Peter Balakian, Aram Arkun to present book on Armenia's medieval capitalFebruary 4, 2020 - 11:33 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will host a presentation by poet Dr. Peter Balakian and historian Aram Arkun entitled “The Ruins of Ani: From Sacred Landscape to Political Soil,” on February 27 in Batmasian Hall of the new NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, MassisPost reports. The program is co-sponsored by the Tekeyan Cultural Association Boston Chapter and the NAASR/Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues. From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, the city of Ani was the jewel of the Armenian kingdom, renowned far and wide for its magnificent buildings. By the fifteenth century, Ani was virtually abandoned, its stunning buildings left to crumble. Yet its ruins have remained a symbol of cultural accomplishment that looms large in the Armenian imagination. Today, Ani is a popular tourist site in Turkey, but the city has been falsified in its presentation by the Turkish government in order to erase Armenian history in the wake of the Armenian Genocide. Krikor Balakian’s The Ruins of Ani, first published in Armenian in 1910 as Nkaragrut‘iwn Anii aweraknerun and now available in English, is a unique combination of history, art criticism, and travel memoir. This timely publication and program raise important questions about the preservation of major historic monuments in the face of post atrocity campaigns of cultural erasure. Balakian and Arkun served as editor and translator, respectively, of The Ruins of Ani (Rutgers Univ. Press). Dr. Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. He is the author of many books, including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, winner of the Raphael Lemkin Prize; Black Dog of Fate, winner of the PEN/Albrand Award for Memoir; and Ozone Journal, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Aram Arkun is the Tekeyan Cultural Association of the United States and Canada and assistant editor at the Armenian Mirror-Spectator. He is the author of numerous academic articles and book chapters and translations, and has served as Director of the Zohrab Center in New York City and as editor of Ararat Quarterly. Top stories The EU does not intend to conduct military exercises with Armenia, Lead Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano says. Hikmet Hajiyev has said that there is no place for USAID operation in Azerbaijan any longer. A telephone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan before the CSTO summit is not planned, Peskov says. London’s Armenian community has been left feeling “under attack” after the city’s Genocide monument was vandalised. Partner news | Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. Armenia to sing in 2nd semi-final of Eurovision The organizers of Eurovision 2024 have revealed the running order of the countries in the two semi-finals. |