Kazan Scholar Siekierski Completes Stay in Fresno

Emma Shaljyan
Staff Writer

Fresno State was just one stop of many for Konrad Siekierski, a Kazan visiting research scholar, who was invited by the Armenian Studies Program to conduct research on his dissertation on pilgrims and their pilgrimages, from the Diaspora to Western Armenia.

Siekierski departed Fresno in March after a very productive four months spent researching and conducting interviews. His research focused on anthropological literature related to pilgrimage and he was able to utilize the excellent resources of the Henry Madden Library, which are not available in Poland or Armenia.
Siekierski can now analyze the texts and use them for his dissertation, which he plans to complete by early 2014.

Siekierski’s journey continued, as he returned to Poland for a few months and then attended a conference to open an exhibition of Armenian art at the Budapest National Museum in Hungary. In the summer, he visited Germany to continue his work editing a volume on religiosity, and then traveled to Armenian for more field work.

Siekierski continues to collect additional material on the topic of folk pilgrimage within Armenia and in particular, pilgrimages organized by clergy. He plans to eventually compare the experiences of the pilgrimages of priests from Armenia, with those traveling from the Diaspora.

After completing his dissertation, Siekierski plans to stay connected to the Armenian community. He would like to continue to engage in other research in Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora, as he enjoys both his research and the people that he meets.