An international scholarly conference devoted to Armenian-Ukrainian relations took place on May 29-30, 2008, at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv.
The conference was jointly organized by the Department of Armenian Studies of the University of Michigan, UCU, the Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies), and the Lviv Department of the Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies.
Scholars from Ukraine, the United States of America, Poland, Germany, and Armenia discussed the question of the history, culture, and identity of the Armenian diaspora in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, its influence on these territories, the meaning of cultural exchange between nations, and other aspects of Armenian-Ukrainian relations.
On May 29, Archbishop Gregory Buniatian. head of the Ukrainian diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, greeted the participants in the name of numerous societies and associations of the Armenian diaspora in Ukraine. “Considering today various aspects of the activities of Armenians on the territory of Ukraine, including from the historical perspective,” said the archbishop, “we should at the same time be aware that the life of Armenians in Ukraine is continuing and developing. The great activity of Armenian centers witnesses to this.”
Professor Yaroslav Dashevych, doctor of history, in particular made a significant contribution to the study of relations between the two peoples, and Armenia and the Armenian Apostolic Church honored him with two awards.
Fr. Borys Gudziak, Ph.D., rector of UCU, in his word of greeting called young scholars to direct their research “in the eastern direction.” In particular he noted that the majority of UCU graduates today go to west to pursue licentiate or doctoral degrees, while, for example, only one doctoral candidate is in Armenia. Fr. Gudziak said the situation needs to be improved, for “to understand Ukrainian history without studying the deep roots of connections with our neighbors in the east, and in general the eastern culture, would be very difficult.”
And the Armenian factor was significant in Ukrainian history, as the reports of scholars at the conference demonstrated. In particular, Prof. Dashevych, who is the head of the Lviv Department of the M. S. Hrushveskyi Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies of the National Academic of Sciences of Ukraine, talked about Armenian self-government in Kyiv from the 15th to 17th centuries. He emphasized the fact that Armenian colonies that arose in the cities of Ukraine-Rus, starting in the 12th and 13th centuries, were a demonstration of the significant role of Ukrainian cities in transcontinental trade. “The history of the Armenian community of Kyiv from the 15th through 17th centuries (and also similar colonies in other cities of Ukraine) prove that in the conditions of the medieval city it was entirely possible to preserve national and religious autonomy, with greater or lesser limitations, and also that this very process of creating and preserving nations occurred much earlier than the thought spread in historiography about the start of such processes only in the modern and most recent period (19th and 20th centuries),” stated the professor.
“The conference concentrated on some basic aspects of Armenian-Ukrainian cultural and historical mutual relations of the last millennium,” noted the head of the Research Department of UCU, Dr. Ulana Holovatch. “These relations, to a great extent, have already been studied, so the organizers aimed to enlist in participation scholars involved in original archival research which complements or in a new way interprets our knowledge about these connections.”
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Ukrainian Catholic University
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Lviv, 79011, UKRAINE
