201cbig three\u201d. During the workshop with Boghosian, though, they asked if there could be other ways of honouring culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs this the only way? What about things like what me and Nanor are doing \u2014 we\u2019re not part of the big three, we\u2019re just two people throwing events in Brooklyn, what does that mean? Where is our value in this?\u201d asked Nahhas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nahhas explained the origins of the Garod Collective. \u201cI want to be connected to [my culture] in my own, modern, for lack of a better term, way; and I think Garod Collective has allowed me to do that by having workshops that translate queer songs into Armenian or things that you just wouldn\u2019t naturally think of to connect with your culture that doesn\u2019t exist in the more traditional spaces,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nahhas and Vosgueritchian have hosted various workshops since the Collective\u2019s founding last April. These include an Armenian Mapping Workshop, a writing workshop, afternoons of backgammon, musical performances, and a barbecue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInvesting in diaspora is not about dilution, it\u2019s about an identity that\u2019s evolving. It\u2019s not becoming less of what it was. It\u2019s becoming more of something new,\u201d said Tounsel. \u201cA lot of times cultural preservation is about an attempt in freezing something in time as opposed to freezing something that\u2019s always been.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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From left to right: Vosgueritchian, Boghosian and Nahhas at the Garod Collective x Sudanahye workshop in New York (Photo: @garod_collective via Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Boghosian held his first events in Cairo, London, Berlin, and Amsterdam. Last month, he hosted his first event in Armenia. But back in March, in addition to New York, a separate US tour also brought him to Boston, where he collaborated with Project Save.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Save<\/a> is the oldest archive focused solely on preserving photography of the global Armenian experience. Its recent venture, Archive Alive, spotlights grassroots initiatives through multimedia exhibits in an effort to connect disparate groups, extend their reach, and induct archival materials under a common institution. Sudanahye was one of the first projects to be featured in this capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Save\u2019s Director Arto Vaun emphasised the living quality of the archive, something he attributes to their primary objective to \u201cchampion photography. Our form of championing photography is [by collecting] the photographs in the world that have anything to do with something Armenian. Absolutely, rooted in the Armenian experience, but it brings people in because they\u2019re already into it because of the photographs,\u201d said Vaun. It\u2019s this openness to material that allows the archive to keep pulsating as widely as it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not a genealogy project,\u201d Vaun continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a photography project. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re doing a search of a Sudan family photo \u2013 it\u2019s like, well they were in Sudan, but then they were in Paris and then they moved to Soviet Armenia and then from there, one half ended up in London. Well, because it\u2019s Project Save, we have the ability to close that loop. It\u2019s like saying, \u2018did you know what a powerful universal ripple effect is going on here, from Sudan to 45 years later, to Kensington?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat history never stops.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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(Photo: @sudanahye via Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Vaun also proudly emphasised the significance of archival material lasting into the present for the sake of holding war criminals accountable. Project Save has been asked recently by human rights attorneys for photos dating as far back as 100 years to argue cases at the Hague related to the 2020-2023 ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tounsel backed Vaun with commentary on colonialism. \u201cUnfortunately, one of the main justifications \u2013 I would say, illegitimate justifications \u2013 that have often accompanied the colonial enterprise has been, \u2018well these people don\u2019t have a history, these people are a kind of blank slate, they need to be civilized and cultured. And therefore, we have a right to have a certain type of relationship with them. Well, anyone who can claim a history can say, \u2018we are at the bare minimum your social equals because just like you have a history, we have one too. Which helps to show that we are fully human.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to defending the integrity of a people, accountability sets an international precedent, honouring the continued relevance of historical agreements like the UNESCO World Heritage List and 1954 Hague Convention and the sanctity of agreements to come. Tounsel says their clout is nullified only if there are no repercussions for violating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Sudanahye lends substance to the past and preserves the meaning of archival records into the present, Boghosian\u2019s discussions, predominantly published on social media or blog posts, provide resources for more easily communicating in Armenian, celebrate an Iraqi Jew from Sudan, or digest the World Cup in terms of Sudanese-Armenian heritage. They dissolve some of the divides distinguishing one people from another. He often uplifts intersectionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This research, and the relationships it\u2019s kindling between similar endeavours, represents an embrace of one another\u2019s cultures with greater hospitality moving forward.<\/p>\n