Events
Participation in the Ninth Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association
On July 14–18, we participated in the Ninth Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association (MSA), which took place in Prague—a city whose historical layers, political legacies, and cultural milieu provided a unique platform for collective reflection on issues of memory. The conference, which brought together 1,200 presenters from all continents, was held at a time when the field of memory studies is undergoing a process of rethinking—shaped by the geographical diversification of academic centers and the emergence of new thematic research directions. With the participation of nearly all leading scholars in the field, discussions focused on the reconfiguration of memory studies discourses, particularly in the context of global crises, wars, forced displacements, and the weakening of democratic institutions. Set against the backdrop of major global anniversaries (the end of WWII in 1945, the end of the Vietnam War in 1975), commemorations of genocides and massacres (Srebrenica, 1995; Sudan, 2005), and ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, our aim was to bring visibility to the underrepresented case of the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) conflict and the mass ethnic cleansing of its Armenian population. We examined how displaced Artsakh Armenians, stripped of international recognition and legal-biographical status, continue to resist erasure by reconstructing both personal and collective identity through acts of memory. Within this context, a group of researchers from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (Gayane Shagoyan, Ruzanna Tsaturyan, Gohar Stepanyan, Zara Hambardzumyan, Hasmik Knyazyan, and Shushanik Saratikyan) convened a panel titled: “Framing the Ongoing Crisis in Artsakh/Karabakh: Memory Instead of Biography.” The panel featured five studies exploring how collective memory becomes central to belonging when biography is denied or criminalized by state discourse. Topics included: The materiality of memory and destroyed identity documents (Gohar Stepanyan, Identity Documents and the Forced Displacement of the Artsakh Population in 2023); Grassroots digital archiving as a tool of cultural resistance (Hasmik Knyazyan, Challenging Erasure: Grassroots Digital Archiving and the Reclamation of Cultural Memory After Forced Displacement); Memory of endurance and defiance during the Lachin Corridor blockade (Ruzanna Tsaturyan, Remembering Endurance and Defiance: Resistance in the Artsakh Blockade); Ethical and methodological challenges in teaching unwritten histories of displacement (Zara Hambardzumyan & Shushanik Saratikyan, Navigating Memory in Education: Challenges of Teaching in the Context of Forced Displacement from Artsakh). Due to time constraints at the end of the panel, a choice had to be made between holding a discussion or presenting the final paper. Thanks to the gracious initiative of the panel moderator, Gayane Shagoyan, priority was given to questions and discussion. As a result, her compelling presentation titled “Framing Collective Trauma: Forced Displacement from Karabakh and Genocide Memory” was unfortunately not delivered in full. However, key aspects of her argument were later addressed in her opening remarks and during the Q&A session, where she provided valuable context on the historical and social dimensions of the Artsakh crisis. Most of the research presented in this panel (except for Ruzanna Tsaturyan’s presentation) was conducted within the framework of the project “Artsakh: Digital Archive of Oral Histories,” supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.Partial support for participation in the conference was generously provided by the Hovnanyan Family Foundation.
2025-07-24
"Solutions through Cooperation" International Museum Conference Opens in Yerevan
On July 22, 2025, the "Belt and Road" International Museum Conference, titled "Solutions through Cooperation," opened in the hall of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. The event brought together representatives from museums in Armenia, China, and Georgia, as well as from the Cultural Center of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the National Bureau of Cultural Heritage of China. Participants also included scholars and experts from scientific institutions affiliated with the NAS RA. The conference was organized by the "Armenian-Chinese Partnership Center" NGO, the Institute of Geological Sciences of the NAS RA, the "Service for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Reserves-Museums and Historical Environment" SNCO of the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports of the Republic of Armenia, the History Museum of Armenia, and the "Belt and Road" Cultural Development Association. The opening address was delivered by Pavel Avetisyan, Vice President of the NAS RA, Scientific Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, and Doctor of History. Astghik Babajanyan, Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, presented a report titled “Armenia-China Relations: Current Archaeological Studies and Cooperation on the Silk Road in Armenia.”
2025-07-22
Participation in the 16th International Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia
On July 2–6 of this year, the 16th International Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia (XVI Конгресс антропологов и этнологов России – XVI CAER) was held in Perm, Russian Federation. The event served as a platform for dialogue between scholars from regional and specialized scientific centers of Russia and foreign anthropologists and ethnographers. Nelly Khachatryan, Ph.D. in History and Researcher at the Department for Diaspora Studies of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (NAS RA), also participated in the congress. She presented a paper entitled “Specific Features of Studying the Phenomenon of Ethnoreligious Identity in the Context of Transformations in Contemporary Societies” (Особенности изучения феномена этнорелигиозной идентичности в контексте трансформации современных обществ), co-authored with Ruzan Karapetyan, Doctor of History and Head of the Department for Diaspora Studies. The report was prepared within the framework of the research project titled “Interaction of Ethnic and Religious Components in the Identity of Diaspora Armenians: Challenges and Perspectives”, and implemented within competition titled The Research in the Fields of Social Sciences, Armenian Studies and Humanities - 2024 under the code 24SSAH-6A008, supported by the RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports (MoESCS) and the RA Committee of Science. As a result of the participation in the congress, an agreement was also reached to sign a Cooperation Memorandum between the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of NAS RA and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
2025-07-17
The defense of Ruzan Mkrtchyan’s doctoral dissertation took place at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
On June 26, a doctoral dissertation defense was held in the reading room of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (IAE). The dissertation, titled “Bioarchaeology of the Sevan Basin (Middle and Late Bronze Ages),” was presented by Ruzanna Mkrtchyan during a session of Professional Council 007 (Archaeology and Ethnography). The dissertation is devoted to the reconstruction of the anthropological type, demographic profile, lifestyle, diet, and burial practices of the Middle and Late Bronze Age population of the Sevan Basin. The research is based on craniometric and osteometric data, sex and age determinations, and dental pathology analysis. The official opponents were Doctors of History, Professors Hayk G. Avetisyan, Garegin S. Tumanyan, and Hakob Ye. Simonyan. The leading institution for the dissertation is the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. Several speeches were delivered during the defense, and all speakers highly praised Ruzanna Mkrtchyan’s scholarly work.
2025-06-27
A three-day conference entitled “Political Violence, Exile, and Memory in the USSR” took place
The conference titled “Political Violence, Exile, and Memory in the USSR,” organized by the Applied Anthropology Research Group of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in collaboration with the Department of Modern Anthropology, has concluded. The event was held over two days in the city of Goris, Syunik Province, and one day in Yerevan, at the Memorial Complex dedicated to the Victims of Political Violence. The presentations in the first and second sessions of the conference explored specific episodes of political violence in Soviet Armenia — from the suppression of peasant resistance during the establishment of “kolkhozes” (collective farms) to the 1949 deportation of Armenians from Soviet republics in the Black Sea region. During the discussion of the deportation of the Hamshen Armenians, participants honored the memory of their late colleague Sergey Vardanyan with a minute of silence. Vardanyan had extensively studied the life of the Hamshen Armenians, who were exiled in 1944 and have still not been granted the right to return. The sessions also addressed less overt forms of political violence, including the restriction of individual and group identity choices during official Soviet censuses. Several presentations focused on the official, administrative, colloquial, and journalistic language used to “cover” acts of violence—language that, in reality, facilitated and legitimized the implementation of that violence. The concluding presentation examined the ethno-social composition of those repressed in Soviet Armenia between 1920 and 1953, based on materials from the National Archives of the Republic of Armenia. The third session took place at the Axel Bakunts House-Museum, honoring the writer who was executed in 1937 under the so-called “Stalin Lists.” This session featured individual stories of victims of political violence—shared as biographical sketches, memoirs, and most importantly, as integral parts of the broader narrative of political repression. On June 13, the conference participants took part in the celebration of the 126th anniversary of Axel Bakunts' birth in the city of Goris. On June 14—marked in Armenia as the “Day of Remembrance of the Repressed,” in accordance with the RA Law “On Holidays and Days of Remembrance”—they visited the Memorial Complex for the Victims of Political Violence in the USSR in Yerevan. There, they presented data on the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of those convicted in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan according to Stalin’s lists, and read aloud the names of 200 individuals who were sentenced to death in Armenia between 1936 and 1938. The full conference proceedings and reports are available at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLclo6JyCE6xmbAfVBM2mZSUvf2lUUQEjw
2025-06-15
Lecture: “Application of Infrared Imaging in Archaeology”
On June 12, the latest seminar of the Architectural Modeling Scientific Group was held in Room 34 of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography (IAE) of the NAS RA. The topic of the seminar was “Application of Infrared Imaging in Archaeology.” Arshaluys Mkrtchyan delivered a presentation outlining the methodology for using infrared imaging in archaeological research. The seminar concluded with an engaging discussion, during which participants shared questions, experiences, and suggestions.
2025-06-12
