5th Annual Charles B. Garabedian Lecture
FEATURED SPEAKER:
Marc Mamigonian, Director of Academic Affairs, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
The three modern nation states of the South Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, are effectively the same age. Whereas Georgia and Armenia have ancient national churches, large corpora of historical texts dating back to the early centuries of the Christian/Common era, and centuries-long existences as collective entities or ethne, as Stephan Astourian has written, “the Azerbaijani sense of nationhood is fragile” and “combines the image of the Armenian enemy with a narrative of victimization to forge a national identity.”
A key element of this process of identity formation, which may be characterized as equal parts Freudian and Orwellian, is the reflexive negation of all things Armenian: millennia of Armenian presence in the region, the Armenian Genocide, Armenian cultural monuments in territory today controlled by Azerbaijan, and the legitimacy of the Republic of Armenia. While such tendencies have been visible for decades, today’s Azerbaijani petro-dictatorship engages in triumphalist anti-Armenian denial that is fueled by its military victories in 2020 and 2023 and aims at a kind of humiliation cum eradication of Armenia and Armenians that demands closer analysis of its rhetoric and impact as well as those in media, academia, think-tanks, and NGOs who enable it.
Professor Charles B. Garabedian (1917-1991) was born in Everett, Mass., graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University (A.B. English and History) and Boston University Law School. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and in the late 1940s he began his teaching career at Suffolk University Law School. At the time of his death, Professor Garabedian was the Senior Faculty Professor at Suffolk University Law School. The annual lecture in his memory has been established at NAASR by Prof. Garabedian’s niece, NAASR Board Member Joan E. Kolligian.
This program is open to all free of charge. A reception will follow the program.
CO-SPONSOR:
NAASR / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues