UM-Dearborn to host “Armenians and the Cold War” event

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn will host an unprecedented, multi-disciplinary, international academic conference on “Armenians and the Cold War” on the university’s campus from April 1-3, the Armenian Weekly reports.

Thirty scholars from North and South America, Europe, and Armenia will participate in the conference.

On the international arena, the Cold War extended from the end of Word War II in 1945 to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Armenians around the world, however, had become divided between pro- and anti-Soviet factions as soon as Communists had gotten hold of Eastern Armenia in late 1920’s.

The first panel of the conference will focus on the period from the 1920’s to 1947, and will attempt to explain the political dynamics among Armenians, especially in the diaspora, before the rest of the world formally entered the Cold War era. Discussions during this panel will constitute an important step toward finding out what exactly changed in the Armenian Diaspora and in the relations between the Soviet Armenian homeland and the diaspora with the onset of the global Cold War in the mid-1940’s.

The Cold War inevitably affected the Armenians, not only in Soviet Armenia, but also in the many Armenian communities scattered across the world. This time period will be discussed at the conference through a series of regional panels.

There will also be a separate panel on relations between Soviet Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora during this period.

The last two panels will deal with case studies of the impact of the Cold War on Armenian historiography, arts, and popular culture. Thereafter, the conference will conclude with a second roundtable discussion that will tackle the legacy of the Cold War on Armenians today and make recommendations for future research in this domain.

The goal of the conference organizers is to shed light and encourage further research on a pivotal period in modern Armenian history, the study of which is still in its infancy. By approaching the topic from various angles and disciplines, they hope that this gathering will encourage others to delve into the details of Armenian history in the Cold War era.