UCI to Host Event Dedicated to French Resistance Fighter Missak Manouchian

The University of California, Irvine Center for Armenian Studies will honor Missak Manouchian on Wednesday, March 6 with its program “In the footsteps of Missak Manouchian: Armenian Poet in the French Resistance.”

Missak Manouchian (1906-1944) was an Armenian Genocide survivor, poet, communist activist, and defender of liberty who joined the French Resistance during World War II, resolutely leading a group of fighters against occupying Nazi forces. Manouchian, along with many

members of his group, was sentenced to death by a German military court and shot by firing squad on 21 February 1944. In honor of his sacrifice, he entered France’s Pantheon mausoleum, along with his wife Mélinée Assadourian — also part of the Resistance — thus becoming both the first foreign and communist members of the Resistance to be honored in the Pantheon.

The program will include a reading of his last letter to his widow and a talk by Professor Daniel Brunstetter (UCI Political Science Department), followed by a Q&A session.

Co-sponsors of the event include the Center for Citizen Peace Building, Department of History, Department of European Languages and Studies and the UCI Armenian American Alumni Chapter.