Ara Sarafian

Ara Sarafian
Sarafian at a meeting on Turkish politics in the UK parliament
Born	Cyprus
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	Armenian
Alma mater	University of Michigan

Ara Sarafian (Armenian: Արա Սարաֆեան) is a British historian of Armenian origin. He is the founding director of the Gomidas Institute in London, which sponsors and carries out research and publishes books on modern Armenian and regional studies.

Sarafian was born in July 1961 in Cyprus. In 1974, while he and his parents were on holiday in London, the Turkish military invaded North Cyprus and his family became refugees. He decided to learn Turkish so that he could challenge the Turkish state's denial of the Armenian Genocide and applied to study the language in Ankara. When the Turkish Ministry of Education turned down his application to study, he went anyway, paying for his tuition by teaching English. According to a New Yorker profile, "coming to Turkey transformed him, in an unexpected way. The combined effect of getting to know Turkish citizens, of higher education, of maturity, and of changing Turkish politics eroded the teen-age hatred until he began to seek out opportunities for reconciliation." Sarafian attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the United States and earned his M.A. in history under the tutelage of Ronald Grigor Suny.

Sarafian co-founded the Gomidas Institute at the University of Michigan in 1992 and has served as its executive director ever since. The institute is now based in London. Among its book publications are English translations of Armenian texts related to the Armenian Genocide. It also publishes the journal Armenian Forum. Additionally, Gomidas has published Talaat Pasha's report on the Armenian Genocide and a critical edition of The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916, commonly known as the Blue Book (originally published in 1916 by British historians Lord James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee), as well as a Turkish edition of the book. The Gomidas Institute has also published the memoirs of former US Ambassador to Armenia John Evans and it has collaborated with the Hrant Dink Foundation.