The 13th conference of International Association for Armenian Studies (AIEA) took place in Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Matenadaran of Yerevan, on October 9-11 (See the conference program). The conference kicked off with opening speech by Director of Matenadaran Hrachya Tamrazyan. Stressing the importance of this event for Armenian Studies Hrachya Tamrazyan especially mentioned, “Being an expert of Armenian Studies means to communicate with a large field, with millennia of history and culture and also with spiritual sensitive world, where the person, who enters, will become a devotee.”
The Chairman of Matenadaran’s Board of the Management Vigen Sargsyan read the greeting of the President of the Republic of Armenia S. Sargsyan addressed to the participants at the opening ceremony. His Holiness Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II also sent his Pontifical blessing to the opening conference.
International Association for Armenian Studies carrying international great authority was founded in 1981 by initiative of armenologists Prof. Michael Stone and Prof. Jos Weitenberg. The Association combines over 400 armenologists and representatives of adjacent professions from more than 20 countries (since 1988 also from Armenia). The basic goals of association: to stimulate Armenian studies’ development with his all spheres; to combine and put into the circulation the newest results of studies; to organize the exchange of experience of this sphere’s specialists.
During the three days of Yerevan’s conference at three halls of Matenadaran (large hall, reading hall and virtual hall) have been read 70 reports. At the end of the session was discussion of reports read during the conference.
At the closing of the conference, the president of AIEA Prof. Valentina Calzolari, the secretary Theo Maarten van Lint and the participants thanked the Matenadaran’s directorate and conference organizers for conference organization with a high level. New monographs and books will be born in the result of conference, because it became a platform for many new initiatives. As the “firstborn,” the collection of reports presented at the conference will be published.
The next meeting of armenologists will be held in the same format in Oxford three years later in 2017.