Having spent most of his life within intellectual and educational milieu of Beirut and Aleppo, Artashes Ter-Khachaturyan is known Armenian intellectual community primarily as a teacher and editor, while for a narrower circle of Armenologists in Armenia and abroad he is regarded as an undisputed authority in the study of the history of the Armenian book and press. In this context, following the publication of a comprehensive two-volume edition that consolidates his works, Ter-Khachaturyan’s scholarly legacy calls for thorough professional evaluation and reinterpretation.
The aim of this article is to analyze the empirical, structural, and theoretical-methodological significance of Ter-Khachaturyan’s scholarly research in the fields of the history of the Armenian book and bibliography, within the framework of contemporary Armenological and interdisciplinary academic discourse. The study is based on a comprehensive methodological approach that incorporates source criticism, comparative analysis, structural examination, and theoretical reinterpretation. Particular attention is paid to the fact that, for Ter-Khachaturyan, bibliography functions not as an auxiliary tool but as an autonomous system for the organization of knowledge.
The article elucidates Ter-Khachaturyan’s methodological position, grounded in the principles of the primacy of fact, chronological accuracy, and scholarly objectivity. This approach made it possible to overcome the mechanistic understanding of bibliography and to transform it into an effective instrument of historical and cultural analysis. Ter-Khachaturyan’s legacy constitutes an implicitly structured theoretical–methodological system, comparable to contemporary theories of cultural memory, book history, and public discourse. In his interpretation, the Armenian book functions as a material carrier of national memory, while bibliography serves as a mechanism for its organization and preservation.
These considerations allow one to conclude that the bibliographical legacy of Artashes Ter-Khachaturyan constitutes a system of foundational and normatively organizing significance for Armenian bibliography; consequently, it continues to retain its relevance and functional effectiveness for contemporary Armenian studies, providing a new generation of scholars with the opportunity to further develop the theoretical and methodological approaches of this outstanding bibliographer.