Members of FAR’s educational program committee recently visited the sites where this year’s grantees from the Armenian National Science and Education Fund (ANSEF) are currently conducting their research. For the past 10 months, these 27 groups have been working on a wide range of projects in the sciences and the humanities. Their work has been featured in more than 65 news articles published in international scientific journals and they have also presented their work at more than 40 conferences and symposiums throughout this year.
This week FAR will be highlighting the work of selected ANSEF groups.
To learn more about FAR’s ANSEF program click here.
For nearly 45 years Dr. Argam Ayvazyan has honed his expertise and nurtured his passion for Armenology. After winning one of FAR’s 2010 Armenian National Science and Education Fund (ANSEF) grants, he began work on his book about the history of the Armenian monuments in Nakhijevan, something he believes to be an extremely important part of Armenian history.
“As someone who was born in Nakhijevan, I have always felt great responsibility to summarize all the materials about this fascinating land that I have collected over the years. It’s important that we create a new representation of the rich history of this region’s Armenian monuments and their etchings,” he said. “I feel pain when I see how in recent years the Azerbaijanis have destroyed our monuments, practically eliminating them. My heart aches because of this and I want to alarm the international public about such a terrible thing.”
In 2007 Dr. Ayvazyan conducted a symposium and photography exhibition at Harvard University called “The Armenian Monuments of Nakhijevan,” during which he told me that he received great support from Harvard’s Dr. James Russell, Mashtots professor of Armenian Studies at the Department of Near Eastern Language and Civilizations.
Using some of the material from that exhibit, along with the rest of his life’s work, Dr. Ayvazyan completed The Lithographic Inheritance of Nakhijevan, published just days ago. Without support from ANSEF, his book would have been postponed indefinitely.
Dr. Ayvazyan presented FAR with the first sample when we talked. A dedication to ANSEF is printed in the beginning pages.