NAASR Hosts Matenadaran Leaders

BELMONT, MA — NAASR hosted a special reception on Tuesday, September 10, for Dr. Ara Khzmalyan, Director of the Matenadaran, Ms. Tatevik Muradian, Deputy Director of Development, and Sona Baloyan, International Development Specialist, who met with a group of NAASR Board members, supporters, scholars, and community leaders. Prior to the reception, the team from the Matenadaran received a tour of the NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, with a special focus on its Mardigian Library, from NAASR Library Curator Ani Babaian and Director of Academic Affairs Marc A. Mamigonian.

After enjoying light refreshments and Armenian wine in NAASR’s third-floor solarium, the guests moved to the seminar room for presentations. Offering brief introductory remarks, Mamigonian noted the importance NAASR places on collaboration with other organizations with similar goals and values, and that the Matenadaran is an organization NAASR is proud to have worked with in numerous ways over the years. He emphasized, “I don’t think the importance of the Matenadaran is news to anyone here, but nevertheless I suspect that many of us—even if you know about the Matenadaran, even if you have visited the Matenadaran—have only a partial sense of the scope of its work, which is vast and impressive.” He added that in recent years, nearly 20 Matenadaran-affiliated researchers have received grants from NAASR or the Knights of Vartan Fund for Armenian Studies, with whom NAASR partners, and he praised the July 2024 International Armenological Congress at the Matenadaran at which he spoke.

In honor of the visit, Ani Babaian then showed three of NAASR’s own manuscript treasures, a 17th century Kanonagirk‘ or book of canon law, a 17th century Sahman k‘erakanut‘iwn or book of grammar, and a fragment of the Book of Psalms, giving brief histories of these items for which NAASR is pursuing support to undertake their conservation. Mamigonian then introduced Ara Khzmalyan, who has been the Director of the Matenadaran for a little over a year, prior to which he was Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport.

As the featured speaker, Director Khzmalyan provided an illustrated presentation on the Matenadaran and its remarkable holdings—it is the world’s largest repository of Armenian manuscripts and also has important holdings in other languages—and its ongoing efforts to add to its collection, painstakingly conserve these precious cultural artifacts, and steps they are taking to make these treasures more accessible to researchers. He also touched on other vital projects such as launching a new peer-review journal Matenadaran: Medieval and Early Modern Armenian Studies (MEMAS), the current exhibition “1 Year’s Eternity: Manuscript Replenishments of the Matenadaran,” and the aforementioned International Armenological Congress. Khzmalyan then showed a 10-minute video of highlights from the Congress including clips from some of the presentations, interviews with participants, footage of the conference trip to Tatev monastery in Syunik, and a concert held in from of the Matenadaran building in Yerevan.