The Armenian Revolutionary
Federation-Western United States, in collaboration with the California State
Northridge Armenian Studies Program, has organized a two-day academic
conference, “Armenian Statehood Reborn: Achievements and Reflections,”
to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first Republic of
Armenia. The conference will take place on Saturday, May 5 and Sunday,
May 6 at the Plaza del Sol Hall on the campus of CSU Northridge.
During this two-day academic conference,
the program will feature presentations by Dr. Amatuni Virabyan, Dr.
Vartan Matiossian, and Dr. Stephan Astourian, among others.
Dr. Amatuni Virabyan is the Director of the National Archives of Armenia. He holds a Ph.D. from the Faculty of History at the State Pedagogical Institute of Vanadzor. He has published more than 50 works, including “Armenia from Stalin to Khrushchev: Socio-political Life, 1945-1957” and “The Republic of Armenia in 1918-1920: A Collection of Documents and Materials.” He has served on the Armenian National Academy of Sciences Advisory Council since 2004 and on the Matenadaran Research Institute Advisory Council since 2007.
During the conference, Dr. Virabyan will
present on the socio-economic situation during the first Republic of
Armenia. The first Republic was founded and existed in the midst of
great socio-economic hardship, which were mainly a result of World War
I, Turkish invasions in Armenia, and the influx of refugees and orphans
from the Armenian Genocide. There was a dearth of industry and
agriculture, which led to widespread famine and the emergence of
infectious diseases. Around 180,000 people lost their lives to
starvation and the Armenian government instituted a state monopoly on
bread in order to control the famine. The government made attempts at
restoring the economy and implementing land reform, but the
Turkish-Armenian War and the beginning of the Sovietization of the
country in 1920 stymied those efforts.
Dr. Vartan Matiossian is the Executive
Director of the Armenian National Education Committee in New York. He
holds a Ph.D. in History from the Institute of History, National Academy
of Sciences in the Republic of Armenia. Matiossian has publishes scores
of articles, translations, book reviews, and essays, mostly in
Armenian, Spanish, and English. He has authored six books (five in
Armenian and one in Spanish), including a biography of writer Gostan
Zarian in 1998.
During the conference, Dr. Matiossian
will present a lecture titled “From the Mountain to the Lake: The Ships
of the Republic and Gostan Zarian.” The armed forces in the first
Republic of Armenia included the so-called Sevan fleet, which included
one armed sailing ship, called “Ashot Yerkat,” but also a prospective
warship, called the “Geghanush,” which had been abandoned by the Russian
army in Nakhichevan after the October Revolution. The transportation of
the latter to Lake Sevan became the metaphorical subject in Gostan
Zarian’s The Ship on the Mountain (1943), one of the few novels devoted to the history of the Republic.
Dr. Stephan Astourian is the William
Saroyan Director of the Armenian Studies Program at UC Berkeley and an
Associate Adjunct Professor in its Department of History. He is serving
on the boards of various centers and research institutes, including the
Executive Council of the Institute of Slavic, East European, and
Eurasian Studies at UC Berkeley. His research and publication focus is
on modern Armenian, Ottoman, and Azerbaijani history and post-Soviet
Caucasian politics.
Professor Astourian will present a
lecture titled, “Reflections on the Origins, Development, and Aftermath
of the First Armenian Republic.” There are a few implied or clearly
expressed characteristics that are shared among the various strands of
Armenian historiography and political thought. Professor Astourian will
focus on a few of these characteristics in relation to the first
Armenian Republic and what can be learned of it. Namely, some of these
characteristics are the long-lasting yearning and strive of the Armenian
people for independence, the endless “treasonous” behaviors of foreign
powers, and an inability to analyze Armenian mistakes and take
responsibility for them.
The event will be free and open to the
public. The conference is generously sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Harry and
Cheryl Nadjarian. Further information about the program and speakers
will be presented in the coming months. Please check the conference website the1strepublic.org for information and updates.
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