Three Scandinavian Missionary Women and the Armenian Genocide - Hardcover

by Svante Lundgren (Author), Maria Småberg (Author)

This edited volume tells the story of three Scandinavian women missionaries who dedicated their lives to helping Armenian women and children. They became eyewitnesses to the 1915 Armenian genocide and continued to work among Armenian refugees during the ensuing decades in Lebanon, Syria, Greece and Soviet Armenia. On the basis of these women's transnational lives and narratives, the book explores humanitarian aid to Armenians from a Scandinavian angle, biographical sources, perspectives and methods serving as points of departure. It also investigates the transnational, religious and gendered dimensions of relief work. The importance and the dilemmas of small-scale translocal projects and humanitarian networks are examined; so are religious motivations and missionary practices in humanitarianism as well as the complex role played by women as victims and agents in wars, encompassing their vulnerability and their 'caring power'.

Back Jacket

During the first half of the twentieth century, three Scandinavian women dedicated their lives to helping Armenian children and women afflicted by persecution and eventually genocide.
As nurses and midwives, as well as managers of orphanages and schools, Bodil Bi?rn, Alma Johansson and Maria Jacobsen spent decades working for the Armenian people. In 1915, they became eyewitnesses to the Armenian Genocide.
In the middle of the violence, the three women were compelled to develop additional skills and take on wider tasks than the ones for which they had been trained. In so doing, they became part of a transnational humanitarian network that supported Armenian refugees in the Middle East. These women have gained an exalted position in the modern history of Armenians through their lifelong commitment and work in Ottoman Turkey, Soviet Armenia, Lebanon, Syria and Greece.
This edited volume tells their story and explores the transnational, religious and gendered dimensions of relief work. It also addresses religious motivation and missionary practices in the context of humanitarianism, and it discusses the roles played by women as victims and agents in war.
The book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Armenian studies, late Ottoman studies, women's studies, missionary studies, genocide studies, memory studies and studies of humanitarianism. In addition, the graphic narratives of the three women missionaries will be read and remembered by bearers of Armenian heritage worldwide.

Author Biography

Svante Lundgren is a researcher at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University.
Maria Småberg is a researcher in history and senior lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at Lund University.