Friday, May 6, 2022 at 7:30pm EDT / 4:30pm PDT
IN PERSON at the NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, 395 Concord Avenue, Belmont, MA 02478.
On Zoom and the NAASR YouTube channel Armenian Studies.

PRESENTERS
PROF. RICHARD G. HOVANNISIAN, Professor Emeritus of Modern Armenian History, UCLA

ANI BABAIAN, Independent Researcher and Curator, NAASR Mardigian Library

Armenian-Iranian interactions date back to the depths of antiquity. At times, Armenia and Iran were friends and allies, even sharing common dynasties, and at other times fierce and unrelenting adversaries. Whatever their political relationship may have been, their commonalities in pre-Christian and pre-Islamic social structures and cultural attributes, including linguistic affiliation, are striking. The boundaries between the Iranian and Armenian worlds were porous in many ways. The Armenian presence in Iran is attested from the Achaemenid centuries to the present. Although the Armenian Iranian community has decreased significantly since the nineteenth century, it still constitutes the most significant Christian element in Iran, finding means to preserve in large measure its religion, language, and traditions and to navigate between Armenian and Iranian identities.

This volume of twenty-three chapters by specialists in the field spans the centuries from antiquity to the present. It is based on two conferences held at UCLA in the series titled “Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces.” Prof. Hovannisian will be joined during this presentation by NAASR Library Curator Ani Babaian who contributed a chapter to the volume. Armenian Communities of Persia/Iran is available for purchase from the NAASR Bookstore.

Richard G. Hovannisian is past holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He is a founder and six-time president of the Society for Armenian Studies and has published thirty books and numerous scholarly articles, including 5 volumes on the Armenian Genocide and 15 volumes by Mazda Publishers on historic Armenian cities and provinces.

CO-SPONSORS
Armenian Mirror-Spectator
Armenian Society of Boston
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
Society for Armenian Studies (SAS)

Purchase Armenian Communities of Persia/Iran from the NAASR Bookstore.