April 14, 2009

PRESS RELEASE
UCLA AEF Chair in Armenian History
Contact: James Robbins, jrobbins@international.ucla.edu
Tel: 310-825-3375
Email: Hovannis@history.ucla.edu

Professor Hovannisian in European/American Conferences
International Conferences

UCLA. During the first quarter of 2009, Professor Richard G.
Hovannisian, AEF Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA, participated
in twelve conferences and community lectures in Europe and the United
States. The most recent was the 35th Anniversary Conference of the
Society for Armenian Studies held at UCLA from March 26-28. Hovannisian,
serving for the seventh time as the president of the SAS, was the
conference coordinator and chaired the session on the hundredth
anniversary of the Adana/Cilicia massacres of 1909, with the
participation of Drs. Bedross Der Matossian, Rubina Peroomian, and Ph.D.
candidate Ohannes Kilicdagi.

Drs. Richard and Vartiter Hovannisian were in Stockholm,
Sweden, from March 20 to 25, for an international conference titled "The
Legacy of the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire," with the
participation of Armenian, Assyrian, Pontic, Turkish, and Swedish
scholars. The moving force behind conference, held in the Kungsholmens
Konferens Center on March 23, was Mr. Vahagn Avedian, Chairman of the
Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden, together with Stefan Anderson
of the Living History Forum. In his morning keynote address on "The
Phases and Faces of the Denial of the 1915 Genocides," Hovannisian
assessed the various stages and changing strategies of denial from 1915
to the present. Ragip Zarakolu of Istanbul reflected on current
discussions of the genocide in Turkey; Prof. David Gaunt explained the
internal and external struggle for recognition of the Assyrian Genocide;
Laurent Leylekian of the Armenian Federation, Brussels, analyzed
Turkey’s policy relating to the Armenian Genocide within the framework
of accession to the European Union; and Professor Ove Bring considered
the legal dimensions of the 1915 atrocities. The conference was
moderated by noted foreign correspondent Marika Griehsel.

On March 22, Hovannisian, Zarakolu, and Leylekian engaged in
an informal roundtable with the Swedish Armenian community and
organizations. And on March 24, before returning to the United States
for the SAS conference, Hovannisian was guest lecturer at Uppsala
University on the topic of the "Armenian Genocide as the Prototype of
Modern Mass Killings."

Prior to his trip to Sweden, Richard Hovannisian was at the University
of Michigan-Ann Arbor, for a four-day conference, March 18-21, on
"Armenia and Armenians in International Treaties." The conference was
organized by the Michigan Armenian Studies Program under the direction
of Prof. Gerard Libaridian. Among the more than twenty treaties that
were discussed, Hovannisian focused on "The Unratified Treaty of
Alexandropol as the Basis for Subsequent Russian-Turkish-Armenian
Relations," giving little-known details about the negotiation of the
controversial treaty and its relevance today.

Community Lectures

Hovannisian’s community lectures during the first part of 2009 included
the Comité des Arméniens de Belgique in Brussels, February 1; St.
James Church and its newly-formed Armenian Cultural Association of
Sacramento, February 7; Armenian Cultural Association of Munich,
February 21, and Surp Khatch Armenian Church and Armenian Association of
Baden-Württemberg, Germany, February 22; St. Sarkis Church and
Armenian Cultural Association of the Carolinas, Charlotte, February 28;
La Casa Armena Milano, Italy, March 8; and the Armenian National
Committee of Providence, April 3. In addition, on March 4, Richard
Hovannisian was at the Pasadena headquarters of Facing History and
Ourselves, Inc. to direct a conference call with staff members around
the country on issues relating to the Armenian Genocide and approaches
to teaching the subject in middle schools and high schools.

In the second half of April, Richard and Vartiter
Hovannisian will be in Yerevan for the annual meeting of the National
Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia and to participate in a
conference sponsored by the Armenian Genocide Institute and Museum on
the Cilician massacres of 1909.

END