It has long resided in a folder within the Avedis Derounian Archive, which has been at NAASR since the early 1990s, inside an envelope labeled “Dr. Kaloustian,” but until recently we did not realize its significance, let alone that this year marks the 200th anniversary of this interesting individual’s birth.
This Library Treasures feature is part of NAASR’s 2022 focus on Armenian maps and cartography which has been supported by a grant from the Dadourian Foundation. Throughout the year we organized three lectures on this topic which can be viewed on our YouTube channel: Rouben Galichian, “The Ever-Changing Borders of Armenia in Ancient and Modern Times: The Cartographic Record”; Matthew Karanian, “Mapping the Armenian Highland”; and Khatchig Mouradian, “Gas Balloons, Emperors, and Armenian Mapmakers: A Cartographic Journey through the Library of Congress’s Collections.”
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.