Full title: Celebrating Forty Years of Armenian Studies | Armenian Transformations, 1981-2021: How Forty Years of Michigan Armenian Studies Looked at Imperial Collapse, Ethnic War, and the Rebirth of Independence
Recorded on March 11, 2022
From the creation of the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History in 1981 to the catastrophic defeat of the Armenian Republic in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, scholars at the University of Michigan have been in the vanguard of examining and attempting to understand the experiences of Armenians in modern times. When the chair was established, Armenia was a small Soviet republic, and half of the world's Armenians lived in scattered diasporic communities. Within a decade the Soviet empire had disintegrated, and Armenia became an independent state beset by hostile neighbors. The republic survived despite losses of population and economic distress. A thriving civil society defied the rule of oligarchs and self-serving politicians, and in 2018 crowds marched to the capital to make a democratic revolution. Just as they rebounded from genocide more than 100 years ago, Armenians once again must deal with loss and find a path to renewal.
Examining the recent past of Armenians in the homeland and in the diaspora, three Manoogian chairholders – Ronald Grigor Suny, Gerard Libaridian, and Hakem Al-Rustom – will present short talks on the turbulent events of the last four decades.
"A Republic, If You Can Keep It”
Gerard Libaridian, Professor Emeritus; former Alex Manoogian Professor in Modern Armenian History (2001-12), University of Michigan
“The Making of Modern Armenia: From Soviet Republic to Precarious Present”
Ronald Grigor Suny, William H. Sewell Jr Distinguished University Professor of History; former Alex Manoogian Professor in Modern Armenian History (1981-97), University of Michigan
“Living in the Future of the Armenian Catastrophe”
Hakem Al-Rustom, Alex Manoogian Professor of Modern Armenian History, University of Michigan
The evening will conclude with a musical offering by award-winning flutist, artistic director, and author Sato Moughalian and pianist and composer Thomas Jennings. The program includes arrangements of pieces by composer and ethnomusicologist Grikor Mirzaian Suni (1876-1939), grandfather of Ronald Grigor Suny.
Cosponsored by Perspectives Ensemble and the Jarvis & Constance Family Foundation's Danièle Doctorow Prize; Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies; Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia.
