In conjunction with the celebratory event NAASR held on May 6, 2023, marking the appointment of Christina Maranci as the third holder of the Mashtots Chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University, we are devoting this Library Treasures installment to materials from NAASR’s own organizational archives pertaining to this organization’s pioneering effort to establish the first chair in Armenian Studies in the U.S.—or, indeed, anywhere in the Armenian diaspora in North America—focusing on the years from 1954 to the appointment of the first chairholder in 1969.
Part 1 of our Library Treasures feature on the work of Edward Arakel Yeran presented books published by his Yeran press through ca. 1915. Part 2 continues and brings to a conclusion this work.
Although he was not the first Armenian-American publisher—that distinction belongs to Haigag Ēginian (Հայկակ Էկինեան)—occupying a special place among the early publishers stands E. A. Yeran and Yeran Press in Boston.
To mark May 28, the anniversary of the declaration of the first independent Republic of Armenia in 1918, we focus on one object from NAASR’s Mardigian Library.
The grant for “The Avedis Derounian Archive at NAASR: A Vital Resource on US-Based Extremism,” is part of a new round of Mass Humanities grant-making, totaling more than $250,000 to 59 cultural organizations to reach their audiences digitally due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with funding provided through the Massachusetts Cultural Council.