Death of Kevork Pamukciyan (September 23, 1996)

Kevork Pamukciyan was a prolific Turkish Armenian writer, historian, and biography researcher. 

He was born on February 23, 1923, in Üsküdar, Istanbul. He completed his primary education at the Nersesyan-Yermonyan School in 1937 and continued his education at the Saint-Joseph French College until the tenth grade and dropped out in 1945. He published his first article in 1943 in the Armenian weekly newspaper Nor Lur in Istanbul. In 1949, another article in the New York magazine Hayastani Gochnag brought him into contact with the Armenian press abroad. Between 1942 and 1956, he researched and compiled approximately 2,000 tombstone inscriptions found in the Üsküdar, Edirnekapı, and Balıklı Armenian Cemeteries.  

From 1950 onward, he compiled the baptism and death records of approximately ten Armenian churches in Istanbul. He contributed regularly from 1950 to 1965 to Reşad Ekrem Koçu’s Istanbul Encyclopedia, publishing 300 articles about the life of Armenians in the city, including prominent Armenian individuals and families, Armenian newspapers and magazines, Armenian presence in various districts, Armenian cemeteries, schools, etc. He also contributed articles on Armenian issues to many other Turkish encyclopedias, as well as periodicals; for instance, he published 64 articles in the respected journal Tarih ve Toplum (History and Society). He continued to write in Armenian newspapers and magazines of Istanbul, the Diaspora, and Armenia for many years. He wrote about 300 articles in Armenian and 130 in Turkish.  

Pamukciyan served as library director of the Armenian Patriarchate (1967-1977) and as general secretary (1977-1982). He edited the Şhoghagat magazine and then the Patriarchate yearbook (1968-1978). After retiring in 1982, he continued to serve as an honorary cultural affairs advisor. Among his books published in Armenian are Bibliography of Armenian Books of Istanbul in the Republican Fifty–Year Period (1978), Patriarch Hagop Nalian (1706-1764): His Life, Works, and Students) (1981), Patriarch Hovhannes Golod (1678-1741) and His Students (1984), History of the Constantinople Fire of 1660 (1991). Several of his works in Turkish appeared posthumously in book form. 

This prolific scholar passed away on September 23, 1996.