Category Archives: INFORMER

Ashot N. Hayruni

The organizers of the annual Berlin international tourist exhibition-fair held in Germany on March 7-9, 2023, imposed a strange “censorship” towards the Armenian side, sending a letter to the Tourism Committee of the Ministry of Economy of Armenia on January 4th, 2023.

In memory of Ali Ertem

Summary

Ashot N. Hayruni

On December 2, 2021, Ali Ertem, a Turkish human rights advocate, publicist,
political figure and a sincere friend of the Armenian people, after a battle with
deadly illness, passed away. On September 26, 1998, in the German city of Mainz
Frankfurt, Ertem established “The Association of People Opposed to Genocide”, a
civic organization, which under his leadership included leading Turkish and
Kurdish intellectuals and played an active and multifaceted role throughout the
international community, most notably bringing public attention to the problem of
recognizing and condemning the Republic of Turkey for its role in the Armenian,
as well as other genocides. This activity, which was accompanied by a persistent
and resolute struggle against Turkish denial, has borne fruit over the years through
numerous and varied events and initiatives: conferences and public debates with
renowned scholars, photo exhibitions, various commemorative events,
presentations of new scientific works on genocide, public protests against denial,
petitions, appeals to governments and parliaments of Turkey and other countries, at
the same time, showing an active position on new political developments and
comprehensive support for initiatives by other organizations and individuals to
recognize and condemn the genocide.

Ali Ertem’s untimely death caused a great loss to the fighting humanism, of
which he was the classic representative. His death orphaned many ideas and
programs, which he did not manage to implement. There is no doubt, however, that
Ali Ertem’s work will live on; the seeds he sowed will always bear fruit. “The
Association of People Opposed to Genocide”, which he founded and led, is full of
determination to continue its great mission after the death of its leader.

The article also presents the statement issued by “The Association of People
Opposed to Genocide” on the occasion of the death of Ali Ertem, as well as the text
of his report to the international conference entitled “Azeri-Turkish Aggression and
Artsakh’s Struggle for Independence” organized by YSU on November 8, 2020.

To the bright memory of Vahagn Dadryan

Summary

Suren A. Manukyan
Vahagn Norayr Dadryan is one of those scholars who have become classic already during their lifetime. Being impressed by his works many of us got involved in the field of genocide study: he was cited, and his attitudes created a whole branch of science. And even those who were not sharing Vahagn Dadryan’s theoretical principals admitted his greatness. And for Turkish denial Vahagn Dadryan had become number one rival and target.

Carrying out an extensive collectable work in various archives of the world Vahagn Dadryan transferred on systemized basis the function of collecting and putting into scientific circulation the materials referring to the Armenian Genocide: it was based on four demands, that is, the sources must be: a) reliable, b)explicit, c) incontestable, d) verifiable. For that reason he focused his main work on the documents of Turkish courts, Ottoman parliament chamber of deputies and diplomatic and military papers of Austria-Hungary.

Since the mid-1980’s when Vahagn Dadryan became the author of two famous articles in “Holocaust and Genocide Studies” and “International Journal of Middle East Studies” magazines he began to be perceived as the most important international expert on the Armenian Genocide. Articles by Vahagn Dadryan started to appear in most prestigious academic periodicals and collections and together with another Armenian scholar Richard Hovhannisyan he actually became the pioneer of new study of Armenian Genocide in newly emerging field of scientific branch, i.e. Genocide Study.

In 1995 Vahagn Dadryan’s monumental work “The History of Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from Balkans to Anatolia and Caucasus” was published. Alongside with it Vahagn Dadryan became one of the representatives of the first generation of founders of Genocide studies as a separate branch of science as he did not remain in the framework of studying the Great Genocide but also tried to think over the theoretic provisions of genocide as phenomenon. Besides he became the author of many articles where he compared Armenian Genocide and Jewish Holocaust trying thus clearly “legitimize” the Armenian Genocide in academic frameworks.

Vahagn Dadryan has devoted all his life to the struggle against Turkish denial. His all works were the ones crushing Turkish viewpoints so his every article published in prestigious scholarly magazine became a battlefield against the denialist historians. In 1996 he initiated the publication of an open letter written by 150 specialists of genocide and Holocaust which condemned the Turkish denial and affirmed the fact of the Armenian Genocide, and in 1999 Vahagn Dadryan comprised and published a brochure entitled “The Main Components of Turkish Denial: Distortion and Falsification”.

Summary

Norayr B. Poghosyan

Key words – Gregory of Narek, “Book of Lamentations”, Estonian, translation, literary ties, Peeter Volkonski, critical review, presentation.

In 2017 the Estonian translation of the “Book of Lamentations” by Gregory of Narek was published. The author-translator is Peeter Volkonski who is known as ascholar,musician,film director and poet. He started the translation of the poem when he was still a youth. But he seriously concentrated on the translation work during the last 5-6 years. He started the translation using not only the ashkharabar/new Armenian version of the book but also the English, French, Russian translations. All the way through Mr. Volkonski put the Grabar /Old Armenian version of the original book in the basis of his translation.
P. Volkonski is successful in his efforts to transfer the content, poeticalness and rhyme of Narekinto Estonian language. The literary circles highly evaluated the effort, and the book wasrepublished twice within the short period of time..

Summary

Siranush G. Hovhannisyan

Key words – conference-dispute, lessons of history, world history, scientific discussions, question-reply, historical context.

On May 31 and June 1 at the initiative of “Vem” Pan-Armenian journal’s editorial staff in Paramaz Avetisyan’s Building of American University of Armenia namely in Alec and Mari Manoogians’ Hall a conference-discussion was held entitled “The Historical Lessons of Armenian Republic of 1918-1920 in the Context of the Generations’ Memories and Modern Challenges” dedicated to the 100 anniversary of Armenian First Republic. The event was held in the presence of numerous guests, in the atmosphere of really scientific discussions and exchange of views by different professional fields’ representatives. Scientific productivity was also promoted by the structure of the event: every stage of report was followed by the stage of question-reply due to which certain details of the themes were aroused. The conference ended with the presentation of books and round table discussions in the framework of which the main theme, namely, “The Formation of Armenian First Republic and its Decline under the Europian and Regional Light” was offered.

Summary

Petros A. Demirchyan

Key words – literary criticism, scientific character, historicity, system, rationalism, ideology, methodology, sociology, romanticism, literary school, literature history, literature theory.

The prominent literary critic, educator Sergey Sarinyan dedicated his longterm conscious life to the development of native literary criticism and to the development of literary criticism. His literary-scientific biography, covering more than six decades, went through the walls of the Institute of Literature after M. Abeghyan of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, from the post-graduate student (1949) to the Academician / 1996. The five-volume edition of «The Armenian New Literature History’ (1962-1979), the two-volume edition of «The History of Armenian Criticism’ (1985, 1998), were published by his active participation. He, by scientific sophistication and diligence specific to him, governed the third and fourth volumes covering the period of Armenian New Literature of the new six-volume ecdition of «The History of Armenian Literature’ the first of which was published in 2015 by the «Gitutyun’ Publishing of the RA National Academy of Sciences and the second one is almost ready for publication.

He managed to summerize his aesthetic-philosophical interpretations of the pages of two centureis Armenian Literature in the six volumes edition of his literary heritage devoted to literature history and theory, literary schools, literature methodology, and creation of classical writers’ works /1988 – 2015/. Based on the peculiarities of the time, the scientific search of that generation pursued a revision of values that seemed to be steadfast before, which implies the examination of the scientific material not only from the historical, but also the contemporary aspects of literary criticism and criticism, methodological commonality .the basis of which is science.

In memory of Ruben Hovsepyan

Summary

Key words – Ruben Hovsepyan, genre obituary, translation, Gabriel Garcia Markuez, One hundred years of solitude, Sovietarmenian prose, magical realism Taguhi A. Ghazarian

In the article “The one, who turns fairy tale to reality” Taguhi Ghazarian gives the general description of Ruben Hovsepyan’s work. It is not classic obituary, but there we can see the main work and creation of the R. Hovsepyan. First of all the author of the article considers Hovsepyan as translator of Gabriel Garcia Markuez’s “One hundred years of solitude”. She thinks that this work had a great effect on Armenian magical realism and on literature of this period. There are also the question of Hovsepyan’s work’s “artistic” time and “ideological” time. Then we can see how Hovsepyan’s works were interpreted as works about Armenia and Armenians and how we can change this interpretation.

The work of the A.R.Federation in Armenia according to the 1993-2010 diplomatic reports of the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan

Summary

Khachik S. Ter-Ghukasyan, Kiro A. Manoyan

The article is based on certain cables published by WikiLeaks, sent from U.S. embassies, with the aim of revealing and analyzing the reports and evaluations received by the U.S. State Department about the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. The article is limited to the general classification of the revealed documents and based on those, to some reflection, without any final and sharp conclusions. The authors have aimed at collecting the reports cabled to Washington from the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, which could also be published as a separate volume.

In memory of Umberto Eco

Summary

Hasmik A. Yeghiazaryan

Key words – U.Eco, Middle Ages, postmodernism, intertextuality, irony, mass media, bestseller

The article deals with the scientific and literary activity of the highly admired Italian philosopher, linguist, medievalist and writer Umberto Eco who passed away recently. His literary and scientific works discuss a large number of issues that include not only such disciplines as philosophy, history or aesthetics but also mass media, comics, etc. The appearance of his books such as “The open work”, “The role of the reader, Lector in Fabula” or novels like “The Name of the Rose”, “The Foucault pendulum” marked a new era not only in the Italian but also in the world postmodern literature and human sciences.

Dedicated to the 90th anniversary of academician Sergey Sarinyan

Summary

Thadevos A.Khachatryan

The entire work of Sarinyan as literary critic has focused on the rise in social status of study of literature as a profession. Sarinyan was very close to define the literature and predict the true method of reading the literature in equivalent way.

Of course, it would be tempting to compare Sarinyan with other critics of the same period, first and foremost with Ed. Jrbashyan and Hrant Tamrazyan. As a result of this comparative research we can say that in the first case it is the philologist, who is dominant in the literature, in the second case it is the critic and in the last case it is the literary critic. The above features are not only dominant In each of them, but are also advantages for others.

During his literary activity S.Sarinyan had multiple ideas, many of which were applied to his works. Some of them remained in between the lines, in some articles and were not developed. One of the most prominent ideas of Sarinyan in the last 10-15 years is about the philosophy of literature.

Sarinyan is one of currently operating unique literary critics, who is fully aware of mind spin Armenian science concerning literature, so he is trying to offer a way out, not relying on existing literary tradition, but eager to bring the subject out, seems to a higher social status – in the field of philosophy. Sarinyan’s biggest wish is to see modern literature as a science.