Armenian colloquium helps preserve culture
By Skye Mayring
March 5, 2006 9:00 p.m.
A monk who blinded himself in order to resist temptation.
Women demand the right to divorce the husbands who abandoned
them.
The emergence of a 17th-century school of miniaturist
painters.
These and other subjects were discussed at Friday’s
graduate student colloquium, underscoring larger historical, social
and artistic research topics in Armenian studies.
The UCLA Armenian Graduate Students Association hosted its
fourth annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies on
Friday, which is a daylong event of interdisciplinary presentations
and discussions.
Attendees included international scholars from Hungary, Lebanon,
Armenia, the United States, Israel and England, lecturing on art,
drama and film in addition to social and religious issues
concerning Armenian communities.
The colloquium was created “by grad students for grad
students,” said Ara Soghomonian, one of the event organizers
and lecturers.
The lecturers consisted solely of graduate scholars, several of
whom arranged the event.
The colloquium’s exchange of information and the
intermingling of scholars was intended to foster the professional
and academic careers of the graduate students involved, according
to the event’s program.
An analysis of the critically acclaimed diaspora novel
“Retreat Without Song” was led by Nanor Kenderian, a
graduate student in Oriental studies at Oxford University in
England.
Myrna Douzjian, project director for the Colloquium, said she
looked forward to this particular presentation the most because the
novel is considered an “Armenian classic.”
Each session of lectures was followed by an open discussion
which allowed the audience to ask the panel questions.
A surge of questions followed a presentation on marriage
legalities for Armenians in the late Ottoman period led by Hasmik
Khalapyan, a doctoral candidate at the History Department of
Central European University in Hungary. Since there were no written
laws on marriage until 1914, polygamy was common while obtaining a
divorce could be tediously difficult, Khalapyan said.
When asked if Armenian women continue to play a subordinate role
in marriage, Khalapyan said “(women) don’t play a
subordinate role in just Armenia, but everywhere.”
The effects of the Ottoman Empire’s rule on Armenian
history have produced controversial accounts from different
countries.
“Armenian history is the struggle to maintain Armenian
identity,” said Dzovig Kassabian, a doctoral student in
Mental Health and Trauma at Haigazian University in Lebanon.
One issue within the Armenian community is the 1915 Armenian
Genocide, which neither the U.S. nor the Turkis government has ever
officially recognized. An estimated 1.5 million people were killed
and surviving Armenian families were forced to evacuate.
“My grandparents were deported from Armenia in 1915. So, I
am the second generation (born in Lebanon). It is my dream to move
back to Armenia,” Kassabian said.
Several of the colloquium lecturers said they observed
significant political and communal progression in their visits to
Armenia since it gained its freedom from Soviet rule 15 years
ago.
“When I first went there in 1995 the people seemed not so
much defeated, but that something was bogging them down. In 2002,
they were much more open to other cultures and concerned with
making progress within their community,” said Janelle
Pulczinski, a graduate student in Near Eastern Languages and
Cultures at UCLA and a former Peace Corps volunteer in Sissian,
Armenia.
The association created another arena for the flow of Armenian
ideas in the Kerckhoff Art Gallery this past weekend, an exhibition
of the posters.
“The Armenian Genocide: the Power of Posters”
exhibit featured replicas of the 1918 relief agency posters which
raised funds for survivors.
