Armenian Diaspora Survey 2019 Results Published

We’re pleased to announce that the recently published 2019 Armenian Diaspora Survey esults are now available in our bookstore!

In 2019 the Armenian Diaspora Survey (ADS) was conducted in Argentina, Lebanon, Montreal (Canada), and Romania. This book is the printed version of the report of the results of the research in these four communities. It includes chapters on identity, language, culture, religion, community engagement and relations with the homeland. ADS is a research project funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and carried out under the auspices of the Armenian Institute. It conducts public opinion research in Armenian diaspora communities around the world—to inform the public, scholars, policy-makers and community leaders about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the Armenian world in the 21st century.

Diasporas are notoriously difficult to survey. A diaspora, by definition, is not bound by a territory; its composition is rather fluid, and reaching out to a “representative” sample is rather challenging. After a successful pilot phase in 2018, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation decided to support the Armenian Diaspora Survey for an additional three years, making it a “signature” project. Administered by the Armenian Institute in London and led by Dr. Hratch Tchilingirian, ADS is a research project with very tangible policy consequences. It gives us a “snapshot” of the Armenian Diaspora, highlighting some of its characteristics and mapping its thinking about certain core issues.

New Food Blog series by Naneh Hovhannisyan

We are excited to announce the launch of "Breaking Bread With Neighbours", a series of cook book reviews by Naneh Hovhannisyan. In this series, Naneh explores presentations of Armenian, Iranian, Georgian, Soviet and Levantine cuisine, investigating geo-political nuances through the development of culinary heritage. For five weeks, every Saturday from 19 of March, we'll be sharing a different blog by Naneh in a celebration of our theme of neighbours.

Naneh grew up as a closet gourmand in the latter days of Soviet Armenia. She prides herself on taste - also called ‘gustatory’ – memory, and on her ability to survive on rounds of strong coffee alone. Cooking is for her an act of resistance, creativity and indulgence. She lives in England with her family, and in the time left from selling books for a living, tries to read them for pleasure.

50% Off Our Bookstore - EXTENDED!

This year, we are celebrating World Book Day with a huge 50% discount on everything in our bookstore until from Thursday 3 March until Sunday 13 March! Don’t miss your chance to grab a great bargain, and browse the wonderful collection of books we have to sell! With limited stock, all orders will be fulfilled on a first come, first served basis.

Enter code WORLDBOOKDAY at checkout to apply the discount.

Polyglot Narekatsi

Join us for a special poetry reading to celebrate the literary jewel of the Armenian Middle Ages, Grigor Narekatsi’s Book of Lamentations. Marking the 27th of February, the date Pope Francis I chose to mark Grigor’s canonisation in the Roman Catholic Church, we’ll hear the Narek in seven languages, including the original Classical Armenian (Grabar), Eastern and Western Armenian, English, Dutch, French and Russian.

The evening will be introduced by Theo Van Lint, Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian Studies at the University of Oxford, a specialist on Grigor Narekatsi and translator into Dutch. We’ll then hear the Narek in all its beautiful, polyglot glory, before ending with some exciting new discoveries in the AI archives from Mischa Kudian, one of Narekatsi’s English translators…

We are also so excited to exclusively offer the chance to watch Atam Rasho's gorgeous animation "Sounds of Sighs" marrying illustration and poetry in a presentation of the Book of Lamentations by Narekatsi, available only until Sunday. Watch it here.

Krapar / Grabar (Classical Armenian)

Eastern Armenian

Western Armenian

English

French

Russian

 

Digitising Soviet Armenian Poetry

We are so excited that our 20th anniversary celebrations launched a new digitisation project with a focus on Mischa Kudian’s Mashtots Press, which the Armenian Institute acquired the rights to in 2021. The first digitised publication of this project is Soviet Armenian Poetry, a beautiful and touching compilation of work by poets from Armenia’s Soviet Era, originally translated and edited by Kudian in 1974 and published through Mashtots Press.

With the help of a dedicated group of volunteers, trustees and staff members, we are well on our way to becoming an established digital publisher, following the success of our physical publications over the last 20 years. The digitisation project was conceived by Stephen Masters, led by myself and designed by my colleague Anoushka Berberian with great love and dedication. This could not have been possible without people in our community like Hasmig Topalian, Paula Melville and Zara Mandel who spent hours at our library in Farringdon scanning the books. Once Stephen had processed these scans through an OCR software, we then recruited more help from our staff and board like Arda Eghiayan, Becky Jinks, Tatevik Ayvazyan, Hasmig and Paula who spent hours proofreading the texts. The foreword was written by myself and my colleague Nik Matheou; designs went back and forth as Anoushka worked tirelessly to ensure it all looked perfect, and once we felt it had, our final draft was sent to Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian to sign off.

Throughout the proofreading process, there were a number of eloquent lines and stanzas that stayed with me. During this time, I was on a hiatus from my hectic London life and was supporting AI’s activities abroad, from the South of Cyprus while visiting my mother. It was a time of great change and new beginnings, which is perhaps why some of these excerpts particularly struck me. I can’t express the deep gratitude I have to be able to proofread gorgeous Armenian poetry as part of my job, and I hope that the love and appreciation that went into this project is felt when you read the book.

Here is a selection of what touched me the most:

By Olivia Melkonian


A Week With Lola Koundakjian

This February we were lucky to host our dear friend, Lola Koundakjian all the way from New York City. Lola has long been a friend and supporter of the Armenian Institute, and we are huge fans of her work. Lola is a poet, editor and artist and founded the Armenian Poetry Project where she digitises and translates Armenian poetry. In May of 2021 we celebrated 15 years of the APP, and hosted a podcast with Lola where she recited some of her wonderful poetry.

This year, Lola came to London to bring us the first batch of her late father’s, photojournalist Harry Koundakjian’s archives, which she and her brother Vicken Koundakjian have decided to donate to the Armenian Institute.

hosted 2 incredible events with us. The first was a conversation and exhibition honouring the life and legacy of her father, Harry Koundakjian, a photographer with Associated Press from the 1960s to his retirement in 2006. The second event was an intimate poetry workshop that brought together writers from across the globe. We had the most amazing week, filled with exciting project ideas, appreciation of literature, art and poetry and of course, lots of coffee!

Launching 'Difficult Conversations' with Syrian Armenians in Hayastan

On the 17th of February we’re launching a new series of events, Difficult Conversations! This first installment, which is also the latest in our Diaspora Forums, explores the experience of young Syrian Armenians who've moved to the Republic of Armenia/Hayastan following the Syrian Revolution and subsequent civil war. Rather than uncritically celebrate this "repatriation" to the "homeland", however, we want to talk about the real lived experience of the move, and not shy away from sometimes challenging but important issues involved.

And this sets out the approach we want to take for the rest of our series too. This will be a safe space for real conversations about topics often considered taboo or "amot" (shameful) in the global Armenian community, including inherited medical conditions, gendered violence, LGBTQIA+ struggles and more.

If you're interested in proposing a topic or getting involved contact us at tato@armenianinstitute.org.uk

Harry Koundakjian Photographic Archive to be Housed at the Armenian Institute

The Armenian Institute is honoured to be chosen to house the important archive of photojournalist Harry Koundakjian.  Donated by his children, Lola Koundakjian and Vicken Koundakjian, significant items from the archive will be on temporary display at AI from February 10 to 13. 

Harry Koundakjian was a very well-known photojournalist and photography at Associated Press (AP) from the 1950s to his retirement in 2006, first as a freelancer and then as a full-time staffer. Lola and Vicken have entrusted us not only with their treasured family memories but also with a very important visual memory which Harry Koundakjian contributed to, adding a new perspective through his unique gaze on cultural memory and history with his pictures taken in the Middle East. Africa and Asia.

We are very thankful to Lola and Vicken for choosing AI to host his archive. Like our other archives, Mischa Kudian, Christopher Walker, Charles Dowsett, Joan George, George Kurkjian, we are happy to look after them in our Institute with professional care. Please visit us to see the archives in person or via zoom online. We are also working on digitising and cataloging our archives to make them more accessible.

If you would like to be involved in supporting our archival work or learn more, please get in touch with us.

Join our talk and mini exhibition with Lola Koundakjian and Vicken Koundakjian on 10 February (details here).

To see the exhibition from 11-13 Feburary, please email nik@armenianinstitute.org.uk.

Remembering Hrant Dink

This year, for our annual event on January 19 commemorating the 2007 assassination of Hrant Dink, Armenian Institute is honoured to be joined by Garo Paylan, Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) member of parliament representing Diyarbakir. Mr Paylan will discuss the issue of hate speech in today’s Turkey, and how this enables both everyday and extreme violence against Armenians and other oppressed identities. The issue of hate speech opens the broader question of Armenians’ position in Turkey today, and the role they can play in the struggle for democratisation and dignity for all Turkey’s peoples.

Ahead of our event, we’d like to share two films about Hrant Dink.

The first film, Hrant Dink, Heart Of Two Nations is the only informal self-portrait of the editor and activist Hrant Dink speaking in Armenian about his life and struggle for justice and human rights for Armenians and other oppressed groups living in Turkey. Forty days after he was gunned down in Istanbul, Turkey, on 19 January 2007 he appeared in the video in conversation with Nouritza Matossian screened In Memoriam in London. The award winning documentary is a uniquely revealing and courageous account foreshadowing his death.

The second is the intense and poignant System Memory Too Low Words, shared by Hrant Dink Foundation. The film ‘System Memory Too Low For Words’ devised and produced by Ümit Kıvanç, which transforms Hrant Dink’s words to color, shape and sound, lays before us the ‘errors’ in the ‘system’ which did not allow space for Hrant Dink and his words. You can watch the film to witness Hrant Dink’s passion which made him a target, and to hear from his own voice his dreams for Turkey and the world in these tumultuous days.

Donations To Our Library

An Armenian manuscript on surgery, rare 18th century publications, a wide-ranging collection of 20th century West Armenian literature and bound volumes of periodicals published in the Caucasus and the United States comprise the valuable donations received at the Armenian Institute library throughout 2021. 

Important collections from the personal libraries of the late Ani King-Underwood, Markar & Sirvart Sarafyan, Diana Doudian, Edman Ayvazian and Mischa Kudian greatly enriched our collection. Significant donations were also received from Felix Corley, Elizabeth Elliot, Rouben Galichian, Dr Harry Hagopian, Dalila Heath, Seda & Vahé Karapetian, Varkess Knadjian, Rev Dr Nerses V Nersessian, Alice & George Terian, Armenag & Hasmig Topalian and Haigaz Yerzingatzian. 

 We are grateful for these donations which represent a notable addition to the Institute library, often helping us fill content gaps in the collection. We are now in the process of cataloguing the donated titles which will then become accessible to the general public and researchers who use the resources at the Library. 

The Armenian Institute continues to enrich its collections through generous donations of books and archival materials. Unfortunately, due to limitation of space the Institute is unable to accept all donations. Those interested in donating books to the Institute Library should contact the Librarian Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian at gagik@amenianinstitute.org.uk.

AI Library Catalogue on WorldCat

With great thanks to all who donated to our library fundraiser earlier this year, we are pleased to announce that our library catalogue is now established on WorldCat: a digitally searchable, international library resource accessible to all!

At have 1858 items on WorldCat already and our librarian Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian is adding more daily with the help of our fantastic library volunteer Nariné Der Hakobian.

A biography of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was the first book that appeared as a title held at the Armenian Institute.

Adopt A library Collection

We’ve launched a new campaign to support our library in honour of our 20th anniversary.

AI is excited to announce that you can now support us in an exciting and creative way through adopting a collection from our library. An ideal Christmas gift, this is a sustainable, environmentally-friendly and meaningful project that you can dedicate to a loved one, or yourself!

Hosting the UK’s largest Armenian library, we have a diverse array of collections and books can be adopted either by author or area of research. See below for our non-exhaustive list, and if you have a specific collection in mind then please get in touch with our librarian at gagik@armenianinstitute.org.uk.

Suggested minimum donations are £150 for one year, or £500 for five years. You can donate here, and once you’ve done so, please send an email to Gagik detailing the collection you’d like to adopt.

Celebrating Leon Z. Surmelian's Birthday with 50 Free Copies

Celebrating Leon Surmelian's birthday, we are giving away 50 free copies to our UK-based friends of his best seller that we republished: I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen. Open to our UK-based friends only - all you have to do is pay for shipping!

Click the button below to secure your copy, and be sure to leave a note with your name and postage address:

For our US and Canada based friends, you can now purchase a copy from us through our Amazon account in time for Christmas!

I Ask You Ladies and Gentlemen is Leon Surmelian’s personal tale of deep sorrow and profound gratitude, of terrible loss and a lively embrace of life itself. With added photographs, a map, glossary and historical context, Surmelian’s memoir of his own experiences of surviving genocide strongly resonate even today. The out-of-print book, first published in 1945, a bestseller in its time, was internationally acclaimed and translated into many languages, and convinced of its relevance today, was republished by the Armenian Institute.

We also encourage UK-based book-stores, libraries, museums and universities to get in touch to receive a copy to add to your collections.

In Conversation With Nadia Owusu

The Armenian Institute and the International Armenian Literary Alliance will welcome author Nadia Owusu to discuss her memoir, Aftershocks, on Thursday, November 11, 2021 at 7:30 pm BST / 1:30 pm EST / 10:30 am PST. 

The New York Times called Owusu’s memoir “gorgeous and unsettling.” The Washington Post described Aftershocks as “full of narrative risk and untrammeled lyricism.” Oprah Magazine said, “In a literary landscape rich with diaspora memoirs, Owusu’s painful yet radiant story rises to the forefront.”

Aftershocks topped many most-anticipated and best book of the year lists, including The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Vogue, TIME, Vulture, and the BBC. It was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s choice. 


Owusu is a Ghanaian and Armenian-American writer and urbanist. Born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, she was raised in Italy, Ethiopia, England, Ghana, and Uganda. Owusu is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award. Her lyric essay, So Devilish a Fire won the Atlas Review chapbook contest. By day, Owusu is the Director or Storytelling at Frontline Solutions, a Black-owned consulting firm that helps social-change organizations to define goals, execute plans, and evaluate impact. She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction at the Mountainview low-residency program, where she now teaches. 

Click here to join the Zoom event.

AI collaborates with Tour de Moon

As mentioned in The Guardian, Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s latest project Tour de Moon has been commissioned by Unboxed Festival 2022, and we’re delighted to announce that two of our staff members, Tatevik Ayvazyan and Olivia Melkonian, are on the Advisory Board.  The Board supports the project in selecting open calls to commission projects and participate in online classes aimed at skill-sharing, idea building and fund sourcing.

“Tour de Moon is a cosmic adventure, a large-scale public festival of immersive experiences and live events developed in collaboration with our “universal satellite”: the Moon, seen as a character, a landscape and a prompt for radical imagination. The festival, composed of 8 programming strands, aims to reach millions of visitors across the UK and the world in 2022, through live and virtual experiences, supporting youth, nightlife creators, scientists and digital creators through cooperation. With Tour de Moon, we seek new beginnings, to empower others to create, to initiate, to innovate with new thinking and pluralistic practices so that history does not repeat itself on and beyond Earth.”

Tour de Moon is calling young people aged 18-25 to get involved. Committed to redistribute wealth through their Bursary Scheme - with funds received from the grant - bursaries range from £100 to £25,000 with a range of opportunities to push your practice and have your work showcased in Tour de Moon (and to the Moon!). Whether you want to write, sing, speak or create, there is bound to be something for you to do during Tour de Moon. The initiative has  also secured collaborations with the SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, NASA SSERVI (Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute), the African Astronomical Society, Ghana Planetarium, NightTime Industries Association, and many other international institutions and youths clubs alongside the bursaries to support the development of global cooperative efforts beyond borders.

Visit Tour de Moon’s website to apply by 6 January 2022.

AGBU X AI: Special Poetry Award Announced

Since 2006, the AGBU Sayat Nova International Composition Competition has been inviting musicians of all heritages to be inspired by the grand tradition of Armenian arts. For the past fifteen years, composers have been creating original pieces inspired by the works of Armenian poets, for ensembles combining traditional Armenian instruments and western classical instruments. This year, close to forty submissions were received from 18 countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Lithuania, South Africa, and Venezuela.

This year, we were delighted that our director, Tatevik Ayvazyan, was invited to be on the jury for this groundbreaking competition, marrying music and poetry. We are thrilled to announce that this launched a collaboration between Armenian Institute and the AGBU Sayat Nova International Composition Competition to select a winner of the Armenian Institute Special Poetry Award as it occurs once every two years. This collaboration will provide composers with more opportunities for exposure, such as features in our podcasts, online publications, and special events.

In Tatevik’s own words “it was even sweeter to learn that my job was to read Vahan Teryan, one of my favourite poets, to assess the use of his poetry accompanying the compositions. I loved every moment of it and enjoyed hearing the music jury's opinions. 4 excellent winners emerged, with interesting interpretations of Teryan's lyrical, tender poetry and musical solutions.”

This year, the Armenian Institute Special Poetry Award was given to Nune Yeremyan from Artsakh, for her use of poetry in her piece “Night”. Tatevik comments that she was struck by Yeremyan’s expert weaving of two poems and music. We look forward to many more years of this exciting collaboration, and special thanks to Hayk Arsenyan, the head of AGBU Performing Arts for involving us in this exciting programme!