Director of Armenia’s National Archives Amatuni Virabyan at a press conference. (Source: Armenpress)
YEREVAN (Armenpress) — The Armenian National Archives plans to publish documents on estates of Armenian monasteries in Turkey. Director of National Archives of Armenia Amatuni Virabyan further elaborated on these plans during a press conference with “Armenpress”.
“There are many talks on the estates of Armenian monasteries in Turkey. We know Catholicosate of Sis is in the judicial process for the purpose to return the estates. A book will be published in 2016 where information on estates of all existing monasteries in Turkey will be presented. We will present documents written in Ottoman Turkish issued by the Turkish authorities,” Virabyan said. The book will be available in Armenian and in Ottoman Turkish.
Virabyan informed that they actively work and cooperate with national archives of other countries. They work with national archives of Italy, France, Iran, Georgia, Russia, Serbia, Poland and more. The “Caucasian Front 1914- 1918″ collection which includes materials on the population of the region and the Armenian Genocide will be published during the collaboration with Russia in the current year. Materials of military investigation on activities of Turkish authorities; how they deported, killed Armenians and organized attacks against them on roads is also discussed in the book.
The National Archives will also be working on publishing archival documents related to the Armenian Genocide and World War II.
He said the copies of original Ottoman documents and their translations will also be made public. Most of the documents refer to the properties of the Armenian Church.
Virabyan said the Archive has undertaken the digitalization of the documents. The digital copies will also be kept at the National Archive.
Working with the national archives of other countries over the years has helped immensely since it has allowed us to acquire copies of all Armenia-related documents, according to Virabyan.
The process of digitization of National Archives’ films will be complete over during this year.
“We will finish the digitization of movies this year, about 500 movies have remained. We will finish this process as well and after that we can say that the whole movie collection is available in electronic version,” he said. The oldest video kept in the National Archives is the video on funerals of Catholicos Izmirlian in 1911. Besides the first Armenian movie “Namus” shot in 1925 is also kept as well as the movies which were shot after the latter. According to Virabyan, tapes, in any case, will remain.
Source: Asbarez
Link: Armenian National Archives Announce New Projects