Boycott the conference of the Falsifiers

Boycott the March 26-28, 2009

Conference of the False Armenological School

Dear fellow Armenians!

Our petition of protest Against Falsification of Armenian History has been already signed by more than 1850 people. Please add your voice of protest to the petition by going to:

www.gopetition.com/online/24480.html

We demand that the grossly falsified textbook The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times is removed from academic circulation.

From March 26-28, 2009, Richard Hovannisian has organized an “Armenological conference” which will include more than 40 speakers from many countries, including several from Turkey. There will be only one speaker from Armenia. This is simply Armenian Studies conference without Armenia, which is the center of Armenology. Imagine, Armenologists from Armenia will not be present during this conference. The only one speaker from Armenia will present a lecture, and that will be about AIDS in Armenia. The title of the speech is HIV/AIDS in Armenia: Migration as a Socio-Economic and Cultural Component of Women’s Risk Settings . First of all, this lecture is not within the scope of Armenology. And secondly, in Armenia HIV is not a cultural crisis. This is simply distortion of truth.

One of the opening speakers during this conference is the notorious falsifier of Armenian history and culture, Robert Thomson, who claims that the Father of Armenian History, Movses Khorenatsi, is a pseudo-historian who never lived in the Fifth century. The conference will also include other falsifiers like Peter Cowe who claims that medieval Armenian poetry is influenced adoption of Seljuk Turk, Persian and other Islamic works.

Furthermore, several of the Turkish presenters have entitled their lectures by using common Turkish terminology for historic Armenia/Armenian Highland by falsely calling it “Anatolia.” Here is the title of one of the presenters from Turkey – “Ottomanism among the Anatolian Armenians after the 1908 Revolution.” Now this unscientific and anti-Armenian Turkish terminology has entered the field of “Armenian Studies” conference thanks to Richard Hovannisian, the conference organizer.

This conference is far from being “Armenological” or even academic. One of the sessions entitled: Between Perversion and Representation: Sexual Allegories in Armenian Literature is specifically devoted to sexual perversion and incest. This kind of sexual pathology is not typical to Armenian culture and society. Perhaps it is typical for the organizers of the conference who have selected and focused on these topics.

Dear fellow Armenians!

On December 19, 2001, the faculty board of the Armenian History Department of the Yerevan State University made a public declaration and strongly criticized some of the representatives of the Armenian Studies chairs in the US by rightfully calling them the False Armenological School. From March 26-28, 2009, the False Armenological School (headed by R. Hovannisian) will hold a conference at UCLA campus. We call upon all Armenians to show their protest by boycotting this False Armenological conference!