News

Staff Report The GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program announced that the Armenian Studies Program was awarded a $5,000 grant for 2019-2020.  The Armenian Studies Program was one of 15 recipients in the United States to receive a grant to help facilitate a range of research on a variety of subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs. ...

Staff Report Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Member of the Board of the Saroyan House Museum, was invited to introduce the film Lights!Camera!Saroyan! to the St. Apkar Church community on July 25, 2019. Following the showing of the movie, community members expressed their interest in the Saroyan House Museum in Fresno.

Staff Report This year marked the second Fresno Institute for Classical Armenian Translation Summer Institute (FICAT). Following upon the success of last year’s FICAT institute held at Fresno State, the directors, Drs. Sergio La Porta and Michael Pifer, decided to lead students to work at the Matenadaran (the Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts) in Yerevan, Armenia this summer. The FICAT ...

  David Safrazian Staff Writer “Each time we sing a song, though it has been sung before, it is new,” said Aram Kerovpyan. Armenian church music was nearly completely torn away from its homeland since the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Musicologists Aram and Virginia Kerovpyan visited Fresno State on Wednesday, May 1, to present a new film, Singing in Exile, ...

Armen Sahag Kouymjian  (1936 Tulcea, Romania – 2019 Pasadena)   Armen Kouymjian was the third and last child of Zabelle Calusdian Kouymjian and Toros Kouymjian. He was born an American citizen while his father, mother and older brother Dickran were visiting his father’s parents in Romania where they had fled after the Kemalist’s burning of Izmir (Smyrna) in 1922. His ...

Christine Pambukyan Staff Writer Combining musical energy and beautiful rhythms, the Cadence Ensemble performed in the Fresno State Concert Hall on Friday, April 26, as part of their celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Armenia’s noted composer Komitas Vardapet. The Cadence Ensemble performance was part of the World Music Series of the Keyboard Concert Series and was ...

Arlen Pilavian Plant Science Minor in Armenian Studies   What encouraged you to take an Armenian Studies course? The rich background and history of the Armenian people. I owed it to my ancestors to complete my cycle of Armenian studies courses after graduating from the Armenian Community School of Fresno. What was your favorite Armenian Studies class, activity, or event? ...

Arshak Abelyan Staff Writer The borders and barriers imposed by empires have created names which have divided the Armenian homeland for centuries. The designation “Armenian Highland” was purged from maps beginning in the 1940’s, and earlier the Armenian Genocide had attempted to completely eliminate the Armenian people. Matthew Karanian wanted to celebrate the history and culture of the Armenians and ...

  David Safrazian Staff Writer Calouste Gulbenkian, “Mr. Five Per Cent” or “The Honest Broker,” became the world’s wealthiest man by negotiating a five percent share of the Turkish Petroleum Company (later the Iraq Petroleum Company). Following the drawing of the famous “Red Line” in 1928, delineating the areas of oil exploration in the Middle East, Gulbenkian became a partner ...

Annie Rubio Editor “Who is going to write our history?” This was the existential question that faced the first generation of the Armenian Diaspora, who were forced out of their homes and villages during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Unable to return home, they relied on their memories to draw maps, write music, and record their memoirs. Today, these efforts ...