ABRAHAMIAN TALKS ABOUT BOOK APRIL 3
Belmont Citizen-Herald
March 19 2008
MA
The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
will present an illustrated lecture by Dr. Levon Abrahamian entitled
"Fighting with Memory and Monuments: Re-Shaping Post Soviet Armenian
Identity" at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 3, at the NAASR Center, 395
Concord Ave. in Belmont.
Dr. Abrahamian is currently Visiting Professor in the Department of
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California,
Los Angeles. He is the Head of the Department of Contemporary
Anthropological Studies at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia. He is the author of "Armenian
Identity in a Changing World" and the co-editor of "Armenian Folk
Arts, Culture, and Identity," and has authored other books and many
articles in Armenian and English.
Beginning in the years of perestroika, the stormy process of
reevaluating traditional Soviet key events, heroes, and "gods" was
started in Armenia. By the end of perestroika and especially in the
beginning of the post-communist era, much attention was focused on
the monuments that celebrated these Soviet luminaries and landmark
events. Abrahamian will discuss the fight over these monuments and
their symbolism in post-Soviet Armenia with attention to the broader
context of other post-Soviet countries.
Naturally, the main focus of the monument-fighters was the great
"ancestors" of the Soviet regime. Monuments of Stalin had already been
removed after his death. After Stalin, Lenin remained the main focus
of the monument-fighters’ revolutionary rage. During the anti-monument
movement, sometimes a kind of reinterpretation of a monument instead
of its destruction took place, and Abrahamian will present examples.
The fight over memory and monuments also involves the process of new
remembering and new monument raising. In general, the talk will give
an outline of the landscape of monuments in Yerevan and the nature
of memory discourse in late-Soviet and post-Soviet Armenia.
Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR
Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the
U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and
in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 8 p.m.