|
Simon Maghakyan, who is a
researcher of cultural destruction and Visiting Scholar at Tufts University. |
|
Armenian
News Network / Groong
Conversation on Groong: Save Armenian Monuments
In this Conversations on Groong episode, we’ll be talking about the
continuing degradation of Armenian heritage sites in historic Armenian lands,
and the problems of preserving our monuments and cultural sites against the
erosion of time, and the threat of destruction by anti-Armenian neighbors.
To discuss these issues with
our guests, our host today is:
|
Simon Maghakyan, who is a
researcher of cultural destruction and Visiting Scholar at Tufts University. |
|
This episode was recorded on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021.
SIMON:
One year ago this month, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
and Russia signed a ceasefire to end the second Nagorno-Karabakh war. Armenians
lost the war, as well as access to over 1,000 sacred sites. Today we will
discuss the future of Artsakh monuments under Azerbaijan’s control, and the
monumental fight for their preservation.
To talk about these issues, we are joined by:
|
Entrepreneur and lawyer Virginia Davies, who is the New
York-based founding president of Save Armenian Monuments |
|
And...
|
Prof. Heghnar Watenpaugh, who
teaches Art and Architecture at the University of California, Davis, and is a
board member of Save Armenian Monuments |
|
●
Heghnar,
it’s the 1st anniversary of the end of the 2020 war over Artsakh. Could you
give us a recap of what has happened so far in terms of cultural heritage in
the region?
●
Virginia, Save
Armenian Monuments is almost one year old. Can you tell us what
the organization has been up to so far?
●
Heghnar,
Virginia mentioned Artsakh pilgrimages. Can you tell us more about the
significance of pilgrimages for individuals, communities, and for the holy
places themselves?
●
Virginia, have you been following the recent cases
brought by Armenia and Azerbaijan at the International Court of
Justice. Can you tell us more about Armenia’s ask for protection of cultural
monuments and if there is legal precedence for this?
●
Heghnar,
in your Newsweek
piece you raised the question whether intentional
destruction of cultural heritage is racial discrimination. How would you answer
that question yourself, as a scholar of cultural heritage?
●
Virginia, what are the plans of Save Armenian
Monuments in the near future?
More complete Biography on our guests:
Virginia
Davies
Save
Armenian Monuments’s New York-based founding
president is a native of Toronto, Canada, a veteran champion for economic,
cultural, and political empowerment of underrepresented and underserved
communities, a commitment rooted in her experiences of being a granddaughter of
Armenian Genocide survivors and daughter of a small-business owner. Her career
has been in government, banking, entrepreneurship, and the nonprofit sector.
Davies’s
tireless experiences include participating, as a state attorney, in the Supreme
Court of Canada’s landmark Regina v. Big
M Mart Ltd religious freedom case; championing the United Nations
Foundation’s inaugural public-private partnership for international development
as the first Vice President of Capital
Partners; participating in Peace and Reconciliation conferences in
Uganda amid the 2006–2008 Juba talks; developing a post-Covid community
currency for small and medium businesses; increasing access to finance for
women and indigenous peoples-owned enterprises as
an executive officer at Bank of Montreal; founding digital small
businesses, training women to run for political office; and launching Women
Startup Armenia. Davies is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Advance
Management Program. Her experience as a board
member of the micro-lending pioneer Pro Mujer
prompted her return to school, where she completed a doctorate in law,
culminating in the 2008 publication Banking
for Growth.
Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh
Heghnar
Watenpaugh specializes in the history of art, architecture, and urbanism in the
Middle East, including architectural preservation, museums, and cultural
heritage. Her first book, The Image of an Ottoman City: Architecture in Aleppo,
was awarded the Spiro Kostof Book Prize from the
Society of Architectural Historians. She has also received Best Article Awards
from the Syrian Studies Association and the Ottoman and Turkish Studies
Association. Her newest book, The
Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript, from Genocide to
Justice was published by Stanford University Press in 2019. The Missing Pages
is the first book to receive book prizes from both the Society for Armenian
Studies and the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. It was selected by The
New York Times in its New and Noteworthy section, it was reviewed in the New
York Review of Books and the Wall Street Journal, and it was selected for the
top 25 books in the arts for 2019 by the art publication hyperallergic. The
Missing Pages also won the Gold Medal in World History from the Independent
Publisher Book Awards, and it was shortlisted for the William Saroyan
International Prize for Writing (non-fiction). Her research has been supported
by fellowships from the J. Paul Getty Trust, National Endowment for the
Humanities, Fulbright-Hays, Social Science Research Council, the Center for
Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, and the
Office of the President of the University of California. She has served on the
boards of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Syrian Studies
Association, and the Historians of Islamic Art Association, among other
professional organizations. In 2020 she was named a fellow of the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and a National Endowment for the Humanities
Public Scholar.
That concludes this Conversations On
Groong episode. We hope it was
helpful in your understanding of some of the issues involved. We look forward
to your feedback, including your suggestions for Conversation topics in
the future. Contact us on our website, at groong.org,
or on our Facebook Page “ANN - Groong”,
or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News Network”.
Special thanks to Laura
Osborn for providing the music for our podcast. On behalf of everyone in this
episode, we wish you a good week. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channels, Like our pages and follow us on social media. Thank you for
listening and we’ll talk to you soon.
Armenia, Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh, Cultural Monuments, Heritage Sites, Preservation, Destruction, UNESCO, ICJ, International Court of Justice, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Religion, Cultural sites,
