This spring, join the Transcaucasian Trail and the Armenian Institute for a special evening celebrating 10 years of one of the world’s most ambitious long-distance hiking projects. Stretching across the dramatic landscapes of the South Caucasus, the Transcaucasian Trail is a sustainable, world-class route that will eventually span 3,000 km across forests, mountains, canyons, and rivers, connecting local communities and remarkable cultural heritage sites along the way.

On Wednesday, 15th April, at the Armenian House in London, be inspired by extraordinary stories from one of the trail’s co-founder, Tom Allen, alongside project leaders Meri Grigoryan and Liana Khitaryan, as they share what it takes to build a cross-border trail that blends outdoor exploration, sustainable infrastructure, education, and community development.

Together, we will celebrate how far the trail has come, and imagine the miles still to explore, while enjoying a demonstration of traditional Armenian dancing, Armenian wine, and local delicacies from the community’s much-loved Jakob’s restaurant.

The ticket price includes the light supper buffet and a glass of Armenian wine.

This event is held in partnership with The Transcaucasian Trail and Trails for Change. Thanks also to Jakob's and Stork Wines for the food and wine.

About the Speakers

Meri Grigoryan’s journey in trail projects began in 2019 with People in Need, coordinating the development of the Legends Trail in Syunik, a 150 km section of the Transcaucasian Trail. She joined the Transcaucasian Trail Armenia in 2022, initially managing the youth educational program and organising trail-building camps for young people across Armenia. With over four years of experience working with youth, she is passionate about combining education, outdoor experiences, and community development. Meri now leads Trails for Change, the Transcaucasian Trail’s partner organization in Armenia, overseeing fundraising, partnerships, and the smooth implementation of programs, while also serving as the country representative of the Transcaucasian Trail.

Liana Khitaryan is a Tour Manager at the Transcaucasian Trail, advancing community development, cultural initiatives, immersive local experiences, and sustainable infrastructure projects. She is experienced in coordinating large-scale tours and delivering programs from concept to completion. Liana is also a Trail Construction Project Manager at Trails for Change, focusing on sustainable trail development, community engagement, and building safe, accessible, and environmentally responsible trail networks.

Tom Allen is one of the Transcaucasian Trail's co-founders, leading the Land Rover-sponsored Transcaucasian Expedition in 2016 to explore and map potential routes, stewarding the trail’s development in Armenia between 2017–2023, and opening the trail's first hikers' hostel in Dilijan National Park. Now Expeditions & Fieldwork Manager at the Royal Geographical Society, he joined the Transcaucasian Trail Association’s board in 2026 and continues to maintain thru-hiker resources for the Armenian branch of the trail.

In their new co-edited book, entitled Lives in Fragments: Self-Narrative Sources and Biographical Approaches to the Armenian Genocide, published in February 2026, Eren Yıldırım Yetkin, Nazan Maksudyan and Adnan Çelik explore a new angle through which to interpret the social dynamics that lead to acts of genocidal violence, their remembrance, and their denial.

The twelve chapters in this book, written by experts in the field, focus on life stories and self-narratives that were fragmented and shattered through the historical violence of the Armenian Genocide. It offers a nuanced understanding of genocide’s complex historical and social dimensions.

In conjunction with the Wiener Holocaust Library, and to mark the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, we are happy to host one of the co-editors, Nazan Maksudyan, who will officially launch this remarkable volume in London and talk us through its novel methodology and rich contents. In conversation with her, we are delighted to welcome Ayşe Parla, who will share insights into her own current research on the art of writing as a survivor in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, tentatively entitled Peripheral Time: Writing as Survival in Bolis/Istanbul After Genocide.

This event is held in partnership with the Wiener Holocaust Library.

About the Speakers

Nazan Maksudyan is a Senior Researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin) in the UKRI-funded ERC Grant ‘Ottoman Auralities and the Eastern Mediterranean: Sound, Media and Power, 1789–1914’ and a visiting professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. Her research mainly focuses on the social and cultural history of the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, with special interest in children and youth, gender, sexuality, exile and migration, sound studies, and the history of sciences. She is the author of Türklüğü Ölçmek (Metis, 2005), Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire (Syracuse UP, 2014), and Ottoman Children & Youth During World War I (Syracuse UP, 2019). She is an Editorial Board Member of Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Journal of Women's History, Journal of European Studies, and First World War Studies.

Recently published writing includes: “Beyond Borders and Binaries: Young Ottoman Women’s Experiments with Gender, Body, and Sexuality in Germany During World War I” in First World War Studies 2025; "Crime and Non-punishment: Legacies of Genocide and Denial in Turkey" in Dinç and Hünler (eds) The Republic of Turkey and its Unresolved Issues, Palgrave Macmillan 2025; “Encounter and Memory in Ottoman Soundscapes: An Audiovisual Album of Street Vendors’ Cries”, in McMurray and Mukhopadhyay (eds) Acoustics of Empire: Sound, Media, and Power in the Long Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press, 2024.

Ayşe Parla is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Boston University and affiliate faculty at their Center on Forced Displacement. She received her B.A. from Harvard and her Ph.D. from New York University. She was a Member and Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Her first book, Precarious Hope: Migration and the Limits of Belonging in Turkey (Stanford University Press, 2019), was awarded an honourable mention by the Association of Political and Legal Anthropology. Her work has been published in, among others, American Ethnologist, Citizenship Studies, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cultural Anthropology, Differences: Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, History and Anthropology, International Migration, and Public Culture.

Rediscover a forgotten classic.

In 1945, Armenian Genocide survivor Leon Surmelian published I Ask You Ladies and Gentlemen, a bestselling, internationally acclaimed memoir that later slipped from view as it became out-of-print. In 2020, the Armenian Institute revived it in a new expanded edition, complete with photographs, maps and historical context, affirming its urgent relevance today.

From a warm childhood in Trebizond, in what is now north-eastern Turkey, to a perilous journey of survival after 1915, Surmelian’s story moves from loss and exile to an unexpected sense of belonging on a farm in Kansas, as his idealistic vision of saving his people through agriculture took him on a scholarship to study in America.

Join us on Thursday, April 30th, at The Armenian Institute or online, for an intimate Book Club evening and a glass of Armenian wine. Hear behind-the-scenes stories from the team that set out on the adventure of republishing the book, led by board member Richard Anooshian. They’ll be joined by Dr Nora Lessersohn, historian of the United States and the Armenian diaspora, who will participate online. Come along to share your thoughts on this remarkable story, and to see the first UK edition of the book from 1946, held in the Institute’s library.

Tickets are available with or without a copy of the book, which we encourage you to acquire in advance, so you can start reading! If you are in the US, you can buy your copy in the following places: NAASR, Abril Books and the Armenian Prelacy.

This event is held in collaboration with the International Armenian Literary Alliance.

This event is part of Heritage of Displacement: Oral Histories from the UK Armenian Communities (2023–2026), funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, thanks to National Lottery players.

About the speaker

Nora Lessersohn is a historian of the United States and the Armenian diaspora, with particular interests in politics, popular culture, and biography. She has taught at schools including Columbia University and George Washington University, and held fellowships at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of American History. Dr. Lessersohn has published articles on the memoir of her great-grandfather, Hovhannes Cherishian, and is currently completing a manuscript on Christopher Oscanyan's use of New York’s popular entertainment culture to act as a political intermediary between the United States and the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. She is based in Washington DC where she is an Instructor in History at the University of Southern California's Capital Campus.

The Armenian Institute and Quarter Tone Poets invite you to a unique bilingual poetry workshop led by Lola Koundakjian, shaped by live music and shared writing.

Lola will share texts in Western Armenian and English and introduce a series of prompts for short, guided writing sessions. As you write, live instrumentalist Kourosh Kanani will perform acoustic, meditative music to create a focused, contemplative space. There is no set theme! This session is designed to generate new drafts and ideas rather than polished poems. Participants will be invited to share their work, if they wish.

The workshop will move between Western Armenian and English, depending on the language skills in the room. Eastern Armenian speakers are also warmly welcomed. We aim to create an open, inclusive space for writers of all backgrounds and levels.

This event is a partnership with Quarter Tone Poets, and is also part of the Armenian Institute's Heritage of Displacement: Oral Histories from the UK Armenian Communities (2023–2026) project, funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, thanks to National Lottery players.

About Lola Koundakjian

After her degrees in Fine Arts at Hunter College and Ancient History at Columbia University, Lola honed her skills as an editorial board member at the Ararat Literary Quarterly, in New York. She runs the Dead Armenian Poetry Society and curates and produces poems and audio for the online Armenian Poetry Project. Lola’s translations from Western Armenian are in Ararat, Armenian Poetry Project, Rattapallax, Poetry International and most recently in Wasafiri in 2024. Since 2010, Lola has read her work throughout New York City and online. She was invited to read in person at international poetry festivals: Medellín, Colombia ; Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile; Ramallah, West Bank; Trois-Rivières, Quebec, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2021 her third book The Moon in the Cusp on my Hand won the Minas and Kohar Tololyan Prize in Contemporary Literature.

www.lolakoundakjian.com

About Kourosh Kanani

Born to an Iranian father and Irish mother, Kourosh Kanani’s music reflects both his Persian roots and his Western influences.

He studied Carnatic rhythm under the guidance of renowned mridangam and konnakol artist Vidwan BC Manjunath, adding a profound layer to his work that draws from the deep traditions of South Indian music.

Known for his masterful fusion of Persian folk music, South Indian Carnatic rhythms, and jazz, Kourosh’s sound transcends genres and cultural boundaries. Equally renowned in the world of gypsy jazz, he is recognised as one of its most prominent players.

About Quarter Tone Poets

Quarter Tone Poets promotes and celebrates innovative literary expression in Western Armenian by exploring the musicality of language and the linguistic possibilities discovered through music. We will specifically do this by cultivating new poetry inspired by original compositions on the oud and other Armenian folk instruments.

www.quartertonepoets.org

The evening will feature Vicken Cheterian in conversation with Laurence Broers and Armine Ishkanian (LSE). Together, they will explore how the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was fought and lost, and what it reveals about power, geopolitics, and the fragile architecture of peace in a rapidly changing international order. Vicken has recently published two books about the war and will help us reflect on a conflict that reshaped the South Caucasus and reverberated far beyond it.

The 44-Day War: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Struggle for Nagorno-Karabakh (February 2026), offers a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of the causes, conduct, and consequences of the war. This volume, edited by Cheterian and bringing together chapters written by multiple experts, interrogates the collapse of the 1994–2020 ceasefire regime, the failures of diplomacy and mediation, Armenia’s strategic miscalculations, and the consolidation of authoritarian power in Azerbaijan. It probes the roles of external actors before turning to the war’s aftermath: stalled peace processes, the dramatic failure of the Russian peacekeeping mission, and the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. It was published open access by Bloomsbury Publishing and can be accessed in full online.

Speakers

Vicken Cheterian is a lecturer in History and International Relations at the University of Geneva. He is a former journalist, having published extensively in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Die Wochenzeitung, Al-Hayat, Le Monde diplomatique, etc. He is a regular contributor to Agos. He is the author of War and Peace in the Caucasus, Russia's Troubled Frontier (2009), Open Wounds, Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide (2015), and he is currently writing a book on the Armenian diaspora.

Laurence Broers is a scholar-practitioner with three decades of experience as a researcher of conflicts in the South Caucasus and practitioner of peacebuilding initiatives in the region. He has edited three volumes on regional history and politics and published several journal articles on the South Caucasus, as well as extensive policy and current affairs analysis including for Chatham House, where he serves as associate fellow in the Russia & Eurasia Programme. He is also the founding editor and editor-in-chief of the academic journal Caucasus Survey. He is currently completing a second edition of his monograph, Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry (Edinburgh University Press, 2019).

Armine Ishkanian is a Professor in Social Policy at the Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics (LSE), as well as the Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (AFSEE) programme based at the LSE’s International Inequalities Institute. Professor Ishkanian’s research examines how civil society organisations and social movements engage in policy processes and transformative politics. She is currently co-convening the Politics of Inequality research programme.

You are warmly invited to join us for a special afternoon at the Ancient India and Iran Trust in Cambridge.

The programme will start with an introduction by Nouritza Matossian on Ruth Keshishian and her life, immersed in the world of books, art, and friendship. It will be followed by a discussion on the influence of Armenian manuscripts and the Aghtamar frescoes in the work of Arshile Gorky. The event will continue with a lecture by Dr Vazken Khatchig Davidian on the work of Armenian artist Sarkis Katchadourian (1886-1947), who from the 1920s to the 1940s took inspiration from seventeenth-century fresco and mural paintings from Isfahan in Iran, as well as ancient Buddhist, Jain and Hindu wall paintings in Indian and Sri Lankan cave complexes including Ajanta, Badami, Bagh and Sigiriya.

This will be followed by a rare opportunity to look closely at the Trust’s collection of Armenian manuscripts. In the company of distinguished experts, you will explore these precious volumes up close, and gain insight into their provenance, exceptional artistry, and growing significance to the study of Armenian manuscripts. Speakers include the Trust’s Honorary Librarian, Dr Ursula Sims-Williams, Lead Curator of Iranian Collections at the British Library; Dr Erin Piñon, art historian and operations manager at the Armenian Institute; and art historian and conservator Tatevik Davtyan.

We will end with a garden party in the charming gardens of the Trust's historic home in Cambridge. Enjoy an afternoon of conversation, light refreshments, and convivial company against a backdrop inspired by the timeless beauty of Persian and Indo-Persian garden traditions.

This event forms part of a new series dedicated to exploring Armenian manuscripts and material heritage in lesser-known UK collections. The Armenian Institute is pleased to partner with the Ancient India and Iran Trust for its inaugural off-site show-and-tell session.

This event series honours the memory of the late Ruth Keshishian, a lover of books, archives, researchers, and intellectual life, and dear friend and supporter of the Armenian Institute.

Speakers

Vazken Khatchig Davidian is an Associate Faculty Member and Research Fellow at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (formerly Oriental Studies), University of Oxford. He defended his doctoral thesis (The Figure of the Bantoukhd Hamal of Constantinople: Late Nineteenth-Century Representations of Migrant Workers from Ottoman Armenia) in art history at Birkbeck College, University of London in 2019. As Calouste Gulbenkian Fellow in Armenian Studies, and Nubar Pacha Scholar, Davidian was the holder of two postdoctoral positions at the University of Oxford. He is, with Boris Adjemian, co-editor-in-chief of the journal Études arméniennes contemporaines published by the Bibliothèque Nubar (AGBU), Paris. Davidian is the author of several articles on Ottoman Armenian art and cultural history and is currently completing a monograph based in part on his doctoral dissertation entitled Art, Realism and the Politics of Social Reform: Reading Late Nineteenth-Century Visual Representations of Ottoman Armenian Subalterns.

Tatevik Davtyan is an Art Historian holding an MA in Art History from Yerevan State University, where she specialised in Armenian art history under the UNESCO Chair programme. Tatevik combines her subject expertise with extensive experience in sales leadership and client advisory roles within the heritage sector. As Internal Sales Manager at Conservation By Design, she works closely with museums, galleries, libraries, and archives to provide tailored guidance on collection storage, preservation solutions, and best practice in collections care.

Ursula Sims-Williams is Lead Curator of Persian at the British Library and Honorary librarian and Trustee of the Ancient India and Iran Trust. She has published extensively on the manuscript cultures of Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia, Zoroastrianism and Islamic India and is currently co-investigator in the British Institute of Persian Studies Research Project: Persian Manuscripts between East and West: Britain, India and the Circulation of the Persianate Literary Heritage. 

Erin Piñon is an art historian specializing in early modern Armenian book arts, spanning cultural networks from Europe to Asia. She earned her PhD from Princeton University, where her work explored Armenian painting, translation, and ritual practices across Istanbul, Aleppo, and Isfahan. Her research on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century visual and material culture has appeared in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s publications, the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, West 86th Street, and the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, to cite a few. She has over a decade of experience working in museums, galleries, special collections, and archives.

Nouritza Matossian is a writer, actor, film-maker, broadcaster and human rights activist. She was born in Cyprus, educated in the UK, speaks nine languages. She writes and lectures on the arts, contemporary music, and history of Armenia. Author of the first biography and critical study of the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis (1985), she adapted the book for a 50min BBC2 documentary, Something Rich and Strange (1991). Matossian was also the first writer to research and reveal the Armenian identity and traumatic genocide history of the American-Armenian artist in her biography, Black Angel, A Life of Arshile Gorky in 1998.

She created a one woman show, The Double Life of Arshile Gorky, playing over a hundred performances worldwide. Her book inspired director Atom Egoyan for his award-winning movie Ararat (2004) with the lead character based on Matossian. Matossian broadcasts on the BBC and contributes to several newspapers and magazines, including The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist, and The Observer. She was Honorary Cultural Attaché for the Armenian Embassy in London from 1991-2000. Public’s Prize at the Toronto Pomegranate Film Festival 2008, Director, Armenian Institute, London 2015-2017 and active member of English PEN, UK.