Armenian Museum of America Uses Ancient Treasures to Excite New Interest

Article by By Aram Arkun

 The Armenian Museum of America has been closed to visitors since the start of the coronavirus pandemic last year, but inside its landmark building in Watertown, the staff has been busier than ever, researching its collections, preparing new exhibits, and finding ways to connect through the media and Internet with the public.

 For a museum to be able to operate effectively, it is not enough to possess an extensive and interesting collection. Well-funded research is necessary for identification of items and their proper presentation in exhibits. Fortunately, the museum was able to bring scholar Dr. Alisa Dumikyan from Armenia to help in this work. She was working in France with a post-doctoral grant, related Berj Chekijian, the museum’s director of finance and building operations, when Michele Kolligian, president of the board of trustees, made the connection with her.

 Dumikyan was born in the village of Metsavan in the northern Armenian province of Lori. She went to school in the nearby town of Tashir before going to Yerevan for her higher education. She studied at the Valery Bryusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences from 1995 to 2000 and after graduating, was invited to teach there for about a decade. She also taught at the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University and the French University while continuing her education.

 After a master’s degree from the National Academy of Sciences in 2008, Dumikyan worked as a senior researcher in the Academy’s Institute of History while completing her doctorate, which concerns 19th century issues in French Armenology, and afterwards led to the Armenian-language book “Issues in the History of Ancient and Early Medieval Armenia in French Armenology of the 19th Century.”

 At the museum, Dumikyan explained that it was necessary to first reexamine the collections to see what they encompass. There was a manuscript listed as from the 16th century, for example, which she realized might not be from that period. It was not a hymnal as described, but actually a “manr usumn” liturgical musical codice, with melodies indicated by the khaz type of Armenian musical notation. Dumikyan began contacting experts in Armenia to confirm her suspicions. This type of work was important in the Cilician Armenian kingdom, and indeed, it was confirmed by Arusyak Tamrazyan in Yerevan that it dated from the 14th century.

 Click here to read the full story on the Armenian Mirror-Spectator website.

A Statement From the Armenian Museum of America on April 24, 2021

The Armenian Genocide was the attempted annihilation of the Armenian people – physically and culturally – from their ancestral homeland. This brutal murder of the Armenian nation by the Ottoman Turks constitutes the first genocide of the 20th century.

Those who carried out the crime were never held to account and successive Turkish governments deny the Armenian Genocide, which began on April 24, 1915.

The failure of the international community to respond decisively to this epic tragedy encourages other regimes to conduct similar murderous campaigns, and it was a precursor to the Holocaust. We have witnessed the ongoing legacy of the Genocide in Artsakh in recent months, where Azerbaijan is carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure.

Prevention and punishment for the crime of genocide remains a challenge for all people who believe in a world based on human rights and justice. Therefore, we applaud President Biden for recognizing the Armenian Genocide in his statement to the community on April 24.

For the White House statement please click here.

Our Executive Director Jason Sohigian was interviewed by PRI's The World, where he discussed the Genocide and its relevance to Armenia and Artsakh (click the play button below to hear the interview).

Tufts University Art Galleries presents Connecting Threads / Survivor Objects

Saghavard (Liturgical Crown), 1751. Metal, sequins, gold metallic thread on velvet. Gift of Paul and Vicki Bedoukian, collection of the Armenian Museum of America

MEDFORD, Mass.—Connecting Threads / Survivor Objects explores the kaleidoscopic world of Armenian liturgical textiles from the collections of the Armenian Museum of America and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Embroidered, block printed and painted, these objects dating to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries show the multidimensional nature of liturgical textiles and bear witness to the vitality of Armenian communities during the Ottoman Empire and their influence along global commercial routes. While many Ottoman Armenian churches are now in ruins after successive waves of persecution from the 1890s to the 1920s, these fragile and beautiful textiles bear witness to the survival of a people, their identity and faith. 

Sought after and admired for their aesthetic qualities, ecclesiastical textiles played a central role in the celebration of the divine liturgy. These stunning works in linen, silk and velvet pay homage to the long-standing Armenian tradition of weaving and needlework. Their rich imagery is a sophisticated reflection of Armenian art and of Byzantine, post-Byzantine, European and Islamic sewing and painting traditions. 

Under the Ottoman Empire, Armenian communities occupied a broad geographical area ranging from the Caucasus to the Anatolian peninsula, from Crimea to Russia and Western Europe, and from Amsterdam to East and South Asia. One of the first Christian civilizations, Armenia was a vital fulcrum for international trade routes and the circulation of visual ideas in the early modern period. 

The textiles in this exhibition originated in the prosperous Armenian communities of Istanbul, Tokat, Talas, Kütahya and Gümüșhane—all in modern day Turkey—as well as in Armenian trading settlements in Surabaya, Indonesia. Their inscriptions provide invaluable information about craftsmen, patrons, and church foundations. These details offer a glimpse into the world in which the textiles were created and convey a sense of the connected and dynamic culture of the Armenian communities before the Hamidian Massacres of the 1890s and the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1922. 

It is critical to acknowledge the history surrounding these objects and promote new academic research, particularly in the current climate, when violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region threatens many Armenian cultural heritage sites. Once again, tangible and intangible Armenian patrimony is at risk of being lost forever. 

The exhibition has been developed with undergraduate and graduate students from the seminar The Threads of Survival: Armenian Liturgical Textiles in Local Collections at Tufts University in spring 2021: Jeffrey Bui, Elettra Conoly, Claudia Haines, Andrea Horn, Sara McAleer, Atineh Movsesian, Grace Rotermund, Shirley Wang, Cas Weld, and Sofia Zamboli. 

Many of these textiles received the scholarly attention they deserve for the first time as students engaged in close examination of each individual textile at the Armenian Museum of America alongside in-class discussions about the objects and relevant literature. The exhibition labels and educational material present the outcome of their extensive research.

Organized by Christina Maranci, Arthur H. Dadian and Ara Oztemel Professor of Armenian Art and Architecture, Tufts University, and Chiara Pidatella, Tufts University Art Galleries research curator.

Connecting Threads/Survivor Objects will be open from August 30 to December 5, 2021 at the Aidekman Arts Center/Koppelman Gallery.

Unique Folk Art Recreates the World Before the Armenian Genocide

Photo by George Bouret

Article by Hrag Vartanian

 In the Armenian Museum of America, there’s a curious collection of dioramas that might represent one of the most unique forms of Armenian-American folk art. On the first floor of the Watertown, Massachusetts-based museum is a small model of a home from the now-gone town of Hussenig, which was once located in the province of Kharpert (Harput) during the time of the Ottoman Empire.

 The model was made by an elderly man from Yerevan, Armenia, named Haji-Hagopian, who arrived in the United States in 1990 and went to a dentist named Martin Deranian. During their appointment, the doctor started talking about his famous uncle Hagop Bogigian, and the name rang a bell for the visitor. It turned out Bogigian’s family had helped Haji-Hagopian’s father during the Armenian Genocide.

 Deranian pounced on his guest’s words and asked him if he remembered the family’s home. Haji-Hagopian joked that he couldn’t even remember what he ate that day, but he remembered that house. He would eventually be convinced to recreate the home from memory with the help of another man. Together they created a model replica, which continues to be proudly displayed in the museum, serving as a monument to a place that no longer exists.

 The diorama, which is one of five in the museum’s collection, demonstrates a unique type of folk art that only appears to exist in the United States. Some were made by the immigrants themselves, while others were commissioned to be made by compatriots to help survivors feel closer to their lost homes.

 Curator Gary Lind-Sinanian suggests that their creation might also have to do with the long tradition of building models of Armenian churches, many of which are also in AMA’s collection. He also wonders if similar regional dioramas, such as more well-known examples at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, might have inspired them.

 Visitors to the Peabody encounter dioramas which offer glimpses not only of natural scenes, but also of traditional scenes of Native American culture. The dioramas in AMA’s collection certainly evoke the style, scale, and manner of the Native American exhibits at the Peabody. Why the makers may have emulated those models remains a mystery, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine they felt a personal connection with the scenes of idealized Indigenous life, before the violence of colonization and removal.

 Click here to read the full story on the Hyperallergic website.

Armenian Museum of America Launches Genocide Education and New Online Concert in April

The Armenian Museum is presenting a series of programs in April including an Online Concert by the Nairyan Vocal Ensemble on Sunday, April 11 at 2:00 pm EST (10:00 pm in Armenia).

The Armenian Museum of America recently announced a series of programs planned for April, with several focused on Genocide Education since the world recognizes April 24 as the date when the extermination of the Armenian people began in 1915. The Armenian Genocide resulted in the deaths of more than 1.5 million people and the displacement of many more from their homeland at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

One of the major offerings from the Museum will be a Virtual Exhibition titled “Campaign for Compassion: Lady Anne, General Azgapetian, and Near East Relief.” Many around the world remained silent during the Genocide, however there were some who worked feverishly to aid survivors and to raise awareness about the crimes occurring in the region. This exhibition focuses on a husband and wife who led such a campaign for Near East Relief.

The exhibition was sponsored by a grant from the Cummings Foundation, and it is an excerpt from a new exhibition on the Museum’s second floor gallery curated by Visiting Scholar Dr. Alisa Dumikyan.

Curator Gary Lind-Sinanian offers a series of weekly “Object Show and Tell” videos on the Museum’s website and Facebook page, and several have themes related to Genocide Education in April. These include Near East Relief fundraising posters, a costume worn by a boy who survived the Genocide, and village dioramas created by survivors of the Genocide who provided visual evidence of Armenian family and village life. This video series with the Curator is sponsored by a generous donation from Michele Kolligian, President of the Armenian Museum.

The Museum is participating in several community events to commemorate the Genocide, from Armenian Heritage Park in Boston to a joint event with The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law and other organizations. This event will take place via Zoom on April 20, and MIT’s Lerna Ekmekcioglu and UCLA’s Melissa Bilal will follow the story of a friendship between two Armenian women in Istanbul that endured the hardships of World War I, the Armenian Genocide, and Turkey’s repressive minority politics.

“During the month of April, we remember and honor those who were lost, celebrate the strength of the survivors and the communities they built or rebuilt, and warn the world of the possibility for this kind of atrocity to occur again,” says Executive Director Jason Sohigian. “The story of the Genocide and the world’s reaction is not an isolated one tucked away in history. This is painfully obvious as we witnessed anti-Armenian ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure in Artsakh in recent months.”

Earlier in the month, the Museum will present its fourth Online Concert. The performance by the all-female Nairyan Vocal Ensemble will be released on Sunday, April 11 at 2:00 pm EST (11:00 am PST and 10:00 pm in Armenia). The performance was recorded at Yerevan’s Komitas Chamber Music Hall exclusively for the Armenian Museum. This concert series is supported by a grant from the Dadourian Foundation and is curated by Maestro Konstantin Petrossian, artistic director, composer, and conductor. It is free, open to the public, pre-registration is not required, and the video will be made available on the Museum’s website, YouTube Channel, and social media pages including Facebook.

The goal of the Nairyan Ensemble is to popularize Armenian composers, spread classical, spiritual, and folk music, and to help empower women. The ensemble consists of five young women with professional music training. They sing polyphonic songs, mainly in a cappella, and some of the songs are performed with clarinet, tambourine, and other instruments.

Their aim has been to make music available, especially in places where classical music is not typically performed or heard. In 2018, the ensemble began performing songs in sign language. By 2019, the ensemble had translated 32 songs by Armenian composers into sign language so they can be enjoyed by people with hearing impairments.

“With everything that has transpired in Artsakh and Armenia in recent months -- and as we turn to remembrance of the Genocide in April -- we are pleased to present this concert by the Nairyan Vocal Ensemble,” concludes Sohigian. “I think you’ll agree that the Nairyan Choir conveys a sense of hope and optimism in these challenging times, and we celebrate and honor their talent and creativity.”