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The Research Repository

  1. 2024

    The Genocidal Actions Against Armenians in the Aghbak Sub-District in 1914-1915

    Matosyan, Satenik

    Aghbak sub-district in Van province contained 36 Armenian villages; Matosyan uses six as case studies to document the massacres, violence and forced deportations of 1914–1915, working predominantly from archival sources. The evidence shows the systematic character of the atrocities and the active involvement of both local Kurdish tribes and Ottoman authorities. She argues Aghbak was targeted for its economic significance and its exposed position on trade routes near the Persian border. The article positions these events among the first genocidal actions undertaken by the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. That is, preceding the canonical April 1915 start date.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  2. 2024

    The Institutions of Turkification and Assimilation in the Eyes of Armenian Orphans Who Fled Them

    Peroomian, Rubina

    Examines the Ottoman state's treatment of Armenian orphans (Turkish orphanages, mektebs, and forced placement in Muslim households) as institutions of Turkification meeting the Genocide Convention's definition of intent to destroy a group. Uses survivor interviews, memoirs, and first-person accounts, and traces the transgenerational psychological burden the genocide left on the Armenian nation.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  3. 2024

    The Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Conflict and the Organization of Turkic States (OTS)

    Minasyan, Nelli

    Minasyan analyses how the Artsakh conflict has been discussed at the summits of Turkic-speaking states and inside the Turkic Council and its successor, the Organization of Turkic States, and what positions the Turkic-speaking republics have actually taken. She treats the OTS as the institutional vehicle of Turkic integration and argues that as that integration deepens, pressure on Armenia and Artsakh grows. For the earlier decades she finds that Türkiye and Azerbaijan tried to give the conflict a pan-Turkic character and assemble a united anti-Armenian front, but the Central Asian republics largely held to neutrality. After the 44-day war Türkiye accelerated Turkic integration across political, economic, educational, cultural, security and information domains.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  4. 2024

    The Problem of Armenian Statehood and Hunchakyan Political Party (1918-1921)

    Hovhannisyan, Gegham

    This article examines the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party's approach to the restoration and preservation of Armenian statehood in the critical years 1918-1921. Hovhannisyan traces the party's positions primarily through its organ Young Armenia and the writings of ideologue Stepan Sapah-Gyulyan. The study analyzes how international political events, the Paris Peace Assembly, the mandate discussions, and the resurgence of Russian power, shaped Hunchakian assessments of the Republic of Armenia's prospects. It follows the party's evolving stance from the First Republic through the establishment of Soviet Armenia, showing how regional threats forced pragmatic recalculations of the statehood question. Hovhannisyan draws explicit historical parallels between the dilemmas of 1918-1921 and contemporary challenges facing Armenian statehood. The article was translated from Armenian by Gevorg Harutyunyan and is freely available.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  5. 2024

    Աքսորյալ զեյթունցիների զինված դիմադրության փորձը Դեր Զորի անապատում (Armed Resistance Attempt of Deported Armenians from Zeitun in the Der Zor Desert)

    Tatoyan, Robert A.

    Reconstructs an exceptional episode of Armenian self-defense during the second phase of the Genocide: the armed resistance of Zeitun deportees in a caravan driven into the desert after the Der Zor camp was liquidated in summer 1916. Tatoyan works from survivor testimony, above all the unpublished memoir of Tigran Makaryan held in AGMI's holdings, cross-checked against Garegin Hovhannisyan, Nazareth Muradyan and Aram Andonian. He establishes that the resistance broke out in early August 1916 at the Shedadieh camp, triggered by attempted conscription of men into labor battalions, and lasted two or three days before being crushed. Roughly 100–120 Armenian men took part, about a third armed; suppression required 200 mounted gendarmes plus auxiliary bands, and Der Zor governor Salih Zeki directed it personally.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  6. 2024

    Էրզրումի նահանգի Քղի գավառակի հայության տեղահանությունը. Քղիից դեպի Դեր Զոր (Deportation of Armenians from the Sub-District of Keghi, Erzerum Province: From Keghi to Der Zor)

    Kazaryan, Anna A.

    Drawing on archival sources, houshamatyans and survivor testimony collections, Kazaryan reconstructs events of 1914–1915 in the Keghi sub-district of Erzerum province. She traces the Ottoman government's persecutory policy against the local Armenians, the methods used to carry out the deportation, the violence inflicted along the route, and the principal massacre sites. Her argument is methodological as well as documentary: studying deportation and annihilation at the level of individual districts, and even single villages, yields a fuller understanding of how the Genocide was actually implemented.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  7. 2024

    "Don't Forget about the Silver Covers!": Newly-Discovered Silverwork by the Armenian Silversmiths of Kayseri, 17th-18th Centuries

    Merian, Sylvie L.

    A workshop of Armenian silversmiths active in Kesaria (Kayseri) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced repoussé silver covers for religious manuscripts, liturgical objects and luxury household ware. Nearly seventy objects from the workshop have been identified, about a third bearing the silversmith's name plus date and place of production. Merian summarizes the workshop's history, surveys its output and the iconographic sources behind it, and introduces newly identified pieces, a dish and bowl set at the Manoogian Museum, confirming the attribution through materials, technique and style. She identifies the unexpected models behind their motifs, including Dutch woodcuts.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  8. 2024

    "Medieval Violence" in the State of Cilician Armenia: From Legal Issues to Everyday Life

    Gevorgyan, Zohrab

    The lawcodes in use in Cilician Armenia, those of Mkhitar Gosh and Smbat the Constable, contain many definitions of violence that need to be read in their medieval context. Gevorgyan concentrates on violence as defined under matrimonial law and in the ordinary run of domestic and social relations. He asks what examples of the legal definition of violence the Cilician sources actually give, how those cases were framed juridically, and what the formulations reveal about the multi-confessional, multi-ethnic coexistence of daily life in Cilicia.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  9. 2024

    Armenian (Yerevan Eastern Armenian and Beirut Western Armenian)

    Toparlak, Tabita

    A phonetic description ('Illustration of the IPA') comparing two major Armenian standards: Yerevan Eastern Armenian and Beirut Western Armenian. Situates Armenian as an independent Indo-European branch descending from fifth-century Classical Armenian and surveys its modern dialect families and speaker communities. Notes UNESCO's listing of Western Armenian as endangered and the diaspora's language-promotion efforts across the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, including communities formed by Genocide survivors and Syrian-war refugees.

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    2024Journal ArticlePaywalled
  10. 2024

    Armenian Amulet Scrolls in the Collections of Paris

    Ghazaryan, Davit

    Surveys Armenian amulet scrolls (hmayil) preserved in cultural institutions and private collections in Paris. Ghazaryan works through the etymology of the term and its variants, identifies the principal Parisian holdings: including the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Basmadjian collection and Janine Altounian's collection, and reports on the physical condition of the scrolls. He sorts the amulets' miniatures (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries) into five iconographic groups, including unusual subjects such as Saint Cyprian, the Wise and Foolish Virgins, and the Evil Eagle.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  11. 2024

    Diplomatic Correspondence of Armenian King Levon I with Egyptian Sultan al-Malik al-Adil (1208–1209)

    Ter-Ghevondian, Vahan

    Drawing on the Anonymous of Edessa and Kamal ad-Din Ibn al-Adim, the article reconstructs how in 1208–1209, at King Levon's request, al-Malik al-Adil wrote to Kay Khosrov and al-Malik al-Zahir pressing them to make peace with the Armenian side. The resulting settlement halted the joint Seljuk-Ayyubid offensive against Cilicia, at the price of Armenian concessions. Levon honoured only the commitment to the Sultanate of Iconium, and his ambition in Antioch was realized in 1216. Ter-Ghevondian argues the exchange was not an isolated episode but evidence of sustained monarch-level relations between Egypt and Cilician Armenia.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  12. 2024

    Echoes of the Definitions Ascribed to Plato in a Medieval Armenian Compendium

    Muradyan, Gohar

    Before 1267 a certain Gregory of Jerusalem compiled an Armenian collection of philosophical texts whose core is 365 definitions covering logic, natural philosophy, ethics and epistemology, translated from a lost or unidentified Greek collection. Definitions are variously ascribed to Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics. Muradyan traces parallels for 175 of the Armenian definitions and presents 25 that correspond, sometimes as literal translations, to the pseudo-Platonic Horoi, plus three parallels with authentic Plato. She also notes that a passage translated from the Timaeus differs from the known medieval Armenian version.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  13. 2024

    Étymologie et usages du feu (krak) en arménien classique (Etymology and Uses of 'Fire' (krak) in Classical Armenian)

    Arzoumanov, Jean

    Reassesses how the two Classical Armenian words for 'fire', krak and howr, differ in usage. A close reading of Eghishe's History of Vardan shows krak in distinct contexts, especially connected with Zoroastrian fire worship, a distinction visible in the Buzandaran as well. Reviewing krak and its cognates in the Armenian Bible reveals semantic overlap, including an instance where krak means 'embers'. On that basis Arzoumanov proposes a Middle Iranian etymon for Armenian krak and its Georgian counterpart, reconstructed via a Middle Persian word for 'oven', with a semantic shift from 'oven' to 'fire' plausibly in a Zoroastrian ritual setting where fire altars resembled ovens.

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    2024Journal ArticlePaywalled
  14. 2024

    Herero Genocide: History and Modernity

    Manukyan, Suren and Poghosyan, Narek

    The authors analyze German colonial policy toward the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa as a genocide: an intentional extermination campaign of 1904–1908 conducted through forced expulsions, mass killings and labor camps. They trace Germany's long denial, the reparations negotiations begun in 2015, and the eventual acknowledgment of the crimes, noting that the terms of compensation remain contested. The Herero case is distinctive because General von Trotha openly declared a war of extermination, making genocidal intent explicit in a way rarely documented. The article draws parallels to the Holocaust and to the Armenian Genocide: forced marches into the desert, death by deprivation.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  15. 2024

    Les hayrēns arméniens comparés aux albas des troubadours occitans (The Armenian Hayrens Compared with the Albas of the Occitan Troubadours)

    Yeghiazaryan, Vano and Marutyan, Tehmina

    The hayrens, Armenian poetic couplets in a popular style, were attributed to Nahapet Kuchak by their first publisher in 1882, but as Manuk Abeghyan recognized they are in reality anonymous folk works, or the work of authors whose names were lost. Kuchak is therefore not the author but the heir to a line of bards and itinerant singers who transmitted them across generations. The authors show that certain hayren types resemble the albas of the French and Occitan troubadours, which stage lovers forced to part at dawn. Where the troubadours blame social etiquette, the hayrens instead blame the dawn itself, the birds, or the crowing of the cock.

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    2024Journal ArticlePaywalled
  16. 2024

    Łevond Vardapet P'irłalēmean's Pastoral and Scholarly Activities in Manchester (1873-1878) and the Armenian Community

    Melkonyan, Armine

    Reconstructs an episode in the history of the Armenian community of Manchester during the pastorate of Ghevond Vardapet Pirghalemian (1873–78), a philologist, poet, traveller and church figure from Vaspurakan. Drawing on the period press, Melkonyan examines intra-community disputes, cultural and social activity, and community attitudes toward their pastor. Using Pirghalemian's own notes and colophons, she also documents the works he composed or arranged while in Manchester: a dictionary of provincial words, a collection of seals, a chronology, and volumes of Armenian colophons, and locates several long thought lost in the National Archives of Armenia and the Matenadaran.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  17. 2024

    Newly Discovered Miniature Fragments of the "Etchmiadzin Gospel Group"

    Manukyan, Seda

    Fragments reused as guard-leaves in later codices preserve some of the earliest surviving Armenian miniature painting. Of the more than 11,000 Armenian manuscripts at the Matenadaran, over 2,200 contain older fragments serving as guard-leaves, roughly 300 of them illuminated: including early canon tables, headpieces, Evangelist portraits, saints and rare scenes from the Life of Christ. No comprehensive study of this reuse has been undertaken. Manukyan analyses the fragments bound into four codices and, through comparative analysis, proposes probable places and dates of production, sharpening the picture of Armenian miniature art in its early phase.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  18. 2024

    On the Armenian Death Toll and Demographic Impact of the 1909 Adana Massacres

    Tatoyan, Robert

    Tatoyan analyzes primary-source statistics on Armenian casualties in the 1909 Adana massacres, estimating roughly 15,000–18,000 killed, at least a third of them labor migrants. He documents that Ottoman government figures ran four to five times lower than Armenian ecclesiastical counts. Comparing pre- and post-massacre data, he argues the killings did not produce a lasting relative decline in the permanent Armenian population of Adana Vilayet, because rapid economic recovery — aided by the Berlin–Baghdad railway and foreign investment — drew a new influx of Armenian labor migrants.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  19. 2024

    Recovering Hidden Texts: Palimpsests of the Matenadaran and their Disclosure

    Gippert, Jost

    Using four sample cases, Gippert shows what multispectral imaging can recover from palimpsests held at the Matenadaran. The samples differ physically: an isolated fragment, two flyleaves, and a fully palimpsested codex. The erased Old Armenian undertexts, all in erkatagir script, range from a colophon to Movses Khorenatsi's History of Armenia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus's Commentary on the Psalms, and Irenaeus of Lyon's Against Heresies. He draws out what these recovered layers tell us about the transmission of the texts and the history of the Armenian language.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  20. 2024

    Reflection of the Theme of Concentration Camps in the Songs and Music

    Gatrjian, Avo

    Examines songs and music produced in multiple languages and periods in and about the Genocide camps along the Euphrates, across folk, rock, metal, rap, jazz, classical and new-age idioms, and traces their transmission into film, graphic series, documentary and theater. The author teaches at Hamazkayin's Armenian Studies Institute in Aleppo.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  21. 2024

    The Armenian Diaspora in Rio de Janeiro: Micro-Histories of Identity, Memory and Solidarity during the Armenian Genocide

    Tordeur, Júlia de Moraes Cabral

    Using a micro-historical method and Brazilian archival sources — immigration dossiers, naturalization records, periodicals — Tordeur reconstructs the role of Mihran Latif, an Armenian immigrant among Rio de Janeiro's elite, in aiding Armenian Genocide survivors and promoting the Armenian cause in Brazil. The study foregrounds the smaller, often-overlooked Rio community against the larger São Paulo one, examining how local elites mobilized resources for post-genocide solidarity and how that shaped diasporic identity and collective memory.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  22. 2024

    The Formats and the Agenda of Organizing Pan-Armenian Conferences in 1980–2022

    Yeghiazaryan, Arman

    Since 1980 a series of conferences has brought together representatives of Armenia and the diaspora to discuss cooperation, set priorities, and clarify future tasks. The necessity of such assemblies was debated both in the Soviet period and after the restoration of independence, and the search for the most effective format is still unresolved. Depending on the political approach of the government of the day and the problems it needed to solve, these gatherings took different shapes: representative meetings, conferences, summits. The article examines the agendas and convening formats of the Armenia–Diaspora conferences against the historical and political reality of each moment.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  23. 2024

    The Geostrategic Significance of Syunik: Balancing Regional and Global Powers

    Nazaryan, Hayk and Hovhannisyan, Varduhi

    Syunik, Armenia's southern province, sits at the intersection of competing cultures and geopolitical interests by virtue of its geography and resources. After the 44-day Artsakh war of 2020 the question of 'unblocking communications' resurfaced, and the article examines the transit and corridor projects promoted by different states, with particular attention to Syunik's place in them. It works through the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Persian Gulf–Black Sea project, and the Crossroads of Peace initiative, assessing Syunik's strategic relevance for regional stakeholders and global powers alike.

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    2024Journal ArticleOpen Access
  24. 2024

    The Urartian Onomasticon: A Prosopographic Study

    Grekyan, Yervand

    Research on Urartian anthroponyms goes back to the turn of the nineteenth century, but scholars have concentrated almost entirely on royal and throne names, leaving ordinary personal names to scattered commentary. Grekyan attributes this partly to the limited Urartian linguistic corpus. He stresses that Urartu was a multiethnic state, deepened by large-scale deportations and planned resettlements; consequently not every name in Urartian inscriptions belongs to an Urartian, and not every Urartian bore a Hurro-Urartian name. The study assembles all available onomastic data connected to Urartu and presents it as a prosopography, widening the comparative base with second-millennium cuneiform and Hurrian material.

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    2024Journal ArticlePaywalled

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