BELMONT, Mass. — The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and the Matenadaran / Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in Yerevan, Armenia, with the co-sponsorship of the AGBU New England District, will hold a webinar on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, at 12:00 noon (Eastern Time), “Manuscript Heritage of Artsakh and Utik,” presented by Dr. Vahan Ter-Ghevondian, the director of the Matenadaran.

The webinar, the second of a series of NAASR collaborations with the Matenadaran, will be accessible live on Zoom (registration required) and on NAASR’s YouTube Channel.

In this webinar, Dr. Ter-Ghevondian will present the recent Matenadaran publication Manuscript Heritage of Artsakh and Utik, co-authored by Dr. Hravard Hakobyan, Dr. Tamara Minasyan and Dr. Vahe Torosyan. The publication was made possible by a grant from the Lawrence Terzian Fund of the AGBU within the framework of the AGBU Artsakh Research Grants.

The volume consists of three parts and reflects the history of Artsakh and Utik, presents the scriptoria and educational centers of these regions that operated adjacent to the large monasteries, as well as reveals the iconographic peculiarities of illuminated manuscripts created between the 13th and the 18th centuries. More than 100 images of the illuminated manuscripts are included in the book, aimed at propagating the rich and, at the same time, little known written culture of Artsakh and Utik.

Dr. Ter-Ghevondian has served as the director of the Matenadaran since 2018, having been the acting director since 2016. He is the author of L’Arménie Cilicienne et les Pays Arabes du Proche-Orient (1990), Kilikyan Hayastaně ev Ayyubyan petutʻyunnerě (1171-1260) (Cilician Armenia and the Ayyubid States, 1171-1260), and co-editor of Catalogue of the Qurʼan Manuscripts of the Matenadaran (2017), among numerous other publications.