Elizabeth Yoel Campbell began writing Yesterday's Children in her late 70's as a series of exercises for a creative writing class. She so compelled her classmates with accounts of early 20th century life in Azerbaijan, Persia, that they demanded more and more episodes of her tales. Just as Scheherazade had done before her, once the stories began pouring out, she knew there could be no turning back. Yesterday's Children was not born out of a conscious intention to write a book but out of a need to recount and preserve family stories that had been told and re-told for

For Elizabeth Yoel Campbell, the outpouring of these personal memories is a gift to her family, and also of cultural value to all Assyrians living in diaspora in the Western world. While migration from ancestral homelands offered greater opportunities for political, religious, and economic freedom, immigrants risked losing their social order, language, and stories within the melting pot nations they would enter, thus disconnecting them from their ancestral roots. The following stories come together to create a snapshot of the time when "homeland" was just beginning to unravel for the Assyrians of the Middle East.

Yesterday's Children acquaints us with a seldom heard recent history of Assyrians in the Middle East, and the revelation that they continue to exist there and elsewhere, carrying on an unbroken chain of survival since ancient times. This is all the more remarkable since the Assyrian Empire fell as an official state in 612B.C. In fact, the Assyrian New Year, Kha B'Nissan, which is observed each year on April 1st, marked the year 6755 on April 1, 2005.

Mesopotamia (Bet Nahrain), or the land between the rivers, located in modern-day Iraq, was home to some of the earliest and most advanced civilizations. Mesopotamia encompassed the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires. The Assyrian empire covered the present-day regions of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria. The lingua franca of Mesopotamia was Aramaic. The language and cultural practices of the Empire continued long after its fall. When Islam began to spread in the 7th century A.D. Assyrians, by now Christians, moved north into mountainous territories to escape subjugation or death and by virtue of their isolation, kept their language and cultural practices alive. Neo-Aramaic, with its many name variations and dialects, is still spoken to this day.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were eras that brought attention to a once isolated people, when Christian missions from the West discovered their ancient brethren in the Middle East. Assyrians were eager to learn, and delighted in fellowship with the missionaries. They experienced a profound transformation as the missionaries established schools and hospitals, educating them in the Western tradition. The times were rapidly changing. It is in this environment that our story takes place. From the perspective of a young girl, the story is told with great humor and eloquence.

I am grateful for my Assyrian heritage and to my Grandparents for the amazing family they produced. I thank my aunt, Elizabeth Yoel Campbell, for giving me the opportunity to edit her stories, and in so doing, affording me the chance to take a deeper look at my own roots. It has been our privilege, at a time when the Middle East has once again come to the forefront of international attention, to offer some historical perspective on this often troubled region.

Shlama-Alokhun (Peace be with you....) - Carolyn Karam-Barkley




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