Armenian Legacy in India


Book Description

"Armenian Legacy in India" is a seminal work by Dr. Prashant Madanmohan and Mari Poghosyan, illuminating the profound connections and cultural exchanges between India and Armenia. This book is a testament to their extensive research and his passionate advocacy for Armenian culture, offering readers a rich tapestry of stories, historical insights, and cultural intersections.It has been featured on The Armenia Virtual Museum at Cognishit.org




The Armenians


Book Description

The Armenians traces the evolution of Armenia and Armenian collective identity from its beginnings to the Armenian nationalist movement over Gharabagh in 1988. Applying theories of national-identity formation and nationalism, Razmik Panossian analyzes different elements of Armenian identity construction and argues that national identity is modern, predominantly subjective, and based on a political sense of belonging. Yet he also acknowledges the crucial role of history, art, literature, religious practice, and commerce in preserving the national memory and shaping the cultural identity of the Armenian people. Panossian explores a series of landmark events, among them Armenians' first attempts at liberation, the Armenian renaissance of the nineteenth century, the 1915 genocide of the Ottoman Armenians, and Soviet occupation. He shows how these influences led to a "multilocal" evolution of Armenian identity in various places in and outside of Armenia, notably in diasporan communities from India to Venice. Today, these numerous identities contribute to deep divisions and tensions within the Armenian nation, the most profound of which is the cultural divide between Armenians residing in their homeland and those who live in the United States, Canada, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Considering the diversity of this single nation, Panossian questions the theoretical assumption that nationalism must be homogenizing. Based on extensive research conducted in Armenia and the diaspora, including interviews and translation of Armenian-language sources, The Armenians is an engaging history and an invaluable comparative study.










The Grandchildren


Book Description

The Grandchildren is a collection of intimate, harrowing testimonies by grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Turkey's "forgotten Armenians"—the orphans adopted and Islamized by Muslims after the Armenian genocide. Through them we learn of the tortuous routes by which they came to terms with the painful stories of their grandparents and their own identity. The postscript offers a historical overview of the silence about Islamized Armenians in most histories of the genocide. When Fethiye cetin first published her groundbreaking memoir in Turkey, My Grandmother, she spoke of her grandmother's hidden Armenian identity. The book sparked a conversation among Turks about the fate of the Ottoman Armenians in Anatolia in 1915. This resulted in an explosion of debate on Islamized Armenians and their legacy in contemporary Muslim families. The Grandchildren (translated from Turkish) is a follow-up to My Grandmother, and is an important contribution to understanding survival during atrocity. As witnesses to a dark chapter of history, the grandchildren of these survivors cast new light on the workings of memory in coming to terms with difficult pasts.




Bengal, Past & Present


Book Description




From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean


Book Description

Drawing on a rich trove of documents, including correspondence not seen for 300 years, this study explores the emergence and growth of a remarkable global trade network operated by Armenian silk merchants from a small outpost in the Persian Empire. Based in New Julfa, Isfahan, in what is now Iran, these merchants operated a network of commercial settlements that stretched from London and Amsterdam to Manila and Acapulco. The New Julfan Armenians were the only Eurasian community that was able to operate simultaneously and successfully in all the major empires of the early modern world—both land-based Asian empires and the emerging sea-borne empires—astonishingly without the benefits of an imperial network and state that accompanied and facilitated European mercantile expansion during the same period. This book brings to light for the first time the trans-imperial cosmopolitan world of the New Julfans. Among other topics, it explores the effects of long distance trade on the organization of community life, the ethos of trust and cooperation that existed among merchants, and the importance of information networks and communication in the operation of early modern mercantile communities.




Music and the Armenian Diaspora


Book Description

Survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915 and their descendants have used music to adjust to a life in exile and counter fears of obscurity. In this nuanced and richly detailed study, Sylvia Angelique Alajaji shows how the boundaries of Armenian music and identity have been continually redrawn: from the identification of folk music with an emergent Armenian nationalism under Ottoman rule to the early postgenocide diaspora community of Armenian musicians in New York, a more self-consciously nationalist musical tradition that emerged in Armenian communities in Lebanon, and more recent clashes over music and politics in California. Alajaji offers a critical look at the complex and multilayered forces that shape identity within communities in exile, demonstrating that music is deeply enmeshed in these processes. Multimedia components available online include video and audio recordings to accompany each case study.




The Empires of the Near East and India


Book Description

In the early modern world, the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal empires sprawled across a vast swath of the earth, stretching from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. The diverse and overlapping literate communities that flourished in these three empires left a lasting legacy on the political, religious, and cultural landscape of the Near East and India. This volume is a comprehensive sourcebook of newly translated texts that shed light on the intertwined histories and cultures of these communities, presenting a wide range of source material spanning literature, philosophy, religion, politics, mysticism, and visual art in thematically organized chapters. Scholarly essays by leading researchers provide historical context for closer analyses of a lesser-known era and a framework for further research and debate. The volume aims to provide a new model for the study and teaching of the region’s early modern history that stands in contrast to the prevailing trend of examining this interconnected past in isolation.




India - Armenia


Book Description

India- Armenia: So Far Yet So Close, written by Achal Malhotra, who served as India's Ambassador to Armenia (2009-12), traces the origins of people to people contacts between Armenia and India to at least 2nd century B.C., and thereafter narrates the story of the glorious past of Armenians in India from medieval India up to India's independence in 1947. He finally highlights the emergence of a new quality of cooperation between the Indian and the Armenian people at the end of the 20th century, which came as a result of the establishment of official ties between the newly independent Republic of Armenia and India on August 31, 1992, and presents his own inspirational vision for the future of this cooperation, based on his insights as a key player in its development. The readers will be struck with the drastic contrast between the harmonious integration and prosperity of Armenians in Indian society in the past and the apparent absence of Armenians from the landscape of contemporary Indian culture, business and politics. The exodus of the erstwhile prosperous Armenian population from India was nothing but a misread of the situation and a miscalculation of the country’s future on the part of Indian-Armenians in the 20th century. India- Armenia: So Far Yet So Close is intended to trigger interest in its theme, help readers to visualize the distant past and introduce unfamiliar readers with the vibrant history shared between the two ancient people.