For almost four centuries, the Parthians served as the rulers of the Armenian kingdom, even after their own kingdom had fallen to the Sasanians in 223 CE. Yet, as far as the documents from this period attest, it was not Parthian, the language of the ruling class, but Armenian that served as the main language of the kingdom. Parthian, shortly after the fall of the Arsacid Parthian Empire, effectively ceases to exist, it would appear.
Early Modernity & Mobility explores the disparate yet connected histories of Armenian printing establishments in early modern Europe and Asia. From 1512, when the first Armenian printed codex appeared in Venice, to the end of the early modern period in 1800, Armenian presses operated in nineteen locations across the Armenian diaspora.
This presentation will introduce the practice of heritage forensics in relation to the ongoing research program of Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW). Founded in 2020 in the wake of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, CHW uses the techniques of cultural aerospace to document, detect, and deter attacks on the fragile remains of the human past. This talk is organized around three forensic dossiers on medieval and early modern heritage caught in the crosshairs of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Sponsorship Levels & Tickets for Honoring Christina Maranci, Mashtots Chair in Armenian Studies, Harvard ~ Saturday, May 6, 2023. NAASR was launched in March 1955 to pursue a bold vision of promoting Armenian Studies by establishing endowed chairs at foremost universities in the United States. NAASR achieved this ambitious goal by establishing the first chair in Armenian Studies, at Harvard University. In 1959 we marked the successful conclusion of our Harvard Chair campaign at a gala in Memorial Hall. The Mashtots Chair was the first at Harvard to be endowed by a community organization.
Nagorno-Karabakh's call for self-determination in the late 1980s was one of the earliest events of democratic fervor signaling the fall of the Soviet Union. It resulted in a backlash of pogroms against Armenians in the streets of Baku, Sumgait and other cities in Azerbaijan. More than thirty years later, the conflict between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan remains unresolved and, after a 2020 war that left thousands dead, it is no longer "frozen" but in active eruption.