14.1.14

Armenian Review Digitization Project Receives Gulbenkian Grant

The Armenian Review, published in Watertown (Massachussetts), recently received a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation of Portugal to support its project to digitize the entire collection, from 1948 to the present, in an effort to promote preservation and accessibility. The goal of the digitization project is to allow readers and researchers keyword searchable online access to every article published in the journal’s nearly 200 issues.
The grant of $12,000, coupled with another donation of $5,000 from a generous private donor, will defray a major portion of the digitization costs that will create an online index and a searchable database of the Armenian Review, which has published peer-reviewed articles and book reviews on Armenian history, sociology, political science, and literature.
“The editorial team is excited by this new opportunity provided by the Gulbenkian Foundation. It will help us get closer to our goal of establishing a digital footprint and make the Review available for online researchers. That being said, the challenge is bigger now for the journal to develop and organize its digital archive by updating its web platform, preparing abstracts for each article published since 1948, and generating a solid plan to further expand its accessibility and overall operations in the coming years,” said Asbed Kotchikian, the editor-in-chief.
Allowing researchers from across the country and around the world to use these materials remotely will greatly ease the process of writing books and articles in the future. For instance, a historian in Armenia—which had no access to the Review under Soviet rule—will be able to access 65 years of academic studies on his or her computer. More broadly, the promotion of the Review’s online access will increase the visibility of Armenian studies in scholarly research and discourse.
The most recent issue of the Armenian Review contains Rouben Shougarian’s assessment of Turkish-Armenian Track I and II diplomacies. In another article, Albert Stepanyan reexamines and analyzes sections from Moses Khorenatsi’s History of the Armenians. The third and fourth pieces are a dialogue between Taner Akçam, and Uğur Ümit Üngör and Mehmet Polatel. The dialogue starts with a review essay by Akçam examining and critiquing Üngör’s and Polatel’s book Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property. The issue also features book reviews and a review essay by Levon Chorbajian, who reviewed four books dealing with the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath.

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