DURING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE of 1915, one of the many ways a woman could die at the hands of the killing squads was by the game of swords. The killing squads were bands of ex-convicts, released from prison or recruited by the Ottoman government for the purpose of massacring Armenians. The game of swords involved planting swords in the ground, blade up, and then tossing Armenian girls from horseback in attempts to impale them. If the attackers missed, they would snatch the girl from the ground and continue, in the spirit of fun and competition, until a sword sliced through her.

I spent four years researching the Armenian genocide. Throughout that time, I kept thinking I unearthed every torturous, inhumane act people could commit – and then I’d encounter some new malevolent twist, and be newly horrified, as I was with the killing squads, and then the game of swords.

It’s simple to read a fact, such as that 1.5 million Armenians died in the genocide. What’s much more complicated, I’ve learned, is to understand the depths of that fact, to understand that each one of those deaths was its own unique atrocity.

The book my research led to isn’t specifically about the genocide, but that event formed the foundation of it. Because most people know little about the Armenian genocide – many have never heard of it – I’d often find myself explaining its history, rattling off similarities and differences from the Holocaust for context. My husband began to dread going to parties with me. He felt I had an unhealthy fixation on a less than uplifting topic. I wasn’t sure, but I wondered if the weight of it were too much for me.

While in Armenia, I had the opportunity to talk with an expert on the genocide. If you imagine a genocide scholar, you likely won’t conjure up Asya Darbinyan, a spry, smiling young woman. When we met, her face radiated cheerfulness despite her years of post-graduate studies in genocide and full-time work as a guide at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.

“When people hear you’re studying genocide, they say, ‘Isn’t it too depressing?’” she said. “Of course it’s sad when you read the details of how genocides were implemented, but you don’t live it. We work until five, and then we go out to the pub and laugh and have a good time – otherwise we would go crazy.”

Asya told me she took her work as a museum guide seriously. She maintained her academic perspective and let the exhibits, facts and photos convey the emotional story. At the same time, she said she was well aware of the impact her tours had on people. “The most impressive thing I can do on my tours is to make British men cry,” she said.

Members of Asya’s family died in the genocide, so her professional interest has a personal aspect, just like my own. When she completes her PhD on the topic, she hopes to teach around the world. “I would love to organize university programs to show genocide studies is not boring or only stressful.”

After speaking with her, I felt it might be possible to write about genocide and not feel its devastation, at least not all the time. But I still struggled with the weight of it. Was there a point in focusing my energy on this century-old violence? Perhaps it was some pathetic form of historical voyeurism.

The optimistic view of cultural theorist Sara Ahmed convinced me otherwise. In The Affect Theory Reader (2010), she describes the productive power of negative feelings as a means for redressing injustice.

To devote attention to traumas isn’t “a backward orientation: to move on,” she writes.  “[We] must make this return. If anything, we might want to re-read melancholic subjects, the ones who refuse to let go of suffering, who are even prepared to kill some forms of joy, as an alternative model of the social good.”

A focus on misery and suffering can be beneficial – especially if it might help to prevent future suffering. Particularly under the threat of denial, further research and writing works to increase our understanding of facts and solidify them in global history. If my research depressed me, if I was killing joy at the social events I attended, there was a benefit.

What my husband didn’t realize at the parties where I discussed the genocide with a drink in hand, is that the people I spoke to genuinely wanted to hear the details. I kept talking because my new acquaintances continued to ask questions. They were surprised there had a been a genocide so much like the Holocaust in the decades before it, and surprised the government responsible could still deny such atrocities.

Sharing this information – illuminating one corner of the history of racism and violence a little more vividly and connecting it to people’s lives today – has become my strongest motivation for writing. It’s that motivation that helps me deal with the killing squads, with the game of swords – with absorbing the genocide’s horror into myself to reproduce it on the page.
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ASHLEY KALAGIAN BLUNT recently completed her first nonfiction manuscript, The Pomegranate’s Daughter: Memoirs from the Shatters of Armenia. She has lived on four continents and has a scattershot freelance record in Canada, South Korea and Finland. Her short stories have won the Carol Shields Creative Writing Award and the Lucy H. Bertschinger Memorial Prize. You can find her on Twitter: @AKalagianBlunt.