Christopher J. Walker
(1942 – 2017)

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It is with deep sorrow that news was received of the death of the renowned British historian and author, Christopher J. Walker.

Christopher Walker was educated at the Lancing and Brasenose Colleges at the University of Oxford, and among other positions, held positions in the editorial department of Penguin Books and the department of historical and literary manuscripts at Sotheby’s.

An abiding interest in the later Ottoman empire led him to culture a deep interest in Armenians and their history, and after winning a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship, he visited Van, Kars, Ani, Yerevan and Holy Etchmiadzin, and embarked on the research and the eventual publishing in 1980, of his book “ARMENIA; Survival of a Nation” which was received by historians as an authoritative and pioneering work of modern history. In his book, Christopher Walker traced the hopes and disappointments which preceded the 1915 Genocide of the Armenian people in Ottoman Turkey.  He looked at the role of the Great Powers which assumed “special responsibilities”, but lacked the political will to implement them. Walker made a special study of the events surrounding the establishment of the first Republic of Armenia in 1918 in the aftermath of the First World War amid the Armenians’ hopes of restitution nurtured by the glowing but false statements of many world leaders of the time. The book also contains brief biographies of over 120 leading Armenian political, military and literary figures.

In 1975 with the support of the Minority Rights Group (MRG) he co-authored together with Professor David Marshall Lang, the MRG’s Report entitled “The Armenians”.

In 2003 Walker completed his “Life of Oliver Baldwin – A Life of Dissent”.

His numerous publications include the following:

“The Armenians” (1975) by David Marshall Lang and Christopher J Walker; London: Minority Rights Group, MRG Report No. 32, fifth edition published 1987.
“Armenia : The Survival of a Nation” – ISBN 978-0-312-04944-7, 1980; ISBN 978-0-312-04230-1, 1990
“Armenia and Karabagh” – ISBN 978-1-873194-00-3, 1991
“Oliver Baldwin : A Life of Dissent” – ISBN 978-1-900850-86-5, 2003
“Visions of Ararat (writings on Armenia)” – ISBN 978-1-85043-888-5, 2005
“At History’s Crossroad: The making of the Armenian nation” (The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars)”  2006
“Friends or Foes? The Islamic East and the West, History Today”, March 2007, Volume: 57, Issue: 3, Page 50-57