Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Director Hayk Demoyan to Discuss Modern Identity and Memory Politics at NAASR

BELMONT, Mass.—Dr. Hayk Demoyan will give a talk entitled “Between Realism and Mythology: Modern Identity and Memory Politics of the Armenian World” on March 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center (395 Concord Ave., Belmont, Mass. 02478).  The program is sponsored by the NAASR / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues and is open to the public.

Hayk Demoyan (Photo: Varmin)

Demoyan will analyze and discuss modern aspects of identity and memory politics in Post-Soviet Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora, taking particular note of the manipulation and instrumentalization of history and historical markers—old and new symbols, heroes, historical events, etc.,—as well as their reinterpretation and (mis)representation.

For a long time such questions were considered as taboo within the official rhetoric of both the Armenian state and some diasporan circles, which tended to downplay existing antagonistic and opposing attitudes and to assert a kind of Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora triple unity.  In fact, in different diasporan circles there are contradictory views towards Armenia and its status as “Homeland.”  At the same time, the institutionalization of Artsakh as a separate political entity, contrary to the initial policies of unification and merging, as well as the development of parallel diasporas, create further challenges.

Demoyan is the Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, a position he has held since 2006, and in 2017-18 he is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University.

He is the author of 12 books, including The Armenian Genocide: Front Page Coverage in the World Media (2014, in Armenian, English, Russian, and French), Foreign Policy of Turkey and Karabagh Conflict (2013, in Russian), Armenian Sport and Gymnastics in the Ottoman Empire (2009, in Armenian), and Western Media Coverage of the Nagorno-Karabagh Conflict in 1988-1990 (2008, in English), as well as some 40 academic articles.

For more information about this program, contact NAASR at 617-489-1610 or hq@naasr.org.