"Seeing National Culture in the Context of World Culture" (continued) - Interview with Armen KAZARYAN
The article is a continuation of an interview with Armen Kazaryan, devoted to the problems of preserving Armenia's architectural heritage, the relationship between the Church and cultural monuments, and the state of contemporary scholarship on Armenian architecture in an international context.
The Crisis of Restoration Practice in Armenia
Kazaryan analyzes the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet monument-protection system:
– the liquidation of the Yerevan Design Institute, which had brought together qualified specialists;
– the loss of the scientific-methodological basis for design work and quality control;
– the transfer of restoration work to a handful of non-professional bureaus;
– the lowering of the institutional status of the monument-protection service within the Ministry of Culture.
The author insists on the necessity of restoring a centralized structure that would guarantee the scientific character of restoration work.
The Church and Architectural Heritage
A separate section is devoted to the contradictory situation of monuments transferred to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Kazaryan notes:
– the Church's lack of resources and specialized knowledge for the full preservation of monuments;
– instances of the loss of authentic elements (the example of the church of St. Hripsime, where an ancient relief cross was destroyed during restoration);
– the contrast between active construction of new churches and the neglected state of ruined monuments (Targmanchats vank, the reliefs of Zvartnots);
– the flagrant case at Jrvezh, where a sectarian building was erected on the site of an excavated 7th-century church, using fragmented ancient stones.
The author points to the risk the Church is taking with its traditional image as guardian of the national cultural heritage, and draws parallels with similar problems in Russia and Ukraine.
Dialogue with Turkish Colleagues
Kazaryan positively assesses the growing objectivity of Turkish architectural historians in studying the Armenian, Greek, and Syriac heritage on the territory of Turkey. He emphasizes the need for scholarly cooperation regardless of political disagreements, citing his own experience of interaction with Turkish and Western colleagues (R. Ousterhout, M. Kadıroğlu, S. Redford, A. Ricci, and others), and draws a distinction between the planes of scholarship and politics.
Trends in Contemporary Scholarship
The author notes a shift in Western scholarship toward the accumulation of an informational base at the expense of analytical generalization, while pointing to the continuing potential of the post-Soviet, and in particular Russian, scholarly tradition, which tends toward philosophical reflection on the material despite the crisis of funding.
The 2010 Moscow Conference
The concluding part discusses the conception of the conference "Armenia and Russia. Dialogue in the Space of Artistic Culture," organized jointly with G. Gabrielyan and L. Chugaszyan, conceived as an extension of the tradition of the Yerevan and Italian symposia on Armenian art, moving beyond the bounds of a narrowly national context.
The key conclusion of the interview is that the preservation of Armenia's architectural heritage requires the restoration of a professional institutional basis for restoration work, a responsible attitude on the part of the Church toward historical monuments, and an active, depoliticized scholarly dialogue with the international—including Turkish—scholarly community.
An interview on why preserving Armenian architecture depends on rebuilding professional restoration institutions and on the Church's attitude toward the monuments entrusted to it, as well as on scholarly dialogue with Turkish colleagues.
Heritage Without a Keeper