On September 3, Brazil’s National Museum went up in smoke. A devastating fire burned down the 200-year-old building and millions of objects that were held inside. In April 2003, the National Museum of Iraq was looted, launching an international search for the stolen objects. On February 26, 2015, ISIS released a video of their members smashing artifacts from the Mosul Museum. Even now, Syrians are fighting to preserve their heritage from the destruction of civil war.
Conflicts or disasters have devastated the national heritage of many communities. But when artifacts survive, they can tell powerful stories.
Danica Harootian, a 25-year-old Armenian-American, was one of the visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Armenia!” exhibit on its opening Saturday in September. She went with an Armenian friend from her graduate program and said that they were both thrilled to see the large signs declaring “Armenia!” with an exclamation mark. It matched their excitement at seeing their culture represented at the Met.
“Armenia!” generated a lot of enthusiasm in the Armenian-American community in the months leading up to its opening. Harootian recalls that she and her friend ran into at least six people they knew, and that they took photographs to send to group chats of their Armenian friends. She noticed one image of the fortress of Ani, a town beloved by Armenians as the city of 1001 churches and a former capital of Armenia, which she photographed and sent to her friends.
“I can’t count how many friends I have named Ani,” said Harootian. It’s a popular Armenian girl’s name because of the nostalgia for the place. However, Harootian noted that the town of Ani is not in modern-day Armenia because of the way state borders have been drawn. And the fortress of Ani now lies in ruins. Even as visitors to “Armenia!” gathered in excitement, they were certainly aware of how much Armenian heritage was not on display because it had been destroyed.
Harootian grew up as a fourth generation Armenian-American hearing stories about “the old country” from her grandmother. In college, she pursued a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and was able to deepen her understanding of her family’s culture. After graduating, she spent a year teaching English in modern Armenia, a country just barely older than she is.
The Republic of Armenia was founded in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, meaning that young adult Armenians are about the same age as their country. Of course, Armenia has a long history from before its establishment as a modern state. Throughout ancient history, the Armenian people lived across eastern Europe and the Middle East, but fell under the rule of a series of empires: Byzantine, Safavid Persian and Russian, to name a few.
In 1915, Ottoman Turkey began to systematically kill and deport millions of Armenians in what many regard as the first genocide of the 20th century. That’s why many families, like Harootian’s, came to the United States.
For Armenians in New York City and around the globe, the Met’s exhibit is an exciting celebration of their culture as it was before the displacement and trauma of the genocide—a chance to return home. As it so happens, however, the ancient art somehow connects to the experience of being Armenian in America today.
Author Nancy Agabian, whose writing focuses on the experience of growing up Armenian in America and who attended the exhibition opening, explained that a sense of displacement was evident even in the ancient art on display at the Met. In ancient times, “when the Mongols came through or the Seljuks came through,” said Agabian, “Armenians would have to move and they were relocated.” As a result, Armenian art reflected varied cultural traditions. The exhibit demonstrates this by displaying works of art from Italy or Persia alongside art by Armenians.
“A number of libraries and museums lent Armenian works, and works by other cultures related to Armenian art, to help explain the interactions of Armenian culture,” exhibit curator Helen C. Evans said by email.
Although the works in “Armenia!” show the influence of outside forces, there is a real emphasis on the ancestral homeland. Evans said that the idea for the exhibit originated in her dissertation research, but was further developed in courses she has taught at Columbia on Armenian national identity in art.
Speaking about this history of displacement, Christopher Zakian, communications director of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, said that, in some ways, Armenian artists “wanted to establish a little bit of their homeland wherever they were, whether it was the Holy Land or Anatolia or Europe, Persia, ultimately America. All of these different diaspora communities, they wanted to assert that they were a part of [Armenia] too, they had a connection to their home.”
Throughout the community’s history of displacement, the Armenian Church acted as a central force in unifying the Armenian people. The Met exhibit takes that into account. “Armenia!” traces the influence of Christianity from the creation of an alphabet to translate holy texts into Armenian to illustrated manuscripts, the first printed Bible in the Armenian language and detailed church architecture.
“Armenians pride themselves as the first Christian nation,” said Khatchig Mouradian, lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. Today, “even people who are non-believers, and even people who are atheists, the full spectrum, many of them will see the Armenian church as an important institution that they would support as part of supporting the Armenian nation and Armenian communities.” That’s largely due to the central role the church maintains in Armenian communities by running Armenian schools, fraternal organizations and cultural events.
The Armenian Church has continued its involvement in Armenian cultural life by contributing to the show at the Metropolitan. Zakian said that Father Daniel Findikyan, Primate of the Eastern Diocese, “is a great friend of Dr. Evans’s and before he became the Primate, when he was a priest-scholar a year ago, he was one of the people that she consulted about what should be in [the exhibit] and how to go about getting the objects.” He added that Findikyan contributed an essay for the catalogue and was at the press preview on September 19 to bless the exhibit.
Danica Harootian has already been to the exhibit twice and expects that she’ll go at least once more. She had the opportunity to see some of the objects on loan when she was teaching in Armenia, but says that there’s something special about seeing them in the Met. Although she’s lived in modern Armenia, she says these ancient artifacts fulfill a sense of longing
For Armenian-Americans who learned about their homeland from grandparents, “Armenia!” is a window into their cultural history. It’s a chance to see their heritage celebrated beyond the lens of the genocide and diaspora that led their grandparents to the United States.
“The genocide is deeply important to Armenians, its recognition is a matter of urgent concern to Armenians, but I’ll say it’s not the entire Armenian story,” said Christopher Zakian, communications director of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. “It’s an important milestone, an important event in our history, but that history is long and has been productive. It’s not simply a history of tragic circumstance, but is a history of productivity and creativity and spiritual exultation.”
Rather than focusing on destruction, “Armenia!” emphasizes a legacy of creativity. “The Met brings this important distinction by highlighting something that’s completely divorced from a narrative of victimization,” said Mouradian. “This is a narrative of celebration, creativity, and creation.”
PHOTO: An item displayed at the Met exhibition. By Cecilia Nowell.
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